Per Mollie Walker, the NY Rangers have hired a new skating and skills coach. Christian Hmura replaces Mark Ciaccio, who appears to have been demoted to prospect development coach (more on that in a second). This was a much needed move as Ciaccio was more of a problem than people realized. Hmura will be around the reach regularly, something we didn’t really see with Ciaccio.
#NYR have hired Christian Hmura as a skills and performance development coach, per source. He will be on the coaching staff and around the team regularly.
Mark Ciaccio is still with the organization, but in a new role as a prospect development skills coach.
— Mollie Walker (@MollieeWalkerr) August 7, 2023
On Ciaccio, which seems to be the bigger focus on social media, I wouldn’t put too much stock into his new role. The overwhelming majority of prospects are going to be with their own teams in the CHL, NCAA, or overseas. The few that he will be able to influence outside of prospect development camp are those in the AHL.
For now, that’s only 2-4 realistic NHLers in Brennan Othmann, Brett Berard, maybe Adam Sykora if he doesn’t go back overseas, and maybe Will Cuylle if he doesn’t make the Rangers outright. The other thing to remember is that any prospect spending more than 1-2 years in the AHL is a longshot for the NHL. So the impact should be minimal, and this assumes he’s given access to the AHL team regularly.
As for Christian Hmura, the new person, he was a part of the Chicago Mission youth hockey program, so this has Dan Muse written all over it. Muse has been quite the hire thus far. We don’t know much about Hmura aside from his successes with Chicago, but anything is an upgrade on Mark Ciaccio.
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