The Mike Johnston era in Portland is officially over. Speculation over the past few weeks with two NHL coaching vacancies led to speculation that Johnston was heavily included in the mix. Owner Bill Gallacher had acknowledged that he would not stand in the way of Mike should a pro deal come about. This season, there were two possibilities.
First to come calling were the Vancouver Canucks, a team that had done a thorough housecleaning. They had recently hired former Canuck standout Trevor Linden as the team President and former Portland Winterhawk Jim Benning as their GM. The Canucks spoke with Mike, but ultimately offered the job to Willie Dejarsdin, a former coach with the WHL Medicine Hat Tigers and most recently the coach of the AHL Texas Stars who took the Calder Cup Championship this season.
Next up was the Pittsburgh Penguins who fired Dan Bylsma from the coaching duties and also talked with Johnston. With Pittsburgh, there was a natural in as Derrick Pouliot, who played with the Winterhawks and is expected to make a real impression at NHL camp this year is in the Penguins system. The Penguins made to jump to Johnston, offering a three year deal and set in motion the Winterhawks search for a new Coach and General Manager. There has been speculation as well, that former Assistant Caoch and Assistant GM of the Winterhawks, Travis Green was also being courted by the Penguins. Green, who took his first season behind the bench of the AHL Utica Comets, the farm team of the Vancouver Canucks, had a moderately successful season, but the team did not make the post season. Green was also being talked about with the Vancouver Canucks and the WHL Vancouver Giants, but both of those positions he turned down.
The Portland Winterhawks aren’t the only WHL team that went searching for a new bench boss. The other two top teams in the WHL, Kelowna Rockets and the 2014 Memorial Cup Champion Edmonton Oil Kings also saw their coaches depart for pro teams. Ryan Huska of the Rockets takes the helm of the Adirondack Flames which is the new home of AHL affiliate of the Calgary Flames. The Calgary affiliate was uprooted from Abbotsford, BC this summer after poor attendance due to being close in proximity to rival NHL team Vancouver Canucks. The Flames rebuilt the organization and bring in 38 year old Huska who has a sparkling resume of coaching with the Kelowna Rockets.
The Edmonton Oil Kings, who won the Memorial Cup this past season also said goodbye to their coach. Derek Laxdal, who carried an Edmonton Oil Kings team to the league championship twice and the Memorial Cup as well, moves up to replace Willie Desjardins of the Texas Stars. Laxdal, whose connection to Portland was a Memorial Cup Championship as a player in 1983, was also a journeyman player in the pros before becoming coach of the CHL Witchita Thunder and then the ECHL Idaho Steelheads before the past four seasons in the Oil Kings organization.
There are still other teams in the WHL searching for new coaching staff and a couple that recently signed on to new teams. Mike Williamson and Brian Pellerin who ran the show for the Winterhawks for several years before being let go by the management previous to the Gallacher ownership era, have signed on with the Tri City Americans. Jim Hiller is now the former coach of the Ams.
Back to the Portland Winterhawks who see the five year run of Mike Johnston come to an end, but not the legacy. For many, it’s the rocket turnaround from dismal 11 and 19 win seasons to 254 wins in the past five years and capturing the Ed Chynoweth Cup once while being in the finals four times. The wins total rivals that of the first ever coach for the Hawks, Ken Hodge who won 742 games in 1411 contests. The team also created top round one picks in the NHL draft three straight years and created an aura of the “go to” team in the WHL. That didn’t go unnoticed by other WHL teams who felt the Hawks were skirting the rules.
In an unprecedented move, the WHL, acting on a complaint from Seattle Thunderbirds Owner and GM Russ Farwell, launched a forensic audit into the Winterhawks finances. Speculation was that the Hawks were paying players among other accusations to keep the cream of the crop on the team.
What the WHL found wasn’t what they were originally looking for and using “grey areas” of the rulebook, accused the Hawks of improper player benefits by flying parents to visit their sons in Portland and sending a couple of players for summer conditioning in California. The violations totaled 57 based on each individual on a flight each way counting a separate violation and for this the Winterhawks were hit with a $200,00 fine that jumped by $75,000 when the Winterhawks went public with the story. Since that time, the rules in the book have changed in the Ontario Hockey league and in the Western Hockey League on what a benefit is among other things though the Winterhawks would still be penalized for the next few seasons.
In the meantime, the Winterhawks Booster Club organized the Free Mike J campaign and sold shirts to highlight the situation. Mike was suspended for most of the 2012-13 season, a year that combined with Travis Green pulled in a 57 win season and the finals of the Memorial Cup of which they would lose to Halifax of the QMJHL. Mike returned back to the bench duties this past season, picked up a 54 win season and lost the seventh game of the WHL finals to the eventual Memorial Cup Champions Edmonton Oil Kings.
Mike Johnston’s uptempo brand of hockey, along with his education background with the University of New Brunswick, led him to create elite hockey players and a scholastic achievement award in 2013. The players that didn’t go to the pros had a strong opportunity in post-secondary life.
There is speculation that the Winterhawks are close to announcing a new person behind the bench and it is believed they will be hiring a combination General Manager and Coach. Training camp has been announced for August 20-24 with preseason games in Everett as part of the tournament at the end of August and Kennewick in the first week of September in their tournament. The first home game of the season is set for Friday September 19 at the Moda Center versus longtime rivals Seattle Thunderbirds.
The Winterhawks have announced that whoever the coach and GM are, that the style they have employed and the systems developed will remain a core of the team.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
