The Ottawa Senators have named five-time Calder Cup champion John Paddock as the sixth head coach in franchise history.
Paddock, 53, has been in the Senators organization for the last five seasons. He joined the Senators in July 2002 as head coach of the club’s AHL affiliate in Binghamton. Paddock was then named assistant coach by Murray on July 9, 2004, and served as co-coach with Dave Cameron for the 2004-05 Binghamton Senators during the NHL lockout.
The native of Oak River, Man., ranks third in American Hockey League coaching history with 542 career victories, and is the only man to lead three different teams to Calder Cup titles (Maine in 1984, Hershey in 1988, Hartford in 2000). He also won a pair of Calder Cups as a player with the Maine Mariners (1978, 1979).
Last season’s Ottawa Senators featured nine players who played under Paddock in Binghamton: Ray Emery, Chris Kelly, Denis Hamel, Brian McGrattan, Chris Neil, Christoph Schubert, Jason Spezza, Antoine Vermette and Anton Volchenkov.
Paddock was the co-winner of the Louis A.R. Pieri Award as the AHL’s coach of the year in 1988 (sharing the award with Mike Milbury), and is a two-time recipient of The Hockey News’ Minor Pro Coach of the Year honor (1986, 2000).
Paddock becomes the seventh current NHL head coach to have won a Calder Cup as an AHL bench boss, joining Calgary’s Mike Keenan (Rochester, 1983), Nashville’s Barry Trotz (Portland, 1994), Tampa Bay’s John Tortorella (Rochester, 1996), Atlanta’s Bob Hartley (Hershey, 1997), Carolina’s Peter Laviolette (Providence, 1999) and Philadelphia’s John Stevens (Philadelphia, 2005).
