Lambert takes wacky year with Preds in stride
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/06/2020 (1790 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
When St. Malo native Dan Lambert accepted an offer last summer to become an assistant coach with the National Hockey League’s Nashville Predators, no one could have predicted at the time what a roller coaster of a season it would become for the Predators.
And this was even before COVID-19 forced the suspension of the NHL regular season in March.
For those of you not familiar with the exploits of Dan Lambert on the hockey ice, a quick review might be in order before we delve into his coaching career.
Lambert, 50, was a prolific scorer during his 19-year professional playing career in both North America and Europe where he garnered 791 points in 1144 games.
He joined the Swift Current Broncos at age 16, and over the next four years, he became one of the highest scoring defencemen in the history of the Western Hockey League with an astounding 319 points in 244 career games.
He is still revered in Swift Current, where he captained and led the Broncos to the 1989 Memorial Cup, scoring 130 points in 69 regular season games in that historic season for the Broncos.
Drafted by the Quebec Nordiques, he would score 15 points in only 29 games for the Nordiques and would later also spend time in the Winnipeg Jets organization, but at the time, at only 5’7” was deemed too small for the NHL. Had he come along a decade or two later, such as an Ian White for example, Lambert could have been a star in the NHL.
But now he has become a very successful and sought after coach.
After retiring as a player in 2009, he spent the next five seasons as an assistant coach with the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets and was named the head coach of the Rockets for the 2014-15 season, guiding the Rockets to a Memorial Cup title that year.
The Buffalo Sabres then came calling and was hired as an assistant coach of the Sabres, followed the next season where he was named the head coach of the Sabres’ AHL affiliate the Rochester Americans.
But after two years in the Sabres organization, the Sabres cleaned house and Lambert got caught up in that coaching purge.
It didn’t take long and Lambert returned to the WHL and spent the next two seasons as head coach of the Spokane Chiefs.
But in the off-season Lambert returned the NHL and the Nashville Predators, brought in primarily to improve the Preds’ powerplay.
Different than when he was hired by the Buffalo Sabres, Lambert was now coming to a team in Nashville that had been one of the top teams in the NHL the past three seasons, not to mention arguably the main Central Division rival of the Winnipeg Jets.
Central Division champions the previous two years (losing to the Jets in the second round of the NHL playoffs in 2017-18), the Predators had lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the NHL finals the previous year.
For Lambert, a country music fanatic, it was a no-brainer for him and his family to accept the coaching offer in Nashville.
“My family was there for the home opener, it is just such a tremendous atmosphere, the fans love this team, it is so much fun going to work.”
Lambert went to work with the coaching staff that included veteran head coach Peter Laviolette and longtime NHL defenceman and coach, assistant coach Kevin McCarthy, a native of Winnipeg.
But the Predators struggled through the first of the half of the season, and shockingly at exactly the half point of the season, Laviolette and McCarthy were fired on Jan. 6, 2020. At the time, the Predators were an unbelievable sixth in the Central Division with a 19-15-7 record.
John Hynes was hired as the new head coach and Lambert was subsequently given more responsibility, now running the defence.
Ironically, just after those coaching changes were made, Lambert and the Predators made their first visit to Winnipeg, as they took on the Jets on Jan. 12. It was quite the day for Dan Lambert, not only was he behind the bench with the Predators, with all of his family and friends from St. Malo on hand (the usual large contingent) but it was also Dan’s 50th birthday on that day, and you couldn’t write this script any better.
Nashville beat the Jets 1-0 in that game, if you recall, and then beat the Jets a month later, this time 2-1 in overtime, in their second visit to the Peg.
By the time the season was called in March, the Predators had improved their record to 35-26-8, now fifth in the standings, just behind the Jets, winning their last three games in a row. The Jets were also on a late streak, winning four in a row in March. Both the Jets and Predators are among the 24 teams that will participate in the NHL playoffs, if they are actually held.
Nashville is slated to play the Arizona Coyotes, if, when and wherever that may be.
Lambert has some of the NHL’s top defenceman to work with at his disposal with the Preds, including Mattias Ekholm, Dan Hamhuis, Ryan Ellis and team captain Roman Josi.
Lambert says through those struggles through the first of half of the season, the defence also had their struggles. “Our top players just weren’t playing that well, with the exception of Roman Josi.”
“There were expectations for this team, and we just didn’t meet them,” said Lambert on a phone interview on Monday afternoon. “We were inconsistent, some games we played pretty well and some games we didn’t.”
As for how the team was playing when the shutdown came in March, Lambert said, “we were playing better hockey, we had won three in a row, and we were coming together.”
Although some NHL facilities have re-opened on a limited and restricted capacity Lambert says the Predators have not yet started, “players are continuing to work out on their own. Right now nothing is mandatory, only six players are allowed on the ice and coaches and not allowed on the ice.”
But with that being said, Lambert says he is confident as restrictions ease and the NHL moves through their phases, he believes they will eventually be playing hockey again this summer.