With Travis Green’s ascension to head coach of the Vancouver Canucks, he left behind a vacancy in Utica. On Wednesday, the Canucks filled his former role with Trent Cull.
While his name lends itself easily to Kevin Sorbo jokes, it’s not a name that was circulating as a potential coach leading up to his hiring. Rumoured names like Rocky Thompson and Kris Knoblauch took jobs elsewhere, while Cull’s name never came up.
So just who is Trent Cull and how might he fare in Utica?
Cull is a former defenceman who played in the AHL and IHL for 10 years, finishing his career with the Syracuse Crunch. Upon retiring, he immediately turned to coaching, first as an assistant in the OHL, then returning to the Crunch as an assistant in the AHL.
As a coach, Cull has significant experience in the AHL, but limited experience as a head coach. His lone turn as a head coach came with a middling Sudbury Wolves team in the OHL. While his Wolves teams made the playoffs all three years he coached there, that’s not saying much: all but four teams in the OHL make the playoffs.
It’s tough to judge a coach on a major junior win-loss record, of course. Teams in Junior have fluctuating rosters that experience a ton of turnover and he had limited future NHL talent on his roster. One of his best defenceman was Frankie Corrado during his three seasons with the Wolves.
Cull spent four years as an assistant with the Crunch prior to taking the job with the Wolves, then returned to the Crunch for another four years after.
As a former defenceman, Cull has primarily coached the blueline as an assistant. That makes his initial comments after he was hired about Jordan Subban encouraging:
Cull says Jordan Subban jumps out at him, "He skates so well, moves pucks and has a great shot. He's a strong prospect for the #Canucks".
— Rick Dhaliwal (@DhaliwalSports) June 28, 2017
Subban has been notably absent from comments made by Jim Benning and the Canucks management team of late, so it’s nice to see someone within the organization with a positive perception of the point-producing defenceman. If Cull can develop Subban and help him make an impression on the Canucks, he’ll be worth the hire for that alone.
Cull also sees the potential in Jake Virtanen, noting that “high draft picks are excellent challenges to get back to the NHL.” Cull has seen that first hand with Jonathan Drouin and Brett Connolly, who both spent time with the Crunch after early stints in the NHL.
“My strength as coach is developing players,” says Cull, and that will be his primary role with Utica. As much as winning is ideal and Thatcher Demko will give them a chance to win every night, the Canucks desperately need some strong development from Utica.
He’ll have defencemen Guillaume Brisebois, Jalen Chatfield, and likely one of Andrey Pedan or Philip Holm to work with, along with a fairly motley crew at forward, depending on where Jonathan Dahlen plays and whether Nikolay Goldobin and Brock Boeser make the Canucks out of camp.
Beyond them, he’ll have few Canucks prospects of note in the lineup: Michael Carcone, Cole Cassels, and Joe Labate are really the only names that jump out. If they’re lucky, they’ll get a boost from Michael Chaput and Jayson Megna, who are far less frustrating in the AHL.
So the Comets will most likely struggle to score goals, but the key will be whether he can develop the above prospects into legitimate NHL talent. Jim Benning thinks he’s the right man for the job: “He understands the development path of a young player, including the challenges they face, and has been a part of many successful organizations. Trent is a teacher with a positive, energetic work ethic.”
Syracuse Crunch beat writer echoes this sentiment, saying, “What always stood out about Cull as a player and coach was no one was ever more hands on making himself or others better. A real teacher.”
But what kind of team does Cull want to put on the ice? He spoke with the Comets immediately after he was hired and laid out some ideas:
“Whether it’s the NHL or AHL, teams have to play with speed, you have to be a fast team, and with that, you have to be well-conditioned. And there’s a lot your hear about puck control and we certainly want to be a part of that, we want to be a team that has those traits. I have a blueprint. It’s going to take some time to execute that.”
That’s what we like to hear: speed and puck possession. Whether he can execute on the blueprint remains to be seen, but he’s saying a lot of the right things. Perhaps most importantly, he won’t be a coach that loses his temper:
“I’m a guy who tries to keep it easy. I don’t think I’m much of a yeller or screamer, particularly on the bench.”
