Oilers lose another member of coaching staff as Stars hire David Pelletier

An exodus of the Edmonton Oilers coaching staff is in full swing.

With all the assistant coaches’ contracts having expired after this past season, all signs have pointed to none of them returning, while one has already landed on his feet with the Dallas Stars naming Glen Gulutzan head coach.

Now, Gulutzan is set to poach another member of the Oilers staff, as the Stars named David Pelletier assistant coach.

Pelletier, 50, is a former Olympic Gold Medal figure skater who has spent the last decade working as a skating coach for the Oilers, doing the same for the Edmonton Oil Kings since 2020. His foray behind the bench isn’t the first of his career, however, having spent two seasons in 2018-19 and 2019-20 as an assistant coach for the University of Alberta Men’s hockey team.

“He collaborated with players at all levels of the organization to help maximize performance on the ice, along with providing instruction and support for off-ice training,” said the Stars of what Pelletier did for the Oilers, adding that he will work as the coaching staff’s “eye in the sky.”

Gulutzan’s staff has started to round out, with Alain Nasreddine and Neil Graham as other assistant coaches, Jeff Reese as goaltending coach, Patrick Dolan as head video coach and Chris Demczuk as an assistant video coach.

Graham joins the big club after spending the last five and a half seasons as their AHL affiliate’s head coach. Earlier this week, the Stars announced that former Edmonton Oilers winger Toby Petersen had been named the Texas Stars’ head coach.

Petersen, 46, spent three seasons in the Oilers organization between 2004-05 and 2006-07, playing 64 NHL games with Edmonton, scoring six goals and nine points. He would spend his final seven seasons playing with the Stars organization, retiring after the 2013-14 season. He spent six years between 2014-15 and 2019-20 as an AHL assistant coach for the Springfield Falcons, Lake Erie Monsters, the Cleveland Monsters and Rochester Americans, before spending the last two years as a skills coach with the Colorado Avalanche.