Rocky Thompson not thinking about end of tenure with Chicago Wolves

Rocky Thompson won’t allow the thought to creep into his head.

The Chicago Wolves coach is hopeful the American Hockey League season will eventually resume and his squad can continue its surprising playoff push. He’s focused on that, as well as the health and well being of his players, staff and family.

He won’t think about whether he’s coached his last game with the Wolves.

“Like, not even once,” Thompson said from Chicago, where he is sequestered with his family of six. “If that happens, then that’ll be sad. There’s been a lot of good times and we almost won a championship last year. I’ve been really, really blessed. The people I get to work with here, they’re awesome. I love them.”

Thompson knew his time with the Wolves was winding down when the Golden Knights purchased an AHL franchise in February with the intention of moving it to the Las Vegas Valley. The team arrives next season, and Thompson and his family are excited to follow.

But he wants the Chicago team that grew so much over the past four months and fought its way into the playoff picture to get a proper farewell.

“I was really proud of our group,” Thompson said. “We competed every night. We battled hard. The things we were in control of, I thought our group did a really good job of it. We had a ton of character and our guys played hard for each other.”

Rough start

That pride comes from how the Wolves adapted and grew this season.

The team got younger coming off their 2019 Calder Cup Final appearance. Chicago’s top three scorers — Daniel Carr, TJ Tynan and Brooks Macek — moved on and younger Golden Knights prospects moved in.

The transition led to growing pains. The Wolves were 3-10-1 in November, and their depth was tested through injuries and recalls. Thompson had to separate his top offensive threats to balance his lineup.

To win, they adjusted. They struggled to score 5-on-5 so they focused on defense, discipline and special teams. They had the AHL’s 10th-best power play and rarely went on the penalty kill. Their 208 times shorthanded was the second-fewest in the league.

“We were very good without the puck,” Thompson said. “We didn’t give a lot of scoring chances up. We were consistently in these tight, close, 1-0, 2-0, 2-1 games all year.”

The results turned around. When play stopped, the Wolves were 27-26-5 and held the fourth and final playoff spot in the Central Division.

Player development

Thompson was also happy with how players grew through adversity.

Center Gage Quinney produced last season while playing between Carr and Macek. This year, he learned to drive offense himself. Thompson called Quinney “the strongest offensive player on our team by far,” and the 24-year-old was rewarded with a February call-up. He became the first Nevada-born player to make his NHL debut Feb. 22.

Rookie Lucas Elvenes was another player forced into a huge role. At times the 20-year-old Swedish wing had to carry the Wolves offensively. He led the team in scoring with 48 points while making key adjustments during his first North American season.

He learned to play faster and more direct, spending less time on the perimeter and more time cutting to the middle of the ice to generate scoring chances.

“It’s not always easy for guys to come from different leagues in Europe and step in, whether it be the American League or the NHL, and have success,” Knights director of player development Wil Nichol said. “Lucas, I think he probably surprised a lot of people who hadn’t seen him. It wasn’t a real big surprise to use because we knew the talent that this young man has.”

Similarly to Quinney and Elvenes, defenseman Dylan Coghlan was given more responsibility on the blue line. The 22-year-old scored 40 points as a rookie last year but was sheltered in terms of matchups and responsibility. This season he received much tougher assignments playing with veteran Jaycob Megna.

“The things (Coghlan) needed to improve on he really did improve on,” Thompson said. “He needed to defend better. He needed to sort out his own-end coverage better (off the rush). He needed to battle harder in front of the net, and those are all things he started to do more.”

Thompson hopes that growth isn’t done yet. He hopes those three players — and others like Nic Hague, Jimmy Schuldt and Keegan Kolesar, to name a few — will get a chance to play a few more games.

But he knows that’s out of his hands. So for now he’s continuing to review power play film, go on bike rides with his family and hope his team will get a little more time together.

“I sure hope so,” Thompson said. “I really hope so. I love hockey. Outside of my family, it’s my life.”

Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.