43-year-old inks two-year deal after guiding Thunderbirds to Calder Cup playoffs, winning pair of series to reach the Atlantic Division Final before falling in a fifth and deciding game
Steve Ott is sticking around for at least a couple more years, and the thought of other NHL job being tempting will have to wait.
The 43-year-old former assistant/associate coach of the St. Louis Blues who was sent to Springfield of the American Hockey League to become head coach of the Thunderbirds last season, has signed a two-year contract to remain in that position, the Blues announced on Wednesday morning.
The contract will run through the 2027-28 season.
There's been some speculation that Ott could be under consideration for one of the head coaching openings in the NHL but has opted instead to remain in the St. Louis organization to get some more seasoning as a head coach and better prepare himself should an NHL organization come calling for a job in the near future.
"This is a perfect scenario for where I'm at in my head coaching journey," Ott said Wednesday morning. "We came in January to Springfield, I had a pretty successful season with some unfinished business to do. I kind of removed myself from possibilities of NHL coaching jobs this summer. I just thought to be patient right now to work on my craft as a head coach and continue to develop as well. Running my own training camp here coming up in September, having my own team. All those things I think were the crucial factors to it.
"... (But) this is why the American Hockey League is so fun as a head coach. You get to try things that might be unorthodox at times or that you know that might work against a certain team or a different that that's playing a different structure that maybe you wouldn't do in the NHL, but you're going to try and implement these things to see what type of affect you can have on a game. I'm excited about those opportunities."
Ott became the fifth coach in Thunderbirds history when he replaced Steve Konowalchuk on Jan. 19 when the Thunderbirds were 13-18-6 and helped them go 19-14-2 down the stretch to reach the playoffs, where they made it as the sixth seed from the Atlantic Division and upset third-seeded Charlotte in three games of a best-of-3 series, then taking down top overall seed Providence in four games of a best-of-5 to reach the division final, ultimately losing to No. 2-seed Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in a fifth and deciding game.
"First of all, I would say our buy-in," Ott said of things that stood out. "The buy-in from the players, the game experience from our young players to play meaningful, important games fast-tracked a lot of them. Playing those extra, hard, hard playoff games that we got to give ourselves that opportunity to play in those, that's where development grows the fastest. We saw that in a lot of our young players that developed that way throughout the year, they're going to take huge steps and huge games this summer to be ready to go in training camp. That valuable extra games is so important to anybody's career development and to be in that situation throughout the playoff run to maximize that team through the buy-in that we got was an excellent journey with unfinished business."
Now, Ott and his staff will have the opportunity to develop those on the cusp of reaching St. Louis, a prospect that excites him as he betters his own resume.
"Honestly, what I'm looking most forward to is just being around this team, our young players, our prospects helping develop internally within our organization. I've been a Blue for a long time and I want to help our guys get that opportunity to one day put that uniform on.
"... We're in the second-best league in the world and I think you need to be connected to the best league in the world. When you have the organizational structure that we have from 'Army' to 'Steener' to 'Monty' to myself, it's real fluid chemistry that we're all in this together. I think that's what made this year real special in the sense of the support that I got when I got down there (to Springfield), from everybody to our development staff all the way up. We're one connected organization and we're trying to excel all our players to obviously reach the next level."
Ott joined the Blues as a player in the 2013-14 season and played 122 games with the organization before signing as an assistant coach for the 2017-18 season and was promoted to associate coach in June of 2024, holding that title for nearly two seasons.
The Blues were 350-244-74 (.588 points-percentage) in the regular season with Ott behind the bench and made four appearances in the Stanley Cup playoffs, including winning the Cup in 2018-19, just his second season as a coach.
Ott played in 848 NHL games from 2002-17 and had 288 points (109 goals, 179 assists) and 1,555 penalty minutes.
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