Ex-NMU champ Hiller, ex-Wings coach Babcock back in NHL
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Mike Babcock last coached an NHL game in November 2019. His biggest accomplishments in the sport so far were guiding Canada to gold at the Olympics in 2010 and 2014 and the Detroit Red Wings to the Stanley Cup in 2008.
All these years later, the Edmonton Oilers are turning to Babcock to be the person to get Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl the championship that has eluded two of the best hockey players in the world for more than a decade.
Babcock, 63, is back in the league three years since taking over the Columbus Blue Jackets and resigning before training camp when his requests for personal photos from players in a bonding effort drew criticism as too invasive. He is old school, and that is what the Oilers wanted.
“He’s bringing experience and accountability,” Oilers CEO of hockey operations Jeff Jackson said this summer. “That’s what we wanted on the organizational management side, and that’s what our players wanted — our leadership group -- so it all aligned.”
Edmonton is among the Cup favorites largely because of McDavid and Draisaitl. After reaching the final in 2024 and ’25, losing to Florida each time, getting knocked out in the first round of the playoffs this past spring spelled the end of Kris Knobaluch’s time behind the bench.
Knoblauch is calm and steadfast and got the ship going in the right direction when he replaced Jay Woodcroft in November 2023. But it was his first job in the NHL, and Babcock has tons of experience with 700 regular season wins and 90 more in the playoffs.
He is one of five new coaches this season:
Hiller back in Toronto
Hiller was an assistant on Babcock’s staff with the Maple Leafs from 2015-19 and coached the Kings from when he was a midseason replacement for Todd McLellan in ’24 until being fired in March. New Toronto general manager John Chayka tabbed him as the successor to Craig Berube in what may have been the most surprising coaching hire of this cycle.
Familiarity may be his biggest strength, given that camps are shorter this year.
“Any time you have a little bit of continuity, it gets you past some of that kind of get-to-know-you phase,” said John Tavares, who has been with the Leafs since 2018.
Hiller, 57, was a star on Northern Michigan University’s 1991 NCAA national championship team. His national title season included some eye-popping numbers in an era of more wide-open hockey. As a team, the 38-5-4 Wildcats averaged more than six goals a contest during their run to their only national title in school history, which culminated in an 8-7 triple-overtime win over Boston University on March 30, 1991, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
In 43 games, Hiller, a sophomore right wing, accumulated 63 points, tied for second-most on the team.
Other new coaches
The Kings replaced Hiller with Peter Laviolette, another coach like Babcock with deep experience and a Cup as coach. Los Angeles is his seventh NHL organization two decades since he won it all with Carolina.
The
Maple Leafs head coach Jim Hiller instructs players during an NHL preseason game against the Montreal Canadiens in Toronto on Saturday. Hiller was a player on the 1991 national championship team at Northern Michigan University. (Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press via AP)
Vegas promoted Ryan Craig from Henderson of the American Hockey League after three years coaching there. Craig was a Golden Knights assistant from their inaugural season in 2017-18 through their Cup title in 2023.
And Adam Foote lasted just one season as coach of the Vancouver Canucks, who finished last in the NHL. The new front office with general manager Ryan Johnson promoted Manny Malhotra from the AHL’s Abbotsford Canucks after he was in the running a year ago when Foote got the job.