New Kraken Assistant Coach Has Mastered Adaptation

Adapting on-the-fly is a skill newest Kraken assistant coach Pascal Vincent was forced to master three years ago when handed his NHL dream job.

For Vincent, 54, who fills a Kraken vacancy caused by the departure of Jessica Campbell, that experience becoming Columbus Blue Jackets head coach only four days before September 2023 training camp is something he’ll never forget. Mike Babcock had just resigned before working a single game, leaving associate Blue Jackets coach Vincent to navigate a last-minute minefield without completely blowing himself up in the process.

“Obviously, you can’t turn it down and there’s no way I would have,” said Vincent, a onetime low-level pro player who’d spent three decades scraping his way up the coaching ladder. “But it was an opportunity to see how devoted to my craft I was.”

His devotion was tested early and often.

The Blue Jackets, in disarray after an internal investigation into Babcock’s coaching methods and his subsequent departure, won only four of their first 19 games and at one point dropped nine straight and 13 of 14.

Injuries ravaged the roster, with 47 different players cycling through it by season’s end. Columbus blew several late-game leads in brutal fashion. As if the on-ice struggles weren’t enough, by February the team also fired general manager Jarno Kekalainen.

Vincent tried everything to steady the ship, instill accountability and help players learn from mistakes.

“I needed to have a lot of grit at that time,” he said. “And it’s going to sound weird but I say this in the most positive way: Everything that had to go wrong went wrong that year.”

And Vincent feels he’s a better coach because of it. A coach who only lasted through the following June when new general manager Don Waddell fired him.

Now, after two years coaching the Montreal Canadiens’ AHL Laval Rocket affiliate in his Quebec hometown, Vincent has crossed the border and continent for his first NHL opportunity since. He’ll lean on Columbus experiences and more to ease some workload for Kraken head coach Lane Lambert as the team melds an expanding young core with a substantial group of holdover veterans in a bid to remain competitive while the franchise evolves.

“I’m here to help in many ways,” Vincent said. “Take some stuff away from Lane’s plate so he can focus on different things. Help the coaching staff in many aspects of the game.”

But despite the Kraken’s evolving young core of players ages 25 and under, headlined by Matty Beniers, Kaapo Kakko, Matty Samoskevich and Berkly Catton, Vincent feels that – just like his recent coaching history – you’re also never too old to adapt.

“The funny part about our business is, even the older guys can still be developed,” he said. “I’m 54, in my 50s and I’m still learning. And that’s the one thing I’ve learned over the years is there’s always a better way. There’s always a new way.

“I was talking to Adam Larsson the other day and it’s going to be year 16 for him. He has a pretty good idea of what his craft should look like but he still can improve on so many things. So, I think part of my job is helping the young guys. But it’s not just that.”

The Kraken will also be leaning on Vincent in hopes of creating more offense, something definitely needed after they averaged just 2.73 goals per game last season – the NHL’s fifth worst total.

It seems natural Vincent’s lack of star pedigree as a player would help him relate more easily to everyday NHL player struggles. But he cautions that the way players respond to coaching is constantly evolving and can change every five or six years. So, it’s critical, he added, to adapt and evolve with them rather than strictly relying on memories from playing days more than three decades ago.

His first AHL season in Laval, a suburb just north of Montreal, saw Vincent guide the Rocket to a first place overall finish in winning coach of the year honors. Last season, they again won the AHL’s North Division and got a first round playoff bye but were promptly eliminated after that.

The Kraken had looked at Vincent joining their staff ahead of last season, but he didn’t want to leave Laval after only one year. Beyond his commitment to the Rocket and the Canadiens organization, he’d also just moved his wife and teenage daughter back from the U.S.

Laval is where he’d grown up and later played major junior hockey for the local Titan squad alongside future NHL regulars Martin Lapointe, Manny Fernandez and Sandy McCarthy. After going undrafted and spending a lone season in the ECHL, Vincent –  son of a former police officer who’d delivered chickens and newspapers on weekends to support their family – opted to temporarily forego medical school and become a major junior assistant coach of the Saint-Jean Lynx under Claude Therrien, his former head coach at Laval.

Vincent then later became head coach of a 16-under team in Laval before spending the next two decades back in the major junior ranks. His ability to adapt on-the-fly got its first big test in 2011 when Vincent was having a new family home built in a Montreal suburb five minutes from the Canadiens’ practice facility.

The Winnipeg Jets called out of the blue offering Vincent his first NHL coaching job as an assistant their revival season after relocating from Atlanta. Vincent accepted and never spent a single day in the house he’d built before selling it.

After five seasons with the Jets, he became head coach of their Manitoba Moose AHL affiliate for five more years before joining Columbus as an associate coach in 2021. During his lone, tumultuous 2023-24 season at the Blue Jackets’ helm, he left his mark early on by benching both offensive star Johnny Gaudreau and veteran Patrik Laine for several shifts late in the same November game.

The fan uproar, particularly over Gaudreau being sat during a close game, was intense.

“But we needed to build that culture, right?” Vincent said. “That was the number one thing we needed to do that year. So, I’m not putting on white gloves for anyone. And if you can do it to Johnny Gaudreau or Patrik Laine, you can do it to anyone. I think it’s the right message.”

To his credit, he added, Gaudreau never complained. The pair met in private, Vincent told him he needed to play better and Gaudreau went out the next game in Florida and was the best player on the ice.

Gaudreau’s father, Guy, a onetime college player and high school coach, was staying at the team hotel not long after the benching controversy. Vincent had never met him and was a tad apprehensive when Gaudreau’s dad approached him in the hotel lobby.

“He says, ‘Hey, coach, I’m Johnny’s dad,’ ” Vincent said. “And he goes: ‘You were right. You should have kept him on the bench longer! Do it again if you have to. You have my support.’ ”

Vincent smiles at the memory. “It was pretty cool of him,” he said.

Nine months later, Johnny Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew, were struck and killed by a suspected drunk driver while out riding bicycles in New Jersey. A trial is scheduled for next year.

“He was an amazing person,” Vincent said. “I still don’t believe it. I have those moments where it’s like, OK, enough with the joke. You can come back now.’

“But Johnny was very low maintenance. He was very easygoing. I would talk to him pretty often and ask him whether there was anything he was seeing with the team. And he’d tell me: ‘Hey coach, whatever you need me to do, I’ll do it.’”

That’s somewhat the attitude Vincent will bring to his Kraken gig. Vincent did “a lot of background checking” into Lambert, general manager Jason Botterill his staff and the Kraken organization before accepting the role.

“It has to be a good fit for them, but it also has to be the right fit for me,” he said. “The feedback I got was outstanding.”

Which was important, as he’ll again leave his hometown for a cross-border job. Only this time, his wife and daughter are staying 2,000 miles away back at their Quebec home. That way, his daughter can keep going to school there while his coaching career deals with the latest adaptation chapter.

“That year as a (Blue Jackets) head coach taught me the most,” Vincent said. “I got to the point – and I’m at the point now – that I’ve mastered my craft. I mean, it’s been 34 years of coaching and I’ve seen quite a bit.”

And now, no matter what comes next, he’s ready.