October 6, 2022 by Ryan Lotsberg

The Edmonton Oilers have announced that they have hired Steve Staios as a special advisor to the hockey operations staff in a player development capacity.

Most recently, Staios was the President and General Manager of the OHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs. The Hamilton Bulldogs won the OHL Championship last season and lost in the Memorial Cup final. Staios’s Bulldogs won the 2018 OHL Championship as well. They finished third in the Memorial Cup that year. Previously to that, Staios spent three years in the Toronto Maple Leafs organization as an assistant coach and in the player development department. 

Staios is most known in Edmonton as a reliable and hard nosed defenceman for the Oilers from 2001-2010, which included a wild run to the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals. He amassed 56 goals and 220 points in 1001 NHL games. He also won gold medals for Canada in the 2003 and 2004 World Championships, and he added a World Championship silver medal in 2008.

Staios will bring valuable perspective to a developing group of defencemen like Philip Broberg, Markus Niemelainen, Dmitri Samorukov, Vincent Desharnais, Michael Kesselring, and Phil Kemp. His accomplishments in Hamilton suggest that he has NHL general management potential. The Oilers’s executive team continues to load up on strong prospects such as Keith Gretzky, Brad Holland, and now Staios. This appears to be a fantastic hire by the Oilers.