Alain Vigneault

Alain Vigneault
Date of birth	May 14, 1961
place of birth	Quebec , Canada
size	180 cm
Weight	91 kg
position	defender
Shot hand	Left
Draft
NHL Entry Draft	1981 , 8th lap, 167th position St. Louis Blues
Career stations
1977-1980	Hull Olympiques
1980-1981	Trois-Rivières Draveurs
1981-1983	Salt Lake Golden Eagles St. Louis Blues
1983-1984	Montana Magic Maine Mariners

Alain Vigneault (born May 14, 1961 in Québec ) is a former Canadian ice hockey player and current coach . During his brief active career, the defender completed 42 games for the St. Louis Blues in the National Hockey League (NHL). He then became known primarily as head coach in the NHL, in this role he has so far been in charge of the Canadiens de Montréal (1997-2000), the Vancouver Canucks (2006-2013), the New York Rangers (2013-2018) and recently since April 2019 the Philadelphia Flyers .

Career

As a junior, Vigneault played in the QMJHL for the Hull Olympiques and the Trois-Rivières Draveurs . The St. Louis Blues selected him in the 1981 NHL Entry Draft in the eighth round in 167th position. In the following two seasons he was mostly for their farm team , the Salt Lake Golden Eagles , active in the Central Hockey League , but also came to 42 missions in the NHL. There followed a season in which he played for the Montana Magic in the CHL and Maine Mariners in the American Hockey League before the Canadian ended his active career.

Two years later he returned as head coach to his former junior team, the Trois-Rivières Draveurs. After a year he succeeded Pat Burns as coach of his other former junior team, the Hull Olympiques. Vigneault stayed there for five years before moving to the Ottawa Senators in the role of assistant coach for the 1992/93 season. During his fourth season with the Senators, he returned to the QMJHL and trained the Beauport Harfangs .

For the 1997/98 season he signed the Montréal Canadiens , where he was the youngest head coach in club history. Although they broke up with numerous players for financial reasons, Vigneault did a very successful job and was nominated for the Jack Adams Award in 2000.

After his release in 2001 in Montréal, he took over a team again in the QMJHL with the Prince Edward Island Rocket in 2003 and moved to the Manitoba Moose in the AHL in 2005 . In the 2006/07 season he was hired as the head coach of the Vancouver Canucks and was nominated in 2007 for the Jack Adams Award, which he won this time. After the Vancouver Canucks in the NHL playoffs of the 2012/13 season in the first round with a sweep to the San Jose Sharks , Vigneault was sacked. In mid-June 2013 he took over the position of head coach at the New York Rangers , which had previously separated from the American John Tortorella .

In New York he was able to reach the Stanley Cup final in his first season with the Rangers , in which they were subject to the Los Angeles Kings . A little later he achieved his 500th victory as NHL head coach. Vigneault was sacked after a disappointing 2017-18 season in which the Rangers finished last in the Metropolitan Division . There was a one-year hiatus for the Canadian before he was introduced as the new Philadelphia Flyers head coach in April 2019 .

Achievements and Awards

• 1984 Calder Cup win with the Maine Mariners
• 1988 Coupe du Président win with the Olympiques de Hull
• 1988 CHL Coach of the Year Award
• 2007 Jack Adams Award

NHL statistics

	Seasons	Games	Gates	Assists	Points	Penalty minutes
Regular season	2	42	2	5	7th	82
Playoffs	1	4th	0	1	1	26th

Web links

• Alain Vigneault at hockeydb.com (English)
• Alain Vigneault at legendsofhockey.net (English)