KALAMAZOO — Western Michigan University did everything right last year in resurrecting its hockey program.

It added oomph to its commitment to the sport, struck gold in hiring its coach and then rewarded him handsomely when he delivered a season beyond anyone's dreams.

WMU, in the college hockey world, had arrived as a player. It was perfect timing, too, considering this summer of flux that's upsetting stomachs in a suddenly fragile sport.

Then the National Hockey League, the beloved Detroit Red Wings of all teams, robbed the Broncos of everything, tearing Jeff Blashill away earlier this month. It was a harsh reminder to a university that it has its limits.

Monday, WMU showed hockey — the NHL included — its growing teeth, flying in former St. Louis Blues and Los Angeles Kings coach Andy Murray to replace Blashill.

A news conference is scheduled for noon Tuesday.

This wasn't eye-for-an-eye retribution toward the NHL. But, perhaps for WMU, it feels a little like it — as satisfying as it is important. The Broncos' new currency — major program-like dollars (expected to be about $275,000 per year) — has lured a coach who would have been an unfathomable hire a year ago.

Today, it just looks like a smart one.

At a moment when perception is every bit as important as substance, WMU is again as it was last month — a rising college hockey behemoth in search of a new league.

That's no shot at the 60-year-old Murray. His resume says he's far more than an aging show pony. He lasted most of 10 seasons as an NHL head coach, four times making the playoffs with the Kings (1999-2006) and Blues (2006-10). In a league that irrationally fires its first coach each season by November, that's staying power.

The question with Murray will be, is this the last stop? Has he decided, long-term, on a new lifestyle? Does he want a chance to leave a legacy at a place begging for a worthy legend?

Or, is this simply a stopover in an unfinished NHL journey?

Either is probably fine with WMU.

If he stays and continues what Blashill began, he'll be adored.

If he leaves after a slightly longer stay than Blashill's, he'll probably be replaced by one of his own staffers — assistant Pat Ferschweiler. Ferschweiler agreed to come to come to WMU last summer, recruited hard by Blashill, with the assumption that one day he might lead his alma mater.

If WMU hired a head coach with more recent college or amateur hockey experience — one with his own assistants in mind — all continuity from last season would have disappeared.

Instead, it appears, Ferschweiler and fellow assistant Rob Facca will stay, which works out as well for WMU financially as it does on the ice since both were already under contract for next season and are owed a combined $165,000.

Enter Murray, with knowledge of how hockey is played at its highest level. He inherits two ready-made assistants who know how that'll translate to the players already in the locker room and to the recruits on their way.

Until September, however, Murray is mostly a face and a name and an I-told-you-so hire that allows WMU director of athletics Kathy Beauregard to prove WMU's commitment to hockey and sell its program to nationally visible conferences.

Without question, Notre Dame — which is also looking for a new league as of 2013, and might like to keep the Broncos as a nearby conference foe — looks differently at WMU today than it did yesterday.

The new hoity-toity (raise your nose) National Collegiate Hockey Conference , with (again, noses up) its "six founding members," undoubtedly sees the Broncos as more attractive, as well.

The question is, is it enough?

It might take another year of sound hockey for the powers that be in this sport to truly believe.

Beauregard knows it. It's why she must view Murray as more than a splashy hire. It's why — finances aside — she wanted Ferschweiler and Facca to return.

She made a home run hire with Blashill in April 2010. For WMU's hockey program to be as viewed nationally as it's starting to see itself, she'll have to hit another one.

As of the last Monday in July, it appears she has.