Ex-Red Wings Coach Will Work for Patrick Roy

Bob Boughner’s reputation as a NHL quality coach is strong enough that the messiness of last season’s Detroit Red Wings’ struggles didn’t prevent him from landing another job.

Three days after former Detroit head coach Derek Lalonde was hired by the Toronto Maple Leafs as an assistant, the New York Islanders announced that Boughner and former Colorado assistant Ray Bennett would join Patrick Roy’s staff as assistants. Bennett, 63, has been an NHL assistant for the past 24 years.

Windsor native Boughner, 54, was Lalonde’s associate coach. He was fired with Lalonde last Dec. 26. Todd McLellan was hired as Lalonde’s replacement, and he brought along Trent Yawney to be his right-hand man.

A former NHL defenseman, Boughner has a reputation for being a strong defensive coach whose teams were particularly sharp on the penalty kill.

But that was not the case last season as the Red Wings, with Boughner in charge of the penalty kill for the first 34 games, were on a pace for some of the worst penalty killing in league history.

When Lalonde and Boughner were fired, the Red Wings were ranked 31st in the NHL on the penalty kill at 68.8%.  They were on pace for the third-worst penalty killing in league history.

The Los Angeles Kings owned the two worst PK performances in NHL history. In 1979-80, the Kings were 68.2% on the PK. And in 1982-83, they were 68.8%.

Detroit’s PK was only slightly better under McLellan. But by the end of the season, they were at 70.1%. That wasn’t a league record low, but it was last in the NHL in 2024-25.

Ironically, the Islanders finished just ahead of Detroit in penalty killing last season, in 31st place, with a 72.2% finish.

Lengthy Resume

The lure of Boughner is his NHL experience. Before getting into coaching, he played 630 NHL games. None of were with the Detroit Red Wings, the team that drafted him. Boughner played for Buffalo, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Calgary, Carolina and Colorado.

His head coaching career started in the Ontario Hockey League after he bought the Windsor Spitfires in 2006.  He served one season as an NHL assistant with Columbus in 2010-11 before heading back to the Spitfires. Boughner went permanently to the NHL in 2015-16, starting as an assistant in San Jose.

He boasts two tours of duty as an NHL coach — spending two seasons with Florida (2017-19) and two with San Jose (2020-22).

New GM Mathieu Darche inherited Roy from former GM Lou Lamoriello. If he decides to make a change at some point, he now has an experienced head coach on the staff.