Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Options Author
Geordie Kinnear performed a hard-nosed, team-first, no-glamour sort of sport as a defenseman with the Albany River Rats in the course of the rough-and-tough 1990’s period of hockey.
So it’s solely becoming that Kinnear coaches the identical selfless, low-key means that he performed.
And now, like then, his work is incomes rewards.
Along with his Charlotte Checkers holding the highest level proportion within the Atlantic Division as of New Yr’s Eve, he can be off to the 2025 AHL All-Star Basic introduced by Highlight 29 On line casino on February 2-3 in Palm Desert, Calif. It’s his first All-Star choice as a coach.
Kinnear went to the AHL All-Star Basic as a participant in 1996 and 1998 and was chosen however injured two different instances throughout his eight professional seasons.
Now 51, Kinnear got here into the AHL as a 20-year-old New Jersey Devils prospect in 1993, a seventh-round choose who needed to battle for each minute of ice time within the group’s ultra-competitive and burgeoning improvement system. He received the Calder Cup with River Rats in his second season and went on to earn the Albany captaincy.
However as Albany produced one future NHL’er after one other, having any likelihood to crack the roster of a Stanley Cup-winning NHL staff turned more and more unlikely. After six years within the New Jersey system, Kinnear signed with the growth Atlanta Thrashers in 1999 and broke via, making his NHL debut in Montreal on Mar. 6, 2000.
He returned to the Devils in a commerce in November 2000 earlier than a again damage introduced his enjoying profession to a halt. Compelled into retirement at simply 27 years outdated, Kinnear entered the teaching sport as an assistant with Albany in 2001-02.
Now in his twenty third season behind an AHL bench, Kinnear has develop into a fixture within the league. He stayed in Albany after the River Rats started a improvement partnership with the Carolina Hurricanes, and he moved to Charlotte when that affiliation moved south in 2010.
In 2016, Kinnear acquired his head-coaching break when the Florida Panthers employed him to steer their new affiliate, the Springfield Thunderbirds. The Panthers teamed up with Charlotte in 2020, however Kinnear spent 2020-21 overseeing their gamers in Syracuse because the Checkers opted out of the COVID-shortened season. He formally returned to the Queen Metropolis in 2021, and this 12 months’s membership sits at 19-8-1-2 (41 factors), two factors out of the highest spot within the Atlantic.
They’ve carried out properly even amid a crush of accidents, taking 12 wins of their previous 16 video games. Friday’s 3-2 extra time victory at Wilkes-Barre/Scranton despatched them right into a week-long break earlier than opening a six-game homestand on Jan. 10.
“For me, that’s actually the place we’ve taken off – how everybody’s purchased in [with] how we wish to play,” Kinnear stated. “It’s been a bunch effort. Everybody’s contributed to the success of the group thus far.”
Charlotte unquestionably has a deep cache of high-end expertise. The staff has far and away the highest energy play within the league at 30.8 p.c (together with 38.2 p.c at residence) and might flip the offense on when wanted. They had been down 2-0 to the Penguins on Friday earlier than rallying to arrange John Leonard’s extra time winner. But when a staff takes on its head coach’s strategy, the Checkers match that description. They lead the league in scoring (3.67 targets per sport). They’ve outshot opponents in 25 of their 30 video games, permitting a league-low 24.5 photographs per contest on the season. Their penalty kill ranks third within the AHL at 87.1 p.c, they usually have scored a league-best 9 shorthanded targets.
The Checkers are a staff that has its particulars down.
And with this a few years within the enterprise, each on the ice and behind a bench, Kinnear has developed a couple of non-negotiables in how he runs his staff and the way his gamers play.
“It’s important to respect the method,” he outlined. “You wish to be sure every day that you’ve every day wins, and you’re instructing the appropriate option to play, what successful hockey appears like. You try this whether or not it’s a win, a foul sport, (or) a great sport that you just lose. I believe you simply should be constant.”
And the Checkers are, which is why Kinnear can be off to Acrisure Area subsequent month.
“I’m happy with the group up to now,” Kinnear stated. “Now we have loads of work left, however I’m very, very honored and humbled to characterize the Checkers.”
On the American Hockey League beat for 20 years, TheAHL.com options author Patrick Williams additionally presently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a daily contributor on SiriusXM NHL Community Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his excellent protection of the league in 2016.
