As always, the NHL coaching carousel took a swirl this summer. Here’s where things stand now, as teams prepare for training camp.
Vancouver Canucks
- Out: Adam Foote
- In: Manny Malhotra
If you told someone 20 years ago that you’d swapped Adam Foote for Manny Malhotra, they would have checked you into a mental health facility. Foote was a borderline-Hall-of-Fame defenseman. Malhotra was a fourth-line center.
At this stage in their respective careers, though, the move makes sense. The Vancouver Canucks are in dire need of a culture change and they believe Malhotra is the man for the job.
Malhotra, whose son, Caleb, was drafted at No. 3 overall by the Canucks this summer, spent the last two seasons coaching the Abbotsford Canucks, the team’s AHL affiliate. Previous to that, he was an assistant coach with both the Canucks and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Having played in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final for the Canucks in 2011, Malhotra is well acquainted with both the pressure and the glory that comes in one of the league’s biggest markets.
“It matters here,” he said in his introductory press conference. “Hockey matters to these people and they want to see a product that is deserving of their approval and their fan-ship.”
Foote joins the Utah Mammoth’s coaching staff as an assistant under André Tourigny.
Vegas Golden Knights
- Out: John Tortorella
- In: Ryan Craig
Heading into their 10th year of existence, Ryan Craig becomes the Vegas Golden Knights’ fifth head coach.
It’s not that they’ve been unsuccessful — quite the contrary, in fact. They’ve made the Stanley Cup Final three times in that span, winning it once. But they operate with a cutthroat mentality, and despite lifting the team to the Final this spring, John Tortorella is the next casualty.
Perhaps it could have something to do with the second-round draft pick he cost them when he skipped a press conference in the playoffs (personally, Tortorella also received a $100,000 fine for the violation of the NHL media policy).
Craig had been in the organization since its inception. He was an assistant coach with the Golden Knights from 2017-2023, after which he became the head coach of the team’s AHL affiliate, the Henderson Silver Knights.
Now, he gets his first chance as the top bench boss on an NHL team.
Edmonton Oilers
- Out: Kris Knoblauch
- In: Mike Babcock
Perhaps the most controversial coaching change in recent memory is Mike Babcock with the Edmonton Oilers.
There’s no question he gets results.
He won the Stanley Cup with the Detroit Red Wings in 2008, made additional Stanley Cup Final appearances with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2003 and the Red Wings again in 2009 and won Olympic gold with Team Canada in 2010 and 2014.
The problem is how he gets those results.
Many of Babcock’s former players have come forward through the years with stories of tactics he’s used to get the most out of his players. Nothing illegal, but lots of them wouldn’t be considered ethical.
For example, “Babcock was alleged to have asked one of the Leafs’ rookies to list the players on the team from hardest-working to those who, in the eyes of the rookie, didn’t have a strong work ethic,” the Toronto Sun wrote in 2019. “The rookie did so, not wanting to upset his coach, but was taken aback when Babcock told the players who had been listed at the bottom.”
That rookie was soon revealed to be Mitch Marner, who confirmed the report, according to NBC Sports.
The Columbus Blue Jackets gave Babcock a second chance in July 2023, only for him to resign from the position in September of the same year — before he ever coached a game for the club. It came while the league was investigating him for something that never made it to the public’s eye.
When asked in his Oilers introductory press conference what happened, Babcock kept his answer vague.
“It was evident that we weren’t together as a staff right from the get-go,” he said. “My wife gave me a call and she said, ‘It’s time to get out of there.’ I had been retired, was pretty good at it, and I got back to being retired.”
The Oilers lost in the Stanley Cup Final in both 2024 and 2025 before suffering a first-round exit in 2026. They hope to draw upon Babcock’s experience and winning pedigree to get them over the hump — ideally before Connor McDavid’s contract is up.
Los Angeles Kings
- Out: DJ Smith
- In: Peter Laviolette
The Los Angeles Kings have been trapped in the mushy middle for some time now. They’re consistently good enough to make the playoffs, but they’ve lost in the first round five years in a row.
Peter Laviolette becomes the fourth coach to lead the Kings since their five-year run began. This is his seventh team as a head coach, eighth as any type of coach.
His most notable work came with the 2006 Carolina Hurricanes, where he got his name permanently engraved on the Stanley Cup. More recently, he lifted the 2024 New York Rangers to the Presidents’ Trophy as the best team in the regular season with a 55-23-4 record.
Artemi Panarin starred for that Rangers team and now reunites with Laviolette in Los Angeles, where he was traded in February.
Toronto Maple Leafs
- Out: Craig Berube
- In: Jim Hiller
Jim Hiller served as an assistant coach for the Maple Leafs for four years under Babcock. Now, he returns as the head coach.
Since then, Hiller has spent three seasons as an assistant with the New York Islanders, one and a half as an assistant with the Kings and parts of three seasons as the head coach of the Kings. As mentioned, he always got LA to the playoffs, but they couldn’t get out of the first round.
The Maple Leafs have historically had a similar problem as the Kings.
They went 18 years without winning a playoff round before busting the slump in 2023. They have since won one more round, but they missed the postseason altogether in 2026, leading to the firing of Craig Berube.
