{"id":122421,"date":"2025-07-12T18:19:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T18:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/122421\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T18:19:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T18:19:39","slug":"red-wings-hire-michael-leighton-as-goaltending-coach-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/122421\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Wings Hire Michael Leighton As Goaltending Coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former NHL netminder is joining Todd McLellan<\/a>\u2019s staff in Detroit and will serve as the Red Wings\u2019 goaltending coach, according to a press release<\/a> from the team.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Leighton\u2019s first NHL job and just his second coaching job. The 44-year-old ended his playing career in 2019 before serving as the goalie coach for the OHL\u2019s Windsor Spitfires from February 2022 through the end of the 2023-24 campaign.<\/p>\n

He succeeds Alex Westlund, whom general manager\u00a0Steve Yzerman<\/a>\u00a0said had been relieved of his duties in April<\/a>. Westlund was Detroit\u2019s goalie coach for the last three seasons and also held the role for the United States at the 2024 World Championship. Detroit had the only documented goalie coach vacancy in the league, so it\u2019s unlikely he\u2019ll find another NHL job for this season.<\/p>\n

Leighton joins McLellan\u2019s staff ahead of his first full season behind Detroit\u2019s bench as head coach. He serves alongside assistants\u00a0Alex Tanguay<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Trent Yawney<\/a> and video coordinator Jeff Weintraub.<\/p>\n

The Ontario native was a No. 3 option for most of his NHL\/AHL career but famously stepped into playoff action for the Flyers in 2010, leading them to the Stanley Cup Final. He surrendered the championship-winning goal to\u00a0Patrick Kane<\/a>, with whom he\u2019ll now be in the same organization. The Ontario native posted a 37-43-14 record, four shutouts, a 2.97 GAA, and a .900 SV% in 110 NHL regular-season games for the Blackhawks, Predators, Flyers, and Hurricanes from 2002 to 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NHL netminder is joining Todd McLellan\u2019s staff in Detroit and will serve as the Red Wings\u2019 goaltending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5101],"tags":[599,93,5137,5,20550,4,3358,5138],"class_list":{"0":"post-122421","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-red-wings","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-red-wings","10":"tag-detroitredwings","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-michael-leighton","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-red-wings","15":"tag-redwings"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/114841646770418976","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}