RED, WHITE AND BLUESHIRTS
Quinn, VBK lead USA Olympic hockey squad
David Quinn is set to coach the U.S. men’s hockey team at the upcoming Winter Olympics after the NHL decided not to send players to Beijing.
USA Hockey named Quinn coach and John Vanbiesbrouck general manager Monday in the first shift to plan B for another Olympics without NHL participation.
Quinn replaces Penguins coach Mike Sullivan. He was supposed to be an assistant under Sullivan and was the only member of the coaching staff not currently working in the NHL.
The 55-year-old Quinn coached the Rangers the past three seasons after five years at Boston University. Quinn most recently coached for the U.S. internationally as an assistant at the 2016 world championships and was also on staff for that tournament in 2007 and 2012.
Vanbiesbrouck was a longtime goalie for the Rangers
Instead of a U.S. roster featuring the likes of Auston Matthews, Patrick Kane and Seth Jones, Vanbiesbrouck will be tasked with drawing from the college ranks and European professional leagues, similar to 2018. He’s the third person to take over Olympic roster preparations after Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin replaced Stan Bowman, who resigned after an investigation found he had a prominent role in the Blackhawks mishandling sexual assault allegations in 2010.
“This turn of events, we have to get to work and we have to get to work quickly,” Vanbiesbrouck said.
Vanbiesbrouck has served as USA Hockey’s assistant executive director of hockey operations for the past three and a half years. A U.S. Hockey Hall of Famer who played 953 NHL games as a goaltender from 1981-2002, Vanbiesbrouck resigned as GM and coach of a junior hockey team in 2003 after using a racial slur to describe defenseman Trevor Daley, who is Black.
Upon hiring Vanbiesbrouck in 2018, USA Hockey executive director Pat Kelleher said the organization looked into that incident and said, “He looks at it as a terrible situation, an awful mistake — something that’s helped change him for the better.” Vanbiesbrouck at the time apologized, adding: “It’s not who I am. It doesn’t define me as a person and I have no prejudices in me, and it will never happen again.”
Former Montreal Canadiens coach Claude Julien is expected to be behind the bench for Canada, replacing back-to-back Stanley Cup winner Jon Cooper of the Lightning. Former Coyotes captain Shane Doan is considered the leading candidate to be GM after Hockey Canada used an international tune-up tournament in Moscow to put together an Olympic backup plan without an NHL presence.