The article ranks the top five greatest coaches in NHL history, highlighting their contributions to the sport. Joel Quenneville is mentioned as one of the top coaches.
Key points
The Sporting News ranks the top five NHL coaches.
Joel Quenneville is included in the rankings.
The publication celebrates its 140th anniversary.
The article highlights the influence of these coaches on hockey.
The Sporting News, established in 1886, is celebrating its 140th birthday with a year-long series honoring the greatest moments, teams and players from the last 140 years. Weâve also released SNâs entire archive for free, empowering hockey fans to download iconic print covers of Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe or explore endless rabbit holes to read how your favorite teams were covered in the moment.
The hockey portion of our 140 celebration continues with our picks for the top-five greatest NHL coaches of all time.
5. Joel Quenneville
We couldâve made a good case for Tampa Bay Lightning fixture Jon Cooper in fifth place on this list, as Cooper has won two Stanley Cups, four Stanley Cup finals appearances, and the 4 Nations Face-Off championship. He was also named AHL coach of the year and took home a Calder Cup prior to joining the Lightning. However, weâre giving the nod to Quenneville, who won three Cups in six years with the Chicago Blackhawks.
Q&A
Who are the top 5 greatest NHL coaches of all time?
The article lists the top five greatest NHL coaches, including Joel Quenneville.
What are the criteria for ranking NHL coaches?
The ranking is based on their contributions to the sport, including championships won and overall impact on the game.
How has Joel Quenneville influenced the NHL?
Joel Quenneville is recognized for his successful coaching career, including multiple Stanley Cup victories.
What year did The Sporting News celebrate its 140th anniversary?
The Sporting News celebrated its 140th anniversary in 2026.
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While the Blackhawksâ core stayed the same over the course of their run as a dynasty, there were significant differences between those three Hawks teams, and Quenneville deserves his due for finding ways to make it all work spectacularly. Quenneville will eventually be a Hall-of-Famer when heâs done coaching, but as we see in his current work with the Anaheim Ducks, Quenneville has a lot left to give â and his stock could go even higher if he wins another Cup.
When you get the NHLâs award for best coach named after you, you have to be a massive influence on the coaching profession, and thatâs true of Adams, who was a Detroit hockey icon who led the Red Wings to three Cups. Adams also won Cups as a player and a GM, but his lasting influence behind Detroitâs bench stands out most.
Adams won 413 NHL games as a coach â a number that made him the Wingsâ franchise-leader in that department until Mike Babcock passed him earlier this century. But Adams will always be associated with the impact he had on the coaching business. He was a passionate coach, just as he was a passionate player and a passionate GM. Heâs one of the few people in hockey history to have an NHL award named in his honor.
In the early 1980s, Arbor guided the New York Islanders to four consecutive Cup wins, but it wasnât just that Arborâs Isles team won championships â it was the dominant way they won them that set Arborâs teams apart.
To wit: the Islanders reeled off a record-19-consecutive playoff series wins through 1984, and his 740 career wins with the Isles is the most for a coach with one team in league history.
Arbor coached an amazing 1,500 career games, and while he won four Cups as a player, Arbor is most remembered as the genius behind championship wins on Long Island. Arbor is also a Hall-of-Famer, but heâs most famous for his coaching success.
2. Toe Blake
In the Montreal Canadiensâ storied history, Blake holds a special place as an icon who coached the Habs for 13 years and won the Cup an astonishing eight times. Now, thatâs in part a function of Blake coaching in the Original Six era, but his accomplishment is all the more impressive when you realize he won five straight Cups from 1955 through 1960 â and that those five years were his first five years as Montrealâs coach.
Blakeâs 500 career regular-season wins are still the best total in Canadiens team history, and while he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1968 as a player, his coaching history is just as outstanding. No coach earned more Cups with the same team than Blake did, and he is revered in Montreal for his elite efforts on and off the ice.
It isnât that Bowman did scores of great things as the NHLâs pre-eminent bench boss â itâs basically a case of âwhat didnât he doâ. Bowman holds the NHL record for most wins by a coach, with 1,244 regular-season wins and 223 playoff wins. He also has 14 Cup wins to his credit, including a record nine Cup wins as a coach. Bowman pulled off that feat in an NHL that had dozens of teams battling for the Cup year-in and year-out.
By the time he retired in 2002, Bowman had coached the Red Wings, Canadiens, and Pittsburgh Penguins to championships, and he coached a stunning 2,141 regular-season games, making him a lock for the Hall of Fame.
Thus, Bowman is the undisputed king of coaching, and it will be a long time before anyone even comes close to achieving what Bowman achieved.
