The Winnipeg Jets’ coaching staff will have a few new faces on it this season.
The team announced Thursday that it has hired a pair of assistant coaches to work under new head coach Rick Bowness.
Brad Lauer and Marty Johnson join associate coach Scott Arniel, goalie coach Wade Flaherty and video coach Matt Prefontaine to make up the new-look Jets staff in advance of the 2022-23 season.
Lauer, 55, has spent time with Tampa Bay, Anaheim and Ottawa as an assistant coach at the NHL level, and won a WHL championship in 2021-22 as the head coach for the Edmonton Oil Kings.
He played parts of nine seasons in the NHL, with the New York Islanders, Chicago Blackhawks, Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins.
Johnston has a strong local connection — five seasons as an assistant coach for the AHL’s Manitoba Moose.
The 43-year-old previously coached the men’s hockey team at Carleton University and played professionally in the AHL and ECHL.
The Moose also announced some additions to their bench. Nolan Baumgartner, a familiar face in Winnipeg for his seven seasons in a Moose uniform, takes on an assistant coach role. Baumgartner ranks second all-time on the Moose in assists, third in games played and sixth in points.
He had been an assistant for the Vancouver Canucks over the past five seasons and worked previously at the AHL level as an assistant with the Chicago Wolves and Utica Comets.
Alex Matheson, 31, has been hired as the Moose’s new video coach. He had previously worked in that capacity for the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, and with Canada’s national men’s under-18 team in 2021.
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