St. Louis Blues Add Steve Thomas as Assistant Coach
The St. Louis Blues added yet another assistant to their coaching staff on Wednesday.
The St. Louis Blues announced on Wednesday afternoon that they’ve hired Steve Thomas as an assistant coach for the 2016-17 campaign.
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Thomas had spent the past two seasons as an assistant with the Tampa Bay Lightning, helping lead them to a Stanley Cup Final appearance in 2014-15 and a Eastern Conference Finals appearance in 2015-16. Before that, he spent four years as a player development coach with the Lightning organization, assisting with the development of many of the young players who played key roles for the club during the past two seasons.
It’ll be interesting to see how Thomas adjusts to being part of the Blues organization, having been a rival for much of his 20-year playing career. As a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Chicago Blackhawks (he had two stints with each franchise), Thomas faced the Blues in six different playoff series from 1985-2002, winning three of them. For the first five full seasons of his career, Thomas faced the Blues in each postseason.
Thomas will join new additions Mike Yeo and Rick Wilson, as well as holdovers Ray Bennett and Jim Corsi, on the Blues’ 2016-17 staff. It’s unknown what kind of role he’ll play on game nights; the standard practice in past years has been to have the coaches who run the power play and penalty kill (Brad Shaw and Kirk Muller last season, presumably Yeo and Wilson this year) on the bench for the full game, with Bennett watching from the press box. Thomas could end up joining Bennett overhead in 16-17.
Next: Blues Re-Sign Jordan Caron to One-Year Deal
With Yeo, Wilson, and Thomas–plus Craig Berube, the new head coach of the AHL Chicago Wolves, who the Blues appeared to play a hand in hiring–there’s quite a few new voices who will be charged with taking the franchise to the next level. Though that’s probably not a spectacular situation to have long-term, at least it gives Yeo an opportunity to decide which coaches he meshes well with and which that he doesn’t in advance of his elevation to head coach after next season.