Seven teams changed head coaches this offseason, and the churn told its own story about the state of the league. A two-time Cup Final coach was fired and rehired within weeks. The most controversial name in the sport was cleared to return. A franchise promoted from within the same summer it drafted the new coach's son. Behind every bench change is a team trying to fix something - and the job each new coach is walking into says as much as the hire itself.
Here's the full carousel, and what each new coach inherits.
Every 2026 Coaching Change
| Team | Out | In | The Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| EDM | Kris Knoblauch | Mike Babcock | A win-now bet on structure after a first-round collapse - and the most scrutinised hire in years. |
| TOR | Craig Berube | Jim Hiller | Fired by LA in-season · now runs the McKenna-era rebuild in a market he knows well. |
| LAK | Jim Hiller | Peter Laviolette | A veteran of seven stops brought in to finally get the Kings past Round 1. |
| VGK | Bruce Cassidy / Tortorella (int.) | Ryan Craig | An AHL promotion inherits a Cup-finalist roster - a rare soft landing for a first-time NHL coach. |
| VAN | Adam Foote | Manny Malhotra | Promoted the same summer his son Caleb went third overall to the Canucks. |
| CBJ | Dean Evason | Rick Bowness | A veteran steady hand takes over a young · maturing Blue Jackets group. |
| NYI | Patrick Roy | Pete DeBoer | An experienced playoff coach inherits an Islanders roster in transition. |
The Most Scrutinised Hire in Hockey
The headline change was Edmonton's. After a 138-point Art Ross season from Connor McDavid ended in a first-round exit, the Oilers fired Kris Knoblauch - a coach who had taken them to two straight Cup Finals - and hired Mike Babcock, who was cleared by the NHL to return after an investigation and admitted he was "shocked" to be back. D.J. Smith joined as associate coach. The logic is structure: Edmonton's five-on-five game regressed for two straight years, and Babcock's entire reputation is built on defensive detail. The risk is everything else that comes with the name. It is the highest-variance hire of the summer, on the highest-stakes roster.
Fired in LA, Hired in Toronto
The most interesting sequence ran from the West Coast to Ontario. The Kings fired Jim Hiller in-season despite back-to-back playoff appearances in 2024 and 2025 - and the Maple Leafs, fresh off a franchise-record collapse and armed with the No. 1 pick in Gavin McKenna, hired him to run the reset. It's a natural fit: Hiller spent four seasons as a Toronto assistant under, of all people, Mike Babcock. In his place, Los Angeles brought in Peter Laviolette for the seventh head-coaching job of a career that includes a 2006 Cup with Carolina and Final trips with Philadelphia and Nashville - a proven hand tasked with the one thing the Kings can't do: win a playoff round.
Malhotra's Vancouver Promotion
The offseason's first coaching hire was also its most quietly poignant. Vancouver promoted Manny Malhotra to head coach, replacing Adam Foote - and weeks later drafted Malhotra's son, Caleb, third overall. A former NHL centre who has climbed the coaching ladder as an assistant, Malhotra takes over a Canucks team at the start of a long rebuild, one now stocked with high picks and, in a twist few coaches ever get, his own kid in the pipeline. In Vegas, meanwhile, the Golden Knights handed the job to 44-year-old Ryan Craig, promoted from their AHL affiliate after Bruce Cassidy's midseason firing and John Tortorella's interim run - a first-time NHL head coach inheriting a Cup-finalist roster, about as soft a landing as the job offers.
Contenders Chased Structure; Rebuilds Chose Continuity
Two patterns run through the 2026 coaching changes. The win-now teams that fell short - Edmonton, Vegas, the Kings - reached for coaches who promise structure and playoff pedigree, from Babcock's defensive detail to Laviolette's seven-stop résumé. The teams looking forward - Toronto, Vancouver, Columbus - hired coaches to steward a rebuild, whether it's Hiller inheriting the McKenna era or Malhotra growing alongside a young roster that now includes his son.
The common thread is that every one of these hires is a bet on fixing a specific failure: Edmonton's five-on-five slide, LA's first-round wall, Toronto's collapse. Coaches don't change rosters. But they change what a roster is asked to do - and in a league where the margins are this thin, that's often the difference between April and June. We'll find out by spring which of these seven bets paid off.