Since he arrived in Detroit as Red Wings head coach in December, Todd McLellan tended to speak in the first person plural, the we not royal, but rather referring to his top assistant/war time consigliere Trent Yawney. To close out the '24-25 season, McLellan oversaw a staff mostly assembled by his predecessor Derek Lalonde, with the exception of his fellow in-season arrival Yawney.
Jan 16, 2025; Sunrise, Florida, USA; Detroit Red Wings head coach Todd McLellan reacts from the bench against the Florida Panthers during the second period at Amerant Bank Arena. (Sam Navarro, Imagn Images)
Yawney replaced Bob Boughner as the assistant responsible for the defense corps and penalty kill, while Lalonde's other assistants retained their posts. Now, according to a report from David Pagnotta of the Fourth Period, McLellan intends on making some changes behind the Red Wings bench. Throughout his time in Detroit, McLellan praised the work of the staff held over from the previous regime, but it should come as no real surprise
The two other on-bench assistants—both of them Lalonde hires—are Alex Tanguay and Jay Varady. Of that duo, Tanguay seems a far likelier candidate than Varady to remain on McLellan's staff. Tanguay ran Detroit's power play, which is coming off a record-setting season, ending the year having scored on 27.0% of its chances, the best mark in Red Wings history. The unit certainly got a boost upon McLellan's arrival (like the rest of the team), but Tanguay has made the man advantage a strength through Detroit's ups and downs over the previous two seasons. Because of that success (and perhaps also for some general sense of continuity), it would make sense for McLellan to retain Tanguay in that role.
Varady is perhaps a different case. Like Lalonde, Varady did not have an extended background as a high level player from which his coaching career sprung. Instead, Varady worked his way up and down the NCAA, WHL, USHL, and AHL ranks. He got his first NHL gig as an assistant under Rick Tocchet with the Arizona Coyotes in 2020-21, before becoming the head coach of the AHL Tucson Coyotes the following season. He then joined Lalonde's Detroit staff as an assistant in '22-23. Varady held a multi-faceted role that included working with the power play and serving as a conduit between the organization's analytics branch and the bench itself. There is a sense that Varady was a Lalonde assistant, whose role made sense as part of a staff structure or hierarchy from which the Red Wings have moved on. With that in mind, it would not come as a surprise if McLellan opted to replace Varady.
Finally, in the NHL, video staffs tend to stay on with teams across coaching staffs, but another position where McLellan could make a change concerns goaltending coach Alex Westlund. Westlund is another Lalonde hire from the summer of 2022. While team defense and personnel clearly play as much or greater a role in this reality as coaching, goaltending hasn't exactly been a strength for the Red Wings during that time frame. Perhaps McLellan will look to go in a different direction for the 2025-26 season.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments what you're expecting from Todd McLellan's 2025-26 staff.
