Can Disco Dan Do Some Dancing Without The Stars?
He’s the stoic one. The unflappable leader of the Stanley Cup Champions. The guy who barely reacts when a goal is scored for or against his team. With 25 games to go in the 2008-09 NHL season, Dan Bylsma was busy carving out his niche as the coach of the Penguins minor league affiliate in Wilkes-Barre–The Baby Penguins. The big club was in the middle of a meltdown. Their coach, Michael Therrien was just canned. Dan’s phone rang. It was Ray Shero with an offer of a promotion. Not a bad deal for someone who was only at his old job for 4 months. Nice boss that Shero. Dan Bylsma’s new official title would be interim head coach of The Pittsburgh Penguins.
Translated, that means the guy who usually steers the ship until they can find a new captain. 25 regular season games later, the Temp was 18-3-4 and the interim tag was history. During that stretch, the Pens never lost back-to-back games. In mid-June, he waited his turn as the Stanley Cup was passed around and hoisted it proudly when it came his way, completing a story book season.
The 2009 campaign started out swimmingly. A franchise record 11 wins in October had everyone buzzing about the champs again. But just a couple weeks later, the injury bug hasn’t just bitten the Penguins, it has chewed them up and spit them out. Gone from the lineup are Sergei Gonchar, Evgeni Malkin, Tyler Kennedy, Kris Letang and most recently Brooks Orpik. That’s 3 of their top 6 defensemen and a regular/post-season scoring champion if you’re scoring at home. Already without forward Max Talbot, this has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. A new NHL television promotion, now showing on The NHL Network and Versus, features some of the game’s biggest stars. They ask them what they do to prepare for an opponent. One player comments that he sticks pins in his Sidney Crosby bobble head doll. Ouch, I guess that voodoo stuff really works? If this run of bad karma continues, Dan Bylsma may soon be coaching the Baby Penguins once more.
So it is time for a gut check. Time to see how the life long overachiever with the cool designer glasses will react to all this turbulence. Can he patch together a solid fighting unit while the rest of his troops recover in the ever-growing Mellon Arena mash unit? During his short NHL coaching career, including a magnificent run through the Stanley Cup playoffs, the man they call “Disco Dan” has steered the boat through some rough seas. After a stomping by the defending champion Red Wings in game 5 of the Finals last season, he was the calm amidst the chaos. He didn’t call out players, rip apart the locker room, or toss Gatorade containers around like so many rag dolls. He talked of getting back to the things that got them where they were. Even the owner of the team (Mario Lemieux), a guy who knows a thing or two about which coaches he likes and which ones he doesn’t, agreed all would be okay if they just got back to what got them that far and kept on listening to their leader. Turns out they were both right.
Adversity, challenges and hard knocks are not something new to Dan Bylsma. During his hockey career he amassed some 550 stitches and 25 broken bones. His face still contains 2 metal plates and six screws, thanks to a decision to block a shot in a minor league playoff game which shattered 11 bones in his face. His orbital bone looked like David Letterman chucked it from the top of Radio City Music Hall. In 1998, after a practice session while playing for the Los Angeles Kings, he learned that his wife, who was nearly full term into her pregnancy, had lost the daughter she was carrying for them. Needless to say, guts and resolve have been his bunk mates. His playing career also had a series of ups and downs. It culminated in a run at The Stanley Cup in 2003 as a member of The Anaheim Ducks. The New Jersey Devils ended that by winning the championship that he fought, bled and endured painful surgeries to pursue. At the end of that season, his playing days were over. The coach for the Ducks at that time was Mike Babcock. The coach that also did not raise The Cup In June of 2009 because his student snatched it from him and the rest of the Detroit Red Wings.
The 2009-2010 Pens will recover. None of the injuries they have sustained look to be of the lengthy variety. Gonchar and Malkin are already skating, and Max Talbot, who hasn’t played since his heroic efforts in game 7 of The Finals, figures to be back in a couple weeks. The team has heart, grit and is brimming with playoff experience. Even in a loss Tuesday night in Boston, that saw defenseman Brooks Orpik join the list of skating wounded, the Pens rebounded from a two-shot first period to outflank and outwork the hometown Bruins in the last two. It didn’t show up as a win in the ledger, but it showed me who is in charge. They have lost 3 games in a row, are now 12-6 on the young season, but the man in charge is not making excuses and his team isn’t playing like they are looking for any.
Joe Starkey, a Penguins beat writer recounted a story from Dan Bylsma’s childhood in an article last year for The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Dan had brought his report card home one year. He handed the envelope to his father Jay. Before looking at it, Jay asked his son if he done the very best he could have. Dan replied honestly that he had. The envelope was never opened. The report card on the 2009-2010 Penguins is not complete. But it is pretty safe to say that when it is, somewhere on it will be an E for effort.
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