Wild Enter A No Excuses Season With John Hynes Under Pressure
As NHL coaching changes shake up the league, several teams face mounting expectations and must navigate the pressure to perform in the upcoming 2026-2027 season.
The coaching carousel has already spun hard once, and a few more names could be feeling the heat before the 2026-2027 season even gets going.
Some of the biggest shakeups came in the 2025 NHL season, when Kris Knoblauch was dismissed after a strong three-year run in Edmonton that still ended with consecutive Stanley Cup Final appearances and then a disappointing season. Bruce Cassidy’s exit from the Vegas Knights came in the middle of the year and caught plenty of people off guard. Patrick Roy and the Islanders agreed to part ways, Craig Berube was out in Toronto, Jim Hiller was let go by the LA Kings, and Dean Evans moved on from the Blue Jackets.
Now the pressure starts to build on the next group.
John Hynes is firmly in the spotlight in Minnesota, where the expectations have been raised to a simple standard: Stanley Cup or bust. The Wild have the kind of talent that makes a deep run possible, and the roster includes Quinn Hughes, Kirill Kaprizov, Brock Faber, and strong goaltending.
But there’s also no wiggle room if the results fall short. Minnesota plays in a tough Western Conference, yet the message around the club is clear: no excuses.
The Wild finished last season with 104 points and went out in the second round. They have not reached the conference finals since the 2002-2003 season, back when the division was still called the North West. That stretch says plenty about why the pressure keeps rising.
In Edmonton, Mike Babcock is back behind an NHL bench for the first time since 2019. He was hired by the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2023 but later resigned, and now he’s getting another shot with the Oilers as they try to steady things. Given the baggage attached to Babcock’s name, it’s hard to see this turning into a long stay.
His reputation has long been tied to criticism over his use of intense, old-school psychological warfare, mental manipulation, and verbal degradation that multiple former players and staff members described as workplace bullying.
New Jersey is another place where the coach could quickly find himself under scrutiny. The Devils have a new general manager in Sunny Mehta, who previously had success with the Florida Panthers, and Sheldon Keefe is now working with a roster that needs a jump. New Jersey finished third in 2024, then slipped to seventh in 2025, and that kind of drop puts Keefe’s job in play if the trend doesn’t reverse.
The Devils have added Anthony Mantha and Evan Rodrigues, and they’re hoping Nico Daws can grow into the starting goalie role, especially with Jake Allen getting older. If the roster stays healthy, New Jersey has a chance to make noise in the Metropolitan Division.
But everything still runs through Jack Hughes. If he can’t stay on the ice, the expectations around this team have to change.
In Other News…
Dawson Mercer Could Decide How Far The Devils Push This Summer
The Devils have already made one significant move in the buildup to the draft, dealing Simon Nemec to Calgary for two first-round picks and prospect Etienne Morin, and that kind of swap has a way of changing the rest of a summer. It also puts Dawson Mercer in a different light. The young center has long been valued as a reliable two-way presence, the sort of player who shows up consistently and helps smooth out the bumps over a long season.
Now New Jersey has to decide whether that stability is worth keeping or whether Mercer could be used as a trade chip to chase something bigger. The problem is that moving a player like him does not automatically mean landing a franchise-altering return, and the Devils have to balance the appeal of adding a larger asset against what they would give up in the process. [Read more 🡒]
Why The Devils Name Meant More Than Keeping Rockies History
When the franchise came east from Colorado, the naming process was not just a matter of carrying over old history. The club began life as the relocated Rockies, a team that had already existed under another identity in Kansas City, but New Jersey was looking for something that felt tied to its own place and people. Ideas such as the Meadowlanders and Americans were part of the conversation before fans helped steer the choice in a different direction.
The Devils name gave the team a local stamp that the old Rockies label never could have provided, drawing from New Jersey folklore rather than relocation history. It also set the club apart in a way that still matters decades later, especially since the Rockies name eventually resurfaced with Colorado’s MLB expansion team in 1993. For a fan base getting a new NHL identity, the point was not preserving a trail of previous stops, but finding a name that belonged to New Jersey.
