Edmonton Oilers paid up big time for Babcock's associate coach: report
The Edmonton Oilers were not fooling around with their coaching hires on Tuesday morning.
Mike Babcock is the new head coach of the Oilers, but the team also brought on D.J. Smith as an associate coach as well. The details surrounding Babcock’s contract with the Oilers have not been revealed, but we have gotten an interesting tidbit on how Edmonton was able to bring Smith on board.
According to TSN’s Darren Dreger, the Oilers were not afraid to open the wallet to bring Smith to the Alberta capital.
“A footnote to the hiring of D.J. Smith as an associate coach, we’re hearing that it is a very lucrative deal for Smith, which may make him the highest-paid assistant in the NHL,” Dreger said on Tuesday’s edition of Early Trading.
The salary of NHL assistant coaches is not publicly shared by the league, and we still do not know exactly what the Oilers are paying Smith. It’s interesting that Edmonton opted to go big with Smith’s deal to the point where he could be the highest-paid assistant in the entire league.
Smith should be a welcome addition to this Oilers team, as he has a history of running successful defensive teams and has gotten good results at five-on-five just about everywhere he has coached.
He’s also known to be a fantastic players’ coach, which could contrast well alongside Babcock’s more old-school, demanding coaching style.
It’s not a bad hire by the Oilers, and he should help the team pick up the slack on the defensive side of the puck. Perhaps Edmonton also sees him as a backup plan to take over as head coach in case Babcock’s controversial past creeps back up.
The 49-year-old certainly has a lot of head coaching experience, having done stints with the LA Kings and Ottawa Senators over the past several seasons. He was also an assistant coach alongside Babcock during their time together with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Oilers have never been afraid to spend to improve the team, but it remains to be seen if this was money well spent.