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Bennett, Parkkila named to staff |
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Rick Sadowski
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Avalanche coach Jared Bednar has a new staff to work with this season.
The Avalanche on Friday announced that Ray Bennett has been hired as an assistant coach, and Jussi Parkkila as goaltending coach.
They join Nolan Pratt, who was hired as an assistant last year and is in charge of the defense.
Bennett and Parkilla replace goalie coach Francois Allaire and assistants Tim Army and Dave Farrish.
Avalanche goalie Semyon Varlamov considers Parkkila his mentor, having worked with him for a number of years, including at Yaroslavl Lokomotiv in Russia in 2007-08, the season before Varlamov joined the Washington Capitals.
"Ray brings a tremendous amount of NHL experience and hockey knowledge to our team, and Jussi has a proven track record of working with goaltenders," general manager Joe Sakic said in a release. "They're a great complement to our current coaching staff, and we're excited to have them join our organization."
Bennett, 55, was an assistant coach with the St. Louis Blues the past 10 seasons, and he'll take over Army's duties. He spent time in charge of the power play as a full-time bench coach with the Blues. He also managed team preparation, offensive play evaluation and in-game analysis as the team's eye in the sky.
Bennett, who is from Innisfail, Alberta, previously spent seven seasons as an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Kings from 1999-2006. He specialized in video analysis and statistical support, and was involved in all areas of tactical and technical play.
Bennett has extensive international experience.
He was manager of high performance/video for the Canadian Hockey Association for two years; an assistant coach in charge of video for Canada's silver medal-winning team at the 1999 IIHF World Junior Championships; the gold medal-winning Canadian national women's team at the 1999 IIHF World Women's Championships; and a fourth-place finish with Canada's men's national team at the 1999 IIHF World Championships.
Bennett also was an assistant coach with Canada's silver medal-winning women's team at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
Bennett has been the head coach at Red Deer College, and he held positions with the Spokane Chiefs, the World Junior Hockey Championship Association, Hockey Canada, the Moose Jaw Warriors. and the Alberta Amateur Hockey Association.
Parkkila, 40, is from Tampere, Finland. He spent the past 12 seasons coaching goalies in Europe, including five seasons in Russia’s KHL and two seasons with Liiga, Finland’s top professional league.
He spent last season coaching goalies for the Grazz 99ers in Austria. He was goalie coach in the KHL with Omsk (2014-15), St. Petersburg (2011-14), and Mytischi (2010-11).
After three years with the Ilves U-20 team in Finland, Parkkila began his pro coaching career with Yaroslavl Lokomotiv, where he worked with Varlamov.
Parkkila spent the following two seasons with Tappara in Finland.
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