The Nashville Predators announced this afternoon that they have fired head coach John Hynes effective immediately, confirming the news broken earlier this morning by Kevin Weekes.
Included in the Preds’ announcement was news that the team had also fired assistant coach Dan Lambert.
Relieving John Hynes of his duties and replacing him with former Preds player Andrew Brunette was perhaps a surprise to some, but firing Lambert should not be surprising. As the assistant coach primarily in charge of the team’s power play, Dan Lambert’s results were inconsistent to say the least.
While there were moments where the power play looked like it was making progress, this past season was an utter failure: the Preds finished 27th in power play success rate, spending most of the season in the bottom three worst power play units in the league.
It’s important to note that Dan Lambert was hired while Peter Laviolette was the head coach. He was kept on staff during the transition with Hynes, including one of the most successful years in Nashville Predators’ power play history in 2021-22 (the unit finished 6th in the league in success rate that year).
But overall, Lambert’s “knowledge and insight into the power play” (to quote David Poile) just were not enough to keep the team successful in that area consistently. Letting him go was probably the right move. Now the Predators must find a new assistant to pair with new head coach Andrew Brunette who can handle power play duties.
As of now, two assistant coaches remain on staff: Dan Hinote and Todd Richards. It seems likely that Dan Hinote would stay on. Hinote, like Andrew Brunette, is a former NHL player and is popular among the players in the locker room. Hinote found success coaching the team’s penalty kill, which finished as the 6th best unit in the league. Todd Richards was hired in October 2020 to work under John Hynes.
— Featured image via Icon Sportswire —
