Ranking the NHL’s most attractive coaching vacancies
While the playoffs are in full swing, we are already amid the head coaching carousel as many teams not in the playoffs begin to make changes.
That carousel is now at max speed as well with the recent announcements that the Pittsburgh Penguins and Mike Sullivan agreed to part ways and that Rick Tocchet would not return as Vancouver Canucks head coach.
But which team has the most to offer for a head coach? I decided to look at the eight teams currently with head coaching vacancies and determined which teams are the best options for a head coach based on the current state of the team:
8. Seattle Kraken
Somebody has to come last, and while I wouldn’t say that it means that the Kraken are a terrible option, it does feel like they have the least going for them at this point in time. After making the playoffs in 2023 off the backs of some insane depth scoring, they’ve now gone back-to-back seasons without making the playoffs, and it’s very clear that going for depth over star power just isn’t working.
So now the team looks like they’re at the beginning of a teardown as they attempt to accumulate more talent for their team, except they still have a fair portion of their roster locked up for a few seasons. It’s not that this is a bad team to join, but it’s safe to say that if you join the team at this stage, you probably won’t survive through the bad years and be around when the team is competitive. On top of that, it took just one season for them to move on from Dan Bylsma, so who says that won’t be the case for the next coach?
7. Philadelphia Flyers
The Flyers are in a somewhat similar spot to the Kraken (they did finish with the same amount of points this season after all), but there’s a bit more of an upward trajectory with this team. We did see in 2023-24 what a coach with a good system can do to this team, and really, all they need is a quality goaltender, and they might not be bad already. Add in the Matvei Michkov factor and the fact that they’ll probably add some more young talent over the next couple of seasons, and it’s easy to see this team turning around sooner rather than later.
But, they are still in a much worse spot than a lot of the teams ahead of them, and that aforementioned goaltending factor may be the biggest deterrent as a head coach. We’ve seen how many times a team has struggled because of bad goaltending, and the coach got fired as a result. Does a coach who has plenty of options want to willingly join a roster with the worst goaltending in the league right now, something that could easily cost them their job down the road?
6. Pittsburgh Penguins
In terms of the state the team is currently in, the Penguins are probably in the worst spot, save for whatever happens to the Canucks this offseason. Their elite core is in their final seasons; they’ve been out of the playoffs for three years now and are clearly heading toward a rebuild. Much like Seattle, you get the feeling that, as a head coach, you won’t see the light at the end of the tunnel for this rebuild.
But you can’t overlook the Sidney Crosby factor. He’s one of the best players of all time, and even if joining the Penguins during a rebuild isn’t ideal, a coach would be hard pressed to pass up an opportunity to work with him. At the very least, it’s a great pit stop for a coaching development opportunity to learn from Sid.
The other upside to the Penguins is Kyle Dubas. The Pens’ general manager is locked in for the long term, and the team clearly has the long-term vision to rebuild this team beyond the years of Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang. If there’s any place on this list where the team might have the long-term vision to keep a coach around despite poor results right now, it might be Pittsburgh.
5. Vancouver Canucks
The Canucks could be a great option on paper. They have one of the two best defensemen in the league in Quinn Hughes, one of the best goaltenders in the league in Thatcher Demko (when he’s healthy), one of the better centers in Elias Pettersson (when he’s on his game), and a reliable goal-scorer in Brock Boeser (if he re-signs). But there are a lot of question marks with that core, mostly about how long they’ll stay in Vancouver.
While it’s more likely most of that group stays, it also wouldn’t be surprising if the only player left of that group at the start of next season is Hughes (and after Jim Rutherford’s comments last week, there might even be uncertainty there). If that group is split up in the summer, then this team might be the least attractive job in the league, especially in the wake of the toxicity of this past season that likely chased away Tocchet. For now, the Canucks sit here because that core isn’t gone yet, but between the uncertainty of them and the fact that the coach has to clean up the mess that was last season, I can see why it may deter some coaches.
4. Chicago Blackhawks
The Blackhawks find themselves with similar pros to a job with the Penguins, while the cons are more akin to the Flyers’. Much like how working with Crosby will surely be attractive to prospective coaches, working with Connor Bedard will also make the Blackhawks gig slightly more interesting. Not only that, but the fact that Bedard still hasn’t broken out as a truly game-breaking player adds another level of intrigue: the next coach could be the guy who unlocks his true potential. If he becomes an elite player after this coach works with him, that coach will be the talking point for Bedard’s whole career.
But, much like some of the teams before them on this list, the Blackhawks aren’t particularly close to being competitive, as they’ve finished in the bottom two for the third straight season, even after an offseason where they tried to add more depth. This certainly won’t be the kind of job that a coach looking to win now will want, and it’s also possible that they just end up being the coach that gets the team into the playoffs, but not to the Stanley Cup.
3. Boston Bruins
The Bruins are a tough team to rank here because it largely depends on what they do in the offseason. Their overhaul at the trade deadline indicates that they may be on a downward trajectory, which would put them a lot lower on this list. But if they win the lottery and/or add a high-impact player via trade or free agency (ideally a center), suddenly they could be competitive again, at least as a playoff team.
The Bruins do have a few key cogs still set in place in David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, and Jeremy Swayman, and with a good coach, they could fill out the edges and put together a competitive team. But it does feel like Boston has been clinging on to life in the post-Patrice Bergeron era and is set for, at the very least, a retool that may take a few years. The uncertainty about not where the team wants to go, but where they will go, is what puts them in the middle.
2. New York Rangers
The Rangers are probably in the same vein as the Canucks and Bruins, as they have the core pieces, but there’s a lot of work that needs to be done around the edges. The Rangers have an elite scorer in Artemi Panarin, one of the best defensemen in Adam Fox, a top-five goalie in Igor Shesterkin, and when they’re on their game, Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Alexis Lafreniere, J.T. Miller, and K’Andre Miller are solid complementary pieces.
However, last season was a peek into the worst-case scenario with this group, and it shows the lows that some of these players can provide. After moving on from a few pieces last season, that may also result in a Kreider or Zibanejad getting dealt this summer.
But there are a couple of upsides to the Rangers situation right now that are a bit more advantageous to a head coach that aren’t the same with the Canucks and Bruins. For starters, the Rangers had one very apparent flaw during their time as a contender that was exacerbated last season, and that’s their defensive game. If a coach can fix that, this team could be a serious threat for the Stanley Cup. On top of that, this core is now seeing their fourth head coach behind the bench with the upcoming new hire. If they still can’t get it together, it’s likely the players that will be punished, not the coach.
This is a team that is a year removed from a Presidents’ Trophy, and even if they are on the older side, if a coach wants to win now and thinks they can unlock their full potential, this is the place to be.
1. Anaheim Ducks
This might be a hot take, but the Ducks are easily the best coaching position to take over in the league—with the right coach. All of the teams on this list fall into one of two categories: an older competitive team either in its final years as a contender or a team on the rise but still putting some of the pieces together. The Ducks are probably the only team on the rise that actually has most of the pieces together.
The Ducks have one of the best young goaltenders in the game right now in Lukas Dostal, a few excellent young blueliners in Olen Zellweger, Pavel Mintyukov and Jackson LaCombe, an embarrassment of riches of young forwards with the likes of Leo Carlsson, Mason McTavish, Cutter Gauthier and Beckett Sennecke, not to mention another top-10 pick this season.
The veteran core surrounding that could be better, but that’s still a great young group to work with that will only get better. The 2024-25 season certainly showed that they are close to taking the next step, as they did improve and linger around the playoffs for a bit, and that’s despite the fact that it felt like the young core underperformed and the coaching held them back.
Add in a coach with a strong system for this group to work around (especially if it’s a coach like Sullivan or Tocchet), and they could be in the playoff hunt very, very soon. They aren’t the best team on this list right now, but if a coach has the long-term vision, this Ducks group might have the best ceiling of the bunch.
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