Who will be the first NHL coach fired in 2026-27?

Oct 24, 2026, 08:46 EDT

Credit: Apr 2, 2026; Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; Columbus Blue Jackets head coach Rick Bowness walks off the ice after the bfirst period against the Carolina Hurricanes at Lenovo Center. Mandatory Credit: James Guillory-Imagn Images

We’ve reached a juncture of the NHL season in which it’s early and late. It’s early in the sense that the sample sizes are small, the calendar hasn’t yet reached November and every team has more than 70 games left on the schedule. It’s late in that some struggling outfits need to consider making drastic changes now while they can still save their seasons, and changing head coaches is usually the quickest fix to get results.

So, Roundtable: Who will be the first NHL coach fired this season?

MATT LARKIN: Does it count if the coach fires himself? There’s a non-zero chance Rick Bowness does that and walks away as Columbus Blue Jackets coach this season. He’s the oldest active bench boss in the league at 71, and he seems beyond fed up with his players’ compete level, regularly calling them out in post-game pressers going back to late last season. If he doesn’t decide he’s had enough, I wonder if GM Don Waddell makes the call and decides his players need a new voice. If it happens, it would mark the second consecutive year Columbus is the first team to fire its coach, as the axe fell on Dean Evason last January.

PAUL PIDUTTI: After much intense speculation and middling results, it’s hardly salacious to suggest Andrew Brunette could be on borrowed time with the Nashville Predators. He’s been on the hot seat for two years now. What’s changed? A couple of things: time and a new general manager in Chris MacFarland. Brunette enters his fourth season behind the Preds’ bench and has a mediocre roster with some flashy, aging names and very few young players ready to make an impact. While the team doesn’t have sky-high expectations, you have to wonder how patient MacFarland will be with a coach he inherited should Nashville look lost after a few months.

MIKE GOULD: I don’t know if I necessarily see a ton of obvious candidates to get the axe, but I do wonder about Ryan Huska. Obviously, the Calgary Flames have long been expected to finish near the bottom of the standings this year, but if Huska can’t get more offense out of his young players, I don’t know how much longer he’ll last. This is his fourth year behind the bench in Calgary, and in this league, very few coaches make it this long without getting into a single playoff game. The expectations are clearly very different with these Flames, but it’s still something to think about.

STEVEN ELLIS: How about Jeff Blashill with the Chicago Blackhawks? I know many in Chicago aren’t in love with his coaching style, and it feels like the Hawks should be better than they are right now. They’re dead last in the Central Division and have been getting absolutely slaughtered in their own end. Blashill has essentially only coached uncompetitive teams throughout his career, but it still feels like the Hawks have been underwhelming to an extreme this year. If Bruce Cassidy is willing to take the job, they’d have to go after him, right? They might stink now, but the idea of coaching Connor Bedard, Frank Nazar, Anton Frondell and Co. has to be intriguing for some of the top available options.

SCOTT MAXWELL: I agree with Matt, it feels like Rick Bowness might be the first coach on his way out. It’s surprising to say considering how the Blue Jackets started under Bowness, but given his comments towards the end of the season and only a handful of games into this season, he may have already lost the room. Then again, Bowness has complained about his players’ compete levels quite a bit, even going back to his last job with the Winnipeg Jets. It’s starting to get to the point where he complains so much that you have to wonder if he just isn’t good at getting his players to buy in. The only reason I could see the Blue Jackets keeping Bowness around is that they’ve gone through so many coaches lately: a new coach in the next few months would give Columbus their sixth in the last four years. At some point, these players need some stability behind the bench.
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