By Paul Post
Sylvain Cloutier made it all the way up to the NHL during his 21-year pro career.
He’s in the Adirondack Hockey Hall of Fame for his outstanding play with the Red Wings, IceHawks and Frostbite.
He also has extensive minor league and major junior experience behind the bench, but most important, he’s a proven winner, which made him the best choice among nearly 50 candidates to become the Adirondack Thunder’s new head coach.
“We did like the fact that he has a history in Adirondack,” team President and General Manager Jeff Mead said. “The biggest factor is we think he’s the right person to lead our team back to the playoffs and compete at the highest levels of the ECHL on a consistent basis.”
The 51-year-old Cloutier was introduced to dozens of enthusiastic fans who turned out for a July 15 press conference at Heritage Hall in Cool Insuring Arena. He takes over a team that set a franchise attendance record last season, but also went from first to worst in the ECHL’s North Division standings.
“Obviously we want to win, keep people coming to the building, put on a show. That’s what we plan on doing,” he said. “We’re excited about the guys that we’re going to bring in. There will be some new faces, too.”
Cloutier is the fifth coach in team history, succeeding Peter MacArthur who led Adirondack to regular season division and Eastern Conference titles in 2024, but resigned at the end of last season, in the middle of a two-year contract.
Adirondack is the Double-A affiliate of the NHL’s New Jersey Devils.
The Thunder job fulfills a nearly lifelong dream for Cloutier who played his first pro game, scored his first goal and got into his first fight at Adirondack. A 1992 third-round draft pick of the Detroit Red Wings, he went on to play in 565 AHL games, was captain of the Calder Cup champion Houston Aeros in 2003, and had a brief stint with the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks.
After his playing career, he got behind the bench in 2008 with the Corpus Christi IceRays of the Central Hockey League before heading overseas to England to coach the Hull Stingrays from 2009-2014.
Cloutier returned to Canada to be head coach and general manager of the Essa Stallions in the Canadian Premier Junior Hockey League and led them to a 106-21-3 record over three seasons, including back-to-back championships in 2018 and ’19 while also collecting the 2017-18 regular season championship with a 42-2-0 record.
Next, he went back to Corpus Christi for the 2022-23 season. This past year he helped lead the IceRays to their best regular season in team history in the North American Hockey League with a record of 35-19-2-3.
“Sylvain has deep roots in Adirondack hockey history,” Mead said. “He had an incredible work ethic as a player and he does as a coach. The way he played the game will be how our team will compete on the ice. Our fans deserve a team that competes day in and day out. A team led by Sylvain will certainly provide this for our community.”
Cloutier will be joined behind the bench by Associate Coach Ben Holmstrom, 38, who is also no stranger to Glens Falls. He is the only player to spend all five years with the former Adirondack Phantoms during their AHL tenure in Glens Falls from 2019-14 and was also team captain.
Holmstrom appeared in seven NHL games with the Philadelphia Flyers during that span and also played for Norfolk, Cincinnati and South Carolina in the ECHL from 2019-22. For the past two years he’s been assistant coach of the ECHL’s Orlando Solar Bears.
Both coaches were chosen by the Adirondack Hockey Board comprised of Glens Falls business and professional leaders Elisabeth Mahoney, Paul Dowen, David Krogmann, Kevin Mahoney and Ed Moore, and four NHL veterans who live locally – Claude Loiselle, Glenn Merkosky, Greg Joly and Craig Darby.