The 3rd-longest-tenured head coach in the NHL, Andre Tourigny, had coached what could have been his last game for the Arizona Coyotes and the now Utah Mammoth in their 5-1 loss that saw them eliminated in the first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Vegas Golden Knights. At the moment, though, technically, he remains the 10th-longest-tenured coach since Utah became a new franchise. The Mammoth have interestingly decided to re-sign Tourigny to a new deal that will see him coach the team for the next two seasons, 2026-27 and 2027-28 (so long as he isn't fired).
It seemed like the end until a good turnaround for Tourigny
After being hired by the Coyotes, Tourigny saw some ugly seasons at first. Tourigny might have been fired by many other teams with a 25-50-7 record in the 2021-22 season. The Coyotes again missed the playoffs the next season, finishing 28-40-14 in the 22-23 season. In the final season in Arizona, the team improved significantly but still posted a negative record of 36-41-5. Most of the time, coaches with such records are fired, but the Coyotes were clearly rebuilding, and their fortunes started to turn around in Utah.
Tourigny would oversee the Utah Hockey Club, going 38-31-13, with the team losing too many overtime games and showing significant youth and inexperience in the first season in Utah. However, finally, this season, the Mammoth reached the playoffs with a 43-33-6 record, a big improvement for a team that had missed the playoffs for five straight seasons in both Arizona and Utah. Although they were eliminated in the playoffs, Utah looks primed to only get better in the future.
Why the deal may have been the right decision
Sometimes, in sports, teams must recognize which is a coach's fault and which is a player's. If the team is balanced and is barely affected by injuries, but still struggles mightily, then the coach no longer deserves to be the coach. However, if a team is young and rebuilding and unable to win games because of that, it is partly due to the coach and mostly due to the team's youth. When a team is rebuilding, it needs to accept losses and build on what it is given at that stage.
Eventually, unless a team just can't manage to complete a rebuild, it will begin to improve until it starts winning games. Not much fault should fall on the head coach or manager of a team if rebuilding, as the Coyotes and Mammoth were definitely doing so for a while. Sure, many coaches make bad decisions, even with a young team, but after constant improvement, the Mammoth, for now, made the right decision to re-sign Tourigny.
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