Rocky Thompson

Even if they go three and three, then you just add him as, you know, a- an elite player in your top six on a team that's been, you know, treading water very well.

I just, I would have never expected that offensive explosion against New Jersey, and that gives me a lot of hope for what DeBoer's impact's gonna be, what Rocky Thompson's impact's gonna be on the power play.

And then the PK still looked really good.

You know, team has a little bit of juice.

so far.

But I feel like Rocky Thompson, who's in charge of the power play, who was the head coach at Bridgeport last season-

Mm

... you know, he's been a coach for a long, long time.

You tell me, like, back in the day, Mel Engelstad wasn't tough enough to play in the NHL.

Rocky Thompson wasn't tough enough to be, like, an NHL regular.

Bio Lois, of course he was.

Like a regular NHL fighter, he could fight any of those guys.

I mean, young kids now, obviously, have known nothing about that or can do any of that, um, Actually, it was interesting.

One of the things we were talking about the other day, and it actually kind of really baffles me, talking to a lot of the new players, not just guys I've interviewed, but just in general, I'm often surprised by...

We will talk to guys who are coached by Rocky Thompson.

They're coached by an ex-tough guy.

They didn't make fun of me and stuff like that.

But Rocky Thompson was our coach.

I was going to say, how did Rocky communicate with

you? So two months in the season, they made me do an interview after the game.

They've changed it.

Now it's Rocky Thompson's show.

Uh, Rocky Thompson ran the power play in Philly.

It's gonna be a collective effort, but the biggest thing-

They never had a shooter.

That's in large part to the power play being significantly better.

Now, how much better is debatable, but I think what they're doing, what you've seen in the movement in preseason, the way Rocky Thompson has them going, I think there's finally hope that the power play could be at least league average.

So if that's the case and that's going to be league average and Richie's going to play top six minutes the entire year, He should have a good year.

He should have a good year.

We have seen it, and it has been bad.

But Rocky Thompson already making moves on the power play, looking like a very, very solid hire.

Of course, was the head coach of the Bridgeport Islanders last year, got the promotion to be an assistant coach with the Islanders this year.

And, you know, he turned around the Bridgeport Islanders in one season, you know, got them right back into the Calder Cup playoffs after a horrible year.

Like, and we were good.

And we had- Rocky Thompson, Joey Tedesco, Sean Gagnon, and Brendan Walsh.

We have-

[laughs] Brendan Walsh

It was, like, the first 10 games of the season, so he was a little bit scared.

Yeah.

Probably heard, like, it was me and Dale Purinton, Rocky Thompson, Scott Parker.

Monsters rolling.

Number 86, Mike Donahoe, making the tackle for Green Bay.

And the loss of Rocky Thompson has been felt.

He is one guy who can break it.

Richie Houston was used in the final minutes in Cleveland a week ago.