As first reported by the New York Post’s Larry Brooks and confirmed by multiple media sources, the New York Rangers will hire Gerard Gallant to be their next head coach.
Gallant, 57, will become the 36th head coach in Rangers history, and this will be his fourth NHL team. He will succeed David Quinn, who was fired after the 2020-21 season – days after the team dismissed GM Jeff Gorton and team president John Davidson – and was rumored to be atop new president Chris Drury’s list of candidates from the minute Quinn was let go.
Although he brings three previous NHL stops, Gallant’s most recent experience was with Team Canada, who he led to a gold medal at the IIHF World Championships in Latvia at the beginning of June.
“It was just great for me personally to get behind the bench again, and to be able to win a gold medal with Team Canada makes it that much more special. Just a lot of fun,” Gallant told The Athletic after the tournament.
His most recent NHL stop was in Las Vegas, where he was the inaugural coach of the Vegas Golden Knights; he was named Jack Adams Award winner in 2018 and led them to the Stanley Cup Final in that inaugural season, but was let go last January – just a few months before Vegas again reached the Western Conference Final inside the NHL’s bubble – after going 118-75-20 record in two-plus seasons.
Gallant spent 11 seasons in the NHL (1984-95), playing nine with the Red Wings and one in Tampa Bay before finishing his career with one last game for the Lightning in the 1994-95 season. He played three games with the IHL’s Detroit Vipers in 1995-06 before retiring and immediately becoming a coach, joining his hometown Summerside Capitals in the Maritime Junior Hockey League.
“Gerry had a calming presence in the locker room,” former Ranger and current MSG studio analyst Ron Duguay, who played with Gallant in Detroit, told Brooks. “But when he competed on the ice, he made a great teammate because you always knew he had your back. You always admire guys that are willing to fight for you and cover for you, Gerry is all about that. He knows how to speak to a younger player and knows how to speak to a veteran.”
Gallant has a 270-216-4-51 career record in parts of nine seasons as an NHL head coach, but he has also been let go mid-season at all three of his previous stops. He was an assistant in Columbus when then coach and GM John MacLean resigned the former role and tabbed him as a successor on Jan. 1, 2004, but that tenure saw the entire 2004-05 season lost due to a lockout, and then Gallant was let go 15 games into the 2006-07 season.
He then became the head coach for Florida in 2014-15, but after leading the Panthers to the playoffs in 2015-16 (where they lost to the Islanders in the first round), he was let go 22 games into 2016-17 – a memorable firing in that he was let go after a game in Carolina and then left off the team’s flight to Chicago, having to find his own transportation to the airport to return to Miami.
This will be Gallant’s second stint as a coach in New York, as he was also an Islanders assistant under Ted Nolan in 2007-08 and 2008-09 – leaving in April 2009 to become a head coach in the QMJHL, where he won two league championships with Saint John in three seasons.
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