Bryan Murray (ice hockey)

Bryan Clarence Murray ( born December 5, 1942 in Shawville, Quebec ) is a Canadian professional ice hockey coach and functionary, who currently works as General Manager of the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League.

Career

Bryan Murray grew up as one of ten children in Shawville. In his youth he played with several hockey teams, but could not recommend it for a career as a professional player. He attended Macdonald College in Ste. Anne de Bellevue, where he also worked as a coach the hockey team while studying. Later he worked as a teacher in Shawville, opened a sports shop and bought the local hotel.

In addition, he worked as a coach in the CJHL 1979 and received the job as head coach in the Canadian Junior Football League WHL, where he was the Regina Pats train. With them he immediately won the WHL championship and played with the Pats in the final round of the Memorial Cup, the main ice hockey trophy in Canada, the 16 - to 21 -year-olds.

In 1980 he moved permanently professional ice hockey coach and took over as the head coach at the Hershey Bears in the AHL, the farm team of the NHL Washington Capitals team. Under Murray managed the Bears their best season in more than 40 years to deliver and Murray was appointed by the journal The Hockey News for minor-league coach of the year.

During the 1981/82 season the coach of the Washington Capitals was dismissed and Bryan Murray became his successor. Under his leadership, the team managed 1982/83 for the first time in its history in the playoffs and the following year the Capitals were able to once again increase to nine wins in the regular season. Murray was awarded the Jack Adams Award as the best coach in the NHL. In the next five years, it always managed the Capitals in the playoffs, but when she schwächelten in the 1989/90 season and became qualified for the playoffs in danger, it was decided to dismiss Murray.

At the beginning of the season 1990/91 he was engaged by the Detroit Red Wings as coach and general manager. For three years he coached the team and made good rankings in the regular season, but came into the playoffs at the latest in the second round the corner. He was replaced by legendary coach Scotty Bowman, but stayed for another year with the Red Wings as general manager before he left the franchise in 1994. The great success remained for Murray in Detroit thus made , but he helped in his four years with the team that it developed into one of the most dominant and successful teams in the coming years.

DC in the summer of 1994, he was awarded with the Florida Panthers a new job as general manager. The team had just completed a season in the NHL and Murray should build a competitive team. And already in the 1995/96 season the Panthers were in the final of the Stanley Cup, where they were, however, inferior to the Colorado Avalanche. The following years no longer were so successful and only two participations in the playoffs jumped out. Murray had during the 1997/98 season for 59 games held the position as head coach after Doug MacLean was fired. After many failures Murray was eventually replaced during the 2000/ 01 season by Bill Torrey.

In the summer of 2001, he was coach of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, but remained only one year in this post after the team offered him senior vice - president and general manager of the franchise to be. He accepted the offer and opted for Mike Babcock as his successor as coach. The team had success quickly and reached the 2003 Stanley Cup final. In the summer of 2004, Murray was surprised when he decided to resign from his offices in Anaheim to become head coach at the Ottawa Senators.

His debut as coach of the Senators but had to wait a bit as the season was canceled in 2004/05 because of the lockout. For this was the 2005/06 season more successful. The Senators reached in the regular season in first place in the Eastern Conference and were in the entire NHL in second place. In the playoffs, however, they failed already in the second round.

In the season 2006/ 07 he led the Ottawa Senators to their first participation in the Stanley Cup final. There he met his former team, the Anaheim Ducks. Dominated in the first three rounds, the top striker of the Senators games, but they were almost completely eliminated in the final series and Anaheim won after five games in the final.

Despite the success, the Senators parted only a few weeks later by General Manager John Muckler and Murray took over the post as general manager, but resigned from his coaching job, while his Assistentztrainer John Paddock took over the position as head coach. The first important acts of Murray were the contract extensions with the star striker Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza. While the Senators got off to a very good start to the season and led the Eastern Conference for a long time, but the peak position is lost due to a lack of consistency and coach John Paddock was released in February 2008 from his office, after which Murray took over the team again for 18 games as head coach. For the new season 2008/ 09 he handed the coaching job again to Craig Hartsburg.

His brother Terry Murray was also coach in the NHL.