Gerard Gallant could be the next coach of Seattle’s NHL expansion team
After leading the expansion Vegas Golden Knights to unparalleled success, could Gerard Gallant be up for a repeat performance in Seattle with their expansion team?
The Vegas Golden Knights are in full panic mode right now for whatever reason, and just did the NHL a huge favor by firing head coach Gerard Gallant to give plenty of teams a new top option for head coach.
Gallant was fired by the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday morning, with the organization citing “performance issues” for the move. Gallant is the seventh coach to be fired this season, and almost certainly not the last. Former San Jose Sharks head coach Pete DeBoer, whom Gallant called a clown during last year’s playoff series, replaced Gallant as the Golden Knights’ head coach.
Gallant was hired as the head coach of the Golden Knights prior to their inaugural season in 2017-18, and led that expansion team to a Pacific Division title, Western Conference championship, and an appearance in the Stanley Cup Final. Next season, Vegas made the playoffs again before losing to the Sharks in seven games in the most absurd fashion. While Vegas has been inconsistent this season, they’re still the favorites to win the wide open Pacific Division, but instead opted to fire their coach. Quite the absurd overreaction.
Must Read. Vegas’ firing of Gallant is a gross overreaction. light
Gallant will be unemployed for as long as he wants to be, and surely teams will be lining up around the block to get a hold of the 2018 Jack Adams winner. With the amount of the head coaches that have been fired, there are plenty of jobs open around the league. However, the best fit for Gallant is with a team that doesn’t even exist yet.
If Seattle was waiting for the perfect candidate for head coach to open up, they have just found their guy and should do everything in their power to lock him down before another team can get him.
Vegas showed that more than anything, success is how you build a fanbase with an expansion team. There’s not doubt that Seattle is paying very close attention to their model, and what better way to follow suit than hiring the guy that led to such unparalleled success in the previous expansion city?
Gallant isn’t just a proven great head coach, but he has been through the expansion process before, and knows exactly what to do to help lead a team full of players that were cast off their original teams. Seattle will have the exact same expansion rules as the Golden Knights did when they first drafted their team, so outside of general managers not making the same mistakes they did in 2017, Seattle could be giving Gallant about the same level of talent that he had in Vegas’s first year.
Outside of logistics, how unique of a story would it be for Gallant to lead one expansion team to success, and then go and do the same with thing with another expansion team just a few years later? Imagine if he takes Seattle to the playoff again in their first year, and maybe finishes the job with a Stanley Cup this time around?
Teams are going to be all over Gallant now that he’s on the open market, so Seattle somehow enticing him to take a job that’s still over two years away is a bit of a long shot, but there is no other coach out there that will ever be a better fit in Seattle. There’s no point waiting to see what’s available closer to their inaugural season, they should do what they can to sign Gallant now, and knock that off their to-do list.
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