The St. Louis Blues [http://thn.com/stlouis] have made their hires to replace two departed assistant coaches. The team announced on Monday the hiring of Vinny Prospal and Greg Cronin as assistant coaches. Also, the team has promoted Elliott Mondou from video coach to assistant to the general manager under Alexander Steen and Jeremy Coupal has signed a multi-year contract to join the Blues as assistant coach/video. "I'm excited about the new staff that's going to lead and teach and coach the 26-27 Blues here next year," Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. "We spoke to a lot of coaches, we had a lot of interviews. Between myself and Alexander Steen, we kind of knew what kind of staff we were looking to build. Of course with the guidance of Doug Armstrong, we did a real thorough search." The 63-year-old Cronin was most recently the coach of the Iowa Wild of the American Hockey League where he spent the past season. Prior to that, Cronin was the coach of the Anaheim Ducks [http://thn.com/anaheim] for two seasons. He was also coach of the AHL's Colorado Eagles (2018-23), assistant/associate coach of the New York Islanders [http://thn.com/islanders] (2014-18), which was his second stint there, and assistant coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs [http://thn.com/toronto] (2011-14) among the many jobs Cronin has had in a career that began in 1987 as an assistant coach at Colby College. The familiarity with Cronin goes back to when Blues coach Jim Montgomery was playing at the University of Maine and Cronin was a graduate assistant there. "I knew that the No. 1 thing that I wanted was to have a guy on my staff that was going to have experience as a head coach at the NHL level," Montgomery said. "Ideally having been a part of a team that (had) a lot of talented, young players, and a guy that had a defensive mindset and I was able to find that guy, someone that spent a lot of years and past experience. (At) the college, junior and American League level, and that's Greg Cronin." Montgomery pointed to Cronin working with young players in Anaheim, when the Ducks were going through a rebuild and how that will be able to translate to working with young Blues players here. "Most importantly, his experience in Anaheim, having worked with talented, young players on a team that in a complete rebuild, helping them find the habits and details that help players not only become good, offensive players, but excellent 200-foot players," Montgomery said. "That's where his strength lies is being able to get players to understand that if they play without the puck a certain way and they handle pucks certain ways and tougher areas when it's along the boards or breakouts or through the middle of the ice, there's ways to teach that that make the game simpler. He has spent so much time, almost 40 years now, that he's been doing this, he has so much experience with different players, left-handed, right-handed, physical players, skilled players and also the players that have a blend. He's worked with everybody. "I know I'm getting somebody that really teaches and really stresses the habits and details that are going to make our team so efficient and players have more success making plays." The 51-year-old Prospal, who spent 16 seasons as a player in the NHL for seven different teams and had 765 points (255 goals, 510 assists) in 1,108 games, retired from the NHL following the 2012-13 season with the Columbus Blue Jackets [http://thn.com/columbus]; he joined the New York Rangers [http://thn.com/rangers] as a pro scout in 2013 and was most recently an assistant coach of the AHL's Rochester Americans for the past three seasons. "I wanted to hire someone with an offensive mindset, someone ideally that had played in the league and spent time honing his craft in his coaching skills at various levels. When you get a guy like Vinny Prospal, who has played 1,100 games and goes and spends two years in the Czech Republic coaching the second division and the first division, and then having gone to the American League and worked as an assistant coach for three years developing young players but really grinding on the bus. "I know that I've got two assistant coaches that just absolutely have a great passion for the game. This is what they were meant to do in their lives and this is what they want to do. I'm excited for our players how much they're going to be able to learn and how much these coaches are going to help them be at their best." Montgomery's crossed paths with Prospal in the AHL with the Hershey Bears for two seasons in 1993-94 and 94-95. "The big thing with Vinny is he was a really talented offensive player who really had to work for everything he got," Montgomery said. "He wasn't blessed with great skating, but he was blessed with a great mind and he really competed hard on 50-50 battles. His puck protection skills, his ability to understand how to make subtle plays through people or in behind people is really going to help our forwards and our power play where he exceled in his career with over 800 points in his career. He's going to be able to help so many players, young and veteran players find their role on the power play and help them have tremendous success." Columbus Blue Jackets left wing Vinny Prospal (22) during the third period against the Calgary Flames at the Scotiabank Saddledome in 2013. Prospal was hired as a St. Louis Blues assistant coach on Monday. (Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports) [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/91d691d4-e86c-4785-922b-e7593d60a67c.jpeg] Columbus Blue Jackets left wing Vinny Prospal (22) during the third period against the Calgary Flames at the Scotiabank Saddledome in 2013. Prospal was hired as a St. Louis Blues assistant coach on Monday. (Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports) Cronin and Prospal replace Claude Julien and Mike Weber, whose contracts expired following the 2025-26 season and were not renewed. Julien has since been hired by the ZSC Lions of Switzerland's National League [https://x.com/zsclions/status/2062078684018688411?s=20] as their head coach. Coupal, 37, has spent the past several seasons working as the video coach for Team Canada, including most recently at the 2025 and 2026 Spengler Cups. Prior to his tenure with Hockey Canada, he spent seven seasons as the video coach for the Edmonton Oilers [http://thn.com/edmonton] as well as three seasons as the video coordinator for the Nashville Predators [http://thn.com/nashville]. Image [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/ba5b84e4-f4b9-4d14-b74e-955083f6f2c4.jpeg] For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free [https://thehockeynews.store/products/print-subscription]. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here [http://eepurl.com/i7OC4I]. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.
