Canadian Press

9/22/2006 3:45:47 PM

(CP) - There are eight new head coaches in the NHL this season and four of them will work in Canada.

Paul Maurice takes over the Toronto Maple Leafs, Guy Carbonneau moves up to the top job with the Montreal Canadiens, Alain Vigneault joins the Vancouver Canucks and Jim Playfair runs the Calgary Flames.

Other newcomers are Ted Nolan, who resurfaced after a nine-year absence to become coach of the New York Islanders, Claude Julien with the New Jersey Devils, Marc Crawford with the Los Angeles Kings and Dave Lewis with the Boston Bruins.

Maurice, still the youngest coach in the NHL at 39, has perhaps the hottest of the hotseats replacing the colourful Pat Quinn.

"This isn't about evading pressure," Maurice said of his new job. "It's about winning.

"That's what drives you. If you're going to win on the big stage, there's going to be some pressure."

Maurice was just 28 when he got his first NHL coaching job with the Hartford Whalers in 1995. He was behind the Hartford/Carolina bench for nine seasons until he was replaced by Peter Laviolette in 2004. Laviolette took the 'Canes to the Stanley Cup last spring.

Maurice takes over a Leafs team that missed the playoffs last season and has brought in reinforcements on defence and in goal. But in Toronto, expectations are always high, even if the team has not won a Stanley Cup since 1967.

"My biggest concern outside the hockey is controlling the roller-coaster of emotion our team will be on, based on the interest in the team," said Maurice. "That's part of being here - managing that roller-coaster."

Carbonneau was hired by Montreal as an assistant coach in mid-season, when Julien was fired and general manager Bob Gainey took over as interim head coach. Gainey remains the GM.

The understanding all along was that Carbonneau would become a head coach for the first time to start this season.

"I was a lot more nervous in July and August than I am now," Carbonneau said after his first pre-season game behind the bench this week. "It's been a long wait, but it went smoothly."

Montreal is as big a pressure-cooker for a hockey coach as Toronto, but Carbonneau is a popular figure, a former Canadiens captain known for speaking his mind.

He had an active role behind the bench in Montreal's late-season surge to a playoff spot last season.

Vigneault is a former Canadiens head coach who, after five years back in junior hockey and a year guiding the AHL's Manitoba Moose, replaced the fiery Crawford in Vancouver.

Already, he is said to have brought a more relaxed atmosphere to the team, although his stress in camp has been on conditioning.

"It's been a couple of years between opportunities to be a head coach in the NHL," he said. "I feel really privileged and honoured.

"I know what needs to be done. I was younger when I started in Montreal. I was just 36 at the time. It's nine years later now. I know what my job is, but I'm going to try to enjoy it at the same time. You have the create the right environment and enjoy it."

The Canucks also missed the playoffs last season and made major changes this summer. Power winger Todd Bertuzzi and star defenceman Ed Jovanovski are gone, but top goalie Roberto Luongo is among a large group of newcomers.

Like Carbonneau, Playfair was an assistant coach who moved into the top job when his GM, Darryl Sutter, opted to concentrate on front office duties. He has large shoes to fill.

The Flames were first in the Northwest Division last season and Playfair said a key will be forging good relations with team leaders like Jarome Iginla.

"The feedback from the heart of the dressing room is really important because when you get that go-between, that information sharing on the good days and the bad days, it gives you a really important mindset that you are in it together," he said.

Playfair, 42, became assistant coach in Calgary after leading the Flames' AHL club in Saint John, N.B. to a Calder Cup in 2001.  

Some wondered if Nolan would ever work in the NHL after his mysterious departure after two seasons in Buffalo, where he was fired in 1997 just after winning the Jack Adams Trophy as coach of the year.

That Nolan, an Ojibwa native from Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., was not hired right away by another club was ascribed by some to racism, by others to accusations that he had a hand in the earlier firing of GM John Muckler.

But his opportunity finally came this summer with the unpredictable Islanders, who also have a new GM in Garth Snow after Neil Smith left after only 40 days on the job.

Among his charges is goalie Rick DiPietro, who was recently given an unprecedented 15-year contract.

"I think it started hitting home when we jumped on the plane and headed for Yarmouth (N.S.) to start camp," Nolan said of his return. "There hasn't been much sleep since then.

"I've had a few jitters. And I think it's good to have some nervousness because otherwise, something's wrong. It's been nine years after all. But I think it'll be like riding a bike once we get going."

Julien waited only six months before he got another NHL job after coaching the Canadiens from January 2003 to January 2006.

Crawford coached Colorado to a Stanley Cup in 1996 and jumped to Vancouver in 1999 to build the Canucks into contenders. Now, his first job will be to get the Kings into the playoffs after a 10th-place finish last season.

Lewis replaced coaching great Scotty Bowman as head coach in Detroit after the team's 2002 Stanley Cup conquest and lasted two years before Mike Bab**** took over.

Now he joins a Boston team that finished next-to-last in the East last season but which has made big off-season moves, including the acquisition of defenceman Zdeno Chara and sniper Marc Savard.

The Kindersley, Sask., native was an assistant in Detroit for 15 years before he was named head coach there and may bring some Red Wings style to Boston.

"You have to match your team to the personnel you have, but I think we have the ability to do some of the things that I grew up as a coach with," he said.

All eight new coaches are Canadian.

They join a fraternity that includes Lindy Ruff in Buffalo, who since replacing Nolan in 1997 has the longest tenure with the same team. Ruff won the Jack Adams Trophy last season.

Others in hot pursuit are Barry Trotz, who has coached the Nashville Predators since they joined the NHL in 1998 and Jacques Lemaire, the Minnesota Wild's only coach since they joined in 2000.