Ott to serve as Springfield Thunderbirds head coach for remainder of season | St. Louis Blues
January 19, 2026
Ott to serve as Springfield Thunderbirds head coach for remainder of season | St. Louis Blues
27 comments
Finally a reason to hire someone new to run special teams!
Interesting. Kills two birds with one stone I guess?
That’s one way to move him out from behind the bench.
Wow that’s a crazy unexpected move.
Start of the beginning of the new era in town?
Worth noting the press release says “The current staff will take over his duties with the Blues for the rest of this season.” They aren’t bringing in a new assistant for the time being.
I would assume this is considered a demotion for Ott, which is pretty fair. Hope Springfield gets better I guess.
I hope they don’t let him join the special teams meetings…
I’ve never understood Ott as the power play coach, but I can definitely see him as a head coach.
That’s one way to fix the special teams. I get he’s a fan favorite and great with words during his interviews but I’m surprised he’s lasted this long behind an NHL bench.
As long as the tank continues I’m ok with this. I knew an assistant coaching change was coming this off season, didn’t expect it mid season
This is probably going to sting for otter and feel like a demotion going from The Show to the A, but this is all but necessary to become a head coach in the league.
Shame it won’t be with us tho.
Doubt he comes back and becomes an assist coach again.
He’ll likely get poached to another team, unfortunately.
And I’m deliberately using the word “unfortunately” here. I’m sure people are going to jump on that word and be like, “he’s a bum. Get rid of him.”
He been with the organization for 10 years, both as a player and a Stanley cup winning assistant coach. He brings a ton of experience and life and character to the team.
I can’t speak to whether the team is suffering due to HIS mismanagement, but I will be bummed to see him on another bench.
Note: For anyone complaining about the power play performance, how does the team go from one of the top in the league under his leadership to one of the bottom? Is Otter a lazy bum…or maybe, just maybe, is it the difference in talent?
Sounds like one of those critically ill St. Louis area children made a wish.
FINALLY….!!!!!!
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is Doug trying to get Ott some head coaching opportunities while also improving his nhl club. Ott has been considered before for head coaching opportunities, but never got much traction cus 1) he has no head coaching experience and 2) he leads our special teams which hasn’t always been up to par.
Stinks for Ott, cus he has a family and is a great guy, but something had to change behind the bench and Doug made it clear Monty wasn’t going to be fired.
I’ve always heard he was a good team guy. One you wanted in the locker room.
FINALLY!!!!
Is this a move priming him to become the Blues head coach one day?
One of the worst power plays and he gets promoted
Well that’s something
… it was then that the Blues PP suddenly became the most lethal weapon in the league.
Makes sense to me. He can instill Monty’s systems in Springfield, and whatever he was doing with the PP here was not working so hopefully we can get fresh eyes on that and see improvement.
If that doesn’t work out, next is a Sega Genesis and NHL ’95
I like this move. It’s respectful to someone who has given the Blues years of service.
Kind of sucks for his family. They just live a few houses up from my parents in Kirkwood (they knocked down and rebuilt a new house on the lot several years ago. My parents are not wealthy people, ha). They seem to love it here. Wonder if they’ll stay here to finish out the school year or all just move to Massachusetts immediately.
uhh ok?
This is a good and bad thing. Otter was seen as the locker room coach. It’s why he has been here so long. The only thing we have going for us is that out of all the interviews from players. They all seemingly get along very well. That can be attributed to how the team handles business day to day. That’s the bad.
The good is that this is the last message sent. Monty isn’t going anywhere. That’s clear from DA. This is on the players. Those who blame otter for the PP. we will find out soon. But Monty is green lighting the PP. head coaches aren’t hands on in every area, but the assistants and strategy report to the HC. I wouldn’t expect a ton of change there unless Claude gets haded the reigns and out of respect to the HC and otter held his tongue because he’s a former HC.
This is good for otter as he wanted to be a HC and they asked him to take bigger roles when they were looking for a coach post chief, but otter wanted to keep his family in STL. So hopefully this isn’t too bad on his family.
As a long time Springfield Indians > Kings > Falcons > Thunderbirds season ticket holder it’s about time that there was a coaching change in Springfield, and hopefully the coaching change lights a fire under the boys.
Two weeks ago the team the team sat 5th in the division and one point out of fourth place. Since then we beat Hartford 7-4, lost the following night to Leigh Valley 4-3 with 11.1 seconds left in the game. Road trip to Charlotte where we lost both games 8-2, and then lost to Bridgeport 4-1 this past Saturday night.
The team doesn’t have balanced scoring, woeful defense, and suspect goaltending at best. The only decent goalie the team has had since Hofer and Charlie Lindgren left was Colton Ellis who was lost to Buffalo on waivers.
27 comments
Finally a reason to hire someone new to run special teams!
Interesting. Kills two birds with one stone I guess?
That’s one way to move him out from behind the bench.
Wow that’s a crazy unexpected move.
Start of the beginning of the new era in town?
Worth noting the press release says “The current staff will take over his duties with the Blues for the rest of this season.” They aren’t bringing in a new assistant for the time being.
I would assume this is considered a demotion for Ott, which is pretty fair. Hope Springfield gets better I guess.
I hope they don’t let him join the special teams meetings…
I’ve never understood Ott as the power play coach, but I can definitely see him as a head coach.
That’s one way to fix the special teams. I get he’s a fan favorite and great with words during his interviews but I’m surprised he’s lasted this long behind an NHL bench.
As long as the tank continues I’m ok with this. I knew an assistant coaching change was coming this off season, didn’t expect it mid season
This is probably going to sting for otter and feel like a demotion going from The Show to the A, but this is all but necessary to become a head coach in the league.
Shame it won’t be with us tho.
Doubt he comes back and becomes an assist coach again.
He’ll likely get poached to another team, unfortunately.
And I’m deliberately using the word “unfortunately” here. I’m sure people are going to jump on that word and be like, “he’s a bum. Get rid of him.”
He been with the organization for 10 years, both as a player and a Stanley cup winning assistant coach. He brings a ton of experience and life and character to the team.
I can’t speak to whether the team is suffering due to HIS mismanagement, but I will be bummed to see him on another bench.
Note: For anyone complaining about the power play performance, how does the team go from one of the top in the league under his leadership to one of the bottom? Is Otter a lazy bum…or maybe, just maybe, is it the difference in talent?
Sounds like one of those critically ill St. Louis area children made a wish.
FINALLY….!!!!!!
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is Doug trying to get Ott some head coaching opportunities while also improving his nhl club. Ott has been considered before for head coaching opportunities, but never got much traction cus 1) he has no head coaching experience and 2) he leads our special teams which hasn’t always been up to par.
Stinks for Ott, cus he has a family and is a great guy, but something had to change behind the bench and Doug made it clear Monty wasn’t going to be fired.
I’ve always heard he was a good team guy. One you wanted in the locker room.
FINALLY!!!!
Is this a move priming him to become the Blues head coach one day?
One of the worst power plays and he gets promoted
Well that’s something
… it was then that the Blues PP suddenly became the most lethal weapon in the league.
Makes sense to me. He can instill Monty’s systems in Springfield, and whatever he was doing with the PP here was not working so hopefully we can get fresh eyes on that and see improvement.
If that doesn’t work out, next is a Sega Genesis and NHL ’95
I like this move. It’s respectful to someone who has given the Blues years of service.
Kind of sucks for his family. They just live a few houses up from my parents in Kirkwood (they knocked down and rebuilt a new house on the lot several years ago. My parents are not wealthy people, ha). They seem to love it here. Wonder if they’ll stay here to finish out the school year or all just move to Massachusetts immediately.
uhh ok?
This is a good and bad thing. Otter was seen as the locker room coach. It’s why he has been here so long. The only thing we have going for us is that out of all the interviews from players. They all seemingly get along very well. That can be attributed to how the team handles business day to day. That’s the bad.
The good is that this is the last message sent. Monty isn’t going anywhere. That’s clear from DA. This is on the players. Those who blame otter for the PP. we will find out soon. But Monty is green lighting the PP. head coaches aren’t hands on in every area, but the assistants and strategy report to the HC. I wouldn’t expect a ton of change there unless Claude gets haded the reigns and out of respect to the HC and otter held his tongue because he’s a former HC.
This is good for otter as he wanted to be a HC and they asked him to take bigger roles when they were looking for a coach post chief, but otter wanted to keep his family in STL. So hopefully this isn’t too bad on his family.
As a long time Springfield Indians > Kings > Falcons > Thunderbirds season ticket holder it’s about time that there was a coaching change in Springfield, and hopefully the coaching change lights a fire under the boys.
Two weeks ago the team the team sat 5th in the division and one point out of fourth place. Since then we beat Hartford 7-4, lost the following night to Leigh Valley 4-3 with 11.1 seconds left in the game. Road trip to Charlotte where we lost both games 8-2, and then lost to Bridgeport 4-1 this past Saturday night.
The team doesn’t have balanced scoring, woeful defense, and suspect goaltending at best. The only decent goalie the team has had since Hofer and Charlie Lindgren left was Colton Ellis who was lost to Buffalo on waivers.