Jets forward Adam Lowry, his son, had to approve.
"We had to have Adam's blessing on it," Dave Lowry said after the Jets announced the hiring Monday. "I totally understand if he wasn't comfortable with me coming in and being part of the staff [that] this is something I wouldn't have continued to pursue. With Adam's blessing, I realize and recognize he's an established player in the NHL and it should be an easy transition."
The former NHL forward was coach of Brandon of the Western Hockey League last season and has been an assistant with the Calgary Flames (2009-12) and Los Angeles Kings (2017-19).
He said he's looking forward to being on the same team with Adam for the first time since the 2004-05 season, when Adam was playing peewee hockey and the NHL season was canceled.
"I look at it that we're both professionals," said Dave Lowry, who was selected by the Vancouver Canucks in the eighth round (No. 110) of the 1983 NHL Draft and scored 351 points (164 goals, 187 assists) in 1,084 games over 19 NHL seasons (1985-2004) for the Canucks, St. Louis Blues, Florida Panthers, San Jose Sharks and Flames. "I'm a coach, he's a player and that's the way this works. I know that early on there might some different looks he might give me and whatever, but this is something we've talked about and are both comfortable doing going forward. It's something we're going to enjoy."
The Jets had an opening on the staff after assistant Todd Woodcroft left to become coach of the University of Vermont on April 15. The possibility of Lowry working under Maurice in Winnipeg first came up in 2016. At the time, he was in the middle of a five-year stint as coach of Victoria in the WHL.
"Paul and I had talked ... it was four years ago when the NHL Draft was in Buffalo, and he had approached me and asked if I would have any interest," Lowry said. "We mutually agreed at that point in time that this wasn't the right fit. I felt and Paul felt that Adam wasn't an established player in the NHL and he was still finding his way. We left it at that.
"Four years later, he's a solid NHL player, he's established himself in the NHL and that's what allowed this opportunity to come to fruition."
Adam, who was selected No. 67 in the 2011 NHL Draft by the Jets, is entering his seventh NHL season. Normally Winnipeg's third-line center, he has scored 123 points (57 goals, 66 assists) in 408 NHL games.
Throughout Adam's development into an NHL regular, his relationship with his dad has been more about father and son than hockey, Dave said.
"The biggest thing is that I recognized a long time ago where Adam was," he said. "With the leadership and the coaching he was getting, he didn't need to hear from me as a coach. That's something that when we would come in for games, we would talk about how he is doing, not how did he play or what happened here or what happened there. We had the typical father-son relationship.
"Obviously, with me being a coach, if there were times when he wasn't happy with his game, sometimes he or his brother (Joel) would reach out and they do ask questions, [like] what did I see? As far as coaches, the coaching he has received up to this point has been second to none, and I'm excited to be on a bench and watch him continue to grow as a player."
