So far the Rangers are known to have interviewed Gerard Gallant and Rick Tochett to replace David Quinn.
Gallant is coaching Canada at the World Championships through at least June 1st.
Five of the eight first round playoff series have concluded with two possibly ending tonight and one ending tomorrow.
The coaches of the eliminated teams are:
5/25/21 | Tocchet interviewed with the Rangers today and will interview with Buffalo and likely Columbus later this week. (Craig Morgan)
5/18/21 | 6:43PM: Drury has been in “contact” with both John Tortorella and Patrick Roy but Larry Brooks says that those talks may not be official job interviews. (NY Post)
4:40PM: The Rangers will interview Rick Tocchet for their head coaching vacancy. (Elliotte Friedman)
Tocchet is also going to be interviewing with the Seattle Kraken. (Seravalli)
Tocchet was the head coach with Tampa Bay (53-69-26) from 2008-09 to 2009-10 and he spent the last four seasons as the head coach with Arizona (125-131-34).
Elliotte Friedman spoke about the coaching carousel Wednesday on NHL Now and said:
On Rick Tocchet interviewing with the Rangers and Seattle, “I don’t know if he’s had them yet or if he is to have them, I’m not sure the exact timeline, but he is going to be interviewed by those two teams and I wouldn’t be surprised, depending on what else opens up, if he gets interviewed elsewhere. One of the things we don’t know here yet is what’s gonna happen out of the first round? Are there going to be any more vacancies are any teams going to make changes based on their results. I don’t think we have a full picture yet of the coaching carousel and Tocchet has those two interviews and I wouldn’t be surprised, depending on what happens, if he gets even more, he’s a really good coach.”
5/19/21 | 11:40 AM: Pierre LeBrun said on his podcast that “Gallant’s interview with the Rangers left a really positive impression on the Rangers and Chris Drury, so we will see if that ultimately means he gets a call back after the World Championships.” (The Athletic)
5/14/21 | 5:44 PM: Pierre LeBrun said that Gallant’s interview with the Rangers today “went well.”
The Rangers are expected to interview 3-4 more candidates. (LeBrun)
5/14/21 | 10:40 AM: Elliotte Friedman said on the 30 Thoughts Podcast, “I think what Chris Drury is going to do is they are doing their research on candidates. They have made it clear that they are looking for someone with experience and some of these guys they know, if you look at the list of potential options there are some people there that you can look up and down and say that the Rangers know this guy, that guy, they know this guy, they don’t know that particular guy. One of the people I don’t think they know very well that they are doing a lot of research on is Gallant and I do think that they are potentially interested in Gallant, but they are doing their research on him. They know Hartley, Chris Drury certainly does, he was his first NHL head coach, they know Tortorella, I don’t think he’s the favorite, one of the reasons why I think Tortorella’s name got out there is because the word is that James Dolan really likes Tortorella. I think Drury is going to have a big say in this particular hire, obviously.”
6:02PM: Gerard Gallant is considered to be at the top of the list for Drury. (NY Post)
10:46 AM: With the firing of David Quinn the Rangers join the Columbus Blue Jackets, Arizona Coyotes, Seattle Kraken as teams currently without a head coach.
Both Columbus and Arizona announced over the weekend that they were parting ways with John Tortorella and Rick Tocchet, respectively.
In addition to Tortorella and Tocchet other head coaching candidates include Mike Babcock, Gerard Gallant, Bruce Boudreau, Bob Hartley and Claude Julien.
Coaches that Chris Drury played for in the NHL include Hartley, who just won the KHL Championship, Darryl Sutter, back coaching in Calgary, Lindy Ruff, coaching the Devils, Tom Renney and John Tortorella.