VANCOUVER — A couple of familiar faces will be joining Vancouver Canucks head coach Travis Green for his first season behind an NHL bench.
The club announced Wednesday it has added Newell Brown and Nolan Baumgartner to the fold as assistants, joining Doug Jarvis and Manny Malhotra.
The Canucks had previously said both Jarvis and goaltending coach Dan Cloutier would remain in their jobs after Vancouver fired head coach Willie Desjardins in April following a second consecutive season near the bottom of the standings.
Assistant coaches Doug Lidster and Perry Pearn were also let go at the time of Desjardins' axing.
Brown and Baumgartner will join Green at ice level during games, bumping Jarvis upstairs.
Brown, who was an assistant to Alain Vigneault in Vancouver from 2010 to 2013, will be in charge of the forwards and the power play.
The 55-year-old helped the Canucks to consecutive Presidents' Trophies in 2010-11 and 2011-12, as well as the team's appearance in the 2011 Stanley Cup final. He spent the last four seasons as an assistant with the Arizona Coyotes.
The 40-year-old Baumgartner, a former Canucks defenceman and Green's assistant with Vancouver's AHL affiliate the last four seasons, will take care of the blue line and run the penalty kill.
The Canucks' stale and unimaginative power play ranked 27th overall in 2015-16 before a paltry 29th-place showing last season that saw a success rate of just 14.1 per cent.
The penalty kill was 17th two years ago, but dropped to 28th in 2016-17 as Vancouver finished 29th in the standings.
"We are excited to add Newell and Nolan as assistant coaches for the upcoming season and to welcome them and their families back to Vancouver," Green said in a statement. "They both possess a familiarity with our staff and we are confident they will be a great fit and compliment our returning coaches."
Malhotra returns in an expanded role as the club's development coach after working part-time last season, while skill coach Glenn Carnegie and video coach Ben Cooper are also back.
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Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press
