New York Rangers Part Ways With Gerard Gallant After First-Round Playoff Loss

He bristled at the idea that his job was in jeopardy after the New York Rangers were eliminated from the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs. But just three days later, Gerard Gallant has parted ways with the New York Rangers.

“After my evaluation of the season and discussions with Gerard, we mutually came to the conclusion that a change would be beneficial for both parties,” said Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury in a statement on Saturday.

“After conversations with my family and Chris, it became clear that this was the right decision for both myself and #NYR at this time,” added Gallant in a follow-up tweet from the Rangers’ account.

Hired to replace David Quinn two summers ago, Gallant was coming off a dramatic gold-medal run with Team Canada at the 2021 IIHF World Championship, where the squad reversed an 0-3 start to come back and win the tournament.

Gallant was seen as a players’ coach and a masterful motivator, and after the Rangers had missed the playoffs in three of their four previous seasons, they reached the 2022 Eastern Conference Final in his first year behind the bench before being eliminated by the Tampa Bay Lightning.

This season, the Rangers followed up their 110-point regular-season campaign with a 107-point effort. And after Drury loaded up his roster for a meaningful playoff run with additions including Vladimir Tarasenko and Patrick Kane, the Rangers started the playoffs with two straight wins over the New Jersey Devils.

But they couldn’t sustain that momentum. They were ultimately eliminated, going out with a whimper in a 4-0 loss in Game 7. And there were rumors of dissension between Drury and Gallant — most notably, reports from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet and Arthur Staple of The Athletic that the pair got into a heated argument following the Rangers’ 3-1 home-ice loss at Madison Square Garden in Game 4.

Like last season, when he was named a finalist for the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s coach of the year, Gallant did not participate in season-ending exit interviews with players. But he did speak to the media on Wednesday and, at that point, brushed off speculation that his job might be in jeopardy.

“Did I have a tough two weeks? Did we have a tough two weeks? Yeah,” Gallant said. “But besides that, I can’t believe I have to answer some of these questions about me getting let go or me getting fired, brought up by the media. It’s disappointing.”

According to CapFriendly, Gallant was two years into a four-year contract that paid him $3.5 million per season.

Gallant leaves with a record of 99-46-19 over two seasons on Broadway. That’s a .662 points percentage which is the best of any team in his coaching career, which has also included stops with the Vegas Golden Knights, Florida Panthers and Columbus Blue Jackets. Gallant also coached 27 playoff games in New York, matching his total in Vegas. With the Rangers, he was 13-14.

His dismissal also means that all three Jack Adams finalists from the 2021-22 season are now out of their positions within less than a year. Darryl Sutter, the 2022 award winner, was let go by the Calgary Flames on Monday. Second-place finisher Andrew Brunette was removed from his interim position with the Florida Panthers when Paul Maurice was hired last June. Brunette has spent this season as an associate coach with the New Jersey Devils, under Lindy Ruff.

The man Brunette replaced in Florida, Joel Quenneville, has been widely rumored to be a candidate for the Rangers job. Quenneville stepped down from his position with the Panthers on October 28, 2021, after it was determined that he had acted inappropriately in the wake of the sexual assault allegations by Kyle Beach against Bradley Aldrich when he was coach of the Chicago Blackhawks, in 2010.

TSN’s Darren Dreger reported last November that Quenneville was looking to get back into an NHL job, but that he would require approval from commissioner Gary Bettman before he could take a new position. “That hasn’t happened yet and there are some who think that it may not happen until next season,” said Dreger at the time.

Despite the black mark on his record from 2010, Quenneville also has plenty of positives on his resume. The 64-year-old is the second-winningest NHL coach of all time, behind only Scotty Bowman, and guided the Blackhawks to three Stanley Cups between 2010 and 2015 as well as an assistant with the Colorado Avalanche in 1996. He was also the first NHL coach of Artemi Panarin, who won the 2015 Calder Trophy in the first of his two seasons with the Blackhawks. Now in his fourth year with the Rangers, Panarin had a strong regular season, recording 92 points. But he struggled in the playoffs, managing just two assists in seven games.

Before Florida and Chicago, Quenneville also spent three seasons as head coach of the Avalanche and eight years with the St. Louis Blues.

The Rangers are the fifth team to part ways with their head coach since the regular season ended three weeks ago, but the first among the 16 teams who made the playoffs. The four non-playoff squads who are making changes are the Flames, the Anaheim Ducks, the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Washington Capitals.

Twelve teams changed coaches between February and July of 2022 but there was just one change during the 2022-23 season, when the Vancouver Canucks replaced Bruce Boudreau with Rick Tocchet.