BOSTON -- Former Boston Bruins captain Terry O'Reilly, who came out of the broadcast booth to lead the team after the firing of Butch Goring, Friday was named head coach for the remainder of the season.
O'Reilly, concerned about the stress of the job and its impact on his family, refused to commit himself behind the 1986-87 season. General Manager Harry Sinden said: 'The agreement is subject to review at the end of the season, Terry's review.'
John Cunniff, a coach and scout with the Hartford Whalers for the past five years, will serve as assistant coach. Defenseman Mike Milbury, who assisted O'Reilly during the transition after Goring's Nov. 5 firing, will have the title of player-assistant coach.
'There has never been a player in the organization with the dedication that Terry has -- not one,' said Sinden, who cited the players' response to O'Reilly's leadership as a major factor in the Ontario native becoming Boston's 17th head coach.
'If you had given me a list of 100 occupations which I thought I might be in, coaching would have been the last one,' said O'Reilly, who was in his first year as an analyst for television broadcasts of Bruins games.
His only previous coaching experience was helping last winter with the high school hockey team in Georgetown, Mass., where he lives.
'I'll try and remove the errors and the momentary lapses of discipline,' said O'Reilly, 35, a former right winger who retired after the 1984-85 season, after 13 years in the NHL, all with Boston.
In the three games since Goring's firing, with O'Reilly and Milbury serving as co-coaches, Boston was 2-1, including a 4-3 overtime victory Thursday night against the Edmonton Oilers.
O'Reilly said of that game, 'You must go a long way to get a charge like that, and I want to get a few more. The players are a good bunch with a lot of talent. Last night they showed what they are capable of.'
Sinden said he valued O'Reilly's ability to inspire the team, stating that hockey is more a game of emotion than 'a game of X's and O's.'
Sinden acknowledged that former defenseman Jim Schoenfeld, still under contract to Buffalo since being fired last year as Sabres head coach, was a strong early candidate for the job, but denied that the sticking point was Buffalo's request for compensation. 'We never really got to that.'
Cunniff's addition to the coaching staff was requested by O'Reilly to help with the practices and game coaching 'and to serve as devil's advocate,' said the new head coach. Cunniff, who grew up in South Boston, also served as an interim head coach with Hartford during the 1982-83 season.
O'Reilly said he will be looking for 'consistency and intensity' from the players. 'If you have those, the final scores will come. You won't lose many games when you out-work your opponent.'
