How are NHL's nine new coaches faring so far?

One of the hardest things about being an NHL head coach is that, as it turns out, your team doesn’t actually want you to be their coach. Shocking twist, I know. I mean, typically, they at least wait for the honeymoon phase to play itself out, but if your team’s not good roughly 10 seconds after that phase ends, they go “Ah, well, time to start over.”

To wit: The NHL’s sevent-longest tenured coach is… Spencer Carbery, who’s led the Washington Capitals for all of 2.5 years. He still feels like a rookie coach, doesn’t he?

The league’s fourth-longest tenured coach is somehow Martin St. Louis, who it also feels like just got hired. He signed on in February of 2022, meaning he’s coached just three full seasons to this point (2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25). Only Rod Brind’Amour, Jared Bednar, and Jon Cooper have been around with one team longer than St. Louis.

Over the past 15 years, coaches have lasted less than 2.8 seasons in the job on average.

What that means is, a lot of teams have a guy behind the bench who’s just starting up fresh with them this season. And while the early season can often give us some bad information due to small sample sizes, we can spot the start of more lasting trends.

So, let’s do a quick check-in on each of the nine — count ‘em, nine! — coaches who are about a month into their start with their new clubs.

How’s it going so far, what are expectations, and how are things tracking?

Listed in order of hire date, with each team’s division ranking listed based on points percentage.

Mike Sullivan, New York Rangers, hired May 2
Team record: 6-6-2, eighth in Metro
Goal differential: -3

This one’s kind of a strange one to write about, because on the surface, it’s bad, right? A month into the year and they’re eighth in the division, they’ve won four games in regulation in 14 tries, and — in the team's 100th year celebration season — they very seriously cannot score at home. In six games at MSG, they’ve been shut out four times.

Sounds bleak, right?

The thing is, if they won a game tonight, they’d be third in their division by points, and not far off in points percentage. The division is tight. And further to that, Natural Stat Trick has them fourth in the NHL in expected goals percentage, which is extremely good. Sportlogiq has them as one of a handful of teams in the right quadrant when it comes to expected goals for and against.

So! Thus far, the results haven’t been there, but they’re 31st in the NHL in shooting percentage. They’re way, way more talented than that. They’ll be in the playoff hunt, which is better than last year.

Joel Quenneville, Anaheim Ducks, hired May 8
Team record: 8-3-1, first in Pacific
Goal differential: +11

Boy. This is really working.

Quenneville showed up in Anaheim and immediately the team's young stars have taken off, from Cutter Gauthier to Leo Carlsson to Beckett Sennecke. The Ducks have some defensive work to do, but they’re creating like a legitimately good team.

Yes, they’re being helped out by exceptional goaltending from Lukas Dostal, but it’s likely they just have a really good goalie, and that’s allowed.

I still think they’re too young and thin to be in any sort of serious conversation about the top teams, but they’ve bought into Quenneville's message and look like a much more organized group as a result.

Analysts thought they might take a step, and they have. They’ll be in the playoff hunt all year long, and with Quenneville at the helm, it could be enough to actually get in there.

Adam Foote, Vancouver Canucks, hired May 14
Team record: 7-7-0, sixth in Pacific
Goal differential: -5

The Canucks had a roster going into the year that could contend for a playoff spot if they stayed healthy. But boy, have they not been healthy, and that’s a problem.

The injuries make judging their new head coach challenging. But based on what they do have — excuse me for not saying this softer — they’ve mostly looked really bad.

At five-on-five, they control a minuscule fraction of the expected goals (in the league’s bottom five there), and they’ve needed very good goaltending to even be where they’re at.

We’ll leave the grade at incomplete here, as they’ve been so hurt. But I haven’t seen much to think they’ve improved from last year behind the bench.

Rick Tocchet, Philadelphia Flyers, hired May 14
Team record: 7-5-1, fifth in Metro
Goal differential: +3

The Flyers' underlying numbers reflect good coaching and a thin level of offensive talent. They’re great at limiting expected goals against, yet they can’t get much going the other way. They’re over .500 and with a plus goal differential, so they’re off to a better start than last year, where they finished dead last in the East with a minus-46 goal differential.

It's not a year to consider the playoffs, but if Tocchet rebuilds the culture and they get started in a better direction, the Flyers could take that in-between step from the basement back to contention. And make no bones about it, that’s an important step.

Jeff Blashill, Chicago Blackhawks, hired May 22
Team record: 5-5-3, fifth in Central
Goal differential: +1

I just talked about Philly, who were last in the East last year, and on the other side, the Blackhawks were second last in the West, though their goal differential was an even worse minus-70. At plus-one through 13 games, you can safely say there was no stretch over their previous 82 games where they put together a run that positive over the same sample.

Connor Bedard has taken a step towards expected stardom, and Frank Nazar has too, which are probably the biggest developments for the Blackhawks. But they also limit chances against better than last year, which is a good sign too.

Whether it's Blashill or where the young players are at in their development curves, there’s no doubt they’re a better team this season.

Lane Lambert, Seattle Kraken, hired May 29
Team record: 6-2-4, third in Pacific
Goal differential: 0

With a positive record to start and a spot inside the division’s top three, it’d be hard to say the Kraken are anything but better than they were a season prior.

The team is doing a much better job on the defensive side of the puck and getting good goaltending, which helps. But from the jump, the organization hasn’t prioritized offence, and as a result, their offence is still abjectly putrid, sitting dead last in expected goals for just about everywhere I checked.

Is that the coach's fault? I personally tend not to put too much blame there, as offensive coaching in the NHL isn’t nonexistent, but it is fairly minimal when you’ve got great talents. Once over the red line, the coach can give guidelines and theories, but he's mostly saying, “make plays.” Lambert seems to be controlling what he can, though he might need to try some other things on offence than “guidelines” to help their goaltending and D out.

Dan Muse, Pittsburgh Penguins, hired June 4
Team record: 8-4-2, third in Metro
Goal differential: +9

Of the bunch, it’s hard to say any of the coaches on this list have gotten off to a better start than Muse. The Penguins are buzzing and people are taking them seriously, just one year removed from a minus-50 goal-differential season.

Now, I just said with Lambert that coaches can impact defence more than anything, and the Penguins still give up a lot that way. But the stars are happy, their young players are making good strides, and they have a top-10 expected goals percentage.

No team seems more confused about what it is, or where it’s going. But they’ve handed that hodgepodge to Muse, and so far, he’s handled it admirably.

Marco Sturm, Boston Bruins, hired June 5
Team record: 8-7-0, seventh in Atlantic
Goal differential: -2

OK, I just said that no team seems more confused about what it is, or where it’s going, and now I have to talk about Boston. I may have spoken too soon. David Pastrnak, Charlie MacAvoy, Jeremy Swayman, Elias Lindholm, Hampus Lindholm, Nikita Zadorov and Pavel Zacha, they’re not terrible! But they’re not rebuilding either, at least not so far.

This group looks exactly like a team stuck in no man’s land. They’re above .500 but barely. They’re below even in goal differential. Their underlying numbers are not very good. They seem destined to have no shot at the playoffs or the No. 1 overall pick.

And so, with that two-seven off-suit of a Texas Hold ‘Em hand, Marco Sturm seems to be doing a pretty satisfactory job. They’re competitive enough. Of all the coaches on this list, I’d say his performance thus far is hardest to grade (because what’s the goal?), so he’ll get our second “incomplete” of these discussions.

Glen Gulutzan, Dallas Stars, hired July 1
Team record: 7-3-3, fourth in Central
Goal differential: -2

The Stars have played one of the league’s most difficult schedules so far, and they’re 7-3-3 in a tough division, so it’s hard to say things are off to anything but a good start for Gulutzan in his second tenure in Dallas.

Their five-on-five results (minus-two differential) don’t look great, but they probably deserve better based on their underlying metrics. One thing that’s come around is their power play has gone from 17th to top five, which has helped them out along the way.

Still, the Pete DeBoer Dallas Stars were excellent, and so the bar is high for Gulutzan to clear. The team is good, and off to a good start, but it’s tough to know if their goal of getting over the hump in the playoffs is off to a better start or not. We just know it’s off to yet another good one.