Prince Albert Raiders bring back Marc Habscheid as head coach

Exactly a month after their season ended, the Prince Albert Raiders announced today that Marc Habscheid will be back behind the bench next season. He signed a four-year extension in Hockey Town North.

Habscheid became Prince Albert’s interim head coach last season after Cory Clouston was canned just 15 games into the year. He finished the season with a respectable 24-28-2-2 record, including a 7-2-1-0 run to end the year, when considering the Raiders were sellers at the trade deadline.

“I very much enjoyed my first five months in Prince Albert,” Habscheid said in the release. “The community and organization was very welcoming. I am very pleased to continue that relationship over the next four years.”

Time will only tell whether Habscheid is the right man for the job, but his impressive hockey resume suggests that he has the know-how to get the Raiders back on their feet. He led the Kelowna Rockets to the Ed Chynoweth Cup in 2003 and has 10 years of coaching experience in the WHL. He was also an associate coach with the Boston Bruins in 2006-07.

It seems Habscheid will have enough talent to work with next year to challenge for a playoff spot. The Raiders have a quality goaltending duo in Rylan Parenteau and Nick McBride, albeit it seems one will be moved to make room for top 2014 bantam pick Ian Scott. In addition, it appears the best is yet to come from veteran forward Reid Gardiner and 17-year-old blueliner Brendan Guhle based on their progress last season.

On top of the Habscheid news, the Raiders announced they are bringing back director of player personnel Dale Derkatch next season. He has been with the organization since 2009.

Prince Albert is yet to deal with the elephant in the room – general manager Bruno Campese. The club is in the process of determining whether to exercise his option year for next season.

It’s hard to fathom how Prince Albert could justify bringing back Campese for a ninth season. The Raiders ultimately went nowhere in his eight years with the team as they won a total of two playoff games and didn’t manage to muster a single post-season victory with Edmonton Oilers prized pick Leon Draisaitl and Winnipeg Jets first-rounder Josh Morrissey in their lineup. Moreover, he has gone through two lifelines by firing a pair of coaches (Steve Young in 2013 and Clouston in 2014) after he relinquished his bench boss duties in his fifth year with the team. The onus is completely on him for Clouston because his controversial reputation was well known before he made the bold decision to hire him.

Campese deserves credit for recruiting elite talents like Draisaitl, Morrissey and Chicago Blackhawks first-rounder Mark McNeill, but he is yet to put together a complete team. The Raiders have appeared to lack offensive depth and have instability on the back end and in net under his watch. In addition, he’s made some questionable trades such as sending top 2013 bantam pick Jake Kryski to the Kamloops Blazers for then-overage goalie Cole Cheveldave two summers ago. He also didn’t seem to get full value for Morrissey at the trade deadline by not acquiring a first-round pick from the Rockets.

Campese was cut a lot of slack in his early years because his predecessor Donn Clark left him with a bare cupboard. It was a fair excuse in his first three seasons with the club, but was getting old by his fifth year in Prince Albert. Eight seasons later, a 2005-playoff run suggests the Clark era will be remembered as having more bright spots than the Campese era.

Kelly Friesen is a Buzzing the Net columnist for Yahoo! Sports. Follow him on Twitter @KellyFriesen