SPRINGFIELD, Mass. … The American Hockey League announced today that Pascal Vincent of the Laval Rocket is the winner of the Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award as the AHL’s outstanding coach for the 2024-25 season.
The award is voted on by fellow coaches and members of the media representing each of the league’s 32 cities.
A Laval native, Vincent guided his hometown Rocket to the best record in the AHL in 2024-25, capturing the Macgregor Kilpatrick Trophy with a mark of 48-19-3-2 (101 points) that represented the second-best points percentage (.701) ever by a Montreal Canadiens AHL affiliate as well as a 27-point improvement over last season’s Laval club. Vincent’s Rocket allowed 2.47 goals per game, tied for the fewest in the league, and he has been instrumental in the development of many young Canadiens prospects including nine players who have competed with Montreal this season, among them Owen Beck, Joshua Roy, Logan Mailloux and Jakub Dobeš.
Vincent, who also won the Pieri Award in 2017-18, becomes its sixth two-time recipient – joining Al MacNeil, Bob McCammon, Bill Dineen, Robbie Ftorek and Mitch Love – and the first to earn the honor with two different organizations.
Vincent, 53, joined the Rocket on July 16, 2024, from Columbus, where he had spent the 2023-24 as head coach of the NHL’s Blue Jackets following two seasons as their associate coach. He previously spent 10 seasons with the Winnipeg Jets organization, including five years (2011-16) as an NHL assistant and five years (2016-21) as head coach of the AHL’s Manitoba Moose. He was also a head coach in the QMJHL for 12 seasons with Cape Breton (1999-2008) and Montreal (2008-11).
The Louis A.R. Pieri Memorial Award, which was first presented in 1968, honors the late Mr. Pieri, a long-time contributor to the AHL as the owner and general manager of the Providence Reds and a member of the American Hockey League Hall of Fame. Previous winners of the award include Frank Mathers (1969), Fred Shero (1970), Al MacNeil (1972, ’77), John Muckler (1975), Bob McCammon (1978, ’81), Jacques Demers (1983), Bill Dineen (1985, ’86), Larry Pleau (1987), Mike Milbury (1988), John Paddock (1988), Marc Crawford (1993), Barry Trotz (1994), Robbie Ftorek (1995, ’96), Peter Laviolette (1999), Claude Julien and Geoff Ward (2003), Claude Noel (2004), Randy Cunneyworth (2005), Kevin Dineen (2006), Scott Gordon (2008), Scott Arniel (2009), John Hynes (2011), Jon Cooper (2012), Willie Desjardins (2013), Jeff Blashill (2014), Mike Stothers (2015), Rick Kowalsky (2016), Roy Sommer (2017), Mike Vellucci (2019), Karl Taylor (2020), Spencer Carbery (2021), Mitch Love (2022, ’23) and Todd Nelson (2024).
In operation since 1936, the American Hockey League continues to serve as the top development league for all 32 National Hockey League teams. Nearly 90 percent of all players competing in the NHL are AHL graduates, and through the years the American Hockey League has been home to more than 100 honored members of the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The winner of the 2024-25 Eddie Shore Award (outstanding defenseman) will be announced Tuesday.
