The New York Rangers have named former Vegas, Florida and Columbus coach Gerard Gallant as their next Head Coach.

As much as I (and many of us) dislike the "coaching carousel", I don't think Gallant has peaked. And so far, what we saw in his last two stints were nothing but positives. The only red flag is, with both Florida and with Vegas he was fired suddenly and unexpectedly. Why?

In Florida, Gallant was notoriously fired after a game against Carolina and put in a taxi cab after the team bus left without him. This was 10 months after the Panthers signed him to a contract extension, and seven months after he coached the team to a franchise record 103 points. And while his first Head Coaching job with Columbus wasn't great, he showed afterwards that he had learned a few tricks. He won the QMJHL Championship – twice – as coach of Saint John, and in Florida his record over two-plus years was 96-65-25.

Gallant was later hired as the first Head Coach of the Vegas expansion team. All he did was coach that team to the Stanley Cup Final. That's not anywhere near the stratosphere of where expansion teams get to in their first year. Nope, that was pretty legendary. In his second year he again coached them to the playoffs, but they were knocked out in the first round in Game 7 of overtime by the Sharks as a result of a bad call for which the NHL apologized. And then, inexplicably, Gallant was fired 49 games into the 2019-20 season. Granted, Vegas did it to secure Pete DeBoer as their new Head Coach, but it was still an unexpected turn of events.

From a fantasy standpoint, Gallant's teams had the following goals-scored ranking:

Vegas 2018-19: 13^th

Vegas 2017-18: 4^th

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Florida 2015-16: 6^th

Florida 2014-15: 25^th

Overall, I don't believe he's the stifling-defense type of coach. And with New York, he's set up for success. This organization boasts, for my money, a Top 3 young goalie in the world in Igor Shesterkin, a young defense with tremendous upside thanks to Adam Fox, K'Andre Miller, Nils Lundkvist and Braden Schneider (not to mention Jacob Trouba, and could you imagine if Tony DeAngelo was shy and quiet instead of how things turned out?). Forwards that include Artemi Panarin, Mika Zibanejad, Alexis Lafreniere, Kaapo Kakko, Filip Chytil and Ryan Strome. An embarrassment of riches! The type of team that could go from 16^th overall (this year) to Top 3 in one season. The red carpet is already rolled out for Gallant, leading to the Jack Adams Award next year.