Florida Panthers hire Joel Quenneville as head coach
A day after firing Bob Boughner, the Florida Panthers have announced they have fired head coach Joel Quenneville.
The Florida Panthers made a bit of a surprising move on Sunday when they fired head coach Bob Boughner. He had only been around for two seasons and he nearly took them to the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the first. It turns out the Panthers already had a replacement in mind, as they have announced they’ve hired Joel Quenneville to be their next head coach.
Joel Quenneville will be one of the highest paid coaches in the league, according to The Athletic’s George Richards. He has a base salary of $5.25 million per season for the next six seasons. With bonuses, Quenneville can hit up to $1.75 million per season for a total of $7 million per year. However, the precise details of the requirements needed to reach these incentives isn’t known.
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He was reportedly one of the Philadelphia Flyers top candidates back in December, but things didn’t work out. Quenneville will now be heading to the Eastern Conference for the first time in his career. Besides the Blackhawks, he has also had stints with the Colorado Avalanche and the St. Louis Blues.
Quenneville joins a very talented team. He has his franchise center in Aleksander Barkov, who is comparable to Toews, if not better. Quenneville will also have a bargain bin version of Patrick Kane in Jonathan Huberdeau. While the latter isn’t as good as the former, he’s at least comparable, which is more than can be said for most players.
The Panthers appear ready to spend and ready to address their issues. However, their roster could see quite a bit of movement. If the Panthers want to pursue both Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky, they’ll need to have about $18 million of cap space, conservatively.
General Manager Dale Tallon will reunite with Quenneville, who worked with him back in Chicago. Together, they helped the Blackhawks to win the 2010 Stanley Cup before Tallon moved on to the Panthers. Florida is hoping those two can work the same magic together that they did nine years ago.
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The Panthers are coming off a disappointing season. After many thought they would be a postseason team in 2018-19, the Panthers weren’t able to overcome a slow start and they finished outside of the playoffs. Quenneville is one of the most successful coaches of all-time, as he ranks favorably among all coaches in career wins. He’s also the only coach in the salary cap era to win three Stanley Cups.