Both were promoted to the NHL after winning Calder Cup championships in the American Hockey League - Boudreau last season with Hershey and Stevens in 2005 with the Phantoms. They preside over the teams that made the most dramatic improvements in the NHL since last season. Both rely on players they helped develop at the AHL level. And both have connections to Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren.

In fact, Holmgren said the success both Boudreau and Stevens have had might trigger a trend in which GMs give minor-league coaches longer looks when searching for a coach, rather than recycle coaches with NHL experience.

"I think sometimes [minor-league coaches] are overlooked because a lot of times you look for an impact guy, a guy who has a winning record in the NHL," Holmgren said yesterday. "I also think that in the future there are going to be more of them because in this new salary cap world we're in, the draft and player development become so important.

"I think you're going to see more of those coaches coming up with those players that have been developed."

Boudreau is a front-runner for the Jack Adams Award as NHL coach of the year. The Caps were 6-14-1, last in the NHL, when he was named interim coach Nov. 22. They were 14 points behind Southeast Division leader Carolina and ranked 28th among the league's 30 teams in goals.

Under Boudreau, the Caps went 37-17-7 and made a furious late-season charge to win the Southeast Division and grab the No. 3 seed in the conference. They are even with the Flyers at one game apiece in the best-of-seven conference quarterfinal series, which resumes tonight at the Wachovia Center.

In the mid-1970s, Holmgren and Boudreau were teammates with the Johnstown Chiefs of the old Eastern Hockey League. They shared the top floor of a large home along with David Hanson, who played one of the three Hanson brothers in the 1977 movie Slap Shot. It's the same house in which the character Reg Dunlop, played by Paul Newman, lived in the movie.

Boudreau and Holmgren also played together with the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the World Hockey Association.

Each accused the other of being a slob.

"He was a messy housekeeper," Holmgren said.

"I was the neat one," Boudreau claimed.

Boudreau, who has a jolly demeanor and looks like he could be the neighborhood grocer, was a center who played with brains and skill.

"I don't know if Bruce would say this, but I will. He would have been a good player in the NHL if he'd been in better shape," Holmgren said. "He was a smart player. He had good hands and could make plays and score goals."

Although they are now adversaries, Holmgren said he was happy Boudreau was enjoying success.

"I can't say we've kept in touch all these years, but I've followed Bruce's development as a coach," Holmgren said. "He won championships in the IHL and AHL and coming up to the Caps and having that turnaround under him was pretty neat to see for Bruce."

Among Boudreau's strengths are his positive attitude and his willingness to allow his players the freedom to explore their talents to the fullest.

"I'd come from a situation where I'd fallen out of favor with the coach in Vancouver [Alain Vigneault] and maybe lost a little bit of confidence in how I played," Capitals winger Matt Cooke said before the series against the Flyers began. "I really didn't know what my role was.

"Bruce came to me and told me what he expected of me, and he instilled confidence in me. I see that every day with this group, how he handles each guy. The best way to describe the young guys on this team is they're uninhibited. Just about every player in this league was a superstar at a young age, but that's not the role for them on every team up here. Quite often, your third- and fourth-line guys are told not to do things, not to try certain things, and that builds a mind-set. But Bruce isn't like that at all.

"With him, if you get an opportunity to make a play or score, he wants you to take it. And confidence builds confidence," Cooke said.

A little more than a month after he got the Washington job, the Caps dropped interim from Boudreau's title.

Boudreau said he did not know Stevens personally, but he seemed to take pride in how their performance reflects on the caliber of coaching in the AHL.

"It shows how important the minor-league system is, and it shows the guys who are coaching down there can come up and do a pretty adequate job," Boudreau said. "There are a lot of great coaches down there, and maybe one day they'll get their opportunity."