After announcing his retirement earlier this year, longtime NHL winger Pat Maroon is making his first foray into coaching as an assistant with the USHL’s Muskegon Lumberjacks, the team announced Friday.
Maroon, 37, jumps behind the bench just a few months after his final NHL game and does so into the United States’ top junior environment – a league he never played in himself despite spending his early development south of the border. The St. Louis native played Tier II juniors in the U.S. for the NAHL’s Texarkana and St. Louis Bandits, where his immense offensive success and physicality made him a sixth-round pick by the Flyers in 2007, before jumping to the OHL with the London Knights.
He’ll now help oversee a Lumberjacks roster that already has a few notable names locked in for 2025-26. Among them is Canadian center Tynan Lawrence, a projected top-10 pick in the 2026 draft, who refuted CHL interest to stay in Muskegon. Also on Muskegon’s roster are NHL-drafted forwards Melvin Novotny (Sabres, 2025, 7-195) and Viktor Nörringer (Predators, 2024, 4-127). Lawrence returns from last season, when he helped the Lumberjacks win their first Clark Cup title since their inception in 2010.
That trio will have the benefit of working with a three-time Stanley Cup champion in Maroon, who turned an odd development path into an NHL career spanning 14 years with over 800 appearances and 300 points.
Wow , so now the fatty boy can eat the entire team
What is if he can teach ? To be slow , and hug ? Captain of uselessness!
Wow, did Patrick Maroon steal your picnic basket or something? Seems uncalled for
I think it is simply that Slapper53 does not have much hockey knowledge.
Leadership, numbnuts.
Fascinating scientific experiment these comments are… It attracts, the only two people in the world who think this is a bad idea for some USHL players to get some assistant coaching from an 800 NHL game vet who lifted the Stanley Cup 3 times. Great grab by Muskegon.
I’m a Blues fan from S. Illinois, married to a girl from Muskegon and having attended many Muskegon Fury/Lumberjacks games, so I think it’s pretty cool.
Fantastic teach these kids some grit and work ethic. I have a feeling some real solid blue collar guys will be coming from the lumberjack in the near future.
I thought he was going into broadcasting.
Never hurts to learn some fighting tips from an old pro. :)