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Bolts' Melrose Has Pedigree But May Have To Shake Rust

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 24, 2008

Updated: 06/24/2008 09:02 pm

TAMPA - The mullet.

Gimmick.

Hollywood slickster.

As it became obvious Barry Melrose would be the Lightning's new coach, many fans were not pleased with the decision to hire someone who has not been behind the bench in 13 years. We know this because those people have access to e-mail, message boards and telephones. Some of them have interesting vocabularies.

But while he still sports a bit of a mullet hairdo and he is pretty slick, one thing we can safely say is that Melrose's hiring is no gimmick. That became obvious today as he slid quickly and naturally from the role of ESPN analyst into his new job as coach of the Lightning. Take whatever solace from that you will.

Or don't. It's going to take some people some time to wrap their mitts around this one.

He talked about his coaching philosophy and of the competitive fire that still rages within. He talked about the need to relate to modern players, and he promised a game that will attack, attack, attack.

After listening to him talk for 20 or so minutes, in fact, I became convinced the ghost of John Tortorella still walks the halls of the Forum. Torts always said "Safe Is Death" and nothing about the past 48 hours in the life of the Lightning would be considered safe. From the new owner, Oren Koules, to the new coach, it's clear that life under Koules and the Gang is going to be unlike anything we've seen before around here.

Maybe unlike anything we've seen, period.

Kept Up On Everyone

You can argue (as many have) that Koules' first major hire should have been someone who was a little more, um, current. Maybe a top NHL assistant or someone like Ron Wilson or Craig Hartsburg, who wound up in Ottawa while Koules was locked and loaded on Melrose.

Most of the current young generation of hockey players knows Melrose only for his work on the Worldwide Leader and not as the rookie who coached the L.A. Kings to the Cup finals in 1993.

Fun fact: Steven Stamkos, the Bolts' first-round pick and designated face of the future, was 5 years old when Melrose last coached in the NHL.

Melrose has an interesting perspective, though. Coaches watch their own teams most of the time. From his chair at ESPN, he watched dozens of games per week from teams all across the league. He said he watched about 70 Bolts' games last year. He should have a pretty good idea what players will fit his system and how to attack opponents.

"Nobody has watched more hockey than me last year — in the last five years," he said.

Of course, watching hockey and developing theories on how to defend and attack is not the same as convincing a team that basically mailed in the second half of last season to rally for the cause.

"It takes a certain kind of owner to hire a guy like me," he said, and we've already seen that Koules is, indeed, that certain kind of owner. He won't play it safe. He will take chances. And to those who view this hiring skeptically now, Melrose says simply, "I'm much more concerned with what they think of me at the end of the year."

Diving In

Steve Levy was Melrose's broadcast partner for hockey at ESPN and was on hand today to watch his good friend get back in the game.

"He talked about coaching a lot and when he didn't talk about it I knew he still wanted to come back," Levy said. "He's a warm guy with a rough, tough exterior. He is first and foremost a hockey guy. If you look at his hockey statistics as a player, you see a handful of goals and a whole lot of penalty minutes."

For those keeping score, that would be 15 lifetime goals and 1,071 penalty minutes in 13 seasons, including NHL stops at Winnipeg, Toronto and Detroit. So when he talks about slamming opponents into the board and playing the kind of defense that can lessen the pressure on the goalie, maybe it's because he was that type of player.

He has the pedigree.

He also has a layer of rust that needs to be scraped away.

Once you get past the hair and the TV voice, though, you find a hockey man. That doesn't mean the Bolts will win. It doesn't mean they'll need to clear space in the rafters for another Stanley Cup banner. But it does mean you can safely go to the Forum without seeing it covered by a tent.

The Bolts didn't hire a circus stunt. They hired a coach.

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