SAD NEWS: Todd Nelson, Hershey Bears coach has made shocking decision to leave Hershey Bears.

May 4, 2024 admin Sports 0

SAD NEWS: Todd Nelson, Hershey Bears coach has made shocking decision to leave Hershey Bears.

Hershey Bears head coach Todd Nelson is the AHL’s Coach of the Year. The AHL announced on Monday that Nelson was the recipient of the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award.

The Nelson-led Bears wrapped up their 2023-24 regular season on Saturday, finishing with a 53-14-5 record. The team’s .771 points percentage was the best in the franchise’s 86-year history and the second-best in league history.

The award is voted on by fellow coaches and media members in each of the league’s 32 cities. Nelson is the sixth Bears coach to take home the honor and the first since current Washington Capitals bench boss Spencer Carbery did so after the 2020-21 campaign.

Other winners of the prestigious award include former Capitals coaches Barry Trotz, Peter Laviolette, and Scott Arniel (assistant). Current Capitals assistant coach Mitch Love is a two-time recipient of the trophy.

“Coach of the Year in the @TheAHL goes to the @TheHersheyBears Head Coach Todd Nelson,” Capitals owner Ted Leonsis tweeted. “Most deserved after a record breaking year in Hershey for the @Capitals AHL affiliate.”

Nelson was hired as Bears head coach last season and went on to lead them to the franchise’s 12th Calder Cup championship. Many of the players he coached on that team helped Carbery and the Capitals successfully qualify for the NHL playoffs this season.

This season he was also named head coach of the Atlantic Division at the AHL All-Star Classic. The all-star coaching nod was Nelson’s fourth in his career, a new league record.

Todd Nelson

The 54-year-old former Capitals defender has collected 406 career AHL wins which ranks seventh in the league’s history, one win behind Scott Gordon for sixth. Last year, he became just the 12th head coach in AHL history to win multiple Calder Cups and only the third to win Cups with different teams. He won his first with Grand Rapids in 2017.

Nelson is only the third person in AHL history to win the Calder Cup as a player (Portland, 1994), assistant coach (Chicago, 2008), and head coach (2017, 2023).

The Saskatoon native also has seven years of experience as a coach in the NHL with 46 games coming as the head coach of the Edmonton Oilers. Nelson has expressed his desire in the past to return to the NHL as a bench boss and could receive serious consideration from teams with openings this offseason

Here is the AHL’s press release on the news:

Bears’ Nelson wins Pieri Award as outstanding coach

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. … The American Hockey League announced today that Todd Nelson of the Hershey Bears is the winner of the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award as the AHL’s outstanding coach for the 2023-24 season.

The award is voted on by fellow coaches and members of the media in each of the league’s 32 cities.

A year after winning the Calder Cup championship, Nelson guided Hershey to the second-best regular-season record in the 88-year history of the American Hockey League in 2023-24, a mark of 53-14-0-5 (111 points, .771) that ranked 18 points better than any other team in the Eastern Conference. Nelson’s Bears allowed 2.10 goals per game – the ninth-lowest average in league history – as well as a league-low 26.0 shots per game, and ranked first in the league on the penalty kill at 87.7 percent efficiency along with sixth on the power play (20.1 percent). Nelson also sent 12 players to the National Hockey League to compete with the Washington Capitals this season, and six members of his 2023 Calder Cup title team were in the lineup for the Caps’ Stanley Cup Playoff opener on Sunday.

Over 10 AHL seasons, Nelson has a career head-coaching record (W-L-OT) of 406-222-77, ranking eighth on the league’s all-time wins list. He has compiled eight 40-win seasons and reached four conference finals, including Calder Cup championships with Grand Rapids in 2017 and Hershey in 2023. Nelson was also an assistant coach on Chicago’s Cup-winning team in 2008, and won a title with the 1993-94 Portland Pirates as part of his 12-year playing career.

The 54-year-old native of Prince Albert, Sask., has also served in the NHL as a head coach with the Edmonton Oilers and as an assistant with the Oilers, Atlanta Thrashers and Dallas Stars. This is his first Coach of the Year honor at any level.

The Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award, which was first presented in 1968, honors the late Mr. Pieri, a long-time contributor to the AHL as the owner and general manager of the Providence Reds and a member of the American Hockey League Hall of Fame. Previous winners of the award include Frank Mathers (1969), Fred Shero (1970), Al MacNeil (1972, ’77), John Muckler (1975), Jacques Demers (1983), Bill Dineen (1985, ’86), Larry Pleau (1987), John Paddock (1988), Marc Crawford (1993), Barry Trotz (1994), Robbie Ftorek (1995, ’96), Peter Laviolette (1999), Claude Julien and Geoff Ward (2003), Claude Noel (2004), Randy Cunneyworth (2005), Kevin Dineen (2006), Scott Gordon (2008), Scott Arniel (2009), John Hynes (2011), Jon Cooper (2012), Willie Desjardins (2013), Jeff Blashill (2014), Mike Stothers (2015), Roy Sommer (2017), Pascal Vincent (2018), Mike Vellucci (2019), Karl Taylor (2020), Spencer Carbery (2021) and Mitch Love (2022, ’23).

In operation since 1936, the American Hockey League continues to serve as the top development league for all 32 National Hockey League teams. Nearly 90 percent of all players competing in the NHL are AHL graduates, and through the years the American Hockey League has been home to more than 100 honored members of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The winner of the 2023-24 Eddie Shore Award (outstanding defenseman) will be announced Tuesday.

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