Thrashers learning new tricks

You’ve got two lawn chairs and a group of 10 buddies geared up for a summer weekend get-together filled with boating, fishing and good times. Your problem: The lawn chairs aren’t assembled.

If you’re Randy Cunneyworth, this is what you do. You divide the group in half and create a lawn-chair assembly race, with the teams starting on a raft and swimming ashore putting the chairs together and swimming back to the raft.

Everything’s a competition for the Thrashers assistant coach. The drive that powered him through 16 NHL seasons of banging and crashing and digging now gets channeled into pushing Thrashers players into improving their skills, sharpening their focus and embracing coach John Anderson’s style of play. Whenever possible, Cunneyworth makes a game of it.

For instance, put Player A in front of the net, and have Player B volley the puck toward him from the opposite end of the ice. Player A, using only his stick, tries to deflect the airborne puck into the net. The players alternate roles. The winner might be the first to score three goals, but the real winner is the Thrashers, who come away with players better able to score on deflections in front of the crease.

“Inevitably, you have fun with the game, but you’re working on something,” Cunneyworth said. “You’re calculating how you have to adjust to make the puck go in the net or have a chance to go in, but you’re also shooting, you’re building your strength.

“A lot of the drills are designed, so you’re not even thinking about the repetition. You do it, do it, and you get stronger, and you end up doing it without even thinking in the game.”

The drills and competitions Cunneyworth devises come from a lifetime in the game as a player and as a coach. Cunneyworth, 47, has borrowed and adapted ideas along the way.

“They’re stolen variations or compilations of other things I’ve seen from coaches that I’ve come across, or that we’ve toyed with ourselves,” he said. “You always make adjustments for the group. I’m playing off the guys a little bit, doing things they want to do and adapting it for what I want them to do.”

Some of those drills appear to be working. The Thrashers have averaged 4.7 goals during their current three-game winning streak after averaging 2.3 in their first 11 games.

Cunneyworth’s playing background gives him credibility with his players. They know they’re hearing from a former Ottawa Senators captain and a man who reached the Stanley Cup finals with the Buffalo Sabres.

“He’s an old-school guy,” said Thrashers forward Eric Boulton, who played for Rochester in 1999-2000 when Cunneyworth was a player/assistant coach. “The first thing you’ve got to do for him is show up every night and work hard. He demands it, because that’s the type of player he was. He was a veteran guy who led by example and never took a night off.”

Chris Thorburn credits Cunneyworth for teaching him “how to become a professional.” Cunneyworth was head coach in Rochester when Thorburn broke into the AHL from junior hockey.

The Sabres wanted Cunneyworth to be head coach of their AHL affiliate in Portland, Maine. But at the end of his summer weekend of fishing, boating and lawn-chair building, Cunneyworth met with Anderson at an Ontario restaurant. The interview went so well it lasted three hours, and Cunneyworth soon signed on.

He says he’s glad he did.

“There’s something here,” he said. “It’s about building on it, making it a true team.”