Thursday evening, the Montreal Canadiens announced that they have hired Kirk Muller as a new associate coach. This news comes a week after Muller was relieved of his duties as assistant coach of the St. Louis Blues.
Muller previously worked five years as an assistant coach with the Montreal Canadiens from 2006-2011. During that time, the Canadiens had the league’s second-best powerplay with a 21.5% success rate under Muller’s guidance. Since the powerplay has been 26th overall with a 16.9 success rate over the last 5 years without him. The team also qualified for the playoffs in the last 4 of the 5 years of Muller’s tenure with the Canadiens.
Muller having spent four years of his 19-year NHL career playing for the Canadiens, understands what it is like to play for the team and can help younger players transition into the NHL with the Canadiens.
“We are very pleased to announce the appointment of Kirk Muller, and are extremely happy about his desire to return to the Canadiens’ organization. Kirk brings a great deal of experience, determination and leadership, and I have no doubt that these qualities will be essential for our coaching staff. Kirk has a thorough knowledge of the Montreal market, he enjoyed success as a player, and as captain of the Canadiens, and these assets will certainly contribute to the success of our team”, said Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin in as statement on canadiens.nhl.com.
Over the four years that Muller wasn’t with the Canadiens Organization, he has gained valuable coaching experience. When Muller left the team it was to take the head coaching job of the Nashville Predators‘ AHL affiliate the Milwaukee Admirals in hope, of a promotion for an NHL head coaching job. It wasn’t long before he got the call mid-season from the Carolina Hurricanes to replace Paul Maurice as head coach.
He spent the majority of three seasons as head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes. During that time, Muller had a .500% winning percentage as head coach with an 80-80-27 record in 187 regular season games. When he left, he immediately got a job as a St. Louis Blues assistant coach.
With the experience, Muller will provide the Canadiens with a more balanced coaching staff and could allow assistant coach J.J. Daigneault to focus on the penalty kill next season.
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