The New Jersey Devils have relieved Utica Comets head coach Kevin Dineen of his duties and promoted Ryan Parent as interim head coach for the remainder of the year, per NHL.com’s Mike Morreale. Utica has lost each of their first nine games, only taking one to extra time. They’re being outscored 16-to-40 in the outings. New Jersey has also hired Eric Weinrich as an interim assistant coach.
It’s been a dismal start for the Devils’ affiliate. Only two players on the team are scoring at-or-above a point-per game pace – Nolan Foote, who has eight points in eight games, and Seamus Casey, with seven points in five games. Utica has struggled even with the pair’s production, with seven Comets still searching for their first point of the season and an additional nine looking for their second.
The early struggles were enough for New Jersey to call an early end to Dineen’s fourth season at the helm. He joined Utica in 2021-22, posting a hardy 43-20-9 record and earning the Comets a first-round bye in the postseason. But that didn’t help them much in the Division semifinals, with Utica falling to Rochester 3-2. Dineen returned Utica to the playoffs in the following year – though with a worser record of 35-27-10. That forced them to participate in the first-round play-in, where they beat Laval 2-0, but Utica again failed to work past the Division semifinals – this time falling to Toronto 3-1. The pair of playoff losses highlighted Dineen’s slide, and he’d fail to lead Utica to the postseason for a third time last year – continuing to slip with a 32-29-11 record.
Dineen’s struggles have hit a peak this year, and he’ll now be replaced by another former pro player in Ryan Parent. Parent – a 2005 first-round pick who played in 251 career AHL games across 10 seasons – joined the Devils organization as an AHL coach in 2018, when the team was still affiliated with the Binghamton Devils. He joined the organization’s move to Utica in 2021 – staying a reliable feature of the Devils’ prospect development.
In speaking on Parent’s promotion, Utica general manager Dan MacKinnon said, “In his seven years with our AHL affiliate, Ryan Parent has established a track record of transparently communicating with young players and teaching good habits, while drawing on his own playing experiences… Those characteristics will serve him well in this new role where he will need to develop, lead, and relate to players at all different stages of their pro hockey careers.” MacKinnon also noted that New Jersey felt the need to make a change while the season was still young.