According to our own Jason Gregor, the Edmonton Oilers have deals in place to add both Trent Yawney and Glen Gulutzan to Todd McLellan’s coaching staff. In addition, Gregor says that the Oilers will be bringing in a third assistant coach at a future date. For now, let’s talk about the new bench bosses.

While it’s no secret that the Oilers have had Trent Yawney and Glen Gulutzan in their sights as potential assistant coaches for Todd McLellan’s coaching staff, the Yawlutzan addition was actually a horribly kept secret around here, we haven’t really had any indication of when an announcement would come down. After Todd’s other assistant coaches got the boot, it seemed like only a matter of time before we’d see the Oilers tweet something or other about some new faces coming to town. Hell, it’s been almost a month since Jay Woodcroft was named as the new Condors head coach so what was the holdup at the NHL level? As it turns out, all we needed was Gregor to pull out that Blackberry Bold of his and drop a hot coaching bomb on the Nation from his Twitter account.

What we don’t yet know is who the third coach will be that Gregor is talking about, but I assume that will happen in the coming days with the official announcement. Unless, of course, Gregor already knows who they’re hiring as the fourth leg of the stool but won’t spill the beans. We all know how much Gregor loves to hoard his beans. Maybe the Oilers are waiting for Manny Viveiros, head coach of the Swift Current Broncos that are currently playing a Memorial Cup game against the Regina Pats as I’m typing this post, like Brownlee has been talking about for a while now? Is it someone else? Is the third guy still part of another NHL staff? Are they going to lower MacT down from the rafters in a Sting-like fashion? I guess time will tell.

For now, what we do know is that the Oilers have added two guys in Gulutzan and Yawney that both have NHL head coaching experience under their belts to a bench that could use some life. In them, Todd McLellan will add two experienced guys (*cough* and potential interim replacements if needed *cough*) that will be able to offer a fresh angle and ideas about what’s going on with this hockey team. What we don’t know is what role each guy will play in the McHierarchy and whether or not they can fix the Gord damned power play, but it will still be interesting to think about how the team will respond to some new blood offering a fresh spin on Todd McLellan’s message.

Add two new coaches to the fishbowl. Check one for Gregor.

More to come…