Hate the NHL coaching retread mill? Well, we've got some bad news for you (2024)

EDMONTON — Kris Knoblauch doesn’t look the part of an NHL head coach. He’s not old enough, not angular enough, his neck isn’t thick enough. Too tall, too wiry. He doesn’t have a bitchin’ scar traversing his face, he can’t burn a hole through lead with the sheer might of his glare. Hell, he doesn’t even look like he can beat up the other team’s coach. Knoblauch looks more like a history professor, or an insurance salesman, or one of the analytics guys toiling away back at the office. He’s quiet, calm, pleasant.

But the man knows hockey. He coached the Kootenay Ice to a Western Hockey League championship in his first year as a head coach. He took Connor McDavid, Alex DeBrincat and Dylan Strome to the Ontario Hockey League final with the Erie Otters, then won it all two years later without McDavid. After two years as a Philadelphia Flyers assistant and four-plus years as the head coach of the American Hockey League’s Hartford Wolf Pack, Knoblauch found himself back as McDavid’s head coach, this time behind the bench of the storied Edmonton Oilers. At just 45 years old.

And all he’s done is take a team that started the season 3-9-1 to the Western Conference final.

This is how it’s supposed to work, right? Pay your dues, prove yourself at one level and graduate to the next until you reach the highest level there is. Knoblauch got here on merit, with no prior NHL head-coaching experience. It should be the norm. But in the NHL, it’s anything but.

Too often, it seems the only requirement for being an NHL head coach is having previously been an NHL head coach. Whether it’s a lack of imagination or a lack of courage, general managers are generally reluctant to put their team’s fate in the hands of a novice.

Knoblauch gets it. But he’s also proof new blood can work, too.

“Well, there’s not very many positions,” he said. “And it’s a position that holds a lot of responsibility. So if you’re giving that responsibility to somebody, you want somebody that you’re certain can handle it and has done that job before. So it’s tough to put somebody in that position. That being said, there’s a lot of good quality coaches in the minor leagues, whether it’s college, American League, junior, whatever. There’s a lot of good coaches out there. But myself, I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity and it happened to work out for me. I just think there’s a lot of good coaches out there.”

The NHL’s retread mill can be exhausting sometimes. Flat-out boring, even. In the past six weeks alone, the Buffalo Sabres rehired Lindy Ruff, the Ottawa Senators gave Travis Green another chance, the Toronto Maple Leafs hired ex-St. Louis Blues coach Craig Berube, the New Jersey Devils picked Sheldon Keefe less than two weeks after those same Maple Leafs fired him, and the Winnipeg Jets promoted ex-Columbus Blue Jackets coach Scott Arniel. Jim Hiller’s losing the interim tag in Los Angeles was the only “new” hire in the bunch.

So when the Seattle Kraken named former Pittsburgh Penguins and Sabres coach Dan Bylsma their second-ever bench boss Tuesday, the general response around the hockey world was a tepid, “Uh, sure, I guess.” Another NHL coaching opening. Another chance to bring some fresh blood into the league. Another uninspired retread. Yawn.

But here’s the thing: When the New York Rangers hired Peter Laviolette last summer, fans greeted him with all the enthusiasm of a school summer reading list. When the Florida Panthers hired Paul Maurice two years ago, the hockey world shrugged in unison. When the Dallas Stars hired Pete DeBoer that same summer, we all rolled our eyes.

Yet we are in the NHL’s final four, and those are the three coaches joining the interloper Knoblauch. And given how Laviolette has unlocked Alexis Lafrenière, and how Maurice has taken Florida on two straight deep runs, and how DeBoer has convinced his Stars to embrace smaller roles for the greater good, it’s getting tougher to criticize the lack of creativity in front offices across the league.

After all, this is Laviolette’s sixth NHL head-coaching gig in the last 23 years, five of them in the same division. It’s Maurice’s fifth stint, two of which were for the same franchise in Carolina. And DeBoer has been an NHL head coach every single season for 16 straight years — with five different teams. For Pete’s sake, the guy was the head coach of the San Jose Sharks and the Vegas Golden Knights in the same season.

On the one hand, it’s almost absurd. On the other, well, there’s something to be said for experience, right?

“You’re talking about a really good group of coaches that have been around the game a long time,” Laviolette told reporters Tuesday in South Florida when asked about Maurice and DeBoer. “And it’s not by chance. They’ve done it because they’ve been successful.”

The fact DeBoer has been hired so quickly every time he’s been fired is a testament to the success he’s had just about everywhere he’s gone — he took New Jersey to the 2012 Stanley Cup Final, San Jose to the 2016 Stanley Cup Final and the 2019 Western Conference final, Vegas to the final four in 2020 and 2021, and Dallas to the conference final last season and this season.

Of course, the fact DeBoer has been fired so many times might have something to do with his inability to win that one last series. Maybe he doesn’t adapt, maybe his message wears thin more quickly than most. But if you need to turn a pretty good team into a contender, DeBoer is as safe a bet as there is. And it’s not hard to see why GMs keep hiring him.

“Pete definitely knows what it takes to win,” Stars winger Jason Robertson said. “I mean, I know he hasn’t won all of it, but he’s been damn close plenty of times.”

Though first-time coaches bring a new perspective, and often a more modern and analytically inclined approach to the game, retreads bring a multitude of perspectives, and a more wide-ranging approach to the game. Asked what he takes with him from job to job, DeBoer started rattling off the assistant coaches he’s worked alongside — Mike Kitchen in Florida; Larry Robinson and Adam Oates in New Jersey; Ken Hitchco*ck, Dave Tippett and Craig MacTavish with Hockey Canada. Like a young writer aping their hero’s style until it gradually morphs into their own unique voice, coaches build their own style and schemes on the backs of others’.

“Every staff you work with, you get better as a coach, being around people like that,” DeBoer said. “I’ve had a long list of guys I’ve worked with. … That’s probably the biggest thing, being around different people, different ideas, and taking the things you like and making them your own.”

The Oilers took a chance on Knoblauch because he was regarded as one of the top young coaching prospects around. His connection to McDavid certainly didn’t hurt. It was a bold stroke to hire Knoblauch, especially on the heels of giving Jay Woodcroft his first NHL head-coaching job two years earlier. Edmonton has gone outside the box — not too far outside the box, mind you, but maybe a step or two — and has benefitted greatly from it, as Woodcroft and Knoblauch reached the Western Conference final in their first year behind the bench. The NHL might be a more interesting place if more teams did the same.

But that will continue to be the exception, not the norm. This year’s crop of final four coaches ensures that. These are the same front offices that generally overvalue their own draft picks and prospects and are hesitant to make even minor trades. They’re highly risk averse and they like known commodities and familiar faces. Safe might be death on the ice, but upstairs, safe is job security.

It’s a little boring for fans, and it’s a lot frustrating for aspiring coaches. But given the impressive jobs done by Laviolette, Maurice and DeBoer, maybe it’s time those of us in the Hire Fresh Faces camp stop rolling our eyes every time a new old hire is made. Because it appears the old dogs have some new tricks to teach.

(Top photo of Peter Laviolette: Joel Auerbach / Getty Images)

Mark Lazerus is a senior NHL writer for The Athletic based out of Chicago. He has covered the Blackhawks for 11 seasons for The Athletic and the Chicago Sun-Times after covering Notre Dame’s run to the BCS championship game in 2012-13. Before that, he was the sports editor of the Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana. Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkLazerus