Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Options Author
Joel Bouchard definitely has stayed busy lengthy after wrapping up 15 seasons of taking part in professional hockey.
The 51-year-old Bouchard has taken on roles as a workforce president, vice chairman of hockey operations, common supervisor, head coach, assistant coach and broadcaster. On the enterprise aspect of the game, he has labored in possession and runs his personal hockey academy.
So what’s yet another job? The Tampa Bay Lightning consider that Bouchard, who has led the Syracuse Crunch as head coach for the previous two seasons, is prepared for extra duty. They named him Syracuse’s new common supervisor Monday, a task that he’ll mix with teaching.
Balancing twin roles shouldn’t be fully new to Bouchard. After concluding his taking part in profession, one which featured 364 NHL video games, he went into teaching as an assistant with the Montreal Junior of the QMJHL for 3 seasons. He then went into administration in 2011, serving to the franchise to relocate and change into the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada. In 2014, he grew to become Blainville-Boisbriand’s head coach, a publish that he held for 4 seasons. Alongside the best way, he took on a task as common supervisor with Hockey Canada that led to a silver medal on the 2017 IIHF World Junior Championship and a gold medal the next 12 months.
Even after transferring into the professional ranks as head coach of the close by Laval Rocket in 2018, he nonetheless saved his hand in administration with Blainville-Boisbriand for 3 seasons. He went to the San Diego Gulls in 2021 for one season, returned to the Armada the next season in administration, after which took the Syracuse job in June 2023.
Bouchard is aware of how you can keep busy. With this mindset, that previous expertise, and the sources that Tampa Bay and Syracuse can provide, he says that he’s up for the elevated workload.
And he could have added assist from the Lightning, who additionally appointed Jeff Tambellini because the group’s new assistant common supervisor/director of hockey operations. A scoring ace throughout his AHL taking part in days, Tambellini simply wrapped up three seasons as director of participant growth with the Seattle Kraken. However the 41-year-old – a Lightning scout for 2 seasons earlier than going to Seattle – goes again to a well-recognized group alongside somebody he is aware of in Bouchard. The pair have been teammates within the New York Islanders group in 2005-06, Bouchard winding down his profession and Tambellini a rookie acquired in a commerce with Los Angeles.
Having Tambellini, who will function assistant GM in Syracuse along with his workload with the Lightning, will allow Bouchard to tackle his twin roles. Bouchard additionally has long-standing relationships with Lightning GM Julien BriseBois and director of participant personnel Jamie Pushor, and he has a powerful and skilled Syracuse employees on the native entrance.
“There’s a variety of familiarity,” Bouchard stated, “so the communication and the best way we expect type of align. It’s simply a variety of assist left, proper and middle. And I do agree that there’s a bit of little bit of a workload hooked up to it, which it ought to be, however I don’t suppose we’re missing in assist. We now have an excellent crew surrounding us in every single place. All people’s working collectively to do the perfect we will do.”
Bouchard recounted assembly up with Tambellini on the 2024 NHL Draft in Las Vegas. The pair ended up chatting and catching up for greater than an hour, reaffirming Bouchard’s impressions from practically 20 years in the past.
“He’s a wise man,” Bouchard stated. “You would inform as a younger man that he was very mature, very devoted, a hard-working man, dedicated to the method. There was by no means a doubt in my thoughts that he can be doing effectively in hockey in each place. I’m fairly excited that he’s approaching board, as a result of he’s going to suit proper in.”
As with nearly each summer time, this one has introduced change for the Crunch. Assistant coaches J.D. Forrest and A.J. MacLean are returning as are goaltending coach Maxime Vaillancourt and video coach Jake Wheeler. However roster-side, the group has already made a number of signings to assist restock a Syracuse dressing room that has seen the retirement of captain Gabriel Dumont together with the departures of Tobie Bisson, Logan Brown, Derrick Pouliot and Matt Tomkins as free brokers.
Amid all of that motion, the following step for Bouchard and Tambellini will probably be to interrupt down their respective duties.
“We’re going to put them out fairly clearly,” Bouchard stated. “I don’t like grey areas. I don’t like issues to be falling by the cracks. We’re going to search out our rhythm fairly fast.
“Most vital is how can we assist one another be the perfect model of the Crunch we could be.”
On the American Hockey League beat for 20 years, TheAHL.com options author Patrick Williams additionally at present covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is an everyday 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.
