Quenneville eyes NHL return, needs Bettman's clearance
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Three-time Stanley Cup winner Joel Quenneville is looking to get back behind an NHL bench, but TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger reports it's unclear if he'll be approved to do so this season.
"He's ready but he's not able to get back in the game," Dreger said on Insider Trading Thursday. "He would like to return to an NHL bench sooner rather than later. Now any team with interest or offering a job would have to go through the Florida Panthers first for permission. That seems to be a formality but the big hurdle, of course, is commissioner Gary Bettman.
"Quenneville has to be cleared to return to the NHL by the commissioner's office – that hasn't happened yet and there are some who think that it may not happen until next season."
Quenneville resigned as head coach of the Florida Panthers last fall after specifics were revealed of how the Chicago Blackhawks mishandled allegations that a player was sexually abused by a video coach there in 2010 during the team’s run to the Stanley Cup. Quenneville was Chicago’s head coach when the alleged abuse occurred.
Bettman said in May that Quenneville had not approached him at that time about reinstatement into the league.
“There’s nothing currently happening with Joel,” Bettman said. “And if and when there’s a real conversation to be had, then I’ll focus on it at the time.”
“I assume it’d be initiated by Joel, if and when he thinks it’s the appropriate time and he feels that he’s ready to come back and there’s an opportunity,” he added of the process. “But again, I’ll have to make an evaluation at that time.”
Quenneville is the second-winningest coach in NHL history, his 969 victories trailing only the 1,244 amassed by Scotty Bowman.