Notes: Jacques Lemaire is in his ninth year as Head Coach of the Minnesota Wild. He was named the first-ever Head Coach of the club on June 19, 2000. Prior to joining the Wild, Lemaire spent parts of two seasons as a Senior Consultant to the General Manager for the Montreal Canadiens, the franchise with which he captured 10 of his 11 Stanley Cup championships. He owns a career head coaching record of 524-401-171 (.556) in 14 National Hockey League (NHL) seasons with Montreal, New Jersey and Minnesota. Lemaire has taken nine of the 14 teams he has coached to the postseason, and has a lifetime Stanley Cup playoff record of 60-52 (.536).
Lemaire, 63 (9/7/45), has guided the Wild to a 277-242-102 record (.528), including a 163-96-54 mark (.607) at Xcel Energy Center. The Wild’s 253 wins in its first seven seasons are the most of any of the nine NHL expansion teams since 1991 (Nashville 232), and second most since NHL expansion in 1967-68 (Edmonton 314). He led the Wild to its fifth straight winning season in 2007-08 with a 44-28-10 record. Last season Lemaire coached in his 1000th game (10/18/07) and became the 14th coach in NHL history to reach that mark. He is the only person in NHL history to play in 800 games and coach in 1000. On April 3rd, the same night Minnesota clinched its first ever Northwest Division Title, Lemaire became the 12th coach to reach 500 wins. He is also the first person in NHL history to compete in 100 or more Stanley Cup playoff games as both a player (145) and a head coach (112). |