Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Hurricanes add Ray Whitney, three others to scouting staff

Carolina Hurricanes v New York Islanders

Jeff Daniels

Getty Images

Less than a year after officially ending his playing career, Ray Whitney has returned to the Carolina Hurricanes to begin the next chapter of his professional life.

Along with Mark Craig, Jeff Daniels, and Don Elland, Whitney has joined the Carolina Hurricanes’ scouting staff, per the team’s release. Elland will serve as an amateur scout while the rest will be pro scouts.

“Mark, Jeff and Ray will bring a fresh perspective to our pro scouting staff, and Don brings a wealth of experience in the OHL to our amateur staff,” said Hurricanes GM Ron Francis.

Whitney enjoyed a 1,330-game playing career that involved stints with the San Jose Sharks, Edmonton Oilers, Florida Panthers, Columbus Blue Jackets, Detroit Red Wings, Phoenix Coyotes, and Dallas Stars as well as the Hurricanes. His stint with Carolina was the longest at 372 games, but more importantly Carolina is the team he won the Stanley Cup with back in 2006.

He’s tied for 59th place on the all-time assists leaderboard (679) and is 63rd in points (1,064).

Daniels is another former Hurricanes player and the retired forward logged 425 games at the NHL level. At this point though, Hurricanes fans likely know him better for his work as a coach as he spent four years working as an assistant with Carolina before logging another seven as the bench boss of their AHL-affiliate. He was relieved of that post in April.

Craig also has ties to the Hurricanes, albeit in a less direct way. When current Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos Jr. owned the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires, Craig was his team’s first bench boss. Craig spent the 2014-15 campaign as the OHL’s Plymouth Whalers’ general manager, which Karmanos also owned until January.

Similarly, Elland was the Whalers’ head coach for the 2014-15 campaign and had originally joined that franchise’s coaching staff in 2010.

Follow @RyanDadoun