Former Florida Panthers coach Gerard Gallant will be joining the Shanghai Dragons as their new head coach. 

Gallant was a long-time NHL head coach, but he hasn't worked in the NHL since the 2022-23 season, when the New York Rangers fired him. He coached over 700 NHL games, winning a Jack Adams Trophy with the Vegas Golden Knights. 

Gallant spent two full seasons with the Panthers as the bench boss before they fired him in his third season after an 11-10-1 start to the 2016-17 season. The Panthers missed the playoffs in Gallant's first campaign but won the Atlantic Division in his second, recording 103 points and winning 47 games. The Panthers were defeated in the first round of the post-season by the New York Islanders in six games.

After various levels of success following his Panthers tenure, Gallant has seemingly fallen out of the pecking order in the NHL head coaching job search and has decided to make the move to Europe.

The Shanghai Dragons, formerly known as the Kunlun Red Star, were established in 2016 as a Chinese-based team, but they haven't played a game in China since 2020. The franchise has missed the playoffs in eight consecutive seasons and has been near or at the bottom of the KHL standings for most of its existence. 

Since 2020, the Kunlun-Shanghai franchise has played its home games in the Moscow area and will play this season in St. Petersburg. However, according to the club’s announcement, they would like to return to China in 2026-27, or 2027-28 at the latest.

The Dragons have high expectations for Gallant as they attempt to cement their placing in the KHL.

“As it turned out, Gallant emerged as the clear choice, meeting every single one of team’s criteria,” Dragons CEO Sergey Belykh is quoted in the club’s announcement. “We reached out to him outlining the club’s vision and key objectives.”

“We understood that building a strong team usually takes more than one season,” said Belykh. “Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time. That’s why the Dragons needed not just an experienced, high-profile head coach, but a specialist capable of building a competitive team in the shortest possible time.”

With these high expectations comes a whole heap of pressure. Gallant has shown previously that he can turn things around very quickly, but on the opposite side of the world, playing a different brand of hockey, jumping out to a start as quickly as the club's CEO is hoping for might be wishful thinking. 

Gerard Gallant Takes Over KHL’s Shanghai Dragons Gerard Gallant is the new head coach of the Shanghai Dragons, the KHL club announced on Wednesday.