Former Bruins Assistant Jay Leach lands AHL Head Coaching Job
After spending the last two seasons as an assistant coach of the Boston Bruins, Jay Leach departs the organization to take the head coach job with the Hartford Wolfpack, the New York Rangers’ American Hockey League affiliate. The move comes two weeks after multiple outlets reported the Bruins were letting Leach walk to create an opening and looking to bring in a new coach to help improve the team’s defensive performance.
Leach first joined the franchise ahead of the 2016-17 season as an assistant coach for the Providence Bruins, after a stint in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton that included time as the interim head coach of the Penguins top affiliate. Prior to his time with the Penguins organization, Flint was an assistant coach in Germany for Adler Mannheim, who captured the Deutsche Eishockey Liga championship in 2015. After one season as an assistant, Leach was given the reigns in Providence where he would serve as the bench boss for four seasons before departing to join the Seattle Kraken as an assistant coach after guiding Providence to the Emilie Francis Trophy, given to the Atlantic Division regular season champion.
After three seasons in Seattle, the New York born coach returned to the Bruins organization, this time as an assistant coach for the main club. In his second stint with the organization Leach coached under three coaches in just two years, first with Jim Montgomery, who was fired just twenty games into the 2024-25 season. After Montgomery’s firing, Leach stayed on to coach with interim head coach Joe Sacco for the remainder of the season and spent all of 2025-26 with Marco Strum, the 30th coach in Boston Bruins history.
Prior to getting into coaching, Leach played professionally for over a decade across the ECHL, AHL, and multiple stints in the NHL. Leach was drafted by the Phoenix Coyotes with the 115th pick in the 1998 draft after his freshman season at Providence College, that included a trip to Helsinki, Finland to represent the United States at the World Junior Championships. In a professional career that spanned over a decade, primarily in the ECHL and AHL, Leach appeared in 70 NHL games. Leach’s NHL debut came as a member of the Boston Bruins, with the defensemen appearing in two games during the 2005-06 season. In addition to his time in Boston, Leach spent three seasons playing in the city he spent his college years, this time with the Providence Bruins. During his time in Rhode Island’s capital, Leach led the Providence Bruins to the Calder Cup Playoffs in all three seasons and appeared in a total of 242 games between regular season and post season.
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