Building upon our report from earlier this month, all indications suggest the Ontario Reign will be announcing their new head coach over the next 72 hours. While the final decision has yet to be revealed, our sources indicate the in-person interviews held late last week went very well. Management was then expected to take the weekend to think things over, with plans calling for the new coach to be in place before the NHL Draft begins in Los Angeles this Friday evening.
As previously reported, we expected long-time Reign assistant coach Chris Hajt to be a finalist for the job. And, in fact, he was interviewed last Thursday. Another candidate believed to be among the finalists is former AHL Bakersfield head coach Jay Woodcroft.
Ontario GM Rich Seeley is said to be heading up the search, after former coach Marco Sturm was hired by the Bruins to take over in Boston a few weeks ago.
As a refresher, here are a pair of recent tweets by Mayor’s Manor founder John Hoven:
An intriguing name to potentially add into this mix is Serge Aubin. The 50-year-old former NHL forward has actually been part of the AEG family since 2019. However, most people in North America wouldn’t realize that, as he’s been coaching the organization’s hockey team in Germany, Eisbären Berlin. In fact, he’s guided them to three championships since taking over behind the bench: 2021, 2022, 2024, and 2025.
During his NHL career, Aubin played nearly 400 combined games with Colorado, Columbus, and Atlanta. He’s also served as captain for Team Canada at four different Spengler Cup tournaments. After retiring and turning to coaching, Aubin’s resume extends beyond the DHL, with multiple assistant coaching stints for both Canada and Germany internationally. Despite coaching overseas, though, he’s actually a native of Val-d’Or (Quebec) and played his junior hockey in the QMJHL before being a seventh-round selection of Pittsburgh at the 1994 NHL Draft. That latter point could come in handy with current young players, given that he knows about putting in hard work to eventually earn playing time at the highest levels of the sport.
Last summer, Aubin — along with a few other guest coaches — participated in the Kings Development Camp with all of the organization’s top prospects at Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo.
For the upcoming 2025-26 NHL season, the Reign roster is expected to feature a fresh batch of future Kings hopefuls, including: Koehn Ziemmer, Jared Wright, Otto Salin, and Kirill Kirsanov. More on what’s next for them can be found in the article linked below.
MORE LA KINGS NEWS:
Follow @mayorNHL
Continue reading...
