Former Washington Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau found himself on the unemployment line on the morning of Nov. 28 when the club let him go. However, he was already back at work by the evening of Nov. 30 when the Anaheim Ducks fired Randy Carlyle and hired Boudreau to coach their struggling team.
The timing was a little odd since the Ducks broke a seven-game winless streak by beating the Montreal Canadiens 4-1 just before giving Carlyle the boot, but they wanted to sew up Boudreau before he signed with somebody else. Boudreau becomes just the seventh person to coach two NHL teams in the same season.
Carlyle was originally drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the second round back in 1976. He was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins just two years later and was named the league’s best defenseman in 1981 after scoring a total of 83 points on 16 goals and 67 assists in 76 games. He was traded to the Winnipeg Jets during the 1983/84 season and retired there in 1993 with 647 points in 1,055 games. He managed 148 goals and 499 assists during his career and served 1,400 minutes in penalties.
Carlyle started his coaching career in 1996 in the International Hockey League (IHL) when he took over the Manitoba Moose. He also became the club’s general manager and president in later years. He progressed to the NHL as an assistant coach with Washington in 2001/02 and returned to Manitoba in 2004 as their coach. He was hired by Anaheim as head coach in 2005 and led the team to the Stanley Cup championship in 2006-07. Carlyle leaves the franchise with the most coaching wins in its history. His record with the club was 273-182-61.
The Ducks basically cleaned house when they let Carlyle go since assistant coaches Mike Foligno and Dave Farrish were also fired along with Joe Trotta, the team’s video coordinator. Brad Lauer was hired along with Boudreau as an assistant coach and another assistant will be hired in the near future. Bob Murray, Anaheim’s general manager and executive vice president, said it was hard letting Carlyle go since he’s a fantastic coach, but felt the team needed a new voice in the dressing room and Boudreau has proved he’s a winner over the years.
At the time of the firing, The Ducks had a 7-13-4 record and were 29th out of 30 teams in the overall standings and also second last in the Western Conference. The 56-year-old Boudreau had a career record of 201-88-40 with Washington when he was fired and was the fastest coach to reach 200 wins in modern NHL history. He was named the NHL’s coach of the year in 2007-08 and led Washington to the Presidents’ Trophy in 2009/10 as the league’s regular-season champions.
Washington also won the Southeast Division a total of four times with Boudreau behind the bench. Before taking the Capitals job he had spent nine years coaching in the American Hockey League (AHL) and won a championship with the Hershey Bears in the 2005/06 season.
Like Carlyle, Boudreau also played with the Maple Leafs before he was traded to the Chicago Blackhawks. He scored 28 goals 42 assists for 70 points in 141 career NHL games. However, in the AHL, he scored 316 goals and 483 assists for 799 points. He was the AHL’s top scorer in 1987/88 and no other AHL player scored more points than him in the 1980s.
