Rangers Roundup: Reaction To New Rangers Coaches, Brooks Notes How They’ll Be Used, And More
NY Post
Here are the latest rumblings around Rangerstown.
The Rangers announced their full coaching staff yesterday as Greg Brown and David Oliver join Lindy Ruff as assistants to new Rangers bench boss David Quinn. The Rangers are excited about their new coaches as are many in the hockey world. Chris Peters of ESPN offered high praise for Brown.
Greg Brown is probably one of the best tacticians among college assistant coaches. Also was on staff for three U.S. National Junior Teams, including the gold-medal squad in 2017. Two-time U.S. Olympian as a player, too (1988, 1992). https://t.co/gqpPRmsmYS
— Chris Peters (@chrismpeters) July 17, 2018
Jeff Cox, who covered the NCAA Hockey scene in Boston, also added his endorsement for Brown.
Now that the Greg Brown hire is official, I’ll reiterate what an absolutely terrific hire he is as an assistant coach for the New York Rangers.
— Jeff Cox (@jeffcox425) July 17, 2018
Finally, Rangers forward Chris Kreider spoke about his former coach.
#NYR Chris Kreider on the hiring of new Assistant Coach Greg Brown:
“I’m incredibly excited. I had a good rapport and a good relationship with him @BCHockey. I can attribute a good portion of my development to working with him and the entire coaching staff.” pic.twitter.com/pMo0eUzdzU
— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) July 17, 2018
Continuing with the coaches, NY Post beat writer Larry Brooks reports that Quinn will have Lindy Ruff and David Oliver alongside him on the bench, while Greg Brown will be the “eye in the sky” for Quinn and the Rangers coaching staff. Brooks continues on and says that Ruff will be the coordinator of the defensemen and the penalty killing, while the brain trust of Oliver and Brown will run the powerplay.
For a lot of Rangers fans, there was hope that Ruff would be in the rafters every night observing Quinn’s team from above so that the young coaches could step up in their roles. But, alas, that doesn’t seem to be the case. There is nothing wrong with having Ruff on the staff, especially when considering that Quinn, Oliver, and Brown have not been a head coach at the NHL-level. The fear is, however, that Quinn may lean on Ruff too much and that Quinn’s team will be caught between the old school Ruff, and the new school Quinn.
Lastly, in the same NY Post article, Quinn notes that his mindset heading into next season is one of positivity and optimism. “I want to hit the ground running when we open camp.” Quinn, who took some time to visit Henrik Lundqvist, Jesper Fast, and Mika Zibanejad over in Sweden, added that he knows this team is in a completely different circumstance than they are used to. However, that isn’t changing how he approaches his players and the work ethic required to win. “We want to win hockey games. We’re not coming into this with an attitude of being willing to settle for less. The answers are within the walls of our locker room. We need guys who are committed to working each day to be at their best. If a guy didn’t have his best year last year, we need him to be better this year. That’s the way we’re going to get back to being successful.”
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