How well has every mid-season NHL coaching change worked in 2024-25?
There’s no position in the NHL more volatile than the head coach. 12 of the 32 teams in the league have a head coach in their first season behind the bench with them and only 11 have been with their teams beyond the past two seasons.
To really put it in perspective, only five head coaches have been with their teams for more than roughly three years to the day: Jon Cooper of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Mike Sullivan of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Jared Bednar of the Colorado Avalanche, Rod Brind’Amour of the Carolina Hurricanes and Andre Tourigny of the Arizona Coyotes/Utah Hockey Club (I say roughly three years because Montreal Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis was hired three years and four days ago, so it’s more fitting for him to be bunched in with the hires made in the last three years).
One reason a coach gets the axe so easily is that once the season starts, they are usually the easiest change to make if things go wrong. Sometimes, a team needs a tactical change, and sometimes, it’s just apparent that the coach has lost the room and needs a new one, and it’s a lot easier to fire one guy than to trade a bunch of players.
There’s already been four coaching changes so far this season, and with the NHL currently on pause for the 4 Nations Face-Off, it’s as good of a time as any to look at how the new hires have done with their respective teams. Whether they’re better than their replacement, riding that new coach bump/a stretch of good luck, or they’ve actually made the team worse, we’ve seen some different results so far from the four coaches.
Boston Bruins (Out: Jim Montgomery; In: Joe Sacco)
Record: 8-9-3 (20th) | 19-15-3 (17th)
5v5 GF%: 47.04% (t-21st) | 50.98% (15th)
5v5 xGF%: 49.8% (19th) | 48.71% (21st)
5v5 PDO: 1.004 (t-15th) | 1.007 (11th)
The Boston Bruins were the first team to fire their head coach this season, and it was quite the surprise for some to see Jim Montgomery go so quickly. After all, he was two years removed from a season that saw his team set the single-season points record, winning him a Jack Adams Award in the process, as well as coaching a decimated version of that roster to the playoffs the following year. But, the Bruins have playoff expectations, and they were hovering around .500 after 20 games, so moving on from Montgomery felt necessary for them.
Montgomery’s assistant, Joe Sacco, replaced Montgomery, and in terms of their record, the Bruins have slightly improved. It’s still not at the pace of a playoff team, and that’s why the Bruins continue to sit outside of the playoffs despite having played more games than any other team in the Eastern Conference wild card race, but it’s still above .500. The real issue is under the hood, where the Bruins have gotten slightly worse.
That said, it’s tough to pin this on Sacco. This points to a larger concern about the roster construction of the Bruins. That shouldn’t be a surprise though, as they have had a well-documented center depth issue ever since the retirements of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. It feels like even the best coach in the league couldn’t turn this roster into a contender again until they find a proper replacement there.
St. Louis Blues (Out: Drew Bannister; In: Jim Montgomery)
Record: 9-12-1 (26th) | 16-14-4 (20th)
5v5 GF%: 41.42% (26th) | 55.64% (5th)
5v5 xGF%: 44.97% (27th) | 50.19% (15th)
5v5 PDO: 0.978 (26th) | 1.024 (2nd)
The St. Louis Blues are one of the rare teams to make a mid-season coaching change in back-to-back seasons. Last season, they fired Craig Berube and then promoted their AHL head coach, Drew Bannister, under an interim tag. They dropped that tag in the offseason, appearing to commit to Bannister for at least the 2024-25 season. And yet, he lasted only 22 games before he was fired by the Blues, as they saw Montgomery’s availability and jumped on it when they had the chance.
As cutthroat of a decision as that was, it was the right move to make. Although the Blues’ record hasn’t drastically changed, most of their other numbers have improved. Their goals-for-percentage is influenced by shooting and save percentages, but their expected goals-for-percentage has seen significant improvement under Montgomery, which is a good sign that he’s the right coach going forward.
It’s not that Montgomery has turned the Blues into a surefire playoff team, but at the very least, they’re not one of the worst teams in the league like they were under Bannister. Much like the Bruins team that Montgomery was let go from earlier in the season, the mediocre numbers are more likely an indication of the middling roster that he inherited than of the abilities of the head coach himself.
Chicago Blackhawks (Out: Luke Richardson; In: Anders Sorensen)
Record: 8-16-2 (32nd) | 9-15-5 (31st)
5v5 GF%: 44.15% (28th) | 42.47% (31st)
5v5 xGF%: 45.67% (28th) | 40.97% (31st)
5v5 PDO: 0.991 (23rd) | 1.007 (t-12th)
The Chicago Blackhawks‘ head coaching change felt like a surprise, but mostly due to the fact that it happened mid-season. Considering the fact that most had them pegged as a lottery contender, you would have thought that the team had no expectations for the season. Even if they had any concerns about Luke Richardson, it wouldn’t have been an issue to wait until the offseason to make changes. Instead, they fired him in early December, and replaced him with their AHL head coach, Anders Sorensen.
So far, there isn’t much of a difference in terms of their numbers relative to the league between either coach. They were close to the bottom with Richardson, and they’re closer to the bottom with Sorensen. The numbers themselves are a bit worse, with a nearly 5% drop in 5v5 xGF% since the switch. It’s possible that, with the season already long gone by the time Sorensen took over, the players may not have the same effort as they would right out of the gate, but it’s still a concern.
If there is one important part of the Blackhawks’ future that has seen improvement under the Sorensen, it’s Connor Bedard. Under Richardson, Bedard had 5 goals and 19 points in 26 games, which isn’t exactly the next step they were hoping for from the future of their franchise. But since Sorensen took over, he has 11 goals and 30 points in 29 games. With the season already lost, the development of Bedard is of the upmost importance for Chicago for the rest of the year, so while Sorensen hasn’t improved the entire team, he has helped in that regard.
Detroit Red Wings (Out: Derek Lalonde; In: Todd McLellan)
Record: 13-17-4 (28th) | 15-5-1 (3rd)
5v5 GF%: 45.08% (26th) | 46.18% (24th)
5v5 xGF%: 44.39% (30th) | 47.72% (24th)
5v5 PDO: 1.005 (12th) | 0.984 (25th)
There’s always talk about the bump in a team’s performance after a coaching change, but that hasn’t been the case in our first three examples. All three teams saw minimal improvement in their records under their new head coaches in, and while they maybe got a few wins off the hop, we’ve since seen them cool down. The Detroit Red Wings are a significantly different example.
While the Red Wings’ issues are also due to the construction of their roster, Derek Lalonde wasn’t getting anything out of the team, and that’s been proven even more since Todd McLellan took over. Not only have the Red Wings seen slight improvements under the hood (which, like Montgomery’s Blues, still aren’t amazing numbers, but it feels like the most he can extract from the roster), the change has given new life to Detroit’s season, and their 15-5-1 record since McLellan was hired has put them in a playoff spot up this point.
That said, McLellan is the most recent hire, so we could see the Red Wings cool off and eventually have a record similar to the other three coaches. At the same time, McLellan already has only one win behind Montgomery with the Blues and four behind Sacco with the Bruins, and that comes with significantly fewer losses (McLellan has only six while the other two have 18 each). There are still plenty of issues with this Wings team, but it does feel like they at least have a coach who can get the most out of their roster when they get there.
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