The announcements continue for the Calgary Flames. On Friday afternoon, the club announced the additions of assistant coaches Marc Savard and Dan Lambert to their coaching staff.
Per the release, Savard will run the Flames’ forwards and power play, while Lambert will run the defence and penalty kill. Also returning to the coaching staff from the previous season are assistant coach Cail MacLean (the eye in the sky), goaltending coach Jason LaBarbera and video coach Jamie Pringle. (Lambert’s addition to the staff was first reported by Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. Tony Ferrari of The Hockey News was first on Savard.)
The 45-year-old Savard joins the Flames after two seasons with the Ontario Hockey League’s Windsor Spitfires. He also spent one season with the St. Louis Blues as an assistant, where he ran their power play. Savard spent parts of four seasons as a player with the Flames, overlapping with Craig Conroy and Jarome Iginla during that tenure. (He was gone before Martin Gelinas arrived.) Savard’s career was cut short due to concussions, with his last game as a player coming in 2011 – he was engraved on the Stanley Cup as part of the Boston Bruins’ championship team, though.
The 53-year-old Lambert joins the Flames after four seasons with the Nashville Predators, where he served as an assistant coach and ran their forwards and power play. He’s developed a good coaching resume since retiring as a player in 2009, including stops in the AHL and WHL. He began his coaching career as an assistant coach under Ryan Huska in Kelowna, then moved on to head coach when Huska was hired by the Flames for their AHL club.
While the team’s press release doesn’t specify this, the belief is associate coach Kirk Muller is leaving the organization upon the expiry of his contract.
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