Coaching changes can be a common occurrence at this time of year in the NHL and the top free agent bench boss this off-season is undoubtedly Joel Quenneville.
“The word on him is that he is going to look first and foremost for a pathway to win a Stanley Cup,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported Saturday during the Headlines segment of Hockey Night in Canada. “If he believes your organization is a team that can win the Stanley Cup, that’s his No. 1 criteria.”
Quenneville was fired by the Chicago Blackhawks in early November after more than a decade with the team, winning three Stanley Cup championships along the way.
The 60-year-old had one year remaining on the three-year contract extension he inked in 2016 paying him an average of $6 million per year, which made him the second-highest-paid coach in the NHL behind only Mike Babcock.
Quenneville made his head coaching debut with the Blues in 1996-97 after winning a Stanley Cup with the Avalanche as an assistant the season prior. He spent eight years in St. Louis followed by a three-season stint as Colorado’s head coach before joining the Blackhawks in 2008.
His 890 career victories is second only to Scotty Bowman on the NHL’s all-time wins list.
[relatedlinks]