Bruins to part ways with assistant coach Jay Leach
A possible head coaching candidate is set to become a free agent.
According to David Pagnotta, assistant coach Jay Leach will be leaving the Boston Bruins.
As I mentioned on the DFO Rundown Insider Edition today, the #NHLBruins will be parting ways with assistant coach Jay Leach, whose contract is up and I'm told won't be renewed.
This season was reportedly the last one in Leach’s current contract with Boston, and there will be no deal for him to stay with the Bruins.
Leach, 46, is known as a defense-first coach, and was floated by Daily Faceoff’s Matt Larkin as potential candidate to fill the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ vacant head coaching job.
The Syracuse, New York native spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach with Boston. In the 2024-25 season, he initially worked under head coach Jim Montgomery before Montgomery was fired and replaced by Joe Sacco. This season, he worked under head coach Marco Sturm.
It’s unclear exactly why the Bruins and Leach are parting ways, but Boston finished a middling 14th in the NHL this season with 3.01 goals allowed per game. It’s possible Sturm felt his team needed a fresh voice to replace Leach, who was primarily responsible for Boston’s defense.
Leach previously served as an assistant coach for the Seattle Kraken under head coach Dave Hakstol from their inaugural 2021-22 season through the 2023-24 season. Before joining Seattle, he was the head coach of the AHL’s Providence Bruins from the 2017-18 season until the end of the 2020-21 season. He was an assistant coach in the AHL for two years prior to that, and was an assistant coach in Germany for Adler Mannheim of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL) in the 2014-15 season.
Prior to coaching, he also had a long career as a defenseman, spent mostly in the AHL. He does have 70 career NHL games played under his belt, largely with the New Jersey Devils and San Jose Sharks, in which he managed one goal and two assists.