Bruce Boudreau

Bruce Allan Boudreau (born January 9, 1955) is a Canadian former professional hockey player and current coach. He has been the head coach for four NHL teams: the Washington Capitals, Anaheim Ducks, Minnesota Wild, and Vancouver Canucks. As a player, Boudreau spent 20 years in professional hockey. The Toronto Maple Leafs picked him in the third round (42nd overall) of the 1975 NHL amateur draft. He appeared in 141 NHL games for the Maple Leafs and Chicago Black Hawks, plus 30 games in the WHA for the Minnesota Fighting Saints. Most of his playing time came in the AHL, where he racked up 316 goals and 483 assists for 799 points over 634 games, earning a reputation as a top scorer.

After retiring as a player, Boudreau turned to coaching. He won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s top head coach in 2007–08 while leading the Capitals. He also owns two junior hockey teams, the Minnesota Blue Ox and the Hershey Cubs, which play in the USPHL. As of 2021, among NHL coaches with at least 900 games behind the bench, Boudreau holds the second-highest winning percentage in league history.

Boudreau grew up in North York, Toronto, Ontario, the son of Norman Boudreau and Theresa Roy. As a kid, he played in the 1967 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with the Toronto George Bell minor team. He attended Nelson A. Boylen Collegiate Institute in the 1970s.

His junior career took off with the Toronto Marlboros of the OHA, where he averaged over 100 points per season. In his final junior year, he scored 165 points and added 44 more in 27 playoff games, captaining the Marlies to a Memorial Cup title. He also won the Eddie Powers Memorial Trophy as the top goal scorer in the 1974–75 OMJHL season.

After being drafted, Boudreau couldn’t agree on a contract with Toronto, so he joined the WHA’s Minnesota Fighting Saints for his pro debut in 1975. He played 30 games there, scoring three goals and six assists, and spent part of that season in the minors with the Johnstown Jets of the NAHL. He signed with the Maple Leafs for 1976–77, but spent most of the next nine years on their farm teams in the CHL and AHL. Later, he played for the Chicago Black Hawks’ AHL affiliate, the Springfield Indians, where he won his only league scoring championship in 1987–88. He also suited up for the IHL’s Fort Wayne Komets and the AHL’s Nova Scotia Oilers.

Boudreau played parts of eight NHL seasons, all but one with the Maple Leafs. His best NHL stretch came in 1980–81, when he was called up as an injury replacement and posted 10 goals and 14 assists in 39 games. Overall, he recorded 28 goals and 42 assists in 141 NHL games. He continued as a minor-league star until his final AHL season in 1991–92. His last game came as an emergency injury replacement for the AHL’s Adirondack Red Wings during the 1992 Calder Cup playoffs.

Early in his pro career, while with the Johnstown Jets, Boudreau appeared as an extra in the 1977 film Slap Shot. His apartment at the time was used for Paul Newman’s character, the coach of the Charlestown Chiefs. Besides owning two junior teams, Boudreau has worked as an analyst for the NHL Network when not coaching.

Boudreau and his wife have one son together. He also has three children—two sons and a daughter—from his first marriage. In 1982, he founded the Golden Horseshoe Hockey School, a youth summer camp in St. Catharines, Ontario, which he still coaches at during off-seasons. A lifelong Toronto Maple Leafs fan, Boudreau admits he still cheers for the club unless they’re playing his current team, and he watches their games on TV when possible. Known for his talkative nature, he earned the nickname “Gabby.” In 2009, he published a memoir, Gabby: Confessions of a Hockey Lifer. His son Ben became head coach of the OHL’s Niagara IceDogs in November 2023 after four seasons in the ECHL.

Boudreau ranks 16th all-time in AHL goals (316), 13th in assists (483), and 12th in points (799). Across all minor leagues, he sits eighth all-time with 1,368 points, and 13th in both goals (548) and assists (820), placing him in the top 25 all-time scorers for professional minor hockey.