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Last year I wrote an article comparing the number of personnel on the Hurricanes scouting staff with the other teams in the league and they seemed to come up a bit short. Since then, they have made a few additions and added four more to that total today.
The club recently announced that they hired Ray Whitney, Jeff Daniels, and Mark Craig to their professional scouting ranks. Don Elland will join the amateur scouting department.
Of course Whitney was a one time popular player with the Canes and played on the Stanley Cup winning team in 2006.
Daniels was an assistant coach on that championship team and most recently coached the Charlotte Checkers before being relieved of that responsibility earlier this summer.
Elland was a former assistant under Mike Vellucci and was head coach of the Plymouth Whalers last season while Craig was former GM of the Whalers.
Different perspectives and more eyes and voices should only help the Hurricanes.
The team's official presser follows:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Aug. 31, 2015
HURRICANES ANNOUNCE ADDITIONS TO SCOUTING STAFF
Former ‘Canes players Whitney, Daniels join team’s pro scouting staff
RALEIGH, NC – Ron Francis, Executive Vice President and General Manager of the National Hockey League’s Carolina Hurricanes, today announced that the team has added four members to its scouting staff. Mark Craig, Jeff Daniels and Ray Whitney have joined the team’s professional scouting staff, while Don Elland has joined Carolina’s amateur scouting ranks.
"Mark, Jeff and Ray will bring a fresh perspective to our pro scouting staff, and Don brings a wealth of experience in the OHL to our amateur staff," said Francis.
Craig, 62, most recently served as general manager of the Ontario Hockey League’s (OHL) Plymouth Whalers in 2014-15. In the 1980s, Craig was the first coach Hurricanes Owner Peter Karmanos Jr. hired as then-owner of the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires. Craig went on to scout for the Philadelphia Flyers before founding the automotive business Alexander Mangin.
Daniels, 47, has been the head coach of the Hurricanes’ American Hockey League affiliates for the past seven seasons. Prior to his time in the AHL, Daniels served as an assistant coach for the Hurricanes for four seasons, including the team’s Stanley Cup-winning 2005-06 season. As a player, Daniels appeared in 425 NHL regular-season games, winning a Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh in 1992, and helping Carolina to the Stanley Cup Final in 2002.
Whitney, 43, begins his first post-playing career job in hockey as he joins the Hurricanes’ pro scouting staff on a part-time basis. He announced his retirement as a player in January 2015 after 22 NHL seasons with eight teams. Whitney played five seasons in Carolina from 2005-2006 until 2009-10, helping the team to the 2006 Stanley Cup championship and the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals. He ranks fourth in Hurricanes history (since relocation) in assists (215) and power-play points (145), tied for fifth in power-play goals (38), and ranks sixth in goals (119) and points (334). In 1,330 NHL games, Whitney scored 385 goals and earned 679 assists, and ranks 63rd on the NHL’s all-time scoring list with 1,064 points.
Elland, 51, joins Carolina’s amateur scouting staff after serving as head coach of the OHL’s Plymouth Whalers for the 2014-15 season. A long-time coach in Karmanos’ youth hockey program, Elland joined the Whalers’ coaching staff in 2010 as an assistant to now-Hurricanes Assistant General Manager Mike Vellucci.