Panthers Name GM Tom Rowe Interim Head Coach For Remainder Of Season

He received a two-year contract extension through 2018-19, but quipped he wouldn’t last that long. The coach had some memorable success with Florida and led it to the playoffs just last season.

“Surprise. Probably a lot like everyone else, it seems, was pretty surprised at what happened”, the former Florida defenseman told reporters Monday in Chicago, where his Blackhawks will host the Panthers tonight. But the Panthers have simply been mediocre in some areas, including power-play (21st out of 30 teams) and penalty-killing (19th).

They went one way. Dropping to a disappointing 11-10-1 through the first quarter of the National Hockey League season, the firing came with some questions – and a lot of weirdness.

“Today is a hard day”.

But Trocheck, who “liked” a handful of pro-Gallant messages on Twitter after his dismissal, said he didn’t think coaching was the reason for Florida’s disappointing start. “We thank them for their contributions in the community, for their work developing our young players and in helping to turn around the culture”. Last year, the Panthers set a single-season franchise record with 47 wins and 103 points before dropping out in the first round to the New York Islanders.

Gallant confirmed via text that he and longtime friend and assistant coach Mike Kelly had been fired.

“I’ve listened to more players say that it’s the best dressing room that they’ve ever been in”, MacLean said. “I was fortunate to get one off and it deflected into the top of the net”.

Added forward Kyle Rau: “You never want to see your coach get let go”.

Part of Florida’s issues has clearly been injury-related.

More was expected of the Cats this season, but the record certainly wasn’t outlandish, considering the amount of new faces in the lineup and the early season losses of quality forwards Nick Bjugstad, Jussi Jokinen, and Jonathan Huberdeau, who remains out.

ABOUT THE HURRICANES (8-8-4): Carolina is making a brief pitstop at PNC Arena before it heads back out on the road for three games, including two versus the Rangers in NY.

Rowe becomes the Panthers’ 14th coach, and the fifth person to be behind the Florida bench in the past five years.

There is obviously much more to this story, and fittingly I and other Panther media will be covering the game Tuesday in Chicago and Thursday in Detroit.