Capitals Name Patrick Wellar Assistant Coach
Nov. 12: Wellar has had his interim tag removed, per Johnson. He replaces Love, who was fired following a one-year suspension by the league in reference to allegations of domestic abuse.
Sep. 27: The Capitals have promoted Patrick Wellar to their NHL coaching staff on an interim basis, Bailey Johnson of The Washington Post reports. It will be his first NHL role after spending the past several years working as an assistant for Washington’s AHL affiliate in Hershey.
Wellar will ensure the Capitals maintain a four-person bench staff to begin the campaign. Assistant Mitch Love, who primarily works with the team’s defensemen, was placed on leave two weeks ago pending the results of a league investigation into an off-ice incident involving his personal conduct that predated his time with the organization.
The 41-year-old Wellar will now do the same, Johnson said. While going out of one’s way to name an interim head coach during a short-term absence isn’t uncommon, uprooting an assistant from an AHL affiliate is an indication that the club doesn’t expect Love to return anytime soon.
Wellar is entering his eighth year in the organization, all of which have been spent in his everyday assistant role with Hershey. In doing so, he’s been a part of one of the best-run development ladders in the league regarding team success. The Bears won back-to-back Calder Cups in 2023 and 2024 and haven’t finished the regular season with a sub-.500 record during his tenure.
The Saskatchewan native also spent six years of his playing career in the Caps organization with AHL Hershey and ECHL South Carolina from 2008-14. He won a Calder Cup while on Hershey’s blue line in 2010, appearing in all 21 postseason games alongside future NHL fixtures John Carlson, Jay Beagle, Karl Alzner, and Mathieu Perreault.
According to Johnson, the Caps have also named a replacement for the replacement. Veteran coach Brent Thompson – the father of Sabres star Tage Thompson – will step in to cover Wellar’s responsibilities with Hershey. The 54-year-old is a former ECHL Coach of the Year and spent 10 years as the bench boss for AHL Bridgeport in the Islanders organization in two separate stints between 2011 and 2023. He spent the past two seasons as an assistant under Greg Cronin in Anaheim but was not retained by the Ducks for the 2025-26 season.
Ducks Part Ways With Two Assistant Coaches
Earlier today, The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta reported (Twitter links) that the Ducks were likely to make further changes to their coaching staff. Those moves have now been made as the team announced (Twitter link) that they will not be retaining assistant coaches Brent Thompson and Rich Clune.
Thompson spent the last two seasons behind the bench in Anaheim, his first NHL stint in nearly a decade after spending a pair of years as an assistant with the Islanders. In between, he had been a fixture at AHL Bridgeport, serving as their bench boss for nine years before being added to former head coach Greg Cronin’s staff with the team bringing in coaches known for player development.
As for Clune, this was his first season with the team and the first full year that he was an assistant coach. His playing career came to an end back in 2022 with AHL Toronto and he remained with the organization for two seasons in a player development role while spending a part season as an assistant with the Marlies before getting a chance to work with an NHL franchise.
For the time being, at least, it appears that Anaheim’s other assistant coaches will remain on Joel Quenneville’s staff. Tim Army was also hired last offseason for his second stint with the team after being an assistant in the first three years of the franchise’s existence. Meanwhile, goalie coach Peter Budaj, who also joined the Ducks last summer for his first stint of being an NHL coach, appears to be safe as well.