On Thursday, the St. Louis Blues rounded out their coaching staff by signing Craig Berube as an associate coach, David Alexander as the new goalie coach and Daniel Tkaczuk as a skills/assistant coach.
These three coaches will now join Darryl Sydor and former Blues player Steve Ott.
On the team’s official website, general manager Doug Armstrong acknowledged how young the staff, now led by Mike Yeo, is this time around. said on the team’s website. “It’s an interesting staff, it’s a young staff and a staff I think can grow with our younger players.
“I gave Mike the final say and he has to work with these guys every day, but what you try and do is look where Mike might need to fill in some vacancies in his resume. Having guys that have played the game for a number of years, a guy like Ott, a guy like Sydor, a guy like Berube is really good for Mike to have that.
“I think we all think we know what players are going through, but until you’ve walked in their shoes, you really don’t know. … Having those experiences, I think, are really good. Just the communication skills with today’s players, I think it’s very important. Maybe a decade ago, players (were just) ‘tell me what to do and I’ll do it.’ Now they want to know why. It’s the ‘why’ generation. You have to have great communication skills and I think this group has that.”
Despite their young age, the coaching staff has plenty of experience both on the ice and off it. And Alexander has worked with Blues’ goalie Jake Allen since he was 13 years old.
St. Louis is heading into their 51st season as an NHL franchise with a revamped staff and a slew of top-tier talented players.
What they do with them is the question.
