{"id":271285,"date":"2025-11-08T15:14:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T15:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/271285\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T15:14:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T15:14:10","slug":"who-will-be-the-first-nhl-head-coach-fired-in-2025-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/271285\/","title":{"rendered":"Who will be the first NHL head coach fired in 2025-26?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday marked the one-month mark of the 2025-26 NHL season. It may feel early, but history suggests the hour is likely late for a head coach or two. Last season, we saw the first two axings before November was up, with the\u00a0Boston Bruins<\/a>\u00a0firing Jim Montgomery and the\u00a0St. Louis Blues<\/a>\u00a0firing Drew Bannister. Two more coaches got pinked slipped in December.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s thus not too soon for the Roundtable to speculate:\u00a0Who will be the first coach fired in 2025-26?<\/p>\n

MATT LARKIN:\u00a0Andrew Brunette may be the low-hanging fruit, but if the Nashville Predators are going nowhere this season, they don\u2019t have to rush their next hire. An early-season axing often comes from a team with high expectations and urgency. That\u2019s the\u00a0Los Angeles Kings\u00a0<\/a>for me, with\u00a0Jim Hiller\u00a0on the hot seat. He hasn\u2019t guided his team out of Round 1 of the playoffs, the Kings are sputtering around the playoff bubble this season, and there are a few turnkey veteran bench bosses on the market right now. All Pete DeBoer does is coach teams that go to the Conference Final or deeper. Would it surprise anyone to see him in L.A. by season\u2019s end?<\/p>\n

SCOTT MAXWELL:\u00a0There\u2019s a couple of interesting options, what with a desperate\u00a0Buffalo Sabres<\/a>\u00a0team possibly looking to jump ship from Lindy Ruff if things go sideways again, or Ryan Huska\u2019s ChatGPT comments feeling like one of many examples that he doesn\u2019t know what he\u2019s doing with a struggling\u00a0Calgary Flames<\/a>\u00a0team. But, the\u00a0Minnesota Wild<\/a>\u00a0have higher expectations than most of the teams mentioned so far, and they have the most to lose if they continue to disappoint. They may be the trigger-happy to move on from John Hynes, who just hasn\u2019t felt like a fit in the two years he\u2019s been there. With the aforementioned DeBoer available, there won\u2019t be too many better opportunities for Minnesota to find a replacement, so you have to wonder if they\u2019re considering that. Plus, we may be reaching the point where GM Bill Guerin\u2019s job is on the line, so he may be looking to buy himself a bit more time.<\/p>\n

PAUL PIDUTTI:\u00a0With the NHL\u2019s first month looking like The Season of Parity\u2122\ufe0f so far, there are only a handful of teams limping badly out of the gate. I\u2019m aligned with Scott\u2019s choice of\u00a0John Hynes\u00a0getting the boot in Minnesota first. While no one seems to doubt Hynes is a capable NHL coach, the heat is cranking up further on Guerin. General managers don\u2019t fire themselves for\u00a0poor play, so Hynes may prove the natural scapegoat. The Wild issued the biggest contract in history to Kirill Kaprizov, and their young guns are now in place on this roster. We\u2019re effectively looking at what ownership and fans\u00a0expect is a highly competitive group for the foreseeable future. Minnesota has plenty of winnable games over the next 30 days, including a five-game homestand starting Sunday. This leaves Hynes and crew a window to right the ship \u2014 and potentially save his job.<\/p>\n

ANTHONY TRUDEAU:\u00a0To Paul\u2019s point, there just aren\u2019t that many coaches doing fireable work. The\u00a0Seattle Kraken<\/a>\u00a0have some of the league\u2019s worst metrics, but they\u2019re winning games, and Lane Lambert only just got there. Jim Montgomery is already the\u00a0Blues<\/a>\u2019 third bench boss in three seasons; Doug Armstrong must realize by now his roster is the issue. That leaves few options other than Hynes, but I\u2019ll pivot to\u00a0Andrew Brunette\u00a0in\u00a0Nashville<\/a>\u00a0for variety\u2019s sake. \u2018Bruno\u2019 has an excellent track record as an assistant and won the Presidents\u2019 Trophy as interim boss in Florida, but his return to the Music City has fallen as flat as the rest of\u00a0Barry Trotz\u2019s big swings as GM<\/a>. The Preds\u2019 roster might be old and ill-conceived, but it\u2019s hard to argue that Brunette has gotten the best out of it, or that he has the developmental chops to helm a badly needed rebuild. Something\u2019s gotta give.<\/p>\n

MIKE GOULD:\u00a0I\u2019m pretty confident it won\u2019t be Ryan Huska, who is barely a month removed from signing a contract extension with the Flames. In all honesty, I don\u2019t see a ton of obvious candidates to go, save for Hiller, whom Matt already mentioned off the top. But I have to admit I\u2019m curious to see what happens with\u00a0Adam Foote, who has always seemed like a bit of a stopgap to me since taking over from Rick Tocchet with the Vancouver Canucks<\/a>. Strictly speaking, he\u2019s not an interim guy, but Foote has never felt like a clear stylistic fit for what should be more of a high-flying team. And with the Canucks off to an iffy start \u2014 and Jim Rutherford possessing one of the itchier trigger figures in the game \u2014 I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if they eventually made a change.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

POST SPONSORED BY bet365<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Recently Daily Faceoff Roundtables<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friday marked the one-month mark of the 2025-26 NHL season. It may feel early, but history suggests the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-271285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}