More Coaching Moves

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The off season coaching changes just keep on coming. Last week TPS first told you about Willy Desjardins landing a gig with the Dallas Stars, which didn't surprise us as Guy and I talked about it last Tuesday. Desjardins was very close to getting the head coaching job with San Antonio of the AHL last year.

Now we are hearing Brad McEwen will take over the G.M. duties that Desjardins has left vacant, while Shaun Clouston will be the next head coach in Medicine Hat. McEwen had been the director of scouting for Tigers, and was largely responsible for attracting high level American players recently. He's also worked with the Lethbridge Hurricanes in a similar role and was the head coach in Swift Current earlier in the new Millennium.

Clouston meanwhile had held the post of assistant or associate coach with Medicine Hat for the past 7 years.

Also from around the dub, TPS has been told that Jeff Truitt will be joining the San Antonino Rampage of the AHL as an assistant coach. Ray Edwards and Mike Pelino are currently listed as interim head coach and assistant coach on the Coyotes farm team web site.

We had reported a while back that Truitt was thinking of inserting himself as head coach replacing Dave Hunchack with the Tribe, but that move is obviously not happening now.

Willie Headed for Star-dom?

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The off-season coaching carousel is always worth paying attention to as bench bosses move from one team to another, from one league to the next. We are seeing more coaches with NHL backgrounds ending up in the CHL and the natural progression of CHL coaches to the AHL and on to the NHL, sometimes without that stop in between.

The latter scenario might be about to unfold again as The Pipeline Show has learned that Medicine Hat Tigers General Manager and Head Coach Willie Desjardins is a leading candidate to join the Dallas Stars organization.

Top 5 Tuesday: Canada Vs. USA storylines

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We're hours away from the gold medal border battle between Canada and the United States at the World Junior Championship, so today on Top 5 Tuesday we'll take a look at 5 things to watch out for.

Kings go 3-0 in pre season tourney

The Oil Kings went undefeated in their pre season tournament thanks to a 5-3 win over Medicine Hat Sunday night. Edmonton watched Cam Lanigan and Laurent Brossoit give up just 4 goals in 3 games, while youngsters like Griffin Reinhart, Michael St. Croix and Dylan Wruck scored in the victories. Reinhart the team's first round bantam pick in 2009 is on his way back to midget, but St. Croix and Wruck will stick around and along with veterans like Brett Breitkreuz, Torrie Jung and 2nd year Dman Mark Pysyk will hope to improve on the Kings 8th place finish last season.

You can catch conversations that Guy and I had with Brietkreuz, Wruck, Keegan Lowe as well as Medicine Hat Tigers head coach Willy Desjardins and Buffalo 2008 first round pick Tyler Ennis, this Tuesday on the show. Details on that and the rest of the show here.

Edmonton with face Red Deer next weekend in a pair of road games.