Ranking Every 2025 NHL Coaching Hire

With the Dallas Stars hiring Glen Gulutzan as their head coach, the 2025 NHL head coaching carousel has officially come to an end.

So, it's time to ask which teams did the best with their hires, and which teams did the worst.

Without further ado, let's rank all nine head coaching hires this offseason.

9.

Lane Lambert, Seattle Kraken Outside of their surprise playoff appearance in 2023, the Kraken have been largely underwhelming through their first four seasons of existence.

That's also the perfect word to describe their latest coaching hire, "underwhelming." Lambert, 60, previously spent a season and a half as head coach of the New York Islanders, compiling a 61-46-20 record in that time.

He also spent last season with the Toronto Maple Leafs as an associate coach.

There's nothing offensive about the Lambert hire, but there's nothing all that inspiring either.

8.

Jeff Blashill, Chicago Blackhawks Speaking of uninspired, the Blackhawks' hire of Blashill fits that description pretty well too.

Blashill, 51, is best known as the former head coach of his hometown Detroit Red Wings, with whom he compiled a 204-261-72 record while making just one playoff appearance in seven seasons.

He spent the past three years with the Tampa Bay Lightning as an assistant coach under Jon Cooper.

Blashill deserves a bit of leeway because some of his rosters in Detroit were truly terrible, but he seems like more of a stopgap in Chicago.

7.

Glen Gulutzan, Dallas Stars A trend readers undoubtedly notice on this list is that, with few exceptions, the re-tread coaches place lower than the new ones, and there's no re-tread quite like a team bringing back its former head coach.

Gulutzan, 53, previously coached the Stars from 2011-13 and posted a 64-57-9 record in two seasons.

He also coached the Calgary Flames from 2016-18 and posted an 82-68-14 record in two seasons, but was swept in his lone playoff appearance.

Since then, he's spent the past seven seasons with the Edmonton Oilers as an assistant coach.

Gulutzan can get a pass for his first stint with the Stars, as the team was literally bankrupt at the time and he did what he could.

However, one must ask the question: can he lead Dallas to a Stanley Cup? So far, he hasn't shown he has that ability.

6.

Joel Quenneville, Anaheim Ducks This placement has little to do with Quenneville's resume.

He has 969 career wins behind the bench, the second most of any coach in NHL history, and won three Stanley Cups with Chicago in the early 2010s.

From purely a coaching perspective, he's a legend of the game.

That said, it's impossible to ignore the elephant in the room, that being Quenneville's role in Blackhawks' 2010 sexual assault scandal.

An independent investigation found that Quenneville and other members of the Blackhawks' leadership mishandled the allegations against former video coach Brad Aldritch, leading to one of the NHL's biggest scandals this century.

He resigned as head coach of the Florida Panthers a day after the investigation's release and needed to be reinstated before working in the NHL again.

The Ducks seem confident that Quenneville has used his time away from hockey to improve as a person, and the better hope they're right, otherwise it will be another black eye on the organization and league as a whole.

5.

Adam Foote, Vancouver Canucks Now it's time for the first of the first-time head coaches on this list.

Foote, 53, only has brief head coaching experience at any level, leading the WHL's Kelowna Rockets for roughly a year and a half.

The former Stanley Cup-winning defenseman has been with the Canucks as an assistant coach since January of 2023, and has grown quite close with star blue-liner Quinn Hughes in that time.

Hughes is the face of the franchise, and if Foote keeps him happy, Vancouver did a solid job.

4.

Rick Tocchet, Philaelphia Flyers Tocchet, 61, left Vancouver after a disastrous 2024-25 season, which saw them miss the playoffs and deal with a host of off-ice drama.

In 2023-24, however, he led the Canucks to their best season in over a decade, as they won the Pacific Division with 109 points and he won the Jack Adams Award as the league's top coach.

While his track record is admittedly spotty, Tocchet has shown he can be a great coach in the right situation.

The Flyers, who have missed the playoffs in each of the past five seasons, could benefit from his steady hand and player-friendly style.

3.

Marco Sturm, Boston Bruins Sturm, 46, became the Bruins' first European head coach in franchise history, as well as just the sixth in NHL history.

However, he's been working his way up for a long time.

Sturm began his coaching career with the German men's national team in 2015, and helped lead the team to impressive results in international play.

He's since served as an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Kings and head coach of their AHL affiliate, the Ontario Reign.

The Bruins are entering a new era after missing the playoffs for the first time since 2016, so going in a new direction behind the bench makes complete sense.

2.

Dan Muse, Pittsburgh Penguins Muse, 42, may be a first-time NHL head coach, but he's certainly not lacking in experience.

Not only has the Canton, MA, native served as an assistant coach with the Nashville Predators and New York Rangers, but also worked closely with the USA Hockey National Team Development Program, coaching the U-18 and U-17 teams at different points.

The Penguins are rebuilding, or at least retooling, after missing the playoffs for the past three years, and Muse seems like an ideal candidate to lead them through this rough patch.

1.

Mike Sullivan, New York Rangers Sullivan, 57, was by far the top coaching candidate this offseason after his departure from Pittsburgh, and New York swooped him up very quickly.

He may have gone past his expiration date with the Penguins, but make no mistake, he's still one of the best coaches in the league.

The Marshfield, MA., native led the Penguins to back-to-back Stanley Cups in his first two seasons in 2016 and 2017, and kept them in the mix for years after the fact.

He also led Team USA at this year's 4 Nations Face-Off and will do so again at next year's Winter Olympics .

The Rangers needed a proven head coach after an absolute disaster of a season, and they got one.

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