Yesterday, the Columbus Blue Jackets announced a few personnel changes for the Cleveland Monsters.
The current Blue Jackets Director of Player Personnel, Chris Clark, will also be the General Manager of the Cleveland Monsters. GM Clark spent the past few seasons as a rotating Assistant Coach for the Monsters with Greg Campbell. The role of GM will be a perfect fit for Clark. He is a kind man who takes his job seriously and has the ability to see the game from all on-ice positions.
It will be nice to have Clark making decisions involving the team more often.
The Jackets also announced the a multi-year deal with Mike Eaves to become the head coach of the Cleveland Monsters.
Eaves has quite the coaching resume serving as head coach of the Hershey Bears, University of Wisconsin, and, most recently, St. Olaf.
His time at University of Wisconsin (2002-2016) was the most frutiful as a coach. While there he produced multiple NHL players such as Jack Skille, Cody Goloubef, Rene Bourque, Adam Burish, Derek Stepan, Craig Smith, and Kyle Turris.
Eaves knows how to take talent and turn it into even better talent. This is great news for prospects like Kole Sherwood, Sonny Milano, Doyle Somerby, Calvin Thurkauf, Liam Foudy, and Gabriel Carlsson. As long as these players are open to what Eaves brings to the table, he will be able to pull out greatness from each of them and take them to the next level.
Plus, he won’t put up with shenanigans and players not taking the game seriously.
Eaves is the patriarch of the quintessential hockey family. His sons Ben and Patrick are known well throughout different areas of the hockey realm.
Ben Eaves recently accepted the position of Assistant Hockey Director and U18 Head Coach for the Ohio AAA Blue Jackets. Before landing the job in Columbus, Eaves spent two seasons as the “player development and performance coach” for Miami University’s hockey team. He also was a coach at St. Olaf College and U16 coach for Culver Academy.
Patrick Eaves is currently on a contract with the Anaheim Ducks and is set to become a free agent next summer. He was a game changer while playing for the Carolina Hurricanes (2007-09) and the Dallas Stars (2014-17).
So, as you can see, hockey is in the blood of the Eaves family. We can expect Head Coach Mike Eaves to expect nothing less than the best from the Monsters.