The NHL coaching carousel is officially spinning.
The Washington Capitals named Toronto Maple Leafs assistant Spencer Carbery as their new coach Tuesday and multiple reports have surfaced about the Nashville Predators replacing coach John Hynes with Andrew Brunette ― the New Jersey Devils’ associate coach who interviewed with the Blue Jackets.
If and when the Predators confirm that it will eliminate Brunette from a field of candidates in Columbus that includes veterans Peter Laviolette and Mike Babcock, associate coach Pascal Vincent, Calgary Flames assistant Kirk Muller and former Vancouver Canucks coach Travis Green.
More: Mike Babcock, Peter Laviolette, more: Update on Blue Jackets’ coaching search
Recent reports said the Blue Jackets have also spoken with former Colorado Avalanche coach Patrick Roy, an elite goalie for the Montreal Canadiens and Avalanche during his playing days. Roy is general manager and coach of the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and has that team one victory from hoisting the CHL’s prestigious Memorial Cup trophy as the Canadian junior leagues’ top team.
The Blue Jackets began the week planning to name a replacement for Brad Larsen, who was fired in April. It’s unclear whether Nashville snapping up Brunette and making Hynes available affects the timeline.
Roy’s name is the most recent to be connected to Columbus, so here are three things to know about him:
Patrick Roy quit NHL coaching career with Colorado Avalanche
After 16 years as owner of the Remparts, which included 10 seasons in which he was also the team’s GM and coach, the Avalanche hired Roy in 2013 to run their bench. It wasn’t that simple, though, because things are never that simple with Roy.
He didn’t agree to the coaching job until the Avalanche agreed to give him an executive position as well. That’s why his title in Colorado was vice president of hockey operations and head coach, working alongside former Avalanche teammate and friend Joe Sakic ― now the team’s president of hockey operations who was the team’s executive vice president of hockey operations at the time.
Roy’s first season in Colorado was a huge success with the team outplaying its dreadful puck possession statistics. The Avalanche went 52-22-8 in 2013-14, won the Central Division, and Roy won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s top coach as chosen by TV and radio broadcasters.
That season ended with a first-round loss in the playoffs and Roy’s next two seasons were letdowns.
The Avalanche finished last in the Central in 2014-15 with a 39-31-12 record followed by a sixth-place finish in 2015-16 with a 39-39-4 mark that included an eight-game losing streak that dropped them out of playoff contention. Roy resigned near the end of the ensuing offseason, issuing a press release to announce his decision a month before camp was slated to begin.
He returned to Quebec and essentially threw Sakic and other Avalanche execs under the proverbial bus.
“I have thought long and hard over the course of the summer about how I might improve this team to give it the depth it needs and bring it to a higher level,” Roy’s statement read. “To achieve this, the vision of the coach and VP-Hockey Operations needs to be perfectly aligned with that of the organization. He must also have a say in the decisions that impact the team’s performance. These conditions are not currently met.”
The Avalanche replaced Roy with Jared Bednar, former coach of the Blue Jackets’ top affiliate in the American Hockey League. The Cleveland Monsters, then known as the Lake Erie Monsters, won the AHL’s 2016 Calder Cup championship under Bednar, who has now led the Avalanche for seven seasons.
During Bednar’s tenure, Colorado has qualified for the playoffs the past six seasons and won the 2022 Stanley Cup.
Patrick Roy returned to winning with the Quebec Remparts in the QMJHL
Roy took two years off from hockey before returning to the Remparts in 2018-19 as GM and coach in his hometown. He’s no longer an owner, but he does all the shopping and cooking for the team’s roster.
This season, Roy guided the Remparts to a QMJHL championship and they’ve continued the run at the Memorial Cup tournament between Canada’s top junior teams. After winning their first two games over the Kamloops Blazers and Seattle Thunderbirds, the Remparts have clinched a spot in the June 4 championship game.
Despite being outshot by a wide margin in a 3-1 clinching victory against Seattle, Roy’s Remparts were praised for running a tight defensive structure that kept most of the Thunderbirds’ shots to the outside.
Patrick Roy has a short temper
Quitting as the Avalanche’s coach a month before his fourth training camp wasn’t an isolated incident.
A sour relationship between Roy and former Canadiens coach Mario Tremblay in 1995 forced Montreal into what’s now seen as one of the worst trades in NHL history. Roy was dealt to the Avalanche four days after Tremblay left him in net for nine goals during an 11-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings at the Montreal Forum, which didn’t have glass partitions behind the Canadiens’ bench, where the team’s executives sat.
After finally being replaced, Roy went straight to where Canadiens president Ronald Corey sat and said he was done playing in Montreal. Roy was suspended the next day and then traded after winning the Stanley Cup twice with the Canadiens.
The Red Wings were also the opposition during another infamous Roy blowup March 26, 1997 at Joe Louis Arena, where he fought Detroit goalie Mike Vernon. After leaving his net to aid teammate Claude Lemieux, who’d been jumped by Detroit’s Darren McCarty, Roy was knocked to the ice by Detroit’s Brendan Shanahan and then started fighting with Vernon.
Roy got in a few punches, but he was bloodied by Vernon’s straight left to the face that opened a cut above his eye.
Roy’s intensity is what drove him as a goalie and helped him become a Cup winner four times – twice each with the Canadiens and Avalanche. It helped his teams win the William Jennings Trophy five times as the team that allows the fewest goals. It helped him earn the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goalie and the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP three times each.
Roy might’ve mellowed a bit over the years, but his personality still burns hot. The Blue Jackets already have a goalie, Elvis Merzlikins, whose persona is similar. Watching Roy and Merzlikins interact in Columbus, while Merzlikins tries to regain his top form, would be almost appointment viewing if the former star netminder is hired as the Blue Jackets head coach.
bhedger@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: 3 things to know about Patrick Roy and the Blue Jackets
