Name This Possible Associate Coach For the Sabres

The Sabres coaching staff is missing an associate coach (as well as a coach for the AHL team.)

Head Coach Lindy Ruff still has assistant James Patrick on board and the team is presently looking to fill the opening created by the departure of Associate Coach Brian McCutcheon.

Former player and Stanley Cup winner, Kevyn Adams, is already in the organization and has done some marvelous work with youngin's like Tyler Ennis and Nathan Gerbe. He seems to be a strong possibility at this point.

But, another possibility has surfaced, and this coach should, imo, get some serious consideration for a number of reasons, including having his name engraved on the Stanley Cup.

The following are quotes taken from an article concerning a certain a long-time former assistant/associate coach who has experience as a head coach.

Both the GM and the coach's name are omitted and the link will be available at the end of the blog.

GM:

• “I don't think there is a better teacher in the game. We think we have some inordinately talented people here and we want him working with them,”
• “He was the smartest hockey player I ever played with by a considerable margin."
• “He gets players to understand what he wants and buy into what he's trying to sell. A good coach is a good salesman, and he's very good at it,”

Coach:

• “I’d like them to learn the game and feel comfortable every time they go out there. When things break down, it’s the people who can react, still keep their composure, deal with it and still be successful.”
• “X’s and O’s are great. Tacticians are great, important, wonderful, but if you’re going to win, it’s because your team has figured out the game. They’re committed, they are smart and have a feel for the game. Not many teams win who aren’t smart."
• 
  “I try to keep the game as simple as I can. I don’t have convoluted theories on where people should go and don’t have 100 percent rules on where people should be,”
• “In my era, there were a lot of pests whose primary responsibility was to shadow the opponents’ best players. We want to make those good players play in their end. They don’t like it. They don’t want to play in their end."
• “We wanted to score. It’s so much more fun to play in the offensive zone. The trap style? I am not interested. I don’t want to stay on the bench and watch it,”
• “A leader isn’t always the guy with the “C” on his sweater, sometimes that is a misnomer. I think leadership means that everyone is involved in the team process. You can have a lot of great leaders who play on the third or fourth lines, or maybe the fifth and sixth defensemen, because they come and compete every night."
• “Teaching your team to compete and demanding it, and recognizing the guys who do compete and having them help you get the other guys on board...Leadership is a team event.”
• “We want them expecting to win and not just hoping to win. It starts with the coach, but it’s about every player on the team committed to that one goal, which is winning and being a successful team. That’s my idea of leadership.”
The link.