The Capitals announced today that Adam Oates, who played with the team for six seasons between 1996 to 2002, will be 16th head coach in franchise history. Oates, 49, was most recently an assistant coach with the New Jersey Devils, who lost the Stanley Cup Finals to the Los Angeles Kings earlier this month.

In Oates, the Capitals are getting a former player with first-hand knowledge of leading a squad onto the ice. Oates served as the Capitals’ team captain during the 1999-2000 season, an experience, the Post notes, will serve him well in guiding current players like Alex Ovechkin:

“Everyone thinks of Adam Oates as an offensive guy but he’s not just that,” former Capitals winger Peter Bondra said in a phone interview. “I think he was a two-way player, he always was a two-way player, and you can see that in him as a coach. I remember he would always talk a lot to us about details, how to work on the forecheck, how to get back. I think his experience, what he gained as a player and now as a coach, I think it’s going to complement the Capitals well.”

Oates succeeds Dale Hunter, who coached the team through most of its 2011-2012 season after a poor start last December. Hunter, despite taking the Capitals into the second round of the NHL playoffs earlier this year, was not expected to stay on, instead choosing to return home to London, Ontario, where he owns a minor-league hockey club.

In his 19-season career, Oates scored 341 goals and tallied 1,079 assists, good for sixth-most in NHL history.