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Eakins attends Cowboys camp, picks Garrett’s brain

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Prior to getting hired in Edmonton, Dallas Eakins carved himself a niche as an “out of the box” thinker and “innovative” head coach.

Well, his latest move certainly fits that billing.

Last week, the Oilers bench boss dialed up Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett -- whom he’d never met -- and asked if he could drop by training camp to see how the NFL club operates.

Garrett obliged, and here’s how it went (per ESPN Dallas):

Eakins reached out to Garrett to see if he could watch a few training camp practices to see how such a big coaching staff works together with hockey staffs growing in number, too. Garrett said Eakins made reference to the mix of the Cowboys’ staff.

Garrett has had a lot of changeover on his Dallas Cowboys coaching staff since taking over full-time in 2011. He has always tried to have a mix of experience and youth on his staff, and this year the ages range from 28 (assistant wide receivers coach Kyle Valero) to 74 (assistant head coach/defense Monte Kiffin).

“One of the first things he said to me is, he sat in a lot of the different meetings and he said ‘There’s unbelievable diversity on your staff -- old guys, young guys, guys who have come from different places. Different philosophies, different coaching and teaching styles,’” Garrett said. “We have done that, whether it’s very, very consciously in every decision, I don’t know if that’s the case, but I do believe that’s important. You want to be able to reach the players and touch the players a lot of different ways. If I tried to hire everybody who was exactly like me, that would be a really, really bad thing. If we tried to hire everybody who was exactly like some model, that would be a bad thing. You want to have guys who have different personalities and somehow touch the guys differently. I think we’ve done that. It was interesting to me that he recognized that.”

Edmonton doesn’t have an overly large coaching staff, though it did undergo a significant change this offseason. Two of Eakins’ assistants -- Steve Smith and Kelly Buchberger -- were replaced by Craig Ramsay and Rocky Thompson; they joined a staff that already included fellow assistant Keith Acton and goalie coach Frederic Chabot.

Thompson and Ramsay are at different ends of the age spectrum, which could explain Eakins’ visit to Texas. Thompson turns 37 this week, was playing professional hockey as recently as 2007 and had just four years of pro coaching experience (as an assistant with AHL Oklahoma City). Ramsay, 63, is a well-traveled veteran; he had head coaching gigs in Buffalo, Philadelphia and Atlanta to go along with assistant/associate jobs in Florida, Ottawa, Tampa Bay and Boston.