David Quinn has emerged as one of the early favorites as the next head coach of the Boston Bruins, according to the latest report from The Athletic’s Fluto Shinzawa.
Scheduled to interview with the B’s next week, it’s apparently the 55-year-old Quinn’s approach that appeals to the Bruins’ front office braintrust.
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“Quinn has the personality that general manager Don Sweeney would prefer in his next coach: positive, engaging and uplifting,” Shinzawa, who noted Jay Leach as the other favorite, wrote. “Cassidy’s demanding style with his players, especially his younger ones, prompted Sweeney to fire him at his house on June 6.”
A Rhode Island native, Quinn’s only prior NHL head coaching experience came on a three-year run with the Rangers from 2017 through 2021.
In New York, Quinn posted a 96-87-25 record (.522 point percentage) behind the Ranger bench, and his only playoff experience came inside the Toronto bubble in 2020, where his Rangers went 0-3 in the qualifying round. The Rangers ultimately decided to fire Quinn after the pandemic-delayed 2021 campaign that saw the Blueshirts go 27-23-6 for a fifth-place finish, with Quinn replaced by Gerard Gallant, who immediately took the Rangers on their deepest postseason run since 2015.
Since his dismissal from Manhattan, Quinn has served as the coach for the U.S. men’s national team, coaching the team at the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and then again at the 2022 World Championships in Finland. With Quinn at the helm, the Americans finished fifth in the Olympics and fourth at the Worlds.
But in Boston, Quinn’s most notable run came as the head coach of the Boston University Terriers, with a 100-59-20 record on Comm Ave. (as well as a National Championship appearance in 2015) in five seasons behind the bench. At BU, Quinn’s blue line featured current B’s d-men Matt Grzelcyk and Charlie McAvoy.
In addition to Grzelcyk and McAvoy, B’s forward Marc McLaughlin and goaltender Jeremy Swayman have experience playing for Quinn during his aforementioned tenure as the coach of the men’s national team.
A coach with experience coaching in both the college and NHL ranks, Quinn may check off the No. 1 box for the Bruins given what they’ve prioritized in their search for a new head coach.
“The coach has to have the communication skills to be able to bridge that gap with older and younger players,” Sweeney said when discussing what he’s looking for with the post-Cassidy hiring. “I think that’s paramount now with integration. As I said, in a perfect world, all players are overcooked or over-baked. Kenny Holland and my peer group have used that terminology.
“Those will be the challenges that we try and find the balance of development and an infusion of talent and the new coach is going to have to be able to communicate and bridge that gap from older players, communicating with them and holding them to a standard that I think we all feel is necessary.”
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Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. He has been covering the Bruins since 2010, and has been a member of the Boston chapter of the PHWA since 2013. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Yell at him on Twitter: @_TyAnderson.