Former Tampa Bay Lightning winger Gerard Gallant has agreed to become the new coach of the Shanghai Dragons.
The 61-year-old played 52 games with the Lightning, scoring four goals and 13 points. The Lightning were the final stop in his career after he had an outstanding career with the Detroit Red Wings. With the Red Wings, Gallant scored 207 goals and 467 points in 563 games.
After his professional hockey career as a player, Gallant was a long-time NHL head coach, but he hasn't worked in the NHL since the 2022-23 season, when the New York Rangers fired him. He coached over 700 NHL games, winning a Jack Adams Trophy with the Vegas Golden Knights.
Including the Rangers and the Golden Knights, Gallant worked as the bench boss for the Florida Panthers and the Columbus Blue Jackets.
After various levels of success as an NHL coach, Gallant has seemingly fallen out of the pecking order in the NHL head coaching job search and has decided to make the move to Europe.
The Shanghai Dragons, formerly known as the Kunlun Red Star, were established in 2016 as a Chinese-based team, but they haven't played a game in China since 2020. The franchise has missed the playoffs in eight consecutive seasons and has been near or at the bottom of the KHL standings for most of its existence.
Since 2020, the Kunlun-Shanghai franchise has played its home games in the Moscow area and will play this season in St. Petersburg. However, according to the club’s announcement, they would like to return to China in 2026-27, or 2027-28 at the latest.
The Dragons have high expectations for Gallant as they attempt to cement their placing in the KHL.
“As it turned out, Gallant emerged as the clear choice, meeting every single one of team’s criteria,” Dragons CEO Sergey Belykh is quoted in the club’s announcement. “We reached out to him outlining the club’s vision and key objectives.”
“We understood that building a strong team usually takes more than one season,” said Belykh. “Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time. That’s why the Dragons needed not just an experienced, high-profile head coach, but a specialist capable of building a competitive team in the shortest possible time.”
With these high expectations comes a whole heap of pressure. Gallant has shown previously that he can turn things around very quickly, but on the opposite side of the world, playing a different brand of hockey, jumping out to a start as quickly as the club's CEO is hoping for might be wishful thinking.
