Brad Ralph doesn’t care much about his place in the ECHL record book, even if he’s carved out quite a few mentions in it. 

He only cares about this season.

“I live in the moment and I’m extremely competitive, and that’s really what fuels me – the next challenge,” said Ralph, who’s entering his eighth season as the Florida Everblades’ head coach. “Obviously I’m proud of the success my teams have had and that does translate to my record. I’m proud of it, but I’m not chasing any personal goals. I just want to see the next group of Everblades raise the Kelly Cup and that’s what fuels me.”

Ralph, 43, is the ECHL’s top coach, whether he’ll engage on that topic or not. Any doubts were silenced last season when the Everblades, who were the fourth seed out of the South Division, pulled off playoff upset after upset and won their second consecutive Kelly Cup. 

In the finals, the Everblades swept the Idaho Steelheads, who had the finest regular season in ECHL history, with a roster stacked at every position, and were seemingly everyone’s pick to win the Kelly Cup. (Silly me, I’d predicted the South Carolina Stingrays, who the Everblades dispatched in a six-game first-round series.)

Ralph has coached 10 seasons in the ECHL with the Steelheads and Everblades – with one season with junior-level Western Hockey League’s Kelowna Rockets wedged between – and he’s never missed the playoffs (except 2019-20 when there was no postseason because of the pandemic). He’s only been bounced in the first round twice, has been to conference finals four times and won the last two Kelly Cups. He’s coached more ECHL playoff games, 130, than anyone else in history. And he’s won the most playoff games, 79. 

In the regular season, despite coaching in an era when the ECHL has an unprecedented amount of talent and parity, Ralph has racked up a 446-172-70 record, including a 314-108-50 mark with the Everblades. 

This season, Ralph could get into the ECHL’s top five in regular-season victories, though he’s got a long way to go to reach Jason Christie’s record of 667 achieved over 18 seasons with five different teams. It’s hard to imagine some NHL or AHL team won’t snatch Ralph up before that happens. (Christie is an assistant with the Buffalo Sabres this season.)

As you’d expect, ECHL teams have been trying to crack the secret to Ralph’s success. The Fort Wayne Komets, for instance, didn’t renew the contract of coach Ben Boudreau, who’d led them to the 2021 Kelly Cup, after losing in Game 7s of the first round the last two seasons; they hired Ralph’s assistant the last three seasons, Jesse Kallechy, to try and replicate the dynasty that’s been built in Estero, Florida.

YOUR 2023 KELLY CUP CHAMPIONS🏆🏆🏆 pic.twitter.com/OEFzWmp4W6

— Florida Everblades (@FL_Everblades) June 10, 2023

After speaking with Ralph at length about what’s made his teams successful, and finding him to be rather modest about it, I’ve come up with the following recipe:

Veteran Core

It takes a nucleus of older players who want to finish their careers with postseason success, will lead the younger players by example and will return for multiple years. In Florida, that included the likes of Joe Pendenza, Blake Winiecki, Levko Koper and Stefan LeBlanc last season. “Once we got in the playoffs last year, you couldn’t put a price on the experience those players had,” Ralph said. “I mean, they were saying and doing all the right things, so I didn’t have to. They’d done it before, they knew what it took.”

The Right Message

The messaging can’t ring hollow with the players, a particular challenge if they’re hearing the same things preached over months or years. Very few coaches in the minor leagues have mastered this. Al Sims did it with the Komets when he won four championships over five years in the International and Central Hockey League between 2008 and 2012. Steve Martinson did it, too, winning four Cups in the CHL and ECHL between 2013 and 2016. 

The coach has to have the right leadership in the locker room and let it do a lot of the work. That takes trust. “I don’t think anyone wants to hear from the coach all season long. As a coach, we know what works and we’re probably preaching 75% of the same things from the start to the finish,” Ralph said. “But these players, I think specifically they love playing down here, love the quality of life, and they really embrace being a Florida Everblade. That enjoyment and that enthusiasm, it’s infectious. And when players – in the playoffs, in particular – are enjoying what they’re doing and having fun, that’s when you’ve got something good.”

Communication

Communication skills with the players are a must. Some have specific goals, such as getting called up to the AHL, while others are just trying to put food on the table. Honesty goes a long way with players, even if some of them need to be read the riot act while others need to be coddled. Ralph toes the lines well and it’s hard to find people around the ECHL to say a bad word about him. 

Maybe it’s because Ralph was in their boots once; he played one NHL game with the Arizona Coyotes as a forward in 2000-01, then spent most of his nine-year playing career bouncing around Double-A hockey.

Cooperative Affiliates

A solid relationship with NHL and American Hockey League affiliates is a must. It gives you talent and helps alleviate the ECHL salary-cap burdens. Of course, almost every ECHL team gets prospects from the higher levels, but not all have the rapport Ralph has with the Florida Panthers and Charlotte Checkers, knowing which players he can reasonably rely on having and when. Goaltender Cam Johnson alone has made a difference – he was the Playoff MVP the last two seasons – but the Panthers affiliation yielded several impact players last season, such as forward Xavier Cormier.

Balance

Balance across the lineup is pivotal. When I watched the Everblades last season, there was no one facet of the game they hung their hats on (such as the Allen Americans’ reliance on offensive prowess) and no single player that had to be shut down (like the Toledo Walleye with forward Brandon Hawkins). The Everblades just did everything well, especially in their own zone, and that meant death by thousand cuts for their opponents.

That all sounds easy enough, right? Well, it’s not, just ask teams like the Norfolk Admirals or Kalamazoo Wings, in storied hockey markets, who haven’t sniffed the playoffs in recent years. Or the Walleye, which still hasn’t won the Cup despite going to two Kelly Cup finals and three more conference finals since 2014.

The Everblades again look as if they’ll be a power this season. The goaltending should be strong with Johnson and Evan Cormier and the forwards include Pendenza, Oliver Chau, Logan Lambdin and Zachary Tsekos. The defensive corps will be more of a work in progress, but I don’t doubt it’ll be solid come playoff time.

Ralph knows the rest of southern teams are gunning for the Everblades – the Jacksonville Icemen are particularly stacked and there are standout coaches, such as South Carolina’s Brenden Kotyk and the Greenville Swamp Rabbits’ Andrew Lord – and Ralph is motivated by the competitiveness of the rough-and-tumble division.

“There are a lot of good coaches in the division and, year after year, we’re all pushing each other to get better.,” Ralph said. “At this point, we’ve got a bit of a target on our back and everyone is aiming to take us down.” 

Justin A. Cohn has covered professional hockey for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette since 1997. A native of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., Cohn was the 2020 Indiana Sportswriter of the Year. He’s on all social media platforms @sportsicohn and his daily work is at www.journalgazette.net.