Coach Scott Gomez is a sum of his hockey parts

Scott Gomez summarized the work description that comes with his new role as a New York Islanders assistant coach in one sentence. “I got one job,” Gomez, 37, stated, “and that’s to make (head coach) Doug Weight and the Islanders as great as they can be.”

Gomez is in prime position to succeed, starting with the standards that he’s set for himself, and ending with over three decades of hockey experience.

“My standard has always been Bill Belichick, Gregg Popovich, Tony La Russa, Chuck Noll, Bill Parcells,” he said. “I’ve always been a huge coach fan, and I read about all those guys. Also, one thing I can provide — and I said this in the interview with Dougie — is I saw every aspect of this game.”

Gomez isn’t kidding about the last line. He played parts of 16 seasons in the National Hockey League, won the Calder Memorial Trophy for Rookie of the Year, won two Stanley Cups with the New Jersey Devils early in his career, and battled in the minors in his final year, grasping for one last shot in The Show. Along the way, besides totaling 756 points (181-575-756) in 1,079 NHL regular-season games and 101 points (29-72-101) in 149 playoff matches, he witnessed both positive and negative coaching methods.

“At the end of the day, it was a blessing in disguise because it brought me here,” the former center said.

His journey to the bench begins at home in Anchorage, Alaska. In fact, after Gomez got the job, he immediately called his youth hockey coaches, Scott McLeod and Rob Larkey.

“I played for McLeod when I was 11 to 16 years old with the Alaska All-Stars,” Gomez remembered. “My hockey skills took off with him. He had a presence. We weren’t scared of him, but we weren’t his friend, yet. He learned a lot from (University of Minnesota and former University of Alaska Fairbanks men’s ice hockey head coach) Don Lucia, knew the game inside out, and was hard on all of us. He taught us how to use our skill-sets and the way to use our minds.”

Last summer, the All-Stars held a 20-year national championship reunion, and Gomez witnessed the impact a good coach leaves on his players.

“I stayed in touch with McLeod, and saw him throughout my career, but a lot of guys hadn’t,” Gomez explained. “I picked him up, we got there, and every guy worked his way down, and buttered him up. That was the most special moment of the weekend. McLeod doesn’t cry, but he was choked up. That’s the ultimate goal in coaching. No matter what level or where you are, 20 years later, guys who all have excellent jobs still go by his philosophy and go by his standards.”

Then, there’s Larkey, Gomez’s coach at East High School in Anchorage.

“Picture Barry Melrose from his days coaching the Los Angeles Kings, that’s how Larkey looks,” Gomez chuckled. “Larkey taught us confidence. He got us believing that we were on a different level. The confidence he instilled in us, there was no stop.”

One memory resonates with Gomez.

“I was a sophomore,” he reminisced, “we were all together as a team, and Larkey said, ‘All right guys, I’m going to give you the rules of life. You’re at the age when you’re going to start going to parties. Rule number one: Don’t ever get into a fight with a wrestler, no matter what size he is. If you’re going to get into a fight, and he’s a wrestler, you run.’

“Everyone’s laughing. ‘Rule number two: You’re an East High T-Bird (Thunderbird), when you walk into any place — party, building, anything — you’re the best, you know it all, put your chest up high, walk in like you own the place with pride and confidence like you know everything. The rule is simple. And when you find the guy who knows more than you, just give him the other corner. Make sure you stay away from that guy.”

The confidence and skills gained under Larkey and McLeod propelled Gomez to the NHL, when he was drafted 27th overall in 1998 by the Devils. With New Jersey, he learned the most about coaching, starting with his first NHL coach, Robbie Ftorek.

“Robbie’s drills remain some of the best I’ve ever seen,” Gomez said. “He was a thinking man, and he put in the time. After every game, I sat down and watched parts of the game with him. He always knew there was an adjustment you could make. That was so important when I started out. You could sit down with him, too, and talk about life.”

One of Ftorek’s assistants was Viacheslav Fetisov, whom Gomez called “one of the best hockey coaches I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Slava coached the way the game would be right now with the smarts that he had,” he recalled. “Guys like me who pass the puck, or see something different than another guy, are going to make mistakes. If I try to make a pass between a guy’s legs and it goes off one and looks like a turnover, half the coaches would say that’s a bad turnover. Slava said, ‘No, that’s a hockey play. If that goes through, the guy has a great chance.’ His mind was incredible. He could show you anything on the ice, and if you didn’t get it, he would teach you. He was a magician.”

Gomez credits Fetisov for introducing him to Valeri Bure, who became his trainer throughout his career. “You really got the sense of what the Russians trained like,” Gomez said. “I owe Slava tremendously.”

Also on Ftorek’s staff was Larry Robinson, who took over as head coach late in the 1999-2000 campaign and led the Devils to their second Stanley Cup championship.

Raved Gomez: “For a man who’s accomplished everything that you can accomplish, Larry is the greatest, nicest human being out there. He knows who he is. There is no ego with Larry Robinson. He was there for all of us. He was so positive. Larry wanted us to succeed. I’ll never forget his reaction after we won the Stanley Cup. He was probably more excited than when he won as a player. He was so excited for all of us. He had so much respect when he walked in the room, and you could always talk to him. Most important, on the ice, he showed you many tricks of the game.”

Gomez described Robinson as “gentle, but firm,” and gave an example.

“This is why Larry and Slava are great coaches,” he continued. “I messed up once at (Madison Square Garden) late in the period. They grabbed me during intermission and showed me the video, and told me, ‘If you go here, you don’t play anymore. But if you stay right here in this line, you play.’ That’s coaching. One, it was right after the period. It would’ve been on the bench, but the period just ended. Two, they explained it how I needed it to be explained. It’s not screaming and yelling. It’s simple. You do this again, you don’t play. You do this, you play. I didn’t have to wait to watch it the next day; problem solved right there.”

The Devils fell one win short of winning back-to-back championships when they lost to the Colorado Avalanche in 2001. Then, in January 2002, the players, still reeling from the defeat, watched as Robinson was fired and replaced with Kevin Constantine.

Although Constantine stood behind the Devils’ bench for only three months, Gomez remembers his dedication to the details of hockey.

“Constantine was so far ahead of the game,” he said. “He broke everything down, especially the video aspect. Same thing with his practices; he was a detail guy. He was wonderful.”

The next man to take the coaching reins in New Jersey was Pat Burns, who led the Devils to their third Cup in 2003.

“Burnsie knew how to run a bench,” Gomez said. “For 82 games, your top guys aren’t going to be your best guys every game. Someone is going to be hot that night, and Burnsie knew which guy it was. He didn’t care if you were a top or bottom player; he played you. I’ll always remember that.”

On the ice, Gomez found another gear, his anger toward Burns being the motivating factor.

“I never, ever hated a guy so much,” Gomez stated. “But Burnsie lit a fire in me the second half of (the 2002-03 season) I didn’t know I had. The greatest day of my life was when I came back to the bench and he said something and I (cursed at him). Burnsie got a little chuckle and responded, ‘Oh, tough tonight, all right.’ I earned that right. But I owe him tremendously. I was a Pat Burns guy. It was like being a Bill Parcells guy. It’s too bad I didn’t get to know him off the ice because guys who did said he was the greatest.”

Still, Gomez had one conversation with Burns away from the rink that he called “one of my greatest honors in hockey.”

“Two days before Burnsie died, he called me, and he was basically saying sorry for the way he was tough on me,” he explained. “After (jokingly cursing at him), I told him, ‘I love you to death. I’m not a tough guy, but you made me tough.’”

Gomez departed New Jersey as an unrestricted free agent in 2007 but returned for the 2014-15 campaign. After practicing with the club for three months, he claimed a roster spot, and for the remainder of the season he worked with coach Adam Oates.

“Whether you were a first-line or fourthline guy, everyone felt the love and improved with Oates,” he said. “Every guy is different. Every guy needs to be coached, needs to be taught, different. That’s what I learned from Oates. It was incredible, and I became a smarter hockey player.”

Finally, there’s the man most responsible for making Gomez a Devil: ex-general manager Lou Lamoriello.

“The greatest thing that ever happened to me was going to a team like that,” Gomez asserted. “I truly saw what a professional is, and it started with the guys in the room such as Scott Stevens and Bobby Holik. I became a pro, and at that age it’s vital. I still stand by Lou’s standards — not all of them, don’t get me wrong, and he knows that — and the professionalism that he has. There was no quit. He was like Vince Lombardi, exchanging books and notes. He was a student of the game. And we learned discipline. Everything is for the good of the team. There were times I could’ve had more points, but it’s a team. He set the tone for the standard that a lot of us still go by.”

When Lamoriello coached, which he did on three separate occasions when Gomez played in New Jersey, he instructed his players to control their emotions.

Elaborated Gomez: “Lou told us, ‘Don’t slam your stick, because you’re letting other people know they got to you. That guy doesn’t get to determine how you feel.’”

Now, with his playing days over, Gomez is ready to teach the game’s next generation of stars.

“Our job as coaches is to put the players in the best possible position,” he said. “It’s not to say, ‘Do this or do that.’ You go on the ice, and you show him. You work. You find the guys’ strengths. You also make them better people off the ice. You teach them how to treat the trainers, the hotel staff, everyone. It’s not just their game; it’s life, too.”

Ultimately, Gomez stated, he has one task: to make his boss look good.

“Whatever Dougie wants, I back him up one hundred percent,” Gomez concluded. “I owe Dougie for the rest of my life for getting me in the door.”