Joel Quenneville has expressed interest in becoming the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, contingent on being reinstated by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman.
Quenneville, a three-time Stanley Cup-winning coach, is currently ineligible to coach due to his involvement in the Chicago Blackhawks’ scandal. Despite this, he remains a notable candidate, although the Leafs have not yet reached out to him formally. Other names, such as Craig Berube, are also being considered for the position.
Joel Quenneville, who has never been particularly talkative and looks at a microphone the same way he does at a forward who is uninterested in playing defense, was doing pretty well.
After more than two years of working behind the scenes to reestablish himself in the NHL’s good graces, Quenneville’s first public appearance on his image-rehab/redemption tour was this week’s Cam and Strick Podcast, a polite but pointed discussion with St. Louis Blues rinkside reporter Andy Strickland. For the first time, Quenneville accepted some responsibility for the Chicago Blackhawks’ systemic failure to protect Kyle Beach in 2010. He continues to claim ignorance about the sexual nature of Beach’s charges against video instructor Brad Aldrich, as he has since Beach’s complaint was filed in May 2021. However, Quenneville believed he should have asked more questions. He should have pursued the case farther, he claimed. He shouldn’t have assumed that team president John McDonough and the staff would handle the situation correctly, he claimed.