5 Coaching Landing Spots for Rod Brind'Amour

Rod Brind'Amour is a hockey guy's hockey guy.

He was a respected captain and Stanley Cup winner as a player and has won a Jack Adams Award and never missed the playoffs as an NHL coach.

His Carolina Hurricanes finished third overall among 32 teams this season, blew past the New York Islanders in five games in the first round of this season's playoffs but were dismissed in six games from the second round by the Presidents' Trophy-winning Rangers.

It's not a new feeling.

In fact, they've not won more than eight games in a playoff run on his watch and have been swept out of the tournament twice while exiting in five games two other times.

So, despite six years of regular-season success in Raleigh, North Carolina, the future is unclear.

Or at least it may be.

Brind'Amour signed a three-year contract extension in 2021 that runs out after the league year in late June, and there's some suggestion that the delay in getting another deal done could mean he'll be somewhere else when the 2024-25 season starts in October.

Already immersed in its annual playoff frenzy, the B/R hockey team quickly seized the narrative and compiled a list of five teams whose benches it would make some sense for the 53-year-old to be behind going forward.

Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the comments.

Maybe it's just a delay in the hiring process.

Maybe Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon and general manager Don Waddell have other things going on and have not gotten around to dotting the I's and crossing T's on a new contract.

Because Brind'Amour leaving Carolina doesn't really make a lot of sense.

The team has averaged 51 wins across his four 82-game seasons, reached the playoffs for six straight springs and gotten closer to the franchise's second title than any Hurricanes coach since he captained the team to the Stanley Cup in 2006.

It's not a good end for either party.

And no less an authority than Dundon himself said the deal is all but done.

"Don and him are working on it," he told Luke Decock of the News & Observer. "I don't think there's anything there. We're in the playoffs and they haven't focused on it. They're doing it together. I said OK to almost everything they've asked me for. They're just getting through the last little stuff."

Ron Francis was a teammate of Brind'Amour's for three full seasons and parts of two others in Carolina.

Brind'Amour even took over as the team's captain when Francis was dealt to the Toronto Maple Leafs at the 2004 trade deadline.

Later, during Francis' subsequent run as director of hockey operations and GM of the Hurricanes, he was Brind'Amour's boss when the ex-player worked as an assistant coach.

Not surprisingly, they've remained good friends since Francis left in 2018. And where did he go, you ask?

It just so happens he headed west to take over the Seattle Kraken, and the soon-to-be fourth-year expansion team just so happens to need a coach.

The Kraken fired Dave Hakstol after plunging from 100 points to 81 and missing the playoffs this season, and it should no one if Francis puts Brind'Amour at the top of his list.

Brind'Amour is a Canadian-born hockey guy. In fact, he's an Ontario-born hockey guy.

Which means, either by devotion or osmosis, he's linked to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Maple Leafs are the focal point of the True North's most hockey-mad city, and it's been a while since they've been on a championship path.

It was 1967 to be exact; three years before Brind'Amour was born.

Their latest playoff disaster, a seven-game loss to the Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference's first round, cost coach Sheldon Keefe his job after he averaged 50 wins in three 82-game seasons and reached the tournament five consecutive times.

It's not a job for the faint of heart, but Brind'Amour is a playing contemporary of Toronto president Brendan Shanahan, whose mandate to GM Brad Treliving will certainly be to bring in a coach capable of taking charge of a room full of high-priced superstars.

Brind'Amour fits that bill, and though Shanahan's Detroit Red Wings defeated Brind'Amour and the Hurricanes to win the 2002 Cup, he'd surely be happy to celebrate a blue-and-white slump-buster with an old rival.

Shield your eyes, Philadelphia Flyers fans.

Though you may still harbor a hope that Brind'Amour will find his way back to the organization that's already made him a Hall of Famer, it's probably a sliver more likely that he winds up about 90 miles to the northeast.

The New Jersey Devils are at or near the top of any list of the league's most attractive available coaching jobs thanks to the plethora of young talent they have assembled.

It was on full display when the team climbed to third overall in the league and a second-round playoff berth (against Carolina) in 2022-23, but a slew of injuries to key players—including ex-Hurricane stalwart Dougie Hamilton, who missed 62 games—led to a 20-spot plummet, a playoff miss and the axing of coach Lindy Ruff.

Assuming Hamilton and Jack Hughes (who had 74 points in just 62 games) manage to work their way back to anything resembling full health for 2024-25, it's all but a lock that the standings position spikes back no matter who's behind the bench.

This means putting the group in the hands of a proven commodity like Brind'Amour would almost be an embarrassment of riches for GM Tom Fitzgerald.

Who wouldn't want to coach hockey in Los Angeles? The weather's great. The city's alive. The team is talented.

It's no wonder that Jim Hiller is hoping the organizational brass removes the interim tag and keeps him in place after he engineered a 21-12-1 run following Todd McLellan's exit.

But let's face it, if Brind'Amour becomes available, Hiller's time is all but up.

It would be a no-brainer for a former Carolina coach to consider the Kings, who've averaged 45 wins across the last three seasons and reached the tournament in each of them.

They're deep and skilled with nine players reaching double-digit goals in 2023-24, and have a tempting mix of championship pedigree—Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty—and attractive youth in the form of Quinton Byfield (21) and Adrian Kempe (27).

They're among the teams likely to make a run at Boston goalie Linus Ullmark if he becomes available in the offseason, and such an acquisition would make an attractive job even more so for Brind'Amour, who is a longtime champion of conservative play and stout defense.