St. Louis Blues Get Big Influence With New Chicago Wolves Coaches

The Chicago Wolves added a couple names to their coaching staff. The St. Louis have gained some more influence with their minor league team with these additions.

The St. Louis Blues and the Chicago Wolves seemed like they were heading towards a tenuous relationship, if they were even going to have one at all. There was a brief moment, before the two teams agreed to another season of partnership, where it seemed like the Blues might have to search for a new minor league team.

Instead, they kept their affiliation with the Wolves and the Blues have actually gained a little more influence over the team in the process as well. The Wolves hired Craig Berube as their head coach earlier in the summer.

While it wasn’t necessarily a name that had a good connection with the Blues, Berube isn’t devoid of dealings with the current Blues regime. He was the head coach of the Philadelphia Phantoms when Ken Hitchcock was still the Flyers coach. So, he is aware of the type of style Hitchcock likes to play.

Now, the Wolves have added Darryl Sydor and Daniel Tkaczuk to the staff. Sydor played for the Blues briefly before retiring in the summer of 2010. He was also on the staff in Houston in the AHL and Minnesota in the NHL with Mike Yeo, as an assistant.

Tkaczuk had some dealings with the Blues in a very round about way. His most recent coaching experience was as an assistant with the Kitchener Rangers. Blues goaltending prospect, Luke Opilka recently spent the last season with Kitchener of the OHL.

While none of this really affects the Blues in any great way, it is a good example of organizational cohesion. Whether there were actual problems between the Blues and Wolves or it was all just a myth created by apprehensive fans that were confused by the slowness of the extension of the affiliation doesn’t matter at this point. W

The Blues don’t have the influence they once did when they owned their own minor league team in Peoria, but these coaching additions seem to indicate that the Blues do have some trickle down effect on the staff. That can only be good.

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While every head coach is their own man, Berube knows how Hitchcock likes to play. Thus, if the Blues prospects need to make a move from the AHL to the big club, they likely will not be completely foreign to the expectations when they arrive.

Similarly, Sydor already knows what Yeo expects of his players, so he can condition these young guys to how things are going to be next season and beyond. His voice will serve as a nice bridge for the guys who won’t make the team this season but might find spaces available in the near future.

Tkaczuk will also be helpful to the Blues scouting staff. Granted, his knowledge of goaltenders might not be as vast as the staff hired to specialize with that position, however he just spent an entire season with Opilka. Tkaczuk can let the higher-ups know how far along he is, what he will need to work on and whether he could make a jump up to a higher level any time soon because he saw the guy day in and day out. That kind of intimate information is invaluable.

The Wolves are definitely their own animal. These coaches were likely hired because ownership felt they offered the team the best chance to make strides in the win column.

The Wolves have always marched to their own beat and rightfully so. Despite the fact they share a city with one of the more popular NHL franchises in the country, they have managed to build their own fan base that does not rely on cross promotion or any acknowledgement of their crosstown cousins.

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However, these additions show there is at least a little bit of Blues flavor in the recipe. That is definitely a positive thing. There are other minor league franchises that have almost no connection to the big club other than using their prospects.

In the end, nothing may come of it. However, having coaches that know what the St. Louis Blues staff are going to want from their players can only help the guys coming through. These are all pretty good coaches as well, so perhaps at the very least it will help Chicago make the playoffs. Extra playing time is always valuable as well.