D.J. Smith was named head coach of the Ottawa Senators Thursday, becoming the fifth former St. John’s Maple Leaf’s player to become a National Hockey League bench boss.
The 42-year-old Smith played five years with the American Hockey League Leaf’s (1997-2002), appearing in 337 games for St. John’s, third-most in franchise history behind only fellow defensemen Nathan Dempsey and Guy Lehoux.
Other ex AHL Leafs who have gone on to become NHL head coaches are Joel Quenneville, Joe Sacco, Dallas Eakins and Jared Bednar.
Quenneville, who was a player/assistant coach for St. John’s during the club’s inaugural season of 1991-92, has had the most success. He has totaled 890 wins — second most in NHL history — during head coaching stints with the St. Louis Blues, Colorado Avalanche and Chicago Blackhawks, and guided teams to three Stanley Cup championships.
Quenneville was fired by the Blackhawks early in the 2018-19 season, but is high on the want list for teams with current coaching vacancies.
Sacco, who played for St. John’s in 1992-93, was head coach of Colorado from 2009 to 2013. Eakins, who appeared in 20 games for St. John’s in 1998-99, was in charge of the Edmonton Oilers for a season-and-a-half (2013-15); and Bednar, who was with St. John’s in 1996-97, is the current head coach of the Avalanche.
Marc Crawford, the AHL Leafs’ first-ever coach, went on to become an NHL head coach with the Quebec Nordiques, Avalanche, Vancouver Canucks, Dallas Stars and with Ottawa. In fact, Crawford had been the Senators’ interim coach for the last 18 games of the season, after taking over for Guy Boucher, who was fired on March 1.
Crawford was interviewed for the job full-time, as were a number of others, including another former Colorado coach and NHL Hall of Famer, Patrick Roy.
But Ottawa general manager Pierre Dorion is going with Smith, who led the Oshawa Generals to the 2015 Memorial Cup championship before joining Mike Babcock’s staff as an assistant with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
By the way, there is one more name you might add as a branch to the St. John’s NHL coaching tree. That’s Dave Cameron, who was an assistant for Al McAdam on the AHL Leafs in 1999-2000, and later was Ottawa’s head coach from 2014 to 2016.
