New GM Mike Gillis vowed to make the Vancouver Canucks a tougher team to play against this season and apparently the grittier approach will extend right into the coaching ranks.

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Vancouver Canucks General Manager Mike Gillis talks to the media outside GM Place.

Photograph by : Canwest News Service

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The Canucks filled an assistant coach vacancy on Wednesday, with the hiring of Darryl Williams -- who has been coaching in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League the past four seasons, but rang up 128 fighting majors in an 11-season minor league career in the AHL and IHL. According to www.dropyourgloves.com the feisty Williams amassed 2,418 PIM in a 664-game minor pro career that ended in 1999.

"That's something that I really enjoyed," said Williams, 40, who stepped right into the coaching ranks the next season with the Los Angeles Ice Dogs. "I knew I wasn't going to be a 50-goal scorer and I knew what my role was and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an opportunity to show up every night and work hard."

Williams, 40, joins the Canucks organization from the St. John's Fog Devils of the QMJHL, where he worked as associate coach, video co-ordinator and strength and conditioning coach.

Prior to joining St. John's, Williams served in several coaching capacities, including head coaching duties with the Kansas City Outlaws of the United Hockey League and assistant coach of the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks of the AHL.

Making it to The Show has always been Williams' dream -- whether as a player or coach.

"It's something you dream about when you break in as a player and it was no different when I started my coaching career as something I wanted to achieve," said Williams, a native of Labrador City, Nfld., who also had a two-game NHL call-up with the Los Angeles Kings in the 1992-93 season. "It's a great opportunity."

Williams will work alongside head coach Alain Vigneault, associate coach Rick Bowness and new assistant coach Ryan Walter on the Canucks staff.

About a month after Canucks GM Mike Gillis was hired, two of Vigneault's assistants -- Mike Kelly and Barry Smith -- were let go. Walter was hired to fill one of those vacancies. Williams will take on the video analyst responsibilities previously handled by Smith, which means he'll spend most games spotting for the bench coaches in the press box.

Vigneault said he first spoke with Williams about the position at the NHL draft in Ottawa in June.

"He was a tough guy, a real team guy and that's what what we were looking for," said Vigneault, who says he talked to "five or six applicants about the position.

"I like the fact he's got some playing experience in the minors, a guy who's paid his dues as a player trying to make it. And he's definitely paid his dues as a coach. I like that he's been around and gone the extra mile to try and reach his dream. I also got some really good references from guys like [Manitoba Moose head coach] Scott Arniel [Detroit Red Wings head coach] Mike Babcock."