Edmonton Oilers hire Mark Stuart as assistant coach

After John Buccigross of ESPN broke the story in the morning, the Edmonton Oilers officially announced the hiring of Mark Stuart as an assistant coach.

The veteran defenseman will join Jay Woodcroft’s staff after previously serving under his brother, Todd Woodcroft, at the University of Vermont in 2020-21. This season, he was an assistant with Colorado College, making this quite the jump for the former NHL regular. Stuart played in 673 regular-season games during a long career, suiting up for the Boston Bruins, Atlanta Thrashers and Winnipeg Jets during that time. His career ended after one year overseas in 2018, but he hasn’t been relaxing much in retirement.

In 2018-19, he re-joined the Jets organization to help the Manitoba Moose, and then went to school to finish his college degree. Coaching since then, he’ll now be back on an NHL bench (or at least behind it) for the upcoming season.

He joins Glen Gulutzan and Dave Manson as assistants with the Oilers, who also announced Tuesday that skating coach David Pelletier will return for 2022-23.