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Mikhail Sergachev: the player Trevor Letowski preferred to manage

 Manuel Sperandio-Lemay
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Mikhail Sergachev: the player Trevor Letowski preferred to manage
Credit: He's on a roll... Far from Montreal!

Today’s National Hockey League coaches, be they head, assistant or head coaches, have been through several levels, several leagues and several teams.

As a result, they’ve worked with a huge number of players in their careers, no matter how far they’ve progressed.

By the same token, by being behind the bench of a wide range of players, every coach ends up with his or her own favorites.

Some players make more of an impression on different coaches than others, for good or bad reasons.

If we look at the good reasons, well, in a recent video on the Twitter account, BarDown, we can hear different National Hockey League coaches name the player or players they preferred to coach.

The video features Derek Lalonde (head coach of the Detroit Red Wings), Peter DeBoer (head coach of the Dallas Stars) and Trevor Letowski (assistant coach of the Montreal Canadiens).

In Letowski’s case, he says the player he first thought of for this question was Mikhail Sergachev.

Letowski was associate coach of the Windsor Spitfires in the OHL from 2015 to 2017, for two seasons while Mikhail Sergachev was with the team.

Letowski then became head coach of the Spitfires from 2017 to 2020, for three seasons, before becoming an assistant coach with the CH in 2021.

Letowski explains that, at that time, Sergachev had arrived from Russia and didn’t speak English.

He had made the big decision to leave his homeland to pursue his development in the OHL, something that really impressed Letowski.

Letowski explains that he enjoyed watching Sergachev progress rapidly to become the excellent established NHL player he is today.

Arriving at 16 in a country where you don’t know the language and being so dominant with such a good work ethic really impressed Letowski.

Sergachev was a raw talent who made his mark very quickly, amassing 57 points (17 goals and 40 assists) in 67 games in his first season with the Windsor Spitfires.

This excellent season earned him selection 9th overall in the 2016 draft by the Montreal Canadiens.

Unfortunately, we know what happened next: Sergachev was traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning in exchange for Jonathan Drouin, even though he had only played four games with the team.

In short, it was a loss that hurt the CH in the long term, as Sergachev had become quite a defenseman.

He might even have found one of his junior coaches in Trevor Letowski a few years later.


In a gust

– Record for Verstappen! He registers his tenth win in a row this season.

– Hmmm weird.

– Obviously. The problem wasn’t with the players.

– Indeed.

– The Braves are on fire.

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