The Winnipeg Jets have announced that Rick Bowness will be the new head coach of the team.
The NHL franchise made the announcement in a tweet Sunday afternoon. Bowness and Jets CEO Kevin Cheveldayoff will speak to reporters Monday at the Canada Life Center in Winnipeg.
It’s official ✍️
Welcome back to our new head coach, Rick Bowness! pic.twitter.com/Lh3ZZPutvn
– @HNLJets
Bowness, 67, has spent most of the last three NHL seasons with the Dallas Stars.
He becomes the eighth head coach in the history of the Jets franchise and the third since the club moved to Winnipeg from Atlanta in 2011.
“We are very excited to hire Rick Bowness as the third head coach of Jets 2.0,” Cheveldayoff said in a press release Sunday.
“Rick brings a lot of experience and knowledge, both to the NHL coaching ranks and as a player and coach in the city of Winnipeg. Rick is a fantastic hockey mind and an even better person and we are confident he will lead this equipment at new heights “.
Bowness takes over from Dave Lowry, who was head coach after Paul Maurice left the post in December after nearly nine years as head coach of the Jets. Maurice is now the head coach of the Florida Panthers.
The Jets finished the 2021-22 season sixth in the Central Division, and were left out of the playoffs with a 39-32-11 record.
In the months following Maurice’s departure, there was speculation about who would replace him on the Jets bench.
In June, some of those speculations focused on Stanley Cup-winning coach Barry Trotz, who had recently been fired by the New York Islanders. A social media campaign urged Trotz, who is originally from Dauphin, Man. – return to your home province.
But Trotz turned down the offer and told NHL.com he will not be looking for a coaching job in the league for the 2022-23 season.
Last weekend reports began to emerge that the Jets were about to appoint Bowness as their next head coach.
Bowness has been on an NHL bench for nearly four decades as head coach or assistant for a record 2,562 regular-season games.
He led the Dallas Stars to the 2020 Stanley Cup final in the playoff bubble in Edmonton, where the Stars lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Bowness, standing, with the Dallas Stars during a regular season game in April 2022. The 67-year-old began his coaching career with the Jets, culminating in 28 games on the bench to close out the 1988-89 season. (LM Otero / The Associated Press)
His stars retired in seven games against the Calgary Flames in the first round of this year’s playoffs. The Flames won Game 7 in overtime.
Although Bowness was not under contract last season, the coach said he was moving away from the Stars to “allow the organization the opportunity to follow a different direction to the position of head coach.”
The Stars hired Pete DeBoer to replace Bowness last month.
He began his coaching career in Winnipeg
Bowness, a native of Moncton, NB, began his coaching career with the original Jets team in the 1980s.
After periods as a player-coach and assistant coach in Winnipeg, as well as coaching AHL affiliates in Sherbrooke, Que., And Moncton, he took over as head coach of the Jets in February 1989, culminating in 28 matches (8-17-). 3) run the bench to close the 1988-89 season.
“I am very excited about the opportunity presented to me by Kevin Cheveldayoff, Mark Chipman and the property group to serve as head coach of the Winnipeg Jets,” Bowness said in a press release on Sunday.
“It’s amazing that forty years after the original Jets gave me my first coaching taste, I’m back in Manitoba to lead this talented group of players in front of such a passionate fan base.”
Prior to coaching, Bowness played on several NHL teams, spanning 173 games with Atlanta, the Detroit Red Wings, St. Louis. Louis Blues and Winnipeg.