Report: Former NHL coach Gerard Gallant leaves KHL team due to illness

Former NHL head coach Gerard Gallant will step down as head coach of the KHL’s Shanghai Dragons for the rest of the season, Pierre LeBrun reported Monday. 

The 62-year-old recently returned from battling an illness and consulted with the team’s doctors and management before opting to return home to Canada’s smallest province, Prince Edward Island, with a focus on recovering to 100 percent health. 

The Dragons, which play out of St. Petersburg, Russia, instead of China, hired the veteran Canadian bench boss in August 2025 during their first season, after rebranding from their previous moniker, Kunlun Red Star. 

Under Gallant, they had started the season well, winning seven of their first nine games and holding top spot in the KHL’s Eastern Conference in the early stages. Since then, the club has slowed down and currently sits ninth in the conference, six points out of the Gagarin Cup Playoffs cutoff. 

In March, the Dragons are scheduled to play two KHL regular-season games in Shanghai, marking the KHL’s return to Chinese ice since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when Red Star relocated to Russia. 

With Gallant returning to Canada, 65-year-old Mike Kelly will serve as the interim head coach, having been a long-time assistant to Gallant during spells with the New York Rangers, the Vegas Golden Knights, and the Florida Panthers. 

It will be Kelly’s first head coaching role in senior men’s professional hockey, having previously only served as a head coach with the QMJHL’s Saint John Sea Dogs from 2012 to 2014. In December, the club announced that former NHLer Alexei Kovalev would serve as a midseason assistant coach through the end of the campaign. 

With a new outlook and hopes of Gallant’s return to full health, the Dragons look ahead to their next game as they host St. Petersburg’s SKA on Wednesday, before hitting the road to face Lokomotiv Yaroslavl on Saturday night.