Four NHL Coaches Most Likely To Be Called For Job Openings In 2026-27

As we saw last season, any NHL coach's job security can vanish at literally any moment of the year.

The Vegas Golden Knights replaced Bruce Cassidy with John Tortorella at the end of March, while the New York Islanders replaced Patrick Roy with Peter DeBoer in the first week of April. No coach is completely safe anymore.

All it takes is a prolonged losing streak or falling out of the Stanley Cup playoff picture for a job to be lost.

Here are four coaches who could be replacements for a fired bench boss in 2026-27. In no particular order:

It still feels unfair that the Golden Knights have refused to permit some teams to speak with Bruce Cassidy.

However, the longer the Golden Knights stubbornly keep Cassidy off the open market for coaches, the worse Vegas looks because of it. And given virtually no season has passed without at least one coaching change, there will be opportunities for Cassidy to coach again.

The only question will be whether it’s a team clearly in win-now mode as a Cup front-runner that hires Cassidy, or a team looking to take the next step from the fringes of the playoff race to becoming a true post-season threat.

Just as Cassidy is on the radar for teams, so too will his replacement in Vegas, John Tortorella, who wasn’t brought back after bringing the Golden Knights within two wins of the second championship in franchise history.

So, while Tortorella’s tough-guy routine has a shorter shelf life than ever before, there’s almost always a team that looks at Tortorella’s resume, sees a Cup win, and gives Tortorella another chance in a different market.

At 68 years old, he is inching closer to retirement age. But there will be coaching openings that arise for teams, and all it takes is at least one of those teams to believe Tortorella can be a difference-maker, and he’ll be back again. 

Speaking of coaches who’ve won Stanley Cups, Craig Berube left the Toronto Maple Leafs in a classy way at the end of last season’s full-on disaster in Toronto. The Leafs gave him some job security he can lean on now, but Berube understands there are only 32 job openings at the NHL level – and beggars can’t be choosers.

Berube handled himself admirably in the intense glare of the Toronto market. But the NHL coaching profession is a results-oriented line of work, and positive results simply weren't there this past season.

So it may take time for Berube to get the chance to prove his final Leafs season was an anomaly and his St. Louis Blues days were a much better indication of what he’s capable of.

As a former Dallas Stars and Golden Knights assistant coach who won a Cup with Vegas, Donskov already has plenty of experience behind NHL benches. And while he’s not a household name, the 49-year-old Donskov is slowly but surely rising through the ranks to make a name for himself.

Last summer, Donskov was named vice-president of hockey operations and coach of Team Canada’s men’s national team. Donskov also worked on the Canadian bench with coach Jon Cooper at the 2026 Winter Olympics, and he’s a consultant for Canada’s men's under-17 and under-18 programs.

Donskov has coached Canada at the 2026 IIHF World Championship, and he’ll coach Canada again at the 2027 World Junior Championship and the 2027 World Championship. 

Few up-and-coming coaches have Donskov's experience, and on Thursday, the Edmonton Oilers announced that Donskov would be joining the team as a coaching consultant. If the Mike Babcock experiment goes awry, nobody should be shocked if Donskov gets the job as his replacement.

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