When will the Rangers hire a head coach?
Rangers general manager Chris Drury at the 2022 NHL Draft in Montreal. Credit: Getty Images/Bruce Bennett
It has been four weeks since Gerard Gallant and the Rangers “mutually agreed to part ways,” and the Blueshirts, first-round playoff losers to the Devils, still haven’t settled on a replacement for the old-school coach.
When Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury spoke to reporters on May 6, the day the team announced the split between itself and Gallant, he said he did not have a timetable to hire a new coach. Training camp still is three months away, so there doesn’t seem to be a need to rush.
Still, with the NHL Draft now about 3 1⁄2 weeks away and with the pool of available, qualified and attractive candidates not seeming as if it is going to get any bigger, it may be time for Drury to make a decision and hire someone soon.
The draft is scheduled for June 28-29 in Nashville, and free agency begins on July 1.
The Rangers, who won’t have a lot of space under the salary cap, don’t figure to be very active chasing after big-name free agents, but whatever free agents they do go after might want to know who the coach is before they sign.
Peter Laviolette, who parted ways with Washington after the season, remains the biggest name among the available pool of candidates, and he reportedly had a second interview with the Rangers on Friday. The native of Norwood, Massachusetts, who started his coaching career with the Islanders in 2001, won a Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006 and made it to the Cup Finals with Philadelphia in 2010 and Nashville in 2017. He is the winningest American-born coach with a career record of 752-503-175.
But the Rangers could have had him weeks ago if they really felt strongly about him. So hiring him now might feel like a move made because they couldn’t get someone they like more.
There was talk for a while about the long-shot possibility that Pittsburgh’s Mike Sullivan might become available after the Penguins hired a new GM if that GM chose to make a coaching change. There was speculation, too, that Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe might become available after the Maple Leafs parted ways with GM Kyle Dubas (who landed in Pittsburgh). Neither of those things seem to be happening.
The guy who did become available was Nashville coach John Hynes, who was let go last week by new Nashville GM Barry Trotz. Hynes was a college teammate of Drury’s at Boston University, so he would figure to merit strong consideration for the job. The obvious knock on him is that he’s never led a team past the first round of the playoffs, and the Rangers are trying to win the Stanley Cup.
There’s one other big-name candidate available in Hall of Fame goaltender Patrick Roy, who guided his junior team, the Quebec Remparts, to the Memorial Cup, Canada’s junior championship, on Sunday.
The fiery Roy, who previously coached in the NHL with the Colorado Avalanche and was the Coach of the Year in 2014, was a teammate of Drury’s on the Avalanche when they won the Stanley Cup together in 2001. According to reports, however, Drury isn’t interested in Roy as a candidate.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
