[Rumour] Golden Knights to name Gerard Gallant as head coach

[sureLoss]

Elliotte Friedman @FriedgeHNIC
That's got Gerard Gallant written all over it. Their first coach.

SinBin.vegas @SinBinVegas
BREAKING: Head Coach will be announced tomorrow. "I'd probably be ready by about 12 noon." -Foley

[Gaudfather]

Gallant should be a good choice for building new team together. As long as analytics aren't their biggest priority!

[StrykerSteve]

Good choice.

[btimbit]

Good choice

[dash_pinched]

Knights should start out being gallant.

/I'll show myself out.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Glad to see him get another job. If you can believe it, I'm STILL pissed at the Panther's decision to fire him. Vegas gets a coach that is good at teaching defense, works extremely well with young players, and is one of those guys that never gets too high or too low....patience, patience, patience is his best attribute. Just what you need with a brand new franchise.

[calumniate]

The Las Vegas Gallant knights

[oldschoolcalgary]

nice pick by Vegas... got a bit of short straw in Florida...

[calgaryblood]

Kind of glad Sutter didn't get this job. As good as he is, his style of play might not have been very entertaining for a team that needs to entertain its fans.

[Erick Estrada]

Interesting hire as Gallant bombed with an expansion talent Blue Jackets team. He did okay with a Florida team that was a mix of veterans and skilled young players and I expect there should be a fair share of veteran players picked up in the expansion draft but few really good young skilled players. Still it will be exciting to be living and coaching in a city like Vegas.

[Reggie Dunlop]

He's been hired to be fired. If and when the Golden Knights start to make noise, he'll be long gone.

[Jacks]

Hopefully it's cheezy Vegas style. Have the Rockette's dancing on stage, Copperfield comes on stage and makes a taxi appear out of thin air then Gallant steps out of it.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Interesting hire as Gallant bombed with an expansion talent Blue Jackets team. He did okay with a Florida team that was a mix of veterans and skilled young players and I expect there should be a fair share of veteran players picked up in the expansion draft but few really good young skilled players. Still it will be exciting to be living and coaching in a city like Vegas.

Oh sure, he just did "okay"...

From Wikipedia:

In his first season, he led the Panthers to a record of 38 wins, 29 losses, 5 overtime losses, and 10 shoot-out losses for 91 points. The record was an improvement of 9 wins and 25 points over the prior season. In 2015–16, Gallant led the upstart Panthers to a 24-12-4 record at the All-Star break, earning him a spot in the all-star game as the head coach for the Atlantic Division All-Stars. The Panthers finished with a club-record 47 wins and 103 points. For his efforts, Gallant was named as a finalist for the Jack Adams Award.

He did a helluva job in 2 seasons. I watched the Panthers turn into defensive stalwarts overnight after watching them struggle to keep the puck out of the net the year before Gallant arrived. He also was key in the development of players like Huberdeau, Barkov, Ekblad, and even got Marchessault off to his hot start this year by putting him in a position to succeed.

The Panthers had a key injury to Huberdeau for the first 60 some games of the season, and Barkov was out for a period of time as well. Instead of giving him a chance to round the team into form after a LOT of roster changes, they canned him early and put Tom Frickin' Rowe in his place.

Gallant is the first smart move for the Knights. He's going to make them quite competitive in their first year, especially if he gets a decent goalie and defense corps to work with.

[Erick Estrada]

I know you love the guy and I don't blame you considering winning seasons are few and far between for that franchise but Brent Sutter coached the Devils to a 106 point season. I need to see more from him before I would consider him a really good NHL head coach. If you are going to highlight two years in Florida you can't ignore his three years in Columbus (team was bad but the results were really bad). The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Brent Sutter coached the Devils to a 106 point season. I need to see more from him before I would consider him a really good NHL head coach. If you are going to highlight two years in Florida you can't ignore his three years in Columbus. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Or he learned from his first stint and got better. If players can get better over their career, why can't coaches?

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

Or he learned from his first stint and got better. If players can get better over their career, why can't coaches?

Didn't say he couldn't.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Didn't say he couldn't.

You're being quite dismissive of 91 point and 103 point back to back seasons. It's the same team that had 81 points this year without him, and let in the 3rd most goals in the East after being one of the best defensive teams in the East last year.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

You're being quite dismissive of 91 point and 103 point back to back seasons. It's the same team that had 81 points this year without him, and let in the 3rd most goals in the East after being one of the best defensive teams in the East last year.

I'm not being dismissive, I'm simply not going gaga over two good seasons. Injuries or not they weren't very good this season under him. Are you trying to say he's on a level with the elite coaches in the game?

[vilzeh]

"Injuries or not" of course you say that because they had key injuries there. Huberdeau and Barkov is a pretty (read: very) good duo and when one of them or say both of them are injured, its an issue. What would Flames be without lets say Johnny and Monahan this season? Gulutzan would probably be fired also by now.

Sent from my SM-A300FU using Tapatalk

[SmoggyFlamesFan]

Expected them to go after Sutter, but Gallant is also a good choice.