The Ducks conducted one coaching search last summer and now they’re faced with another.
While Joel Quenneville’s spot behind the bench at Honda Center is quite safe and thus far none of his assistants have been plucked away by other teams – Jay Woodcroft has been a candidate for multiple vacancies though – it’s their top minor-league affiliate that will need a new steward.
Matt McIlvane, who had coached the American Hockey League’s San Diego Gulls for the past three seasons, will be moving cross-country to join the Boston Bruins as an assistant coach.
In a classically criss-crossed pattern, an AHL head coach became an NHL assistant because of a job opened up by an NHL assistant becoming an AHL head coach. Former Bruins assistant Jay Leach moved down to Hartford to take over the New York Rangers’ AHL club, the Hartford Wolfpack.
Less than two months ago, the Ducks extended the contract of McIlvane, 40, after he guided the Gulls to the Calder Cup playoffs for the first time.
Prior to joining the Ducks organization, he coached professionally in Germany and Austria, winning championships in both nations’ top leagues.
The Illinois native further glossed up his Curriculum Vitae in Europe with the German national team. He was an assistant for the 2021 World Championship squad that reached the bronze medal game and also on the 2018 Olympic side that won silver.
In Boston, he’ll be reunited with former Kings assistant coach and Ontario Reign bench boss Marco Sturm. Sturm was the head coach of the German silver medalists and will soon enter his second season as the Bruins’ head coach.
