Joel Bouchard’s coaching staff with Laval has been finalized as the team has hired the recently-retired Alex Burrows as an assistant coach. Bouchard had the following comment on the hiring:
“We are very lucky to have a candidate of Alex’s caliber join our new coaching staff. His recent experience as an NHL player and the extent of his background in professional hockey will prove to be excellent assets for the development of our players. Alex perfectly matches the profile we were looking for; in addition to being an exceptional individual, he is a very good communicator. His rich experience will be an invaluable resource and many players will be able to relate to the perseverance he showed throughout his career. I am thrilled we are able to add a top-notch candidate such as Alex to our group.”
Burrows was bought out of the final year of his contract last month as the Senators opted to pay him $833,333 for each of the next two years over $2.5 million next season. He wraps up his NHL career with 409 points in 913 games split between Vancouver and Ottawa.
This hiring rounds out the coaching staff which also includes Daniel Jacob (who was hired back in May) as well as Marco Marciano, a holdover from last year’s staff.
While a new group is certainly exciting following the disaster under Sylvain Lefebvre and company, this is a group that is rather inexperienced at coaching professional players. Bouchard and Jacob’s coaching experiences are limited to the junior level while Burrows naturally has none considering he just retired. That means that Marciano, who has held a couple of different titles since joining the organization back in 2013 (video coach and assistant goalie coach), is the only member of the coaching staff with any experience coaching in the pros.
Accordingly, while there will be some growing pains when it comes to the development of the prospects, there will probably be some when it comes to the coaches as well.