John Stevens overcomes odds to make it as Flyers coach

Canadian Press
Oct 27, 2006, 5:35 PM EDT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - One errant, hissing puck to the right eye.

In a flash, John Stevens' career as a fringe minor leaguer was over. Little did he know as he was being prepared for surgery, a new calling for him was in the works.

Former Flyers general manager Bob Clarke phoned Stevens' wife and told her not to worry about his future employment. Clarke wanted her husband to stay in the organization as a minor league assistant coach. Stevens' stint in Philadelphia's system wasn't over yet.

"That meant a lot, just knowing that he wanted me to stay involved," Stevens said. "It showed me a lot about the organization."

Fast-forward seven years later and Stevens, still troubled by blurred vision that will likely never go away, was returning home from his son's hockey game when another call came from a Flyers general manager about another coaching opportunity.

When Stevens met at a diner with interim GM Paul Holmgren last weekend, he was only weeks into his first season as an NHL assistant with the Flyers. When he left, he was the new head coach, part of a stunning shake-up that saw Clarke quit and Ken Hitchcock fired only eight games into the season.

"I've always wanted to be a head coach, but I've never wanted to be in a hurry to get there," Stevens said. "I felt that if I continued to grow as a coach, my opportunity would come."

Now, here it is.

"Yeah, a little sooner than expected," Stevens said, smiling inside his office after running his fourth practice. "I do feel good. I do feel confident. I'm ready for this."

The Flyers certainly believe the 40-year-old Stevens is ready to run the show and rally the Flyers out of the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings and back into playoff contention.

He's already proved himself a winner with the Philadelphia Phantoms, the Flyers' AHL affiliate. Stevens led the Phantoms to an AHL-record 17-game win streak and the 2005 Calder Cup. The team was loaded with nearly a dozen players now on the Flyers.

Stevens earned a reputation as a player's coach, with an open-door policy and a willingness to forgive mistakes as long as the effort was there and a lesson was learned. After Hitchcock was fired, some players, like centre Mike Richards, felt Stevens was a better fit with a younger team than the tirelessly demanding, stubborn Hitchcock.

"If you have a problem, you can go talk to him any time," goalie Antero Niittymaki said. "If he has a problem with you, he'll come tell you that. He's an honest coach and I really like that about him."

Though he has a more laid-back reputation than his predecessor, Stevens is no less demanding. Stevens recalled booting the Phantoms off the ice minutes into a post-season practice when he felt they had a soft attitude, later meeting with the captains to explain the team's work ethic was unacceptable.

"We came back with a vengeance the next day," Stevens said.

This week, he threatened to fine the entire team if one player was late for a workout session, sending some players scrambling away from post-practice interviews to beat the clock.

Stevens never expected his shot behind the Flyers bench to happen like this. After the eye injury ended his career, he slid into an assistant's role with the Phantoms under Bill Barber. When Barber was named coach of the Flyers, Stevens was promoted to the head AHL job in 2000.

Stevens was hired as one of Hitchcock's assistants this season and was prepared to learn under his mentor for at least the next three years - the length of Hitch's contract.

Stevens really didn't want to be anywhere else but Philadelphia.

A former draft pick of the Flyers in 1984, Stevens had a 15-year pro career as defenceman, including 53 NHL games with Philadelphia and the Hartford Whalers. Barely half an NHL season's worth of games, only a forgotten footnote in the all-time list of players.

"Looking back, I was probably never good enough to play full time in the NHL," he said. "I played 53 games in the NHL and I probably shouldn't have played any."

He got there on the strength of some of the other intangibles that would define his coaching career. He was captain on the Phantoms, won the team's fitness award and often invited his younger teammates over for dinner. Even in his 30s and a true NHL career becoming a distant dream, he always came to the ice looking to learn and preaching the value of hard work.

Sounds simple enough. But over a long hockey season, those tasks can become downright gruelling.

And it could have been easy to become bitter after that night in Kentucky in 1999 when a puck smashed his eye like someone taking a hammer to an egg.

The upper sinus, inner nasal and orbital bones were crushed. He had a detached retina. His depth perception was compromised, complicating routine household tasks like hanging a picture or pouring juice.

"I just leave it the way it is. My left eye takes over," Stevens said.

It's not a subject he voluntarily brings up and many of the Flyers didn't even know their coach was nearly blinded on one eye.

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