Breaking: One day after leaving the Blues Kirk Muller has signed with a new team.

Former National Hockey League great Kirk Muller shocked a great many pundits on Wednesday when he announced he would not be returning to St. Louis as an assistant coach. The move was especially shocking because Muller was pegged by many as the heir apparent to Ken Hitchcock as the Blues head coach, something that the search by the Blues to replace would appear to confirm.

Roughly 24 hours after making that major announcement, Muller has once again surprised the hockey world, this time by announcing that he has signed with his former team, the Montreal Canadiens, as an associate coach under Michel Therrien.

This signing is interesting on so many levels, the first being the motivation for Muller to make the move. There was a belief among many that Therrien would be fired after a disastrous season but general manager Marc Bergevin stuck by him, and Therrien kept his job. This signing is less than an hour old but there are already rumors that this could be a security blanket should another collapse occurs next season under Therrien's watch. Those rumors would make sense from Muller's perspective, otherwise why leave a guaranteed future head coaching job to take a position as an associate coach? 

We may get some answers Friday morning, as Therrien and Muller are expected to hold at joint press conference at 11 am.

[pub]