The NHL coaching carousel has been spinning quite heavily in recent days, and that will likely continue to happen leading up to the offseason.
Starting with Mike Babcock resigning from the Columbus Blue Jackets last September, there have been 12 NHL coaching changes in 2023-24, and several of those teams still need to figure out who will be behind the bench for the 2024-25 season.
Three teams fired their head coaches in the middle of the season and immediately appointed a new full-time bench boss. The Edmonton Oilers made the switch from Jay Woodcroft to Kris Knoblauch, the Minnesota Wild replaced Dean Evason with John Hynes and the New York Islanders hired Patrick Roy on the heels of firing Lane Lambert.
Most recently, the Toronto Maple Leafs announced they have fired head coach Sheldon Keefe after an opening-round playoff exit. Keefe tallied a 212-97-40 record in 349 regular-season games with Toronto over the past five seasons. The Maple Leafs had recorded 100-point campaigns in each of the last three seasons, including registering a franchise record 115 points in 2021-22.
In addition, Ottawa Senators and St. Louis Blues finalized their respective head coaching decisions. The Blues agreed to a two-year contract extension with Drew Bannister, who had been the interim head coach after previous head coach Craig Berube was fired. In addition, the Senators hired former New Jersey Devils interim head coach Travis Green as their next head coach.
Outside of those changes, seven teams are still looking for their next full-time head coaches. It will be interesting to see how those searches play out especially as the first round of the playoffs comes to an end.
Keep track of every NHL coaching carousel hiring and firing below.
Team | Former coach | Interim coach | New coach |
Don Granato | N/A | Lindy Ruff | |
Columbus Blue Jackets | Mike Babcock | Pascal Vincent | |
Jim Hiller | |||
Lindy Ruff | Travis Green | ||
D.J. Smith | Jacques Martin | Travis Green | |
David Quinn | N/A | ||
N/A | |||
Craig Berube | Drew Bannister | Drew Bannister |
