ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Blues have hired Greg Cronin and Václav “Vinny” Prospal as assistant coaches on Jim Montgomery’s staff for the 2026-27 season.

Cronin will oversee the team’s defensemen and penalty-kill unit, while Prospal will work with the forwards and the power play.

Cronin, 63, is coming to St. Louis after one season as the head coach of AHL Iowa, the Minnesota Wild’s affiliate. His most recent NHL job was as head coach of the Anaheim Ducks before he was fired in 2025 and replaced by Joel Quenneville. He was also a longtime assistant coach with the Toronto Maple Leafs and New York Islanders.

In Cronin’s two seasons behind Anaheim’s bench, the rebuilding Ducks had the fourth-highest goals-against average in the league (3.38 per game) and the second-lowest penalty kill (73.2 percent).

“Having worked with talented, young players on a team that was in a complete rebuild and helping them find the habits and details that help players become not only good offensive players, but excellent 200-foot players — that’s where his strength lies,” Montgomery said of Cronin on Monday. “I know I’m getting somebody that really teaches and really stresses the habits and details that are going to make our team so efficient and players have more success killing plays and making plays.”

Prospal, 51, joins the Blues after three seasons as an assistant coach with AHL Rochester, the Buffalo Sabres’ affiliate. Prospal played 16 seasons in the NHL, primarily with the Tampa Bay Lightning, but also spent time with the Ottawa Senators, Philadelphia Flyers, Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Rangers, Florida Panthers and Ducks.

In 1,108 NHL games, Prospal had 255 goals and 765 points, including 79 power-play goals and 246 power-play points.

“His passion for the game gets players excited about what they’re going to be able to do, and he teaches like that,” Montgomery said. “He was a really talented offensive player who really had to work for everything he got. He wasn’t blessed with great skating, but he was blessed with a great mind, and he really competed hard on 50-50 battles. His puck-protection skills and his ability to understand how to make subtle plays through people or in behind people is really going to help our forwards and our power play, where he excelled in his career.”

Cronin and Prospal are the newest members of the staff under Montgomery, who signed a five-year contract in 2024.

In each of his three stops as an NHL head coach — Dallas, Boston, St. Louis — Montgomery inherited his staff from the previous coach. This marks the first time he’s been able to pick who will be added to his staff. He said on Monday that he and incoming general manager Alexander Steen conducted the search, with guidance from outgoing GM Doug Armstrong, who will transition to full-time team president on July 1.

Montgomery said there were many interviews involved in the search. He has familiarity with both new coaches. He roomed with Prospal when both were on AHL Hershey in 1995-96, and Cronin was a graduate assistant coach when Monty was a freshman at Maine.

Montgomery took over the Blues in November 2024 when the Blues fired Drew Bannister. Steve Ott, Claude Julien, Mike Weber and David Alexander were holdovers on Bannister’s staff and were retained when Bannister was let go.

In January, Ott was assigned to be head coach of the Blues’ AHL affiliate, Springfield. He recently signed a two-year contract extension with the organization.

In April, the contracts of Julien and Weber were not renewed.

Julien, 65, joined the Blues as an assistant coach in 2024. He was a veteran coach with 20 years of experience, including as head coach of the Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils and Boston Bruins, winning the Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011. He touched all aspects of the Blues’ staff.

When Julien and Weber moved on in April, Armstrong said the club would begin its search for their replacements by making a checklist of the team’s needs.

“We’ll come up with the criteria that’s needed before the names,” Armstrong said at the time. “What I don’t want to do is just start throwing out names. I want to find out what we want and then what names fit that — more than just putting a guy in here because he’s got a name and hope it works out.”

As far as Montgomery’s thought process on the hirings, he said in April, “We’re going to need someone that has high energy. You’re going to need someone that’s a cerebral thinker. But the most important thing is that they’re intelligent and they teach. They know how to teach defensemen how to pivot the right way, stick on puck.

“That’s what I’m going to be looking for — some specialties in coaches that are going to be able to come in and make our players individually better and understand the team concept in those things that they do and why it’s important to get them to habitually do it.”

That search has landed them on Cronin and Prospal.

Meanwhile, Alexander will be back for his ninth season as the Blues’ goaltending coach in 2026-27.

The Blues also announced that video coach Elliott Mondou has been elevated to the front office. He joined the team as video coordinator in 2022, and in addition to his work with the team, has served as video coach for Hockey Canada. He will be replaced by Jeremy Coupal, whose title will be assistant coach, video.

What does it mean for the Wild?

AHL Iowa has missed the playoffs four of the past years and now is in the market for a coach again.

Cronin replaced Brett McLean last summer after McLean left after two years as their head coach to become an assistant with Adam Foote in Vancouver. McLean lost his job when Foote lost his last month.

As of now, it’s unclear if the Wild will conduct a coaching search or promote internally. Iowa GM Matt Hendricks is expected to talk to The Athletic on Tuesday.

It was a trying start to the season in Iowa (28th in the AHL after finishing 30th and 29th the two years under McLean), but it played .600 hockey in the final 30 games of the season. The season was largely derailed because of poor goaltending and scoring struggles.

Cronin came to Iowa with high hopes after his time in Anaheim. He was blindsided by last year’s dismissal, especially because the Ducks improved from 59 points in his first season to 80 in 2024-25 and got to the periphery of the wild-card race just before the 4 Nations Face-Off.

“I was very grateful to spend the year in Iowa,” Cronin told The Athletic via text. “It was perhaps one of the most rewarding seasons of my long career. Having the opportunity to apply what I learned over the last couple years in Anaheim was meaningful. Despite the poor record, we were able to create a positive environment, which contributed to a successful second half of the season. Iowa was a great place to live and Matt does a great job creating a healthy environment.” — Michael Russo, Wild beat writer