After a near six-week search, the Hershey Bears have their new head coach. At this morning’s press conference, the Bears officially welcomed the 29th Head Coach in franchise history.

Derek King comes to the Bears with a long background in the sport of hockey. King played in over 800 NHL games and has spent 20 years behind that bench at the OHL, AHL and NHL levels, including stints as the head coach for the Rockford IceHogs and as the interim Head Coach for the Chicago Blackhawks for the last 70 games of the 21-22 season.

King comes as the Bears are in one of the more transformative offseasons in the teams recent history. Gone is much of the veteran core of the last three seasons, including long time stalwarts in Mike Sgarbossa and Mike Vecchione. Other key parts of the last three years that have left include Alex Limoges, Pierrick Dube, Hunter Shepard and Chase Priskie, while it seems unlikely that Riley Sutter and Jake Massie will get new contracts with the Bears for next season.

A New Era of Bears Hockey

With a changing of the guard does come new veteran impact players through two-way deals signed through Washington. On the back end, the Bears have brought in Calle Rosen, a left-handed puck mover who can produce points to help replace the production of Ethan Bear and Chase Priskie, as well as Louie Belpedio, joining from the rival Lehigh Valley Phantoms, giving the Bears some snarl on the back end that they never seemed to replace after former captain Dylan McIlrath stayed up in Washington with the Capitals.

For the forward group, the Bears added some experienced wingers, with 24 year old Graeme Clarke from Iowa who had 37 points last year and bringing Sheldon Rempal back to America after spending last year in the KHL. Rempal is a high quality signing for Hershey, scoring 31 goals in Russia last year, while having scored at least 25 goals the three season he played in the AHL prior to leaving for Russia.

All four players should help King’s want to play his style of hockey- “I really like to play hard hockey, but we want to play with some pace. We want to play fast hockey. Obviously, we’re going to make some mistakes out there, but that’s fine, we can correct those. But I expect us to come in skating, physical and hungry for that puck.”

Coach King also talked a lot about making sure that the younger players who will be coming through Hershey this season get the correct habits in their play, and do so consistently. But, in the end, Coach King also said “I’m not coming in here and throwing elbows and [saying] I’m gonna change everything that’s been done here. I’m just going to continue to build on it and keep it in the right direction.”

Preparing for Expectations

As Bears fans know well, no matter how the team seems to be built, the expectation is always to win a Calder Cup. Coach King talked a lot about the respect he has for the history and expectations that come with coaching the Bears. He called Hershey the “33rd NHL team” and has said he feels “this is like an original six franchise” in terms of the history that comes with playing here.

King also seems to understand and embrace how important winning is to the development process for young players- “For Washington, for them to put a winning product here and still inserting a few young guys, maybe they’re not top prospects, who knows, but they’re going to learn to win, and that’s huge development.”

“I haven’t had that privilege in Rockford because we had so many young guys. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but this is going to be a nice change for me because I believe winning is part of developing.”

Bringing in the Youth

A big part of this next season for Hershey will be the influx of young prospects. Not only will defensemen Ryan Chesley and David Gucciardi, who made cameo appearances at the end of last season, be expected to step into larger roles this year, but we’ll also see some major additions to the forward core from the prospects. Not only are players like Alex Suzdalev and Ludwig Persson, who’ve seen slight time in Hershey in previous seasons, are expected to step into more consistent roles this year, but you also have the likely additions of Ilya Protas (yes, he is the younger brother to Aliaksei) and Andrew Cristall, both of who dominated in the OHL last year.

Coach King is well respected in the hockey world for his work with prospect, and with the talent coming through not just this year, but likely next year as well with players like Terik Parascak, Lynden Lakovic, Eriks Mateiko and potentially Milton Gastrin all expected to don the historic chocolate and white in the 26-27 season, making sure their development meshes with the usual Hershey goal of winning a Calder Cup is crucial.

Continuity with Staff

Finally, a crucial aspect of this transition will be the continuity Coach King will have with his fellow staff members. Every assistant coach from last year is staying, most importantly assistant coaches Patrick Wellar and Nick Bootland will be back behind the bench.

Bryan Helmer compared that to “having three head coaches behind the bench” and said that he felt the Bears were “very lucky” to have kept both after the offseason with the plethora of jobs that became available this offseason.

Excitement for a New Era

Overall Bears Nation, I came away from today’s press event excited for next season and excited for what Coach King will be able to do with this hockey team. I think it’s going to be a fast, hungry team that will compete for a Calder Cup. This is the Hershey Bears way- just because guys leave and move on does not mean our expectations change. We want to win here and Washington wants us to win- so let’s back this new coach and new group of players as we head into what I am sure will be a great 25-26 season!