Bannister has experience working with young players
In a way, Bannister’s promotion reminds me of what the Buffalo Sabres did a few years back with Don Granato when they embarked on a full rebuild. They rolled with an interim coach with experience working with younger players and promoted him, where he stayed for three seasons before he parted ways with the Sabres.
For Bannister, there is no rebuild, but a restructure, and that works in his favor as he won’t have the same abundance of youngsters with the big club. But this offseason and over the next few years, the team could keep getting younger in terms of where they rank against others in the league.
In 2022-23, they clocked in as the 13th-oldest, and this season, they bottomed out at No. 17 in the league before youngsters like Zachary Bolduc, Zach Dean, and Matthew Kessel returned to Springfield to play two more games.
Given his extensive coaching experience in the OHL and the AHL before he moved up to the National Hockey League, Bannister is also an ideal coach to develop upcoming players. Bolduc, Dean, and Kessel won’t be the last to see extensive time in a Blues uniform under Bannister, and that could be huge for the team’s overall development over the next two-plus seasons.
(Statistics provided by Hockey-Reference)