The Seattle Kraken AHL Affiliate Hosts Game 1 Against Hershey Tonight
Editor's Note: Coachella Valley Firebirds are Seattle Kraken's AHL farm team.
As Coachella Valley prepares for tonight's Game 1 of the AHL Calder Cup Finals against the Hershey Bears, Firebirds coach Dan Bylsma is more than qualified for the challenge.
Not just because Bylsma coached the Pittsburgh Penguins to a Stanley Cup in 2009. Not just because Dan played 429 NHL games at forward for the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings.
Bylsma has earned his players' respect for more than having been where they want to be. He's been where they are right now. He played and coached in three different minor leagues, in enough towns to confuse Triple-A: Rochester and Greensboro and Moncton and Albany and Phoenix and Long Beach and Springfield and Lowell and Cincinnati.
He got to experience the road again last autumn, because the Firebirds' Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert, CA wasn't ready to host home games until December 14.
"It's been a ride," Bylsman said on the "Kraken This Morning" podcast. "An expansion team, a new group of guys, a relatively new organization. We started in Seattle. 22 road games to start with, then getting here into the Valley, and starting hockey in the desert."
Bylsma likened the experience to his 2002-03 season as a winger with the Ducks. "It's the same kind of feeling, the Cup run with Anaheim, in kind of a new, warm-weather market." When the puck drops at 7 pm Pacific time tonight, the outside temperature will be 89 degrees (down from a high of 94 degrees).
"Open-toed shoes hockey," Bylsma joked. "It's kind of that way the whole year in Coachella Valley. When you're coming to the rink in June, the sun is out, 100-plus degrees, this is the best time of year. It adds a whole new spice to putting the skates on."
This year's AHL playoffs are, remarkably, a five-round gauntlet. "I've been duly reminded of how awesomely, emotionally, painful playoff hockey is," Bylsma says. "We've been through elimination games. Colorado, we had to win Game 4 to get on to Game 5. We played against Calgary going deep into the night to get a win in triple overtime. Highs, lows, and the guys have been riding that wave in the playoffs.
"I am drawing on experiences, not just as a coach with the Penguins in '09. I've been to the finals as a player a couple of times. Been to the finals as a coach a couple of times. Hopefully, I can give the guys an idea of what is to come, what playoff hockey means."
One thing playoff hockey means at the AHL level is a chance for prospects to showcase their skills for the parent club. "Our goal in the American Hockey League is to develop players for the Kraken. That's first and foremost. I think it's best done in a winning environment. There's no better time than playoff hockey to establish that competitiveness.
"Whether Ryker (Evans) and Tye (Kartye) and Shane (Wright) realize it, it's a huge opportunity to show that they're up to the moment, to show where their game's at."
For Dan Bylsma, winning a championship with an expansion team would also show potential NHL suitors where his coaching game's at. In the meantime, he's enjoying the ride. "How we've been received, the fans, the environment has been beyond what we could have imagined. It's been great."