Joel Quenneville wins his 1,000th game, joining Scotty Bowman in an elite club for NHL coaches

By Canadian Press on February 25, 2026.

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Joel Quenneville became the second coach in NHL history to win 1,000 games when his Anaheim Ducks rallied to beat the Edmonton Oilers 6-5 on Wednesday night.

Quenneville joined Scotty Bowman in this exclusive hockey club with a milestone win in the Ducks’ first game back from the Olympic break. Bowman became the first coach to reach the mark with the Detroit Red Wings on Feb. 8, 1997 — just one month after Quenneville coached his very first game with the St. Louis Blues.

Quenneville’s Ducks got his win in dramatic fashion: Anaheim erased a pair of two-goal deficits and another third-period deficit before Cutter Gauthier scored the tiebreaking goal with 1:14 left. When the clock ran out, Quenneville high-five each of his players at the bench before taking the ice to pose for a team photo.

The 67-year-old Quenneville has made a successful return to the NHL this season in Anaheim after a four-year absence from the league following his resignation from the Florida Panthers in late 2021 over his inaction during the Chicago Blackhawks’ sexual abuse scandal 11 years earlier.

Quenneville’s NHL ban was lifted in July 2024, and the Ducks hired him one year later to take over a struggling franchise with no playoff appearances in seven consecutive seasons. Anaheim (31-23-3) has vaulted into the thick of the Western Conference playoff race in its first season under Quenneville, who has led his teams to the playoffs in 20 of the 22 NHL seasons he finished behind a bench.

After playing 13 NHL seasons as a sturdy defenseman with the signature bristly mustache he has sported for his entire adult life, Quenneville has been an NHL head coach for parts of 26 seasons. He won three Stanley Cup titles with the Chicago Blackhawks during a spectacular run of success from 2008 to 2017.

Quenneville reached his 1,000th victory in his 1,825th game. Bowman finished his career in 2002 with 1,244 victories in 2,141 regular-season games, also winning nine Stanley Cup titles as a coach.

After his playing career ended in 1992, Quenneville won a Stanley Cup ring as an assistant to Marc Crawford with Colorado in 1996. He got his first head coaching job with St. Louis midway through the following season, and he led the Blues to seven consecutive playoff appearances before his firing.

Quenneville quickly got the top job with Colorado in 2004, but lasted just three seasons despite producing two playoff teams. He spent one month as a scout for the Blackhawks before replacing Denis Savard behind their bench in 2008, and he led the Original Six franchise to eight straight playoff appearances and three championships — including the 2010 Stanley Cup, which ended the NHL’s longest active drought at 59 seasons.

Chicago fired him in November 2018, and he joined the Panthers in April 2019 — but Quenneville’s third season in Florida ended abruptly when the NHL banned him and former Blackhawks executives Stan Bowman and Al MacIsaac “as a result of their inadequate response upon being informed in 2010 of allegations that Blackhawks player Kyle Beach had been assaulted by the club’s video coach,” the league said.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman determined Quenneville had showed remorse for his inaction in the allegations that surfaced in the middle of Chicago’s run to a Stanley Cup title. Quenneville said he also worked with advocacy groups to study the proper ways to lead in such situations.

Quenneville remained intently focused on the NHL during his four years away from the bench, watching games every night on television from his home in Florida and staying in contact with his countless friends in the game. Those friends included Pat Verbeek, his former teammate with the Hartford Whalers and the Ducks’ general manager in the middle of a lengthy rebuild.

Verbeek fired Greg Cronin last spring despite a 21-point improvement in the coach’s second season, and he persuaded owner Henry Samueli to take the potential risk and the definite public-relations hit of hiring Quenneville. The move has worked out splendidly on the ice so far, with the Ducks dramatically improving their record with a talented young core gaining another year of experience.

Bowman and Quenneville could be joined in the 1,000-win club by two more veteran coaches within the next few seasons.

Paul Maurice, who won the past two Stanley Cup titles with the Panthers, has 945 career victories with five teams. Lindy Ruff earned his 933rd career victory Wednesday night with the Buffalo Sabres’ 2-1 win over New Jersey.

Both Maurice and Ruff have coached more NHL games than Quenneville, and both have sub-.500 career winning percentages — a number that means less in the era of overtime losses.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/nhl

Greg Beacham, The Associated Press

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