Coaching Notes: Sydor, Donatelli, Cunningham

The St. Louis Blues have hired Darryl Sydor as their new assistant coach, re-joining Mike Yeo on his new club. Sydor worked with Yeo in Minnesota before taking a position with the Blues’ AHL affiliate this season. The former NHL defenseman and two-time Stanley Cup Champion played 1291 games in his career, scoring 507 points.

Yeo took over the head coaching job in St. Louis when Ken Hitchcock was fired mid-season, and turned the team around from their early season struggles. He’ll now go into next season with Sydor beside him on the bench, presumably in charge of the defenders that are now led by captain Alex Pietrangelo and up-and-coming Colton Parayko.

• Pierre LeBrun of TSN gave a list of names that he believes the Buffalo Sabres are looking at in regards to their head coaching position, and many of them had already been publicly linked. One name that had been overlooked was Clark Donatelli, which Paul Hamilton of WGR 550 added in a follow-up tweet. Donatelli was the replacement for Mike Sullivan in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton when he was promoted to the NHL in 2015-16, hired of course by new Sabres’ GM Jason Botterill when he was in charge of the baby-Penguins. Donatelli led the WBS Penguins to a 51-20-5 record this season, good for first overall in the AHL. While he has no NHL experience so far, he has been groomed all the way from the ECHL by Botterill, and perhaps is ready for the next step.
• In some uplifting news, Craig Cunningham has been given a pro scout position with the Arizona Coyotes. The well-liked former captain of the Tucson Roadrunners collapsed on the ice in November and ended up losing part of his leg because of medical complications. He’ll never play professional hockey again, but will now be part of an NHL front office for at least the next two seasons. Just 26-years old, Cunningham has a long career ahead of him should he decide to remain in hockey and Arizona is the perfect place to get started; they’ve never been shy about giving responsibility to young men—just ask GM John Chayka.