Despite being extended a couple of months ago, Matt McIlvane leaves the AHL Gulls for the NHL Bruins.
The San Diego Gulls will be in the market for a new head coach this summer. The Ducks signed Matt McIlvane to a multi-year contract extension a little under two months ago, but it was announced on Wednesday morning (per various sources) that he had been hired by the Boston Bruins as an assistant coach.
McIlvane reunites with Marco Sturm, who was Team Germany's head coach during the 2018 Winter Olympics when McIlvane was on staff as an assistant coach. Germany won silver that year, falling to Olympic Athletes from Russia in the gold medal game.
"That German team was the best I'd ever been on," McIlvane said. "Not necessarily the best players, but to me, I shifted perspective on how the value of team (is). That was team was elite. There was a real bond. They were uncommon, and that became a pillar of where we believe now as coaches, that drives success within the team."
This is the second departure from the Gulls' coaching staff this offseason after assistant coach Michael Babcock left to take the Brantford Bulldogs head coaching job in the OHL. The Gulls have had issues retaining their coaching staff over the past five seasons, hiring four different head coaches and consistently having to replace their assistant coaches. Goaltending coach Jeff Glass remains the only fixture, hired by the organization in 2020.
With the upward trend that the Ducks organization experienced at both the NHL and AHL levels, the Gulls head coaching vacancy should have plenty of applicants. Though many of the Ducks' blue-chip prospects have either graduated from the AHL level or simply skipped it altogether, the hockey market in San Diego is strong and deserves high-quality performances on a nightly basis.
The next Gulls head coach will look to follow in McIlvane's footsteps and prepare players for the NHL level, where they can be contributors for the Ducks.
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