When the Blackhawks relieved Joel Quenneville of his duties on November 6th, that made Barry Trotz both the winningest and most experienced active NHL coach. Trotz' NHL record is 770-572-60-136 in 1538 games.
When Trotz coaches the Isles on Thursday, it will be 1st time since March 31, 1991* (the last game of the 1990-91 season) that the winningest active coach will be Islander; after a brief "retirement" Scotty Bowman returned to coach Pittsburgh in the 1991-92 season and he had more wins than Al Arbour at the time.
Arbour had coached the most games of any active coach for each of his last 331 gms behind the Islander bench, having passed Bowman on March 28, 1990.
*When Arbour returned to coach game 1,500 on November 3, 2007 he was the active leader in both categories for that one game as well.
Most Coaching Wins
1. Scotty Bowman 1244
2. Joel Quenneville 890
3. Ken Hitchcock 823
4. Al Arbour 782
5. Barry Trotz 770
Most Games Coached
1. Scotty Bowman 2141
2. Joel Quenneville 1636
3. Al Arbour 1607
4. Barry Trotz 1538
5. Ken Hitchcock 1536
Trotz, who passed Hitchcock in games coached on November 3rd vs the Devils, will catch Al Arbour on Opening Night next season. If Quenneville doesn't return to coaching, Trotz would pass him sometime in November 2019.
Forever1940 is the nom de plume of Eric Hornick, statistician on Islander home telecasts since January 21, 1982. Visit my blog: NYISkinny.com and follow me on Twitter @ehornick
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