Interim Tag Still On Andrew Brunette

2 years ago  /  Kuklas Korner

from Dave Hyde of the Sun-Sentinel,


Asked how he wanted his team to play trailing early that series, he said, “Hopefully mad.”

“Absolutely,’’ he admitted how frustration weighed on his players this Tampa Bay series due to their staggering power-play failure.

“Angry, hungry and not to be denied,” he said Saturday in underlining the mindset for Sunday’s Game 3, a T-shirt-worthy phrase close to Hamilton’s chorus line of, “Young, scrappy and hungry.”

If you, like me, have become a fan of Brunette’s brand of honesty, as well as the pinball Panthers offense in the regular season, it’s time to be just as direct about the possible stakes as they try to climb back into the series Sunday in Tampa.

Brunette is coaching for his job.

There’s no other way to look at how his “interim coach” tag hasn’t been lifted by now. It was Oct. 29 when Joel Quenneville was forced to resign under the gloomiest of situations, the covering up of a sexual-assault scandal a decade earlier in Chicago that took in the Panthers as collateral damage.

That makes Brunette the longest interim coach in the history of sports. Eighty-four games. Nearly seven months. He helped the Panthers to the best record in the regular season and won their first playoff series win in 26 years. Doesn’t that count for something — maybe everything?


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