An Unplanned Coaching Change, New Ownership

Well, the 1995-1996 season started off with head coach Jim Wiley leading the Blades into battle, winning two of their first three games. The next thing Blades fans knew, Wiley and his assistant coach Mark Kaufman were promoted to the San Jose Sharks. Wiley would take the reigns from former Blades coach Kevin Constantine after a not so great start to the season by the parent NHL team. In turn, the Blades were sent Vasily Tikhonov as head coach. Vasily being the son of legendary Russian coach Viktor Tikhonov. Drew Remenda was also sent to KC to serve as his assistant coach. All of this took place on October 10, so the season had barely started.

The coaching change would be just one of many changes that went on during this season. In December, Pat Ferschweiler was traded to the San Francisco Spiders for Blades legend Jeff “Mad Dog” Madill. The next month saw the Blades have another former player sent to them on a short-term basis when Arturs Irbe was sent down to KC for a conditioning assignment. Next up, Blades defenseman Ken Hammond announced his retirement. Then, after four months with the Blades assistant coach Drew Remenda was fired. General Manager Doug Soetaert assumed the position of associate coach. And, finally, after all of those changes to the team, the biggest one happened. Russ and Diane Parker (the original owners of the team) sold the Blades to Daniel G. and Pamela G. DeVos.

Despite all the changes, the team was able to come together and qualify for the IHL playoffs. They finished the season with a 39-38-5 record at 83 points. (Tikhonov’s record behind the bench for the Blades would be 37-37-5) The Blades ended up losing to the Utah Grizzlies in the first round, three games to two.

Jersey Number	Position	Player	Seasons with Team
6	D	Jeff Batters	1995-1996
28	D	Sergei Bautin	1995-1996
12, 25	LW	David Bruce	1991-1992, 1993-1998
14, 91	RW	Jan Caloun	1994-1996
18	LW	Alexander Cherbayev	1993-1996
19, 42, 24	RW	Shean Donovan	1994-1996
30	G	Rob Dopson	1995-1996
1	G	Larry Dyck	1994-1997
3	D	Paul Dyck	1995-1997
15	C	Gary Emmons	1991-1997
24, 33	LW	Dean Ewen	1995-1998
11, 14	C/RW	Pat Ferschweiler	1994-2000
22	RW	Dean Grillo	1994-1996
4	D	Ken Hammond	1994-1996
19	D	Jason Hehr	1995-1996
33	G	Jim Hrivnak	1994-1996
1, 30	G	Arturs Irbe	1991-1993, 1995-1996
29	D	Andrew Kemper	1994-1996
	LW	Andrei Kozlov	1994-1996
25	C	Viktor Kozlov	1994-1996
28, 44, 21	D	Vlastimil Kroupa	1993-1996, 1998-1999
23	D	Dan Laperriere	1995-1996
17, 12	RW	Jeff Madill	1991-1992, 1995-1997
8	LW	Jeff McLean	1992-1994, 1995-1997
5	D	Derry Menard	1992-1993
23, 62, 26	LW	Andrei Nazarov	1993-1996
7	C	Fredrick Nilsson	1993-1996
2	D	Fredrik Oduya	1995-1996
5	D	Alex Osadchy	1995-1996
14	LW	Ville Peltonen	1995-1996
20, 25	C/LW	J.F. Quintin	1991-1998
29	G	Geoff Sarjeant	1995-1996
21	D	Claudio Scremin	1990-1998
26, 42	D	Jeff Sirkka	1995-1997
23, 11	RW	Dean Sylvester	1995-1998
9	RW	Chris Tancill	1994-1996
10	C	Alexei Yegorov	1995-1996