Under Davis Payne as head coach, the Blues had the 10th ranked PP when he coached them in 2010-11. He only had one full season of coaching them as he was hired midway through the 2009-10 season, coaching 42 games with a winning record at 23-15-4. Coached the Blues to a 38-33-11 record the following season with an inexperienced team. The Blues started this season at 6-7 before he was replaced by Ken Hitchcock.
He is young (will be turning 42 in September), but I don't know much about his coaching philosophy and what he preaches. He does have a lot of experience coaching younger players though. It's never a bad thing to have two former NHL coaches behind the bench.
Dean Lombardi confirmed, via email, this morning that the Kings will hire Davis Payne as an assistant coach to replace Jamie Kompon (as first noted by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch).
Payne fills the qualifications that Darryl Sutter set forth last week — in this post — when he talked about hiring an assistant coach. Payne is young (he turns 42 in September) and has a deep connection to the Western Conference. He took over as interim coach of the St. Louis Blues during the 2009-10 season and held that job until he was fired 13 games into last season.
Payne played eight seasons at the NHL, IHL and ECHL levels as a winger, including 22 games with the Boston Bruins in the mid-1990s. He is also a former ECHL and AHL head coach.
Another dude with glasses behind the bench. I love Stevens, so glad he is staying.
Completely off topic, but we got ZERO Stevens on the Stanley Cup DVD...at least I don't remember seeing him in any clip. It was all Kompon and some Sutter.
Completely off topic, but we got ZERO Stevens on the Stanley Cup DVD...at least I don't remember seeing him in any clip. It was all Kompon and some Sutter.
I remember Stevens saying one thing during the main feature and that was it.
I know Payne, saw him coach the Alaska Aces. He is good at tactics, but better at letting players also display their natural talents. I think he should be a good hire. Should be able to squeeze more raw offense out of the team, far more than we got last season.
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"It has not been a good day. I lost my glasses early this morning and I had to go buy a pair of 79 dollar reading glasses today. 79 bucks. You can literally get them at Costco, three-for-20." - Darryl Sutter's response to going up 2-0 in the series.
