Mike Keenan

Michael Edward Keenan (born October 21, 1949) is a Canadian professional hockey coach currently serving as head coach of the Italian men's national ice hockey team.

He recorded his 600th win as an NHL coach with the Flames.

In 1977 he became the coach of the Oshawa Legionaires of the Metro Junior B Hockey League, where he led them to back-to-back championships in 1979 and 1980.

The following year he began his junior coaching career with the Peterborough Petes before moving on to the Rochester Americans, which he guided to the American Hockey League championship in 1983.

He returned to the University of Toronto to lead it to the CIAU title.

Previously, he served as head coach and/or general manager with several NHL teams between 1984 and 2009.

He currently ranks fifth in playoff wins with 96.

Keenan landed his first high-profile job with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1984.

He is noted for his early career success in coaching Team Canada to win the 1987 Canada Cup round-robin tournament in a thrilling best-of-three series finale against Viktor Tikhonov's Red Army team.

He is one of three coaches to coach in a playoff Game 7 ten times, for which he won five times.

He was fired from the Philadelphia Flyers a year after leading them to the 1987 Stanley Cup Finals.

In 1993, he became the New York Rangers head coach and led the team to its first Stanley Cup win since 1940.

Prior to the 1993 season, he was also a candidate for the Detroit Red Wings head coaching job that eventually went to Scotty Bowman.

Keenan won a Stanley Cup championship as coach of the New York Rangers in 1994.

The 1994 season saw Keenan become the first to coach two teams to a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Finals, having previously coached the Flyers in a losing effort against the Edmonton Oilers in 1987.

He was followed in this feat in by Mike Babcock of the Detroit Red Wings.

In winning the 1994 Stanley Cup, Keenan managed to avoid becoming the first coach in NHL history to lose Game 7s with two teams (the fate which would befall Babcock in losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins ).

After leaving the Rangers, Keenan went on to serve as coach and general manager of the St. Louis Blues (1994–96), and coached the Vancouver Canucks (1997–98), and the Boston Bruins (2000–01).

Keenan's teams never missed the playoffs until 1998.

His tough coaching style and attitude towards his players have earned him the nickname "Iron Mike".

His first coaching job was at Forest Hill Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario, where he coached the varsity hockey team.

He was named head coach of the Florida Panthers on December 3, 2001, before becoming its general manager.

On September 3, 2006, Keenan resigned his position and was replaced by head coach Jacques Martin.

On April 24, 2007, Keenan would take his next role as senior advisor to the Swedish Ice Hockey Association.

This role would not last long as he was named head coach of the Calgary Flames on June 14, 2007.

Keenan would go on to pass Pat Quinn for 4th on the all time NHL coach win list (648 wins) on February 12, 2009.

On May 22, 2009, after two consecutive first round playoff losses, Keenan was fired as head coach of the Calgary Flames; he had one year left on his contract.

On October 1, 2009, MSG Network announced that Keenan would join the Rangers MSG Network broadcast team of Sam Rosen, Joe Micheletti, Al Trautwig, John Giannone, Dave Maloney, and Ron Duguay as a regular guest analyst for pre-game, intermission, and post-game reports on the network.

He's also an analyst on MSG Hockey Night Live with Trautwig, Duguay, Maloney, Ken Daneyko, and Butch Goring.

Currently, he is 12th all time in National Hockey League wins.

On May 13, 2013, Keenan signed a contract with Metallurg Magnitogorsk of KHL.

He also won the Gagarin Cup while coaching Metallurg Magnitogorsk in 2014, and he became the first head coach to have won championships in both the NHL and KHL, later to be joined by Bob Hartley after his win in 2020–21.

On April 30, 2014, Keenan's Metallurg team won the KHL championship with a game seven victory over HC Lev Praha.

In winning the team's first Gagarin Cup, Keenan became both the first North American coach to win a KHL championship and the first coach to win both the Gagarin Cup and the Stanley Cup.

On October 17, 2015, Keenan was fired by Magnitogorsk.

On March 16, 2017, Keenan was announced as the new head coach of HC Kunlun Red Star, the KHL's first Chinese based team.

After a disappointing start to the 2017–2018 season, Keenan was fired by Kunlun Red Star on December 3, 2017.

On October 18, 2022, the Italian Ice Sports Federation named Keenan as the head coach of the Italian men's national ice hockey team.

Despite Keenan's coaching record, his inability to maintain working relationships with players and team organizations has resulted in a lack of long-term coaching positions.

His coaching resume includes abrupt terminations or resignations from coaching or general manager positions, sometimes at bafflingly inopportune, or peak, moments of his career.