{"id":416267,"date":"2026-01-19T17:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T17:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/416267\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T17:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T17:14:10","slug":"longtime-nhler-steve-ott-to-coach-ahls-springfield-thunderbirds-for-remainder-of-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/416267\/","title":{"rendered":"Longtime NHLer Steve Ott to coach AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds for remainder of season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The St. Louis Blues<\/a>\u2019 American Hockey League affiliate Springfield Thunderbirds have made a change behind the bench.<\/p>\n

The team announced on Monday that Steve Konowalchuk<\/a> had been fired with Steve Ott<\/a> taking over the job for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Blues want to thank Steve Konowalchuk<\/a> for his contributions to our organization over the last two years and wish him all the best moving forward,\u201d Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said in a statment. \u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to Steve Ott<\/a> taking over in Springfield to push our young players to get better every day and further their development path to become St. Louis Blues<\/a>. The current staff will take over his duties with the Blues for the rest of this season.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 42-year-old native of Summerside, PEI, Ott has been an assistant coach with the Blues since 2017, winning a Stanley Cup with the team in 2019.<\/p>\n

The 25th overall selection of the 2000 NHL Entry Draft out of the Ontario Hockey League\u2019s Windsor Spitfires, Ott appeared in 848 NHL games over 14 seasons with the Dallas Stars<\/a>, Buffalo Sabres<\/a>, Blues, Detroit Red Wings<\/a> and Montreal Canadiens<\/a>. He had 109 goals and 179 assists for his career.<\/p>\n

Konowalchuk, 53, was in his second season as Thunderbirds head coach. The first Utah-born player to play in the NHL, Konowalchuk appeared in 790 games over 14 seasons with the Washington Capitals<\/a> and Colorado Avalanche<\/a>. He registered 171 goals and 225 assists.<\/p>\n

After his retirement, Konowalchuk spent several seasons as a head coach in the Western Hockey League with the Seattle Thunderbirds and Red Deer Rebels. He won a WHL championship with Seattle in 2017.<\/p>\n

The Thunderbirds currently sit last in the Atlantic Division on 32 points from 37 games. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St. Louis Blues\u2019 American Hockey League affiliate Springfield Thunderbirds have made a change behind the bench. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4759,5,4,42078,33561],"class_list":{"0":"post-416267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-springfield-thunderbirds-sports-hockey-team-team-league-stat-411","12":"tag-st-louis-blues-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-19"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115922892879527170","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}