Rookies, retreads, and … Babcock? Ranking every NHL coaching hire by tier
As the triumphant Carolina Hurricanes embark on a summer-long party in celebration of their second Stanley Cup victory, 31 other teams are left to pick up the pieces and figure out why the Canes, and not them, got to take the grail home.
If you count the New York Islanders’ firing of Patrick Roy after 78 games (we did), six of those teams determined they weren’t going to unseat Carolina without doing something differently behind the bench. The Edmonton Oilers’ impending hire of Mike Babcock will mean each of those clubs has found its man.
So, how did a half-dozen organizations, including Edmonton and the Toronto Maple Leafs, fare in their quest to find their next winning coaches? They’ll have to play the games for the rest of us to really know. In the meantime, I’ve broken down each hire into tiers that shed some light on the rationale behind them.
The Big Fish
Peter DeBoer’s impressive career was never going to be on hold for long. But is now the right time for his marriage to the Islanders?
Pete DeBoer, New York Islanders
For the second hiring cycle running, the top dog has landed in New York. Last summer, when the New York Rangers landed Mike Sullivan, their intent was clear. Sullivan was to squeeze some extra juice out of a core that won the Presidents’ Trophy just a year earlier. It didn’t work, as the Rangers’ decay has only sped up since then, but it made sense. The motivations behind Pete DeBoer’s takeover of the crosstown rival New York Islanders are not quite so obvious.
Islanders’ GM Mathieu Darche canned Patrick Roy with four games remaining and the team’s ill-fated playoff charge on life support. That made sense. Roy’s record was relatively strong, but his team looked lost on the ice, propped up only by the brilliance of goaltender Ilya Sorokin and rookie dynamo Matthew Schaefer. Giving the next guy a chance to evaluate the current roster, ahead of what was increasingly likely to be a long offseason, was good business by Darche. In theory, so was cutting in line for a coach with 97 playoff victories, the most of any bench boss without a Stanley Cup on his resume.
DeBoer’s detail-oriented approach will immediately raise the floor in Long Island for a team that has lacked organization since firing Barry Trotz in 2022. Still, he hasn’t gone into a job focused on player development over immediate results in well over a decade. Are the Isles, whose cap sheet took on water when Darche traded for well-worn veterans Brayden Schenn and Ondrej Palat for the stretch run, rushing things? A hire with stronger developmental chops might have better signaled that the organization’s focus going forward is to build around Schaefer and a promising pipeline of prospects, not leftovers from the Trotz era.
Rookie Promotions
Pacific Division teams on opposite sides of the NHL standings have spent years grooming former NHLers for the big chair. Now, it’s their time to shine.
Manny Malhotra, Vancouver Canucks
NHL shot callers have proven time and again that they will weather any amount of bad publicity to increase their Stanley Cup odds by even the smallest of margins. Just ask Edmonton. It’s not a league that typically holds optics in high regard. Still, a Vancouver club that spent most of the Jim Rutherford era bouncing from one PR nightmare to the next needed a squeaky-clean hire to indicate things would be different under new boss Ryan Johnson. They got one with Manny Malhotra. What’s not to like about a popular former Canuck who spent the past decade working his way up the organizational totem pole? And who could better understand the frustrations of those song-suffering ‘Nucks fans?
Oh, and Malhotra can coach, too. Vancouver’s last-placed NHL outfit gutted his roster in AHL Abbotsford during a forgettable 2025-26 campaign, but only after Malhotra finished off his rookie season as a head coach in the ‘A’ by winning the same 2025 Calder Cup that bolstered Johnson’s resume ahead of his own promotion from Abbotsford. The rapport Malhotra developed in ‘Abby’ with current NHLers Linus Karlsson and Elias Pettersson (the young defenseman, not the embattled star center), among others, should help soften his landing into a difficult job.
If there’s one ding on this hire that makes it more layup than slam dunk, it’s the timing. Had Malhotra gotten the top job last summer, when Rutherford and the erstwhile brass promoted assistant coach Adam Foote primarily due to his relationship with superstar captain Quinn Hughes, perhaps the ‘Nucks would have iced a competitive enough team to convince Hughes to stick around. Instead, Malhotra steps into the unenviable task of keeping standards and morale high throughout a roster that looks primed for a lengthy rebuild after the most disappointing season in team history. One player who is likely to bring some optimism amidst all this gloom is Manny’s son Caleb Malhotra, the top center in the draft and a near-lock to hear his name called when the Canucks make the third pick of the NHL Entry Draft on Friday.
Ryan Craig, Vegas Golden Knights
In European history, the ‘Hundred Days’ was the period during which Napoleon returned from exile, overthrew the French monarchy, and suffered his final, signature defeat at Waterloo. John Tortorella’s 79 days as Vegas’s bench boss were only slightly less melodramatic. ‘Torts’ returned from his own exile to lead the Knights oh-so-close to their second Stanley Cup. General manager/Evil Emperor Kelly McCrimmon nonetheless decided to go in a different direction when Tortorella’s contract expired at the end of the postseason. Enter Ryan Craig, who served as an assistant with the Golden Knights from their inception until their first Cup triumph before taking over the bench for AHL Henderson in 2023.
The bones of Vegas’ heavy, defensive game have remained intact throughout the respective tenures of the franchise’s previous four coaches, so Craig’s style of player management will be more critical to a successful maiden voyage than any X’s and O’s. Given the former NHL/AHL swingman’s youth (Craig is 44) and existing relationships with several Vegas players, perhaps it would behoove him to loosen the reins a bit and rely on his veteran leaders, who spent most of the past four seasons taking their cues from Tortorella’s drill sergeant predecessor, Bruce Cassidy. That approach worked wonders for Tortorella, who readily acknowledged that his men didn’t need coaching so much as motivation during his brief tenure as the Golden Knights’ bench boss.
Despite his promising resume as a homegrown coach (Craig led Henderson to the best season in franchise history in 2025-26, with 90 points and a preliminary-round victory), Craig’s hire comes with added pressure from the specter of Tortorella’s successes. McCrimmon shirked a coach with nearly 800 regular-season victories, one who authored a shocking demolition job of the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche a few short weeks ago, in favor of his anointed candidate. McCrimmon will never apologize for making bold moves, and he’s usually right. Just ask him. Still, moving on from an NHL icon in favor of a greenhorn is sure to raise some eyebrows at an otherwise sensible hire.
The Analytic Hire
Jim Hiller’s appointment is nonetheless a logical step in what has been a surprisingly coherent start to the John Chayka era.
Jim Hiller, Toronto Maple Leafs
Since a string of high draft picks catapulted the Maple Leafs back to relevance a decade ago, Toronto has hired two Stanley Cup winners, Mike Babcock and Craig Berube, and a massively successful developmental coach, Sheldon Keefe, to run its bench. Jim Hiller has neither the hardware of Babcock and Berube nor the laundry list of amateur and minor-league achievements Keefe boasted. Hiller’s most memorable moment with the comparatively under-the-radar L.A. Kings, the only team he has ever led as head coach, was goofing up the Kings’ last, best shot of knocking off the Edmonton Oilers in the playoffs.
So, no, Hiller is not the sort of highly decorated bench boss fans in the GTA have become accustomed to. That doesn’t make him the wrong hire. In fact, we probably should have connected the dots on Hiller to Toronto sooner, given the analytic inclinations of his new boss, John Chayka. Though they were never a terribly fun watch, Hiller’s Kings were excellent at controlling chances in his only full season in charge (second in high-danger chance share in 2024-25) thanks to a 2-2-1 trap that helped mask the limitations of a lumbering blueline and limited dangerous looks on towering netminder Darcy Kuemper. Hiller might not bring the Leafs back to the high-flying Keefe days, but the lack of footspeed he overcame in L.A. should give him a puncher’s chance of salvaging something from the big, slow roster Chayka’s predecessor, Brad Treliving, left behind. The stylistic similarities between Kuemper and Toronto netminders Dennis Hildeby and Anthony Stolarz should be an encouraging sign for Maple Leafs fans, too. Add in the fact that Hiller has built-in rapport from his time as a Babcock assistant with longtime Leafs, including Auston Matthews and Morgan Reilly, both in dire need of a reset, and his appointment looks all the more sensible.
The big question for Hiller isn’t his ability to manage an uneven roster or to be a players’ coach. He did both in L.A. It’s whether he can cope with adversity in a market where his every move garners discussion on every blog, podcast, and radio station in southeast Ontario. Hiller’s mismanagement of a series he looked to have in the bag against the Oil, and his inability to adjust on the fly last season, when he got the axe, are red flags. If Hiller the crumbler, and not Hiller the clever system coach, shows up in Toronto, you can be sure Leafs Nation will bemoan Chayka and Keith Pelley’s decision not to open up the checkbook for, say, Cassidy.
The Retread
After his first year off in a quarter century, Peter Laviolette is back to coach his seventh team. Does the three-time conference champ still have it?
Peter Laviolette, Los Angeles Kings
When a face as familiar as Peter Laviolette’s pops up in a hiring cycle, a chorus of groans from fans who bemoan the perceived lack of originality plaguing NHL front offices typically follows. This time, they might have a point. L.A. GM Ken Holland’s biggest issue during the latter part of his career has been his infatuation with what players have done in the past instead of what they can offer his teams in the future. That blind spot has seemingly bled into his latest coaching hire. Laviolette’s bipolar stint with the New York Rangers ended in such a disjointed mess that it’s fair to wonder if his tactics still work in the modern game.
After 846 regular-season wins, it’d be uncharitable to imply that ‘Lavy’ just can’t coach anymore. His Rangers did win the 2024 Presidents’ Trophy, after all, and Laviolette’s willingness to encourage his players to take chances on the rush should be a welcome change of pace in an L.A. market that has suffered through several seasons of unattractive trap-defense hockey. Perhaps that run-and-gun style will unlock talented wingers Kevin Fiala and Adrian Kempe, who had their wings clipped by the Kings’ low-event ways. Perhaps a reunion with veteran stud Artemi Panarin, who piled up 120 points in Laviolette’s first season with the Rangers, proves fruitful. Perhaps uber-talented blueline righty Brandt Clarke has his long-awaited breakout in a more rush-oriented scheme.
Still, the end of Laviolette’s run in the Big Apple was ugly. The Blue shirts bled high-danger chances at the fourth-highest rate in the NHL, which is a frightening precedent considering the lack of youth and foot speed throughout L.A.’s Drew Doughty-led defense corps. Without those notoriously boring 1-3-1 and 2-2-1 traps that sheltered them during the Todd McLellan and Jim Hiller eras, respectively, it’s not hard to imagine Joel Edmundson or Doughty getting shredded in open ice. From the outside looking in, it’s difficult to tell who the Kings want to be without retired franchise icon Anze Kopitar around to lead from the front. Hiring Laviolette to helm a roster that seems ill-suited to adopt his up-tempo ways didn’t make L.A.’s place in a post-Kopitar world any clearer.
What the $*%@?
At a pivotal point in their history, the Oilers will turn to one of the most universally maligned figures in hockey.
Mike Babcock, Edmonton Oilers
The nuns always told me that swear words were indicative of a poor vocabulary, but how else can you react to the tornado of incompetence that must have led to this hire? My colleague Hunter Crowther was far more eloquent in his breakdown of how we got here, right down to the naked lobbying from the team’s media connections. To paraphrase Hunter: hiring a man who has revelled in humiliating his subordinates, including then-prized youngster Mitch Marner and Hall-of-Famers Mike Modano and Chris Chelios, is only a sane bet if that same man veritably guarantees your club a deep playoff run. Babcock does not. He lost his last job in Toronto, not because he tormented Marner, but because results on the ice dried up.
This is not to say a Stanley Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist doesn’t still boast an impressive mind for the game. Babcock would, in theory, be as strong a bet as any coach on the market not named Bruce Cassidy to enable the Oilers to replicate the stout defense they displayed in the brightest days of the Kris Knoblauch era, when they twice advanced to the Stanley Cup Final, on a more consistent basis. That’s assuming the changes to the sport during his lengthy exile have not rendered his methods obsolete. Babcock hasn’t coached at the NHL level in nearly seven years and did not win a playoff round for another six seasons before that.
His style of management is certainly long past its expiration date. Babcock’s legacy is one of cruelty towards any player or staffer he decides he can get away with running into the ground. Not the Cup. Not the medals. Just a never-ending outcry of disappointment from former players who can’t believe he gets to do it all over again in a new town. Apparently, Stan Bowman wasn’t paying attention when Babcock squandered his first second chance in Columbus, where he tucked his tail and resigned before training camp even began, by immediately abusing his position of power. Perhaps that’s unsurprising, given Bowman’s own past. The Oilers’ GM’s legacy will gain another black mark if this doesn’t work out famously. He’ll be the guy who botched Edmonton’s last chance to win with Connor McDavid, whose short-term contract, signed last summer, was very much an ultimatum to the top brass. They haven’t held up their end of the bargain, and Babcock’s hiring could be the final nail in the coffin of McDavid’s brilliant, frustrating ride in Edmonton.
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