Matt Greene’s next step is taking him out of the player-development lane and into a full-time coaching role at Arizona State, but the imprint he left in Los Angeles is still obvious.
For years, Greene’s focus was never on drawing up systems or selling X’s and O’s. His work lived on the development side, where the goal was sharper habits, stronger situational awareness and a better understanding of how to fit into what a coach wants - ideally at the NHL level.
“Our job isn’t systems at all, it’s figuring out how to play the game,” Greene said of his role in player development. “We’ll continue to work on retrievals, passing, positioning, playing defense.
That’s our job in development, is to help these kids play defense, learn the game and how to defend at the next level. If you do that, you gain more trust with your coaches and if you have more, you get more icetime, you get to play more.”
That background is part of what made college hockey such a natural fit. It asks for both sides of the job: teaching players while also demanding a coach’s presence and edge.
Greene had clearly been interested in that path, too. When the Kings made a coaching change last season, he was considered for a spot behind the bench, and when Ken Holland made the move, Greene joined the staff for the rest of the regular season.
The players noticed quickly. Defenseman Mikey Anderson said Greene’s intensity came through immediately.
“He brings so much intensity and when you’re a player, you feel it from him,” Anderson said. “There’s times when he’s so fired up where you want to go run through a brick wall with him, like he’s right there in the fight with you.
It took him a little bit to figure that out as a coach, but he was open right away that he was going to help us and we’d help him. I thought he did a great job.
If he wants to coach, I think he could do it for a long time.”
That kind of response fits the way Greene was remembered in Los Angeles as a player, too. Even while wearing an “A,” he was often the veteran presence propping up younger teammates and absorbing the hard parts so others could grow. Anze Kopitar, the top player on two Stanley Cup teams, called him a “big part of winning teams”.
There’s also a long-held belief around the organization that the 2008 trade bringing Greene and forward Jarret Stoll from Edmonton was one of the key moves in reshaping the culture in Los Angeles. It came seasons before the 2011-12 title, but it helped lay the foundation.
Greene and Stoll both filled important depth roles on those championship teams, and their value went beyond what showed up on the ice. Their influence kept surfacing over the years from players who learned from them and eventually became full-time NHLers.
Now Greene is headed into a new chapter, and for the first time he’ll be behind a bench on a full-time basis. It’s a different setting, but the work is familiar: teaching, guiding and helping players get better. After all this time doing that from the development side, he’s finally doing it as a coach.
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