Ron Wilson.
Ah, Coach Ron. After a modest career as a player for Toronto and Minnesota (as well as seasons spent overseas and an occasional appearance at international tournaments for the United States), Wilson coached a couple of seasons as an assistant in the AHL and then as an assistant to Pat Quinn in the NHL with the Canucks. His next stop was as a head coach in Anaheim (where he found little success), and then, on June 9, 1997, he and George McPhee were hired to coach and GM the Capitals. In his first season behind the Washington bench, Wilson led the team to the franchise’s first Stanley Cup Finals, but didn’t win another series in Washington, missing the playoffs twice and losing in the first round two other times.
Wilson’s post-Capitals career has seen him coach a San Jose team that had terrific regular seasons but failed to “get over the hump” in the playoffs and a Leafs team that never really even got to the hump. When he’s had talent (like in San Jose, or a couple of years here in D.C.), his teams have generally been good at both ends of the ice, but when he hasn’t had the horses, his teams have struggled.
Of course win or lose, Wilson’s entertaining off the ice, so there’s that, and he’s always one to embrace technology… so hit him up on Twitter.
Wilson (and McPhee, for that matter) has some unfinished business in Washington and in the NHL – can he get the job done and kill two birds with one stone? You’d like to find out, and perhaps the rest of us will as well.
Wilson’s coaching history (via hockeydb.com) :
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