There’s a lot that’s the same with the staff Detroit Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill announced Tuesday.

Tony Granato is back from Mike Babcock’s bench staff of last season.

“Tony was my No. 1 call, or I should say my first call when I received notice that I was going to be the head coach of the Red Wings,” Blashill said. “He was my No. 1 priority. For a model staff I wanted a guy with lots of NHL playing and coaching experience, so Tony obviously fits that model. But probably beyond that and more importantly, I think he’s a home run because of the person he is.

“Tony’s an outstanding person, an outstanding hockey coach, who has earned the respect of so many of the players that he’s coached. I’ve talked to guys that played with him, or played for him in Pittsburgh, talked to many of the players here in Detroit and all of them have a real infinity for Tony. So I thought it was an extreme priority to get Tony to stay onboard and I couldn’t be more excited that he is.”

Jim Bedard returns for his 19th season as a goalie coach, but he can expect some input from Blashill, a former college goaltender.

“I think Jimmy’s a proven NHL goalie coach,” Blashill said. “He’s done a great job over the years. Having some of that experience added to our staff or continuing with our staff is important, like I mentioned with Tony.

“The other thing is Jimmy and I have a relationship where I’ve got certain beliefs in things a goalie should do, drills a goalie should do, no different than I have certain beliefs in the penalty kill and things like that where I would discuss with other coaches.

“Jimmy and I have a relationship where we’re going to be able to have those discussions. I’ll be able to add my input and he’ll be able to go out and build upon the foundation he’s already laid.”

While the rest of Blashill’s staff is new to Detroit, none of them are new to the Red Wings organization.

Pat Ferschweiler was Blashill’s right-hand man at Western Michigan and with Grand Rapids of the AHL and that relationship will continue into the NHL.

“Pat was the guy that I tried the hardest to get to come to Western, and that’s because I had the opportunity to watch Pat grow a program, a youth program, from the very ground stages and build it to one of the elite programs nationally, and I saw that first hand,” Blashill said. “Then as I got to know Pat I realized what a great hockey mind, what a great person, and what a strength he’d be and an asset on the staff.

“He’s a good sounding board for me. He knows the way I think. He knows a lot of the things that we want to be about. He’ll be able to tell me when I’m on the right path and when I’ve gotten off the right path. So I think Pat is a huge, huge asset on our staff.”

Video coach Dave Noel-Bernier joined Blashill’s staff last season in Grand Rapids and will also follow him to the big leagues.

“Dave’s actually got lots of experience as a video coach,” Blashill said. “He did that at Nebraska-Omaha, he was in charge of it when he was an assistant in the USHL with Muskegon. “He’ll be largely in charge of our pre-scouts, so he’ll be the one watching our upcoming opponents. He’ll be breaking those games down and supplying the information to me and the rest of the staff.

“That’s a little different than how Babs did it in the past so I think a couple key things there are one, a great hockey knowledge, and also an understanding of what I like to glean from the video, what types of clips I like to show in our meetings, what types of things we want in our preparation and David’s already been through that with me so that’s a huge advantage.

“You also need somebody in that role who’s willing to work and Dave’s a tireless worker. He sent me an email last night at 2:30 in the morning on a project I’d given him and it’s the middle of the summer.”

Perhaps the most interesting member of the staff, and maybe the X-factor in all of this will be hall of fame defenseman Chris Chelios. Though he won’t be considered a full-time assistant coach, Chelios will work as an eye in the sky on game nights and will do developmental work with the Detroit defense at practices as he continues to get his feet wet in the coaching profession.

“Cheli’s been in kind of a similar role for the last three years and I think every year it’s increased in terms of his scope and number of games he’s able to attend and things like that,” Blashill said. “He’s done a great job for me of getting me a player perspective. He looks at the game a lot through the eyes of a player, and I think when you’ve coached a long time you think like a coach and a lots of times Cheli thinks like a player.

“He looks at a lot of plays from a micro view and maybe I’ll look at them from a macro view, and I think that different perspective has been invaluable for me over the last three years.”

The familiarity each member of his staff has with Detroit’s players, and by contrast, the familiarity so many of the Detroit players have with the staff members should make the change to new voices and new ways of doing things might not be as dramatic as with many coaching switches.

“I think it helps in the transition that there is a familiarity there,” Blashill said. “I don’t think it by any means guarantees success, but it certainly helps in the transition. I also think it helps in the respect-level earned from both the player to the coach and the coach to the player.

“I think it’s going to allow us - with the familiarity with the coaches to the players and coaches to each other - it’s going to allow us to hit the ground running and maybe ease over some of those bumps in the road that we could face, because of that type of familiarity.”

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