Clune retired following the 2021-22 season and joined the Maple Leafs as a player development coach.
Clune retired following the 2021-22 season and joined the Maple Leafs as a player development coach.
Rich Clune will step behind the Toronto Marlies' bench for the rest of the season.
The Marlies announced on Tuesday that Clune, a former captain of the team, would be named an assistant coach for the remainder of the 2023-24 season. He'll join Marlies head coach John Gruden and assistant coach Michael Dyck behind Toronto's bench.
This comes a month and a half after Marlies GM Ryan Hardy announced that assistant coach Eric Wellwood would be taking medical leave "for an indefinite amount of time."
"I'm in contact with [Wellwood] all the time and I know people are wondering where he is, but obviously, any time you have a medical situation just for respect for the family, and for Eric, as he works through that process, that'll probably be all I'll touch on with that," Hardy said on Oct. 12.
Wellwood was brought in as an assistant coach after the team hired John Gruden this past summer.
Since the announcement that Wellwood would be taking an indefinite medical leave, Gruden has taken over the power play duties while Dyck works with the penalty kill. During games, goalie coach Hannu Toivonen has stood behind the bench.
Clune comes into the fold having spent the last 15 months as a development coach for the Maple Leafs. The 36-year-old was the captain of the Marlies for parts of two seasons and was also a part of the Marlies' Calder Cup run back in 2018. He also played in 19 games with the Maple Leafs during the 2015-16 season where he recorded four assists.
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