The middle of the NHL coaching rankings brings a mix of experience, recent success and plenty of pressure, with two Jack Adams Trophy finalists landing in the 15-to-11 range.
Peter Laviolette checks in at No. 15 with the Los Angeles Kings, and his résumé is built on volume as much as anything else. He has coached six different teams, won the Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2005-06, and brings 1,594 games of regular-season experience to the job. Since that Cup run, his teams have reached the playoffs 11 times.
Rick Bowness lands at No. 14 with the Columbus Blue Jackets after a late-season blowup with his players that did not stop GM Don Waddell from giving him a one-year extension. Bowness has only a half-season with Columbus, but his overall NHL coaching line is long: 840 games, plus a trip to the Stanley Cup Final while coaching the Dallas Stars.
At 71, he still proved he can get results, going 21-11-5 in 37 games. The Blue Jackets just missed the playoffs, and now Bowness is expected to push them into the postseason in 2026-27.
Dan Muse comes in at No. 13 after a strong rookie season behind the Pittsburgh Penguins bench. Pittsburgh went 41-25-16, returned to the playoffs for the first time in four years and finished third in Jack Adams Trophy voting. Muse has already earned the trust of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, but the pressure is real: the Penguins need him to keep the present moving while also developing the young players in the organization.
At No. 12, Lindy Ruff gets credit for rescuing a season that looked like it could have gone sideways early.
The Buffalo Sabres were in danger of moving on from him, then ripped off a 39-9-5 finish over their final 53 games to climb to the top of the Atlantic Division. Ruff, a previous Jack Adams Award winner, also picked up a two-year extension after the turnaround.
He’s now at 1,938 regular-season games coached and is set to move past 2,000 this season, making him the fourth-most-experienced coach in NHL history.
John Hynes rounds out this group at No. 11 after leading the Minnesota Wild to a 46-24-12 record, the seventh-best mark in the league last season. Minnesota has improved its record in each of Hynes’ three seasons there, and he has guided his teams to the playoffs in five of the past seven seasons.
Over the past 12 years, he has coached the Wild, New Jersey Devils and Nashville Predators, a run that shows real staying power. The Wild are under pressure in the Central Division, but GM Bill Guerin has confidence in Hynes as Minnesota tries to take the next step in 2026-27.
In Other News...
Blue Jackets Thought The Werenski Drama Had Cooled Off
The Columbus Blue Jackets have spent much of the summer trying to steady the situation around Zach Werenski, and for now the temperature around the relationship has come down. After a stretch of unease, the defenseman and the team appear to have settled things enough to move forward, even if the bigger questions about where this is all headed have not gone away. For a club trying to get back on firmer ground, keeping one of its most important players from becoming an ongoing distraction matters almost as much as anything on the ice.
Werenski remains tied to the Blue Jackets as one of the franchises defining players, but long-term commitment is still a live issue as the team continues to wrestle with performance concerns. Columbus can point to a quieter moment in the relationship and hope it holds, yet the broader challenge is obvious: the front office has to convince a cornerstone defenseman that the direction is worth buying into. Until that happens, the story around Werenski is likely to stay one of the bigger undercurrents around the team. [Read more 🡒]
Blue Jackets Havent Fully Escaped The Zach Werenski Tension Yet
The Zach Werenski conversation around Columbus has cooled for the moment, but it has not disappeared. Aaron Portzline reported that the defenseman has not directly asked for a trade, even as he has made clear he wants to see the Blue Jackets improve and get back into the playoff race. For now, that has taken some of the heat out of the situation, and GM Don Waddell has pushed back on the trade chatter that briefly threatened to turn into something bigger.
Still, this feels more like a pause than a resolution. Werenskis name figures to come back into the discussion if the Blue Jackets stumble or if an extension is not in place by next July, and that leaves the franchise with a familiar pressure point: prove the roster can win soon enough to keep one of its most important players from wondering what comes next. [Read more 🡒]