Worst NHL Coaches of All Time

The worst NHL coaches of all time are really good at doing other hockey-related things, like playing the game or broadcasting, but when it came their turn to coach in the National Hockey League, they just plain sucked. These worst NHL coaches ever tallied some of the worst coaching records in professional hockey, disappointed fans and overall failed miserably at their job. Quite simply, it doesn't get much worse than this in terms of NHL coaches.

For many of these bad NHL coaches, prior to taking over as a head coach of a professional hockey team, they saw a great deal of success as a player in the league. Wayne Gretzky is perhaps the best example of this when he went from being arguably one of the best hockey players in history to a disappointing owner and coach of the Phoenix Coyotes, leading them to a sub-par performance over his four years as head coach. Lou Agnotti, Paul Holmgren, Jim Anderson and Butch Goring also fall into this category having made that disastrous leap from being a star NHL player to a terrible NHL coach.

Similarly, many who don't have what it takes to coach in the NHL have gone on to successful careers in other aspects of the game, such as broadcasting. Mike Milbury is a well-known face in the hockey broadcasting world but what you might not know is that he once coached in the league, and not so well. The same thing happened with Barry Melrose. He and his mullet can frequently be seen on ESPN and the NHL Network, a place he settled into in between being fired as head coach of the Los Angeles Kings in 1995 then again as head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2008.

So whether these bad NHL coaches failed to make the transition from player to coach, like Steve Ludzik, or simply have their name in the record books for the worst winning percentages ever, like when Dave Allison led the Ottawa Senators to a 2-22-1 record in the 1995-1996 season, each of these coaches tried their hand at coaching in the National Hockey League and simply couldn't cut it. Like the worst NFL coaches of all time, if nothing else, they give us something to talk about.