It won’t just be a new head coach in Anaheim that Ducks GM Pat Verbeek will be looking for in the coming weeks. There will be a vacancy to fill with their AHL affiliate in San Diego as well; the team announced that head coach Roy Sommer will retire following tonight’s season-ending contest against Colorado.
The 66-year-old is in his first season outside of San Jose’s organization in the better part of three decades. Sommer spent 26 years behind the bench with their affiliates before departing and joining Anaheim last summer. He is the winningest coach in AHL history with 828 while tonight’s contest will be his 1,814th, also a league record.
This season didn’t go as planned for Anaheim who finished at the bottom of the Western Conference and the NHL. Meanwhile, things didn’t go much better for the Gulls as they also sit last in the Western Conference and AHL with just 43 points through 71 games. With the Ducks battling injury trouble throughout the season, that put extra strain on San Diego that they clearly weren’t able to overcome.
This will be the second straight summer under Verbeek that he’ll be seeking an AHL bench boss. Last summer, he fired Joel Bouchard after just one season in the role and with Sommer calling it a career after tonight, that search will resume.