Charlie Huddy, the long-time assistant coach to Craig MacTavish here in Edmonton, has been hired by the Dallas Stars as an assistant coach to Marc Crawford.  It's a solid hire; the Oilers defense corps has generally been a strength during Huddy's tenure, and he helped not only to develop some excellent young defensemen (players like Eric Brewer, Tom Poti, Marc-Andre Bergeron, Matt Greene, Ladislav Smid, Tom Gilbert, Denis Grebeshkov, etc.) but he's done tremendous work with older defensmemen cast adrift by their former teams (Igor Ulanov, Steve Staios, Jan Hejda) or with some holes in their games (notably Sheldon Souray this past season).

It's difficult for fans to evaluate assistants, but Huddy has a tremendous track record and I'm very sad to see him going to Dallas (I'd have preferred somewhere out East).  Defending Big D, which has been following this story, will likely have a little more on Huddy's hiring over on their site.