Veteran head coach of 18 years completes Drew Bannister's staff; Ott, assistants Weber, Alexander have contracts extended through 2025-26
The St. Louis Blues completed their coaching staff for the 2024-25 season and moving forward.
The team announced Thursday morning that Steve Ott has been promoted to associate coach and extended his contract through the 2025-26 season while adding veteran Claude Julien as an assistant coach and extended the contracts of assistant coach Mike Weber and goalie coach David Alexander through the 2025-26 season.
The 64-year-old Julien has more than 20 years of coaching experience, including 18 as an NHL head coach with the Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils and Boston Bruins.
Julien owns the Bruins record for coaching wins (419) and playoff victories (57) playoff wins while capturing the 2009 Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s best coach. Overall, he guided the Bruins to seven playoff berths, two trips to the Stanley Cup Final, including the 2011 Stanley Cup championship. He was most recently coach of the Canadiens from 2016-2021.
Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said last week that Bannister was in the process of adding someone.
"We did the X/Y axis with Drew ... write down what you want and put the names at the top and they've got to check these boxes of what you want," Armstrong said. "We're not going to bring someone on this staff that doesn't check those boxes just to say that we've added an assistant. That's what he's going through now, to see if there's someone he believes that can make he and his staff better. I'm not going to share the vision of what he wants as a coach -- that's up to him to find. But it's not built for everybody, what he's looking for."
The 41-year-old Ott will enter his eighth year behind the Blues' bench after joining the staff as an assistant in 2017. The Blues have gone 287-192-58 (.588 points-percentage) in the regular season since he retired as a player, including four appearances in the postseason.
Weber, 36, joined the staff as an assistant last season after three years as an assistant coach with the Rochester Americans of the American Hockey League, and the 42-year-old Alexander has been the goalie coach since 2017.
