The Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday announced that Ryan Craig has been hired as the team’s next head coach.

On Tuesday, the club announced that interim head coach John Tortorella would not return to the team next season. A day later, the Golden Knights made official what most insiders thought would be the case, when the Henderson Silver Knights head coach Craig was promoted to be the head coach of the big-league club.

Golden Knights Make Ryan Craig Hire Official

Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon announced on Wednesday that Craig is the new bench boss for Vegas. The team made the hire official in a press release on its official website.

Craig, 44, played in the NHL for parts of eight seasons with the Tampa Bay Lightning, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Columbus Blue Jackets. He was originally selected in the eighth round of the 2002 NHL Entry Draft with the No. 255 overall pick. For someone who was selected so late, the fact that he dressed in 198 career regular-season games, plus 11 more games in the playoffs, is rather impressive.

After his playing career ended, Craig got into coaching. In 2017, the Golden Knights’ first season in the NHL, Craig was an assistant coach on the Vegas bench as they went to the Stanley Cup Finals and lost to the Washington Capitals 4-1. Craig was then an assistant with Vegas until the 2023 season, when the Golden Knights beat the Florida Panthers 4-1 to capture the franchise’s first Stanley Cup.

After that season, the Golden Knights made Craig the head coach of their AHL affiliate, the Henderson Silver Knights, where he has coached for the past three seasons. He has been lauded as a future NHL head coach due to his great work in the AHL, and now, he will get that chance in Vegas as he becomes the team’s new head coach.

What’s Next for John Tortorella and Bruce Cassidy?

The Golden Knights started this past season with Bruce Cassidy as their head coach, but they fired him in March after floundering towards the finish line. The team then brought in Tortorella as the interim head coach, and although Tortorella brought the team to the Stanley Cup Finals, they lost in six games to the Carolina Hurricanes, and the team did not extend his contract.

It will be interesting to see what happens next for both men, as there is only one head coaching vacancy left in the NHL right now with the Edmonton Oilers, who are said to be hiring Mike Babcock. But the NHL is investigating Babcock, so it’s no guarantee he gets hired as the team’s next head coach in Edmonton, even though he’s their first choice.

If that’s the case, then the Oilers could circle back to Tortorella, who is free to sign anywhere to coach, or to Cassidy, whom the Golden Knights blocked permission to interview in April. But now that Vegas’ playoff run is over and they brought in Craig to be their head coach, perhaps they would be more inclined to let Edmonton talk to Cassidy now.