Ranking the NHL's New Head Coaching Hires for 2026-27 Season

The NHL is set to have five new head coaches for the 2026-27 season, with Ryan Craig (Vegas Golden Knights), Jim Hiller (Toronto Maple Leafs), Mike Babcock (Edmonton Oilers), Manny Malhotra (Vancouver Canucks), and Peter Laviolette (Los Angeles Kings) all taking over new teams.

We are going to include a sixth coach in that with Peter DeBoer and the New York Islanders, given that he was hired with just four games remaining in the 2025-26 regular season and is for all intents and purposes another new coach coming into this season.

Now that we know the new coaches around the league, let's rank the hires from worst-to-best.

6. Mike Babcock, Edmonton Oilers

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Some Edmonton Oilers fans might see me as a hater, but that's not the case.

I try to call things as I see them, and I'm happy to give the organization credit when it makes strong moves or sound decisions. I just don't think that happens very often.

Based on Mike Babcock's recent history and the controversy surrounding his brief stint with the Columbus Blue Jackets, hiring him as head coach does not appear to be a good decision.

Aside from all of the baggage that comes with the 63-year-old given the way his previous head coaching experiences ended (and in the case of the Columbus Blue Jackets, his attempted head coaching experiences), as well as the many negative stories about his treatment of players, there is another harsh reality here that is not getting talked about enough.

Not only has Babcock not won anything in a long time, but a lot of his recent teams have also badly underachieved.

Yes, he's a big name and has won a lot of games in the past. He has also taken the Anaheim Ducks and Detroit Red Wings to Stanley Cup Finals, winning one with the Red Wings. But we have to go back nearly two decades to find that level of success at this point.

Between the end of his tenure with the Red Wings, as well as his entire time with the Toronto Maple Leafs, he has not coached a team to the second round since the 2012-13 season, and has only done so once since 2010-11.

The 2010-11 season is also the last time one of his teams finished higher than third in its own division. His teams have consistently been middle of the pack in the regular season and found no playoff success for more than a decade. It has also been five years since he last coached an NHL game.

At some point, the game passes you by. I've seen no evidence to suggest that is not the case here, and there should be a massive "prove it" element to this season to show otherwise.

It brings negative attention without any guarantee of success, and it feels more like a desperate move by a franchise running short on ideas than a thoughtful long-term plan. I would have rather seen the Oilers take a chance on an unknown coach with upside than go back to a polarizing retread with this much baggage.

5. Ryan Craig, Vegas Golden Knights

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Craig is a relative unknown on the coaching circuit, with the Golden Knights job being his first NHL head-coaching job.

He is taking over following John Tortorella's brief tenure, and is a major rarity for Vegas in that he is an internal development and came from within the organization. Whether it is players or coaching staff, Vegas has had a tendency to go for big-name hires/acquisitions, and always looking for a splash.

Craig does not really fit that mold.

The Vegas job is a complicated one because you know you are going to be coaching a talented team with a chance to win.

But the brief history of the Golden Knights also says that you are going to have almost no leash no matter what you do. Craig is already Vegas' fifth head coach, with nobody lasting four full seasons. That is despite all of the previous head coaches reaching at least the Conference Finals, and three of them having reached the Stanley Cup Final, including Tortorella this past season.

Does that make this a good job or a bad job?

You know you are going to have a chance to win. But you also know you are not going to be here for long even if you do win.

4. Manny Malhotra, Vancouver Canucks

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In the short-term, Malhotra might be taking over one of the most unwinnable jobs in the league.

He joins the Vancouver bench with a reputation for being good with developing young talent and helping players along. That is exactly the type of coach Vancouver is looking for as its major rebuild really gets started.

It's just not going to be a fast rebuild or an easy rebuild, and it's going to be a miserable place to start off an NHL head-coaching career, simply because wins are going to be so difficult.

Malhotra is unlikely to be the head coach the next time the Canucks are competitive, and that is simply a testament to how far off the team is. He might have a better chance at success in his next NHL head-coaching job.

3. Peter Laviolette, Los Angeles Kings

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Peter Laviolette is a fine appointment for a veteran team trying to win, even if it's a boring hire. And even if it's a hire that might not produce a championship.

It's not hard to see why a team like the Kings would be interested in a coach like Laviolette. He has had a very successful NHL head coaching career. He's taken three different franchises to the Stanley Cup Final (Carolina Hurricanes, Philadelphia Flyers and Nashville Predators) and won with one of them (Carolina).

He has won a couple of playoff series recently and been in a conference final as recently as a couple of years ago. He has a history with the Kings' best offensive player, Artemi Panarin, from their time together with the New York Rangers, and saw him have MVP-level performances offensively.

But is this going to be enough for the Kings and what they are missing?

Is the head coach really the missing piece here?

Laviolette is the fourth different head coach this current core group has had (Todd McLellan, Jim Hiller, D.J. Smith on an interim basis), and those coaching changes produced five consecutive first-round exits. Maybe it's a lot of bad matchups. Possibly. But maybe the roster just isn't where it needs to be. It still is not. At least not on paper.

He is a solid hire, though not an overwhelmingly great one. That's pretty much what the Kings are likely to continue being: not bad, not great, just solid.

2. Jim Hiller, Toronto Maple Leafs

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The Maple Leafs decision to hire Jim Hiller came out of left field, but so has pretty much everything else they have done this offseason.

But that doesn't necessarily mean it is a bad hire.

Hiller coached the Los Angeles Kings for parts of three seasons, taking over halfway through the 2023-24 season, coaching the entirety of the 2024-25 season, and then getting fired halfway through the 2025-26 season.

That's a weird tenure, and a very short one. But it also wasn't terrible. He took the Kings to the playoffs in 2023-24 and 2024-25, including a 48-win, 105-point season in his one full season behind the Kings bench.

It never resulted in playoff success, losing consecutive first-round series, but I would argue that had more to do with the team he was trying to win with and its shortcomings, than anything he did or did not do as a coach. The Kings were good, but always lacking in high-end offensive talent and kept running into the same team (the Edmonton Oilers) that happened to have two series-changing superstars in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl at the top of their lineup.

Hiller's Kings teams always had strong defensive metrics and defensive play, and that is a big-time area the Maple Leafs have to improve. If he can get Toronto to shore things up defensively, while also getting to coach a team that has some serious high-end talent at the top (Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares Matthew Knies, and No. 1 overall pick Gavin McKenna), I don't think it's a stretch to think this team could have some success and that this hire could work out.

1. Peter DeBoer, New York Islanders

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You can say a lot of things about Peter DeBoer.

For one, he has coached a lot, and for a lot of different teams. The Islanders are already his sixth different NHL head-coaching job since he first started as a head coach during the 2008-09 season.

You can also say that he tends to have a short shelf life. In four of his previous five stops he was fired within four years, and in the fifth stop (San Jose) he was fired during his fifth season. He's never lasted more than four-and-a-half seasons with any of those teams.

He also has a tendency to have a rocky relationship with his starting goalies, which certainly presents an interesting dynamic with a New York Islanders team whose best, and most important player is a goalie (at least until defenseman Matthew Schaefer takes over that title).

You can also say that he wins.

A lot.

And not only does he win a lot in the regular season, he also tends to go extremely deep into the playoffs.

While his resume is still lacking a Stanley Cup championship, he has taken two different teams to the Stanley Cup Final (New Jersey Devils and San Jose Sharks) and taken four different teams to eight total Conference Finals.

That's also a lot.

So much so that it has him fifth on the NHL's All-Time playoff wins list for head coaches.

His teams always have a tendency to post strong underlying metrics, they always tend to win the territorial game and control possession, and they always seem to defend extraordinarily well. There is a lot to like about his resume as a coach, at least for a few years before he inevitably wears out his welcome and either runs afoul of his goalie, or is just unable to get over the final hurdle for a championship.

Even with that, he might be the best new head coach for this season, and exactly what the Islanders needed to improve their on-ice process.