As Tucson Roadrunners' AHL playoff run begins, coach Steve Potvin 1 of a few constants over team's history

The Roadrunners (43-23-4-2) have made the playoffs in both seasons since Potvin took over the club on a permanent basis. In 2021, he led the Roadrunners while Jay Varady joined the Arizona Coyotes during COVID-19.

This is Potvin’s seventh season with the Roadrunners after he was named an assistant coach before 2017-18. It’s his eighth season with the Coyotes as he was skills coach in 2016-17.

Tucson captain Steven Kampfer said he loves playing for Potvin.

“I love it. Potsie and I have a good relationship,” said Kampfer, who has been a pro since 2010. “He’s a positive coach. It’s something you can get behind his message is always pretty clear and it’s one of those things — when you come to the rink and you have fun it makes your job a heck of a lot easier.”

Potvin, a Montreal native, played professionally for 16 years, appearing in 478 games before retiring after the 2009-10 season when he played for the Central Hockey League’s Arizona Sundogs in Prescott Valley.

“It’s been awesome. We’ve been together for eight years,” Tucson assistant John Slaney said about working with Potvin. “We kinda laugh. I could order his dinner, he could order my dinner.

“But we read off each other well. We understand what he thinks, what I think — especially when we’re on the bench we understand. We don’t have to say much; we just know what’s gonna happen.”

Tucson, the second seed out of the AHL’s Pacific Division, hosts the seventh-seeded Calgary Wranglers (35-28-6-3) in the first round of the Calder Cup Playoffs starting with Game 1 on Wednesday at 7 p.m. In the playoffs, Roadrunner fans are encouraged to wear white, with the club giving out Whiteout Rally Towels on Wednesday.

The newest Roadrunner, forward Conor Geekie, just joined the side but did play under Potvin in the Rookie Faceoff Challenge in September.

“Me and Potsie … we kinda think the same,” said Geekie, 19. “Obviously, he’s really good at paying attention to details, keeps me in check a lot — which is good.

“So really excited to kind of play under him.”

While much of the fanfare has been on the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes calling up a franchise-record 19 Tucson players this season, injuries also bit the Roadrunners at times.

Kampfer missed 25 games due to an ankle injury; left wing Justin Kirkland missed 23 due to an ankle injury; defenseman Vladislav Kolyachonok missed 32 games due to a lower-body injury; center Ryan McGregor has been out 24 games from an ankle injury; forward Ben McCartney miss 20 games due a shoulder injury; and another shoulder injury kept defenseman Cameron Crotty out for 17 games.

“We’ve got a lot of players that are humans that love the game and so the challenges were fun,” Potvin said of the Roadrunners, who set franchise marks for wins and points. “The battles were fun; the hard times were fun because they don’t look at them as practice or challenges, they just look at them as the next thing that they got to do and when you love the game, you find enjoyment in all you do.”

Kampfer said Potvin communicates well with his players and values his relationships with them.

Potvin said “1,000%” starting as a youth coach and a skills coach before dipping into full-time coaching at the AHL level or higher helped him.

“I think it’s important for every coach to be able to learn those lessons early on,” Potvin said. “What I liked about my start was with youth hockey and being able to have to communicate with the young ones and be able to find ways to motivate them — that’s a really, really tough challenge sometimes when their parents are taking them to the rink, and they don’t necessarily want to be there.

“But the other one is communicating well with the parents kind of sets you up with being able to communicate with agents and players and understanding the balance between fair and competitive, I think that’s been a very huge, integral part of being able to coach,” he added.

Potvin’s first taste of head coaching at the AHL level came in the COVID-19-shortened 2021 season. He was promoted after the prior head coach, Jay Varady, was brought up as an assistant with the NHL’s Coyotes. After that season, Varady returned to his old Tucson role, meaning Potvin shifted back to an assistant’s position.

But Potvin wasn’t bitter about the change; he worked at his craft until he got the chance again a year later once again be the head coach.

“That was huge for, I think, my development because it’s the same message we tell the players when they get called up and then they get sent down: sometimes they don’t like it, and it was a chance for me to really practice what I preach,” Potvin said. “Nobody cares. Here’s the situation and you have an opportunity and a choice; you have to make the right choices and respond accordingly and, you know what, for me it was really important to be able to be in the league and then fall back and then watch somebody else do it and then be able to observe what he does really well and maybe see how I would adjust it if it were me up there.

“That really gave me an opportunity for growth.”

Potvin, one of three Roadrunners head coaches in the team’s eight seasons in Southern Arizona, credits Varady and fellow former Tucson head coach Mike Van Ryn — as well as current assistants Slaney and Zach Stortini — for the team’s success.

“I was just really lucky to be able to coach with some really good people that really taught me,” he said. “I was really so thankful for Jay and Mike Van Ryn and John Slaney and Zack Stortini and all the coaches that were up in the NHL,” Potvin said. “I’ve learned so much. I can’t wait to see what the future holds.”

Slap shots

Tucson went 2-1-1-0 against Calgary in the regular season, losing 5-4 in overtime on March 5 before winning 3-2 the next day.

The Wranglers, who were one of the league’s top teams and one point ahead of Tucson on Jan. 1, fell precipitously since that point to seventh in the Pacific Division. The Roadrunners, second in the division on Jan. 1., held serve for nearly four months, finishing second in the Pacific and fifth overall in the AHL.

Calgary edging Tucson by a point at the turn of the calendar led to Wranglers head coach Trent Cull being named coach of the AHL’s Pacific Division All-Stars instead of Potvin.