RALEIGH — New Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour rounded out his coaching staff Tuesday, hiring Dean Chynoweth as an assistant coach, the team announced in a press release. Chynoweth, 49, was an associate coach with the Western Hockey League’s Vancouver Giants last season.
Chynoweth takes the place of Steve Smith, who handled the team’s defense and penalty kill the past four seasons but resigned on July 9, later taking an assistant coaching job with the Buffalo Sabres. Jeff Daniels, who was an assistant on the Hurricanes’ 2006 Stanley Cup team and served several roles in the organization since, was named Brind’Amour’s other assistant earlier in the offseason.
“Dean brings a great deal of experience as both a player and a coach to the organization,” Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell said in a statement. “His knowledge of the game and attitude will be assets for our players.”
Chynoweth, a native of Calgary, Alberta, was the 13th overall pick in 1987 NHL Entry Draft by the New York Islanders and played defense for parts of nine seasons with the Islanders and Boston Bruins, totaling 241 regular season games from the 1988-89 season until 1997-98.
When his playing career was over, Chynoweth immediately went into coaching, serving as an assistant with the IHL’s Utah Grizzlies from 1998-2000 before he was named head coach of the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds.
Chynoweth coached four seasons in Seattle and then went to the Swift Current Broncos, coaching that WHL team for five seasons.
In 2009, he joined Scott Gordon’s staff with the New York Islanders, serving as an assistant for one season under Gordon and two more under his replacement, Jack Capuano.
After he was let go by the Islanders in 2012, Chynoweth became coach of the Colorado Avalanche’s AHL affiliate, the Lake Erie Monsters, and after three years moved to the Avs’ new affiliate in San Antonio for the 2015-16 season. He was fired after missing the postseason in all four seasons coaching Colorado’s top affiliate.
Chynoweth is the son of Hockey Hall of Famer Ed Chynoweth, who was president of the WHL for more than two decades and helped form the Canadian Hockey League, serving as its president from 1975-95. In 2007, the WHL championship trophy was renamed the Ed Chynoweth Cup, and the Ed Chynoweth Trophy is awarded annually to the top scorer in the CHL’s Memorial Cup. The elder Chynoweth died in 2008 of kidney cancer at age 66.
Jeff Chenowyth, Dean’s brother and Ed’s son, is general manager of the WHL’s Calgary Hitmen.
