John Tortorella set the table for Ryan Craig without even knowing it.
No, there is no way Tortorella knew on April 13 that he was talking up his eventual successor. To assume the seeds were planted for what was to come may also be a stretch, but life finds parallels that way.
It started as a discussion on the Henderson Silver Knights and if Tortorella had a chance to watch the American Hockey League team in case of call-up needs during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
That turned into Tortorella raving about the player taken with the 255th overall pick in the 2002 NHL Draft by the Tampa Bay Lightning, then coached by Tortorella.
“Couldn’t skate a lick,” Tortorella said of Craig, as the room erupted into laughter. “But he was such a good player. You just knew he could be a coach. You could just tell.
“That’s one of the better people you’re going to meet in the game. Forget about what he does as far as hockey. He’s one of the better persons you’re going to meet.”
Within Vegas Golden Knights circles, it was never difficult to get an opinion on Craig. For six years as an assistant coach, he was often described as one of the hardest working members of the organization. Former coach Gerard Gallant once called Craig “one of the most passionate minds” he’s ever come across.
That turned into a three-year stint in Henderson ending in a Calder Cup Playoff berth last season including a series win for the first time in team history.
Knights General Manager Kelly McCrimmon has known Craig since he was 15 years old when Craig played for the Brandon Wheat Kings of the Western Hockey League, the junior hockey club once operated by McCrimmon.
“I’ve always used the (saying), Craiger’s been 40 for as long as I’ve known him,” McCrimmon joked on June 18, the day Craig was introduced as the fifth coach in Knights history. “He respects people. He commands respect. He’s a special guy.”
Craig, 44, will enter this season as the third youngest coach in the NHL behind San Jose Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky (38) and Pittsburgh Penguins coach Dan Muse, 43.
This situation is different. Craig has the daunting task of joining a franchise that three months ago was two wins away from a second Stanley Cup championship in four years.
His familiarity with the organization gives him a leg up on why he’s ready for this opportunity. The Knights are the only organization Craig has known since he retired from a 14-year playing career in 2017. He played 711 games in the AHL, was a three-time captain on three different teams and won a Calder Cup in 2016.
Those who knew him best feel his journey, and the example he set in every stop he had along the way, has made him ready for this.
“I think you’ll find anybody you talk to when you mention Ryan, everybody just smiles,” Florida Panthers general manager Bill Zito said. “I know I do.”
‘Servant leadership’
Zito was named assistant general manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2013. Craig signed an AHL deal with Columbus in 2012 and was named captain of the Springfield Falcons, Columbus’ AHL affiliate.
Two years later, Zito was named the general manager of the Lake Erie Monsters, Columbus’ next AHL affiliate after Springfield became the next AHL landing spot for the Arizona Coyotes.
Though at the tail-end of his playing career, Zito felt Craig embodied what a captain should be. He quickly learned why Craig has been a captain twice before. How he was willing to put his body on the line and do whatever he could for his teammates.
Craig lived in the crease, making his name in the blue paint. He did all the things that players don’t like to do — taking cross-checks, willing to get in front of the net, winning battles — and led by example each time.
“At that point in his career, he was a first-line player in service to his linemates,” Zito said.
It wasn’t just his on-ice actions. Zito marveled at Craig’s hockey savvy. At 9 a.m., he could inspire a player on the bubble to be at his best to make the team. An hour later, he would sit with the highest-skilled players on the team and discuss the power play. He had irons in a number of fires.
Zito called Craig a “student of the game, (and) a master of the game.”
“It’s easy to talk about thinking about the team, and Ryan is a guy who lived it,” Zito said. “We talk about servant leadership. He should be the poster boy of serving his teammates, his coaches, his organization into being the best players and best people they can be.”
Zito, the manager of the Panthers since 2020, would never dare compare anyone to his current captain, Aleksander Barkov. There aren’t many players of this generation that compare to a two-time Stanley Cup champion and one of the best two-way centers in the world.
But when it comes to those players who are so impactful that their teammates don’t want to let them down, it’s a short list in Zito’s mind.
It’s Craig and Barkov.
“I don’t do that lightly,” Zito said.
“That’s the elite level of leader that you probably can’t achieve by trying. You either have to have it, or you don’t,” he continued. “(Craig’s) commitment to the group, his leadership and who he was as a person, made his teammates perform not because he encouraged them or inspired them. It’s because they didn’t want to disappoint him because they had so much respect for him and for what he had done for them.”
Family first
When Craig was introduced as the Knights’ coach, he got emotional when mentioning his family — his wife, Jaydee, and their three kids, daughters, Kylie and Cameron, and son, Carson. He is a family man who beams with pride even when talking about them days before coaching his first official NHL game.
He was told about Zito’s words, and then was asked about where the servant leadership qualities come from. It was no surprise the answer was his family.
“I think it was the way I was raised. My mom and dad,” Craig said. “Just the people I was around growing up.”
Craig needed players to model his game after, too. His idols growing up were Joe Sakic and Steve Yzerman, two of the personifications of leadership of their generation. Though the on-ice careers never panned out the same, Craig took their leadership traits to heart.
The two values Craig’s parents instilled in him were family and loyalty. He and Jaydee continue to instill those values into their kids. Family, Craig said, is a pack mentality. When hockey players and coaches get to the rink, it becomes a hockey family.
“I think if you ask anybody who’s ever won a championship, you’ll hear someone say it’s the tightest group they’ve ever been around, or the most fun they’ve had with their group,” Craig said. “Winning is a part of that, but it’s also a product of that group getting along how they do.”
Which is why the 2016 Lake Erie Monsters remains a special group in the minds of many.
‘Calming presence’
Lake Erie had 13 players that season who eventually found their way to the NHL. Players like Josh Anderson, Sonny Milano, Joonas Korpisalo and Oliver Bjorkstrand have gone on to have long, successful NHL careers.
With seven games left in the regular season, the Monsters got a shot in the arm with the arrival of the Blue Jackets’ top prospect — a defenseman named Zach Werenski.
Last season’s Norris Trophy winner as the league’s top defenseman turned pro after two successful years at Michigan. Werenski went from playing with his college buddies to joining a professional locker room where the players had families. Craig was one of them.
“I think just having conversations with him early on made me feel really comfortable,” Werenski said. “He kind of has that effect on people. He’s a very calming presence and (has) a calming demeanor, and it just made me feel really comfortable right away. That means a lot when you’re a young kid and the captain of the team makes you feel that way.”
No matter if you were a bubble player or a star, Craig brings the team together. Werenski said one of Craig’s best attributes was having the right emotions at the right time. That can be troublesome in a sport like hockey, but Werenski felt Craig centered it better than most.
“If guys needed a little bit more, he’d give it or he’d say it. Or if guys were going and humming along, he was the best supporter,” Werenski said. “He was just doing his thing and playing his game. I feel like he always knew the right thing to say at the right time.”
Werenski took time to get settled. He had one goal in those seven games before the playoffs. He had 14 points during a 17-game playoff run that is still talked about to this day.
Lake Erie went 15-2 during the Calder Cup Playoffs. The two losses came in the second round against Grand Rapids after the Monsters had a 3-0 series lead. After a 6-1 loss in Game 5, Lake Erie didn’t lose again. They went on to sweep the Hershey Bears in the final, and Craig hoisted the Calder Cup.
“There’s a chance he could have been the captain of an undefeated American League championship team,” Zito said. “And that says an awful lot about Ryan Craig.”
The next chapter
When Craig got to Lake Erie, he was at the point in his career where he wasn’t competing for a roster call-up. He learned to accept that one more cup of coffee in the NHL wasn’t in the cards.
That’s why in 2010 he started keeping a journal filled of things he liked and didn’t like from coaches he had throughout his career. In it is quotes, motivational passages and other coaching tidbits that he’s picked up along the way. There are times he’ll refer back to that to serve as a reminder of where he was, to where he is now.
Craig sees himself as a motivational coach, one who is direct with his players, and one who will be honest and consistent with them. He’s familiar with a majority of the Knights in the locker room. Some he won the Stanley Cup with in 2023 as an assistant. Others, he’s getting to know for the first time.
“My job is to help guide this group to where we want to get to,” Craig said. “Myself, as a coach, I would think I’m a guy that’s going to do what’s necessary for our group at the time to put us in position to be successful.”
Werenski said he ran into Craig during the NHL’s media tour in Las Vegas on Sept. 8. He recalled a conversation with Columbus assistant coach Trent Vogelhuber, who was a teammate on the 2016 team. Vogelhuber said everyone always knew Craig would find himself behind the bench leading an NHL team one day.
“When he spoke, everyone listened and he really had the attention of the whole room and guys really respected him,” Werenski said. “It’s no real surprise that he’s the coach of a great NHL team now. It was just a matter of time.”
The journey over the past nine years has been an unconventional one, much like his playing career. Craig now finds himself as the next voice to lead a team that has Stanley Cup aspirations once again. He has the institutional knowledge of what it takes for the Knights to get back to playing hockey in June.
He will draw on the experiences of Gallant, Pete DeBoer, Bruce Cassidy and Tortorella before him. But as he said when hired, “I need to be Ryan Craig.”
“What I’m excited about is getting to the group, getting to the grind of the season, the day to day, the preparation, the challenges that go into each and every day to get your team ready to play, and then we execute that,” Craig said. “It’s time to get playing.”
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.
