The NHL has only seen one Black head coach in its 109-year league history, and not even for a full season. Dirk Graham, who previously broke another barrier as the league’s first Black captain, assumed the top bench job for the Chicago Blackhawks in June 1998 but lasted just 59 games before being fired with a 16-35-8 record.
If Joel Ward gets his way, he will be next. And it will be overdue.
“I think there should have been more ahead of me,” Ward told The Athletic last week. “As a player, you go through it, and then it just seems like coaching is not really an avenue for a lot of guys that play for whatever reason.”
A former NHL winger who notched 133 goals and 304 points over 11 seasons with four NHL teams, including the San Jose Sharks during their run to the 2016 Stanley Cup Final, Ward has used his platform to promote inclusivity and fight discrimination in the sport as a co-founder of the Hockey Diversity Alliance, which held its second annual “Summer Fest” youth outreach event on Saturday. At the same time, Ward is busy preparing for an opportunity that few Black members of the hockey world have experienced, one that will bring the 45-year-old that much closer to his ultimate ambition.
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In June, following six years as an assistant in the Vegas Golden Knights’ organization, the last three of which were spent on their NHL bench, Ward was named head coach of the American Hockey League’s Henderson Silver Knights. The 45-year-old succeeds Ryan Craig, who was promoted to the Golden Knights’ head position after the team opted not to retain late-season hire John Tortorella following their loss to the Carolina Hurricanes in the Cup Final.
Ward said it was an “honor” to be entrusted by the Golden Knights to “lead their young men and develop players” with the organization’s top minor-league affiliate, where he becomes only the second Black head coach in AHL history. (The first was Graham, who led the Springfield Falcons from 2004-06.) However, Ward doesn’t plan to stay in the AHL forever.
“At the end of the day, I’d like to coach in the National Hockey League,” he said.
As a skater, Ward’s career was far from guaranteed. He broke into the league with the Minnesota Wild during the 2006-07 season as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Prince Edward Island, a rare product of Canadian university hockey to reach the sport’s highest level. Despite spending the next year in the minors, he persevered to become a sturdy presence up front for the Nashville Predators and Washington Capitals from 2008-2015, highlighted by career highs of 24 goals and 49 points with the Capitals in 2013-14.
Soon after formally retiring in 2020, Ward was one of nine Black participants in that year’s NHL Coaching Association Global Coaches Clinic. By November, after sending his resume to Golden Knights president of hockey operations George McPhee, who had previously signed Ward as a free agent with the Capitals in 2011, he was hired as an assistant coach for the Silver Knights.
Now that Ward is back in Henderson, he can apply what he’s learned from the various NHL head coaches he has played under and worked alongside, including then-Capitals coach Barry Trotz; current Golden Knights assistant John Stevens; and Peter DeBoer, who saw Ward’s coaching potential during their time together in San Jose.
“I think on every team you coach, you always look around, and there’s always a couple guys in that room that you go, ‘Boy, I think that guy would be a really good coach one day,’” DeBoer, now with the New York Islanders, told The Athletic. “There’s no doubt Joel was on that list for me. The reason he played was because of his hockey IQ. He wasn’t the fastest guy out there, but he understood systems. He understood roles. And he was a selfless teammate.
“I think, in order to be a coach, I think you have to have those types of characteristics.”
After moving up to the Golden Knights’ bench in July 2023, Ward pre-scouted opponents, organized the Golden Knights’ forecheck and ran practices during optional skates under then-head coach Bruce Cassidy. He occupied similar roles after Cassidy was fired in April, guiding the forwards alongside Dominque Ducharme as Tortorella leaned on Vegas’ assistants to help the team get back on track.
While some of his predecessors could be considered fiery, Ward describes himself as a “pretty calm individual” when it comes to coaching players.
“I’m not going to be somebody that’s too erratic or having random outbursts or anything of that nature,” Ward said. “(I’m) just speaking the truth, sharing my experiences. I’ve got a lot of respect (from) the players just through my actions. So understanding, just building relationships, that’s what it is for me. Having good relationships on and off the ice, I think it’s going to help me earn the trust of players. And once you can do so, I think you get the most out of players going forward.”
Cassidy particularly leaned on Ward’s recent NHL experience, watching him grow from providing individual instructions to players to holding the entire dressing room’s attention with his voice.
“I didn’t play a lot of NHL games,” Cassidy told The Athletic. “So, to have a guy that’s been there and done it, and use that to your advantage to work the room. That was his biggest asset, and I think he understood that.”
Coaches like DeBoer and Cassidy spent years coaching in the minors and at the junior level before moving into NHL roles. Both commended Ward for following this path, even if it means reverting to the AHL after already working an NHL bench.
“It’s probably the next best league in the world to coach professionals,” Cassidy said of the AHL. “And it certainly prepares you to be an NHL head coach. I mean, just look at the guys that are in the NHL. I bet, off the top of your head, you can name half of them were American League head coaches.”
In fact, 21 of the NHL’s 32 current coaches served as AHL bench bosses before making the jump. Five of them, including the Golden Knights’ Craig, took those gigs after holding assistant titles at the NHL level. Two of the league’s most prominent coaches, Paul Maurice and Mike Sullivan, spent years coaching in the NHL before resurfacing in the AHL, only to return to the big leagues soon after.
Cassidy himself climbed from the ECHL, the International Hockey League and the AHL before receiving his first NHL job, in Washington for the 2002-03 season. After he was dismissed by the Capitals, and following a brief stint as a Blackhawks assistant, Cassidy again worked his way up. That time, he went from the Ontario Hockey League to the AHL and, finally, to the Boston Bruins’ bench before he replaced Claude Julien as their head coach during the 2016-17 season.
There’s a handful of examples for Ward to follow, providing proof that the route to becoming an NHL head coach isn’t always linear.
“He’s doing it the right way,” DeBoer said of Ward. “He’s not looking for a quick way into the NHL. He’s willing to ride buses and go to the minors and pick up pucks as an assistant coach. He has the same mentality as a coach that he had as a player, that he’s willing to work for it. And I have no doubt, eventually, he’s going to get rewarded for that, just like he did as a player.”
The son of Bajan parents, Ward knows how rare it is for Black coaches to attain any position in professional hockey. When the late Paul Jerrard worked for the Colorado Avalanche (2002-03), Dallas Stars (2011-13) and Calgary Flames (2016-18), he was the only Black assistant coach in the league; ditto for the Devils’ Mike Grier (2018-20). And aside from Ward and Tampa Bay Lightning goalie coach Frantz Jean, the NHL had zero other Black members of coaching staffs on its 32 teams during the 2025-26 season.
But Ward hopes that his journey, no matter where it leads from here, can encourage younger people to follow in his footsteps.
“I’ve learned so much throughout the course of my career and from a lot of great coaches,” Ward said. “It would be a shame if I had all this information and didn’t get a chance to share it with others.”
