The Florida Panthers hired Kinnear as the head coach for their then AHL-affiliate in Springfield for the 2016-17 season. With 11 seasons as an assistant coach under his belt but no head coaching experience at that time, Kinnear took the role and never looked back.
“I love to teach,” he said. “I love to build an identity on a daily basis and I enjoy building relationships and always pushing to be a little better.”
A decade into the job, the core of the task remains the same for Kinnear.
“My job is to make sure the group is organized,” he said. “That’s going to be the challenging part for me because we’ve got people coming from different directions next week. That’s going to be my tall task. Make sure they’re organized so they can be the best version of themselves.”
The start of season 10 follows a long summer created by a disappointing first-round exit five months ago. It was a bitter pill for Kinnear at the time, but it now stands as a catalyst for the team’s next steps.
“You’re very emotional at the end of the year, and then as the summer goes along things become more clear,” he said. “You know what went wrong, what I didn’t do well, what the group didn’t do well. Obviously to improve as a group and as a coach and as a player you have to identify those certain areas. I’m not wasting any time with regards to letting players know where I felt it went wrong. I own my mistakes, they need to own theirs and we need to move forward because in the end our goal is to win a championship and unfortunately only one team does it, so you have to be different than everybody else.”
The first steps to moving forward took place this week, as a smaller group hit the ice alongside a platoon of coaches from both the AHL and ECHL levels of the organization.
While some of the players on the Bojangles Coliseum ice could be destined to start the season with the Savannah Ghost Pirates, these first few days are critical in establishing some values from the top down.
“If you look at our program the last three years, every level is important,” said Kinnear. “My level is important for Florida, Savannah is important for the Charlotte Checkers. We’re creating opportunities and the most competitive and hardest working guys can be rewarded. So to get eyes on people here, to build the relationships with them and get the understanding of what I’m about and what we’re about here. So if they do go down to Savannah, when they come back here they’re not missing anything, they’re not feeling it out, they’re getting right to it.”
The Panthers’ training camp roster remains jam packed as they played their third of four preseason games on Thursday. Once they begin to thin the group out a bit is when the Checkers’ roster will really start to come into focus.
“A lot still depends on what Florida does,” said Kinnear of his team’s makeup. “There’s a lot of guys still up there fighting for roster spots.”
Charlotte’s roster will solidify as the team marches towards the season opener in Hershey on Oct. 3, and as it does Kinnear will be able to get back to doing what he loves - teaching and building.
“I’m a firm believer that for those relationships to be strong you have to go through some failures along the way,” he said. “It can’t all just be birthday cakes. You have to go through those hard times and you build a relationship through those. That’s definitely one area we want to carry on.”
Ten seasons in, Kinnear is no stranger to what lies ahead in the next seven months of hockey. This time though, he’s making sure to take it all in.
“Be in the moment,” said Kinnear. “You really want to enjoy these times. Get to know players, build relationships with them. We don’t live forever, so as a more experienced coach I want to make sure I enjoy these times. They don’t last forever. I feel very fortunate and grateful that I get to do this for a living. I never want to take that for granted.”
