Shifting Sands in the Desert

Sun Devils Personnel Changes:

SICHL

• Assisant GM: Kyle Dubas (Francis out)
• NHL Associate Coach: Jared Bednar (title promotion)
• Goaltending Consultant: Kevin Woodley (Hasek out)
• Head of Analytics: Steve Valiquette (Woodley moved to Goaltending)

GHA

• Head Coach: Dan Muse (Burrows out)
• Associate Coach: Adam Oates (added)

The Okanagan roller coaster has come to an end and GM Ryan Borau has made some changes to reflect the new reality of now being in the asset build up stage of a rebuild. No longer near the top is AGM Ron Francis, who really shed his conservative management style labels working under Borau, marking the end of an entertaining era to start the Sun Devils' tenure. In his place analytics is guru Kyle Dubas who, by all accounts, shares much more philosophically with the current GM/Owner and has a history of turning around teams in the other league in sustainable fashion. Mirroring this addition the Sun Devils have added the current leader in cutting edge hockey analytics, Steve Valiquette, to run the analytics department while retaining known goalie analytics guru Kevin Woodley, making for a more harmonius and focused management group.

In the GHA, a significantly more important aspect of the franchise going forward, the Dust Devils have moved on from Coach Burrows despite the team's significantly improved record over last year, citing "Well he's had a MUCH better roster and we still feel it's under-performing." His replacement Dan Muse comes off of much developmental success in the other league. As a cherry on top, they've also added well known skills guru Adam Oates to the coaching roster in anticipation of the influx of young, high-end talent.