Otters’ coach Knoblauch joins Flyers
PHILADELPHIA, PA – The Philadelphia Flyers announced today that they have hired, Kris Knoblauch, as an assistant coach, according to general manager Ron Hextall.
Knoblauch, 38 (09-24-1978), comes to the Flyers after spending the last five seasons as head coach of the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters.
“Kris has had great success at the junior level with the Erie Otters and Kootenay Ice,” Hextall said. “He’s coached a lot of good young offensive gifted players. We feel he is a real good fit with our group and we’re excited to have him in our organization.”
“I’m very excited not only for a chance to coach in the National Hockey League, but also to join an organization like the Flyers and to work with Ron (Hextall) and Dave (Hakstol) and the rest of the staff,” said Knoblauch. “It’s a great opportunity and I’m really looking forward to getting started.”
Below some news & notes on the career of Knoblauch:
- 30th in all-time OHL coaching victories (216) and holds the highest winning percentage of any coach in OHL history. (.712)
- He has led the Erie Otters to four-consecutive 50-win seasons in his first four full seasons after being named head coach midway through the 2012-13 season… He helped Erie become the first team in OHL history to post three-consecutive 50-win seasons.
- In his four full seasons with Erie, Knoblauch’s team has recorded three 300+ goal seasons and have a combined goals-for/goals-against differential of +484… His team has averaged 4.53 goals per-game in that time span, while allowing an average of 2.75 goals-allowed per-game.
- In his four full-seasons behind the Erie bench, Knoblauch’s team has led the OHL on the power play in two seasons (13-14 & 14-15), while finishing second on the power play for the last two seasons (15-16 & 16-17)… The Otters have been in the Top 3 of power-play goals scored in all four seasons and own a 28.6 percent success-rate on the man-advantage during that time.
- This past season, he helped lead the Erie Otters to the 2017 OHL Championship, winning the J. Ross Robertson Cup, and berth into the Mastercard Memorial Cup Tournament for the first time in 15 years.
- He also led the Otters to a 50-15-3 regular season record, which was the league’s best regular season record for the second-consecutive season.
- In 2015-16, he captured the Matt Leyden Trophy as the OHL’s Coach of the Year after leading the team to a 52-15-1 record as regular season champions.
- In his first full season as head coach of Erie (2013-14), he led the Otters to the best regular season record in franchise history at 52-14-2-0 and took the team to the Western Conference Final.
- Prior to joining Erie, he was head coach of the Kootenay Ice of the Western Hockey League from 2010-12, and led the team to the 2011 WHL Championship and berth into the Mastercard Memorial Cup.
- Internationally, Knoblauch has served as an assistant coach for Team Canada at the 2017 IIHF World Junior Championships, winning silver.
- A native of Imperial, Saskatchewan, Knoblauch was selected in the seventh round (166th overall) in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft by the New York Islanders.
- He played four seasons in the Western Hockey League and then five seasons at the University of Alberta, where he won a national championship in 2000. Knoblauch played a brief professional career, spending the 2004-05 season in the Central Hockey League in 2004-05 and then playing in France in 2005-06.
For more information, please visit flyers.nhl.com.
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