The Ducks have\u00a0agreed to a multi-year contract extension\u00a0with\u00a0Matt\u00a0McIlvane, Head Coach of the San Diego Gulls, Anaheim\u2019s\u00a0primary development affiliate in the American Hockey League (AHL).<\/p>\n
\u201cMatt has been an integral part in the development and growth of our players and prospects in San Diego,\u201d said Ducks General Manager Pat\u00a0Verbeek. \u201cHaving increased San Diego\u2019s point total each season and leading the Gulls to a playoff berth this year, this was an easy decision. We are excited about what the future holds for the Gulls with Matt continuing to be at the helm.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlvane, the fifth head coach in Gulls AHL history, has led the club to a\u00a033-24-8-4\u00a0record\u00a0this season\u00a0and their first Calder Cup Playoff berth since 2021-22.\u00a0San Diego\u2019s\u00a033 overall wins and 17\u00a0road wins are the most since 2018-19 when San Diego finished with\u00a036 and\u00a018\u00a0respectively.\u00a0The Gulls have earned a .559 points\u00a0percentage under McIlvane this season. Excluding the COVID-19 season in 2020-21, it\u2019s the highest winning percentage since the 2019-20 campaign (.596%).<\/p>\n
McIlvane has led San Diego to a\u202fstandings\u202fpoints increase in each of his three seasons as head coach, with a 20-point increase in 2023-24 (43 to 63 points), a three-point increase in 2024-25 (63 to 66 points) and a 12-point increase in 2025-26 (66 to 78 points) with three games remaining in the regular season.<\/p>\n
During his tenure, 13 players have appeared in games for both the Ducks and Gulls since McIlvane\u00a0was named San Diego\u2019s head coach in 2023. Those players include current Ducks skaters\u00a0Jansen Harkens,\u00a0Drew\u00a0Helleson, Tyson Hinds, Ville\u00a0Husso, Ian Moore, Tim Washe and Olen Zellweger.\u00a0Of those\u00a013,\u00a0six\u00a0have made their NHL debut during\u00a0McIlvane\u2019s\u00a0tenure\u00a0(Vyacheslav\u00a0Buteyets,\u00a0Sam Colangelo, Nathan Gaucher, Hinds,\u00a0Moore, Zellweger).<\/p>\n
A native of Naperville, Ill. McIlvane won five league championships as\u00a0a head\u00a0coach and assistant coach in\u202fEurope\u202fover the course of\u00a010 seasons. He joined the Gulls after spending four seasons as a coach with EC Red Bull Salzburg of the ICE Hockey League (International Central European Hockey League) from 2019-23, the top-tier league in Austria, featuring additional teams from Hungary, Italy, and Slovenia. McIlvane led Salzburg to back-to-back league championship in 2021-22 and 2022-23, and he also won an ICE Hockey League title as assistant coach with Salzburg in 2013-14.<\/p>\n
Prior to his role with Salzburg, McIlvane spent five seasons with EHC Red Bull M\u00fcnchen in Germany\u2019s Deutsche\u202fEishockey\u202fLiga (DEL) from 2014-18, serving as associate coach in 2018-19 and assistant coach the prior four seasons. McIlvane helped M\u00fcnchen to three straight championships in 2016, 2017 and 2018, tied for the longest championship streak in DEL history. He began his coaching career as an assistant coach with the Orlando Solar Bears (ECHL) in 2012-13 and the Danville Dashers of the Federal Prospects Hockey League as General Manager and head coach (2011-12).<\/p>\n
Internationally, McIlvane helped Germany to a silver medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang as an assistant coach, the country\u2019s first-ever Olympic silver medal in hockey and third medal overall (two prior bronze). He also served as an assistant coach for Germany at the 2021 World Championship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ducks have\u00a0agreed to a multi-year contract extension\u00a0with\u00a0Matt\u00a0McIlvane, Head Coach of the San Diego Gulls, Anaheim\u2019s\u00a0primary development affiliate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-269473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}