Due to his wife, The coach of the Philadelphia flyers has officially announced his retirement
Veteran NHL bench boss Alain Vigneault announced his retirement from coaching in an interview with the Journal de Québec, capping a 19-year head coaching career that spanned four teams. This news was reported by the French-Canadian outlet RDS.
Vigneault, who was fired in December 2021 but is still under contract with the Flyers, stated that he has no plans to return to coaching and that this contract would be his last. Last summer, Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic revealed that Vigneault was most likely going to be Vigneault’s last NHL head coach.
With 1,363 games behind an NHL bench, the 62-year-old Canadian coach leaves behind a fairly illustrious coaching career. He is ranked 15th in NHL history for most games coached. During his coaching career, he amassed over 700 victories, a record held by just nine other coaches in NHL history.
He never had his name inscribed on the Stanley Cup, though, so he fell short of being the greatest hockey player of all time. Despite playing in 12 of his 19 seasons, he qualified for the playoffs twice and lost both times.
When Vigneault took over as head coach of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1997–98 season, his NHL coaching career officially began. After that, he became a coach for the Philadelphia Flyers, New York Rangers, and Vancouver Canucks.
The main piece of hardware that Vigneault owns was the Jack Adams Award he received in his first season with the Canucks in 2006–07, following his team to a 49–26-7 record and the Northwest Division championship. Thanks to defender Scott Niedermayer of the Ducks’ relatively innocuous double-overtime victory in Game 5, Vancouver would lose in the second round to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks (video link).
Vigneault’s most prosperous stint was definitely in Vancouver, where he won two consecutive Presidents’ Trophies with the team in 2010–11 and 2011–12. In 2011, the Canucks made their first trip to the Stanley Cup Final in almost 20 years, but despite leading the series 2-0, they were defeated by the Boston Bruins in seven games.
Three seasons later, Vigneault returned to the Stanley Cup Final with the New York Rangers, a team that ultimately lost the series 4-1 after losing all three of its overtime games.
Vigneault had a brief playing career in the NHL before beginning his coaching career. In the 1980s, he was a defenseman for the St. Louis Blues, appearing in 42 games before turning pro at the age of 25.
He does have a 78-77 career playoff record, which is uncommon for a coach without a Cup win to be above.500. With two conference titles, a Jack Adams, and longevity that puts him among the greatest NHL coaches of all time, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that he would receive a call from the Hockey Hall of Fame in the near future.
