The Seattle Kraken have three new coaches, all announced on Tuesday afternoon.
Aaron Schneekloth and Chris Taylor have been hired as assistant coaches. Colin Zulianello has been hired as goaltending coach. They join holdover assistant coach Jessica Campbell on the staff of newly-hired Kraken head coach Lane Lambert.
Aaron Schneekloth
Hockey really is a small world. When Schneekloth was a defenseman at the University of North Dakota, one of his coaches was the Kraken’s original head coach Dave Hakstol. Though he never reached the NHL, Aaron played professionally from 2001-13 in the ECHL, CHL, and AHL. His last stop was with the Colorado Eagles – remember that name.
Schneekloth has been either an assistant or head coach with those same Colorado Eagles since 2013. Interestingly, he’s coached with the Eagles in two different leagues during the span. The minor league affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche was an ECHL club, winning two titles under Schneekloth. He and they joined the higher-tier AHL in 2018, with Aaron returning to assistant duties until being re-named head coach in 2023. As bench boss, the Eagles have won 40 and 43 games the last two seasons.
One of Schneekloth’s first assignments will be July’s prospect development camp, something he was part of with the Avalanche in past seasons.
“It’s in the middle of their off-ice training, so you’re really not trying to evaluate too much,” he told Hockey Mountain High. “You try to give them a bunch of information, what we stress as an organization. When those guys come back for the rookie camp is when you get your first real viewing of them in live competition, their tendencies in certain situations.”
“As a player and as a coach you want to find success instantly,” the coach said on the Eagles’ YouTube channel in 2023. “It doesn’t always happen that way. So being persistent, having patience, having a goal and a plan set in place.”
Chris Taylor
Chris Taylor wasn’t out of work long. After five seasons in New Jersey as an assistant coach working with forwards, the Devils decided on May 9 not to renew his contract. Previously, he spent three seasons as head coach of the AHL Rochester Americans, and was also an assistant with the Amerks and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
In an interview with The Instigators, Taylor said coaching is about more than drills. “A big part of what we try to accomplish is talking to them daily. It might be in your office, breakfast, lunchtime. It might be skating around before practice. You grab a guy for three laps and you talk to him. ‘Are you ready to practice? How do you think you played last night?’
“They don’t know if you really care about them. As a player, you’re always wondering what (coaches) are thinking about. We have those little conversations to be connected every day.”
Devils center Curtis Lazar, 572 NHL games and counting, had bounced between the AHL and NHL before attributing a lot of his success to Taylor.
“You always want a positive effect on different players. We worked on his footwork after practice. We had some good conversations about how he needed to play. I only played about 150 NHL games and I said to him, ‘I figured it out later in my career. You need to figure it out now, in the prime of your career.’ I think that resonated with him.”
Colin Zulianello
Colin Zulianello gets promoted from the Kraken’s AHL farm team in Coachella Valley. That makes Zulianello instantly familiar with Kraken netminder Joey Daccord, who played 38 regular season games and 26 playoff games for the Firebirds in their inaugural 2022-23 season.
The coach felt a special pride watching Daccord shut out the Golden Knights in the 2024 NHL Winter Classic. “Our game (a Firebirds victory) got done, and we watched the last six minutes in the coaches’ room in Calgary,” Zulianello recalled on the Fire & Ice podcast. “We were able to hear the ‘Joey’ chants and watch him make one more really big save on Jack Eichel, and from afar share in that moment.”
One of the challenges of goalie coaching is that so many netminders do their hockey upbringing overseas. “What’s hard to understand as a fan of the game is that the (European) game is extremely different. Different sized rinks, different ways that teams attack. Different styles, different structure.
“Plays are on you quicker (here). Teams there possess the puck more and don’t throw the puck at the net as much. It takes these guys a few months to get adjusted.”