Barry Trotz a Potential Coaching Option for Golden Knights

While speculation continues to fuel, Vegas Golden Knights management has yet to make a decision on the future of head coach Pete DeBoer.

The veteran bench boss does have one year remaining on his contract, which may entice management to bring him back for the 2022-23 season and hope he can turn things back around after missing the playoffs entirely in 2021-22. However, what was already an interesting coaching market got even more interesting on Monday when the New York Islanders announced that they chose to fire Barry Trotz.

Trotz has been highly regarded as one of the game’s best coaches for a long time now, and was able to take some underwhelming New York Islanders rosters on some deep playoff runs in recent years. However, this season was much different, as they started off the season on a 13-game road trip and were never able to recover, finishing the campaign with an extremely disappointing 37-35-10 record.

With the news of the Trotz firing, several teams are expected to pursue the 59-year-old this offseason, and one team that some analysts suggest could be in the running for Barry Trotz’s services is the Golden Knights. One of those analysts is Sonny Sachdeva of Sportsnet, who listed Kelly McCrimmon’s club as one of five who may express interest in Trotz.

“For a team that saw more off-ice drama than on-ice results this season, it’s tough to see the Golden Knights brass wanting to run it back with both Lehner and DeBoer in the fold,” Sachdeva wrote in a column released on Tuesday morning. “And with Lehner signed for three more years as the club’s starter, the decision might already be made. If Vegas does opt to move on from their current coach, it would be tough to find a better option than Trotz, particularly given what he did with Washington’s star-studded roster.”

The Capitals team Sachedeva is alluding to is the Stanley Cup winning 2018 roster, which Trotz turned into a Stanley Cup Champion after years of disappointing playoff performances. While the Golden Knights haven’t choked in the playoffs to the level the Capitals had before their Cup win, they have yet to win it all, and adding Barry Trotz certainly wouldn’t hurt in that quest.