POLL: Raiders announce Clouston as head coach

At the Monday press conference, Clouston said he plans on increasing his already impressive winning percentage.

“I don’t think I would’ve accepted the offer if I didn’t think we could win,” said Clouston, who head coached the Kootenay Ice from 2002-2007 and the Brandon Wheat Kings from 2011-2012. “We do have some areas we need to improve on, but every team does.”

According to Clouston, one of the biggest things the Raiders need to improve on is their overall team defence. It just so happens that Clouston has built his reputation on how defensively structured all the teams he has coached have been, which should help the Raiders in that regard.

In Clouston’s five years with the Ice, his teams surrendered a stingy 2.5 goals against per game, including just 1.9 in the 2004-2005 season.

Last season, the Raiders surrendered 3.23 goals against last season, something he would like to see considerably lower without sacrificing the Raiders’ natural offensive abilities.

“I think you have to have both to win,” said Clouston. “Watching the team play last year, if there was a deficiency, I thought at times that they weren’t as good defensively as they needed to be.

“I really like the team in the offensive zone, they still have a high level of skill level returning for the upcoming season. If there’s one level of focus, as far as team play, it would be at the defensive end.”

Specialty teams, especially the power play, were also high priorities on Clouston's list.

Clouston was with the Ottawa Senators organization for four years, starting with their AHL farm team, the Binghamton Senators in 2007-2008. He was called up to the big club in 2008-2009 season, finishing the final 34 games of the season with a .618 winning percentage.

He finished with a 95-83-20 record with the Senators in the two and a half seasons of work and said he learned a lot about coaching in that time.

“You learn a lot, you coach against the best coaches in the world,” said Clouston. “To me, the American league was outstanding as well, you’re coaching against coaches who are hungry and you’re coaching with and against players that are pushing themselves and trying to get to the next level.

“To me, those were great experiences and great opportunities for me to become a better coach. My goal is to pass that knowledge and experience along to the players.”

The head coach vacancy came into effect on April 30, after the Raiders chose not to renew former head coach Steve Young’s contract.

Raiders general manager Bruno Campese made it clear at that time that he would not rush the decision to hire a new head coach. That helped in the process of eventually naming Clouston as the team’s head coach.

“I didn’t get an inquiry from Cory initially, there was some time that lagged in between but we were in no real rush. We were waiting the process out to see what came forward,” said Campese. “Later in the process, Cory did come forward and we did some work.”

But once conversations started with between Campese and Clouston, it didn’t take long to finalize a deal.

“There were some discussions that came out, and it came about really quickly,” said Campese. “This weekend, I was informed that Cory would accept the job, we finalized things last night (on Sunday) and we’re here today announcing it.”

At the end of the day, Campese feels Clouston is the man for the job.

“I believe so. All you can do is your homework and your due diligence and I think we’ve done that,” said Campese. “We were in no rush, it’s been quite some time.

“We feel Cory’s the right fit for our hockey team at this time and we believe he’ll be extremely motivated to be very successful.”

jdandrea@panow.com

On Twitter: @jeff_dandrea

by Jeff D'Andrea

POLL: Raiders announce Clouston as head coach

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