{"id":603926,"date":"2026-06-21T18:21:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T18:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/603926\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T18:21:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T18:21:57","slug":"ryan-craig-named-vegas-golden-knights-head-coach-after-3-seasons-in-henderson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/603926\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Craig named Vegas Golden Knights head coach after 3 seasons in Henderson"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS (FOX5<\/a>) \u2014 Ryan Craig has been named head coach of the Vegas Golden Knights after spending the last three years leading the team\u2019s AHL affiliate in Henderson.<\/p>\n

Craig described the experience as a whirlwind since his appointment was announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery grateful, very humbled, very honored to be named head coach of the Vegas Golden Knights,\u201d Craig said. \u201cI\u2019m ready to get to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nine-year journey with organization<\/p>\n

Craig joined the Golden Knights organization nine years ago after winning a Calder Cup championship with Cleveland in 2016. He played one more year before transitioning to coaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I necessarily envisioned this nine years later after joining Vegas, but you just do your job, be yourself,\u201d Craig said.<\/p>\n

Three years ago, after the Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup in 2023, Craig moved to Henderson with the goal of becoming an NHL head coach.<\/p>\n

MORE ON FOX5: PWHL Las Vegas drafts Tessa Janecke, Lacey Eden to headline 2026 PWHL Draft class<\/a><\/p>\n

Leading a championship-caliber room<\/p>\n

Craig served as captain in multiple teams during his playing career and continued that leadership with the Silver Knights. He said he is confident stepping into a Golden Knights locker room that came within one win of another Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m confident in myself. I\u2019m confident in our group. I\u2019m confident in the people that are in the room as individuals,\u201d Craig said. \u201cI understand that we don\u2019t just get back to where they finished. There\u2019s a lot of hard work and ups and downs that we\u2019re going to go through as the season progresses, but it\u2019ll be worth it to have a chance to compete at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Managing emotions and relationships<\/p>\n

During his introductory press conference, Craig said a head coach must be a thermostat, taking and understanding the temperature of the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy to get emotional because we all care. We\u2019re all competitive,\u201d Craig said. \u201cI think one of the jobs of the head coach is to manage emotions, manage obviously your individual emotions, but that of your team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Craig said messaging is important in a room that includes captain Mark Stone and other veteran leaders. He emphasized the importance of developing relationships so accountability and communication flow smoothly.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur job and my job and my staff\u2019s job is to develop relationships so that when the temperature does rise, and people are held accountable, or things happen, we just continue to push forward with the ultimate goal in mind,\u201d Craig said.<\/p>\n

Craig said his nine years with the organization put him in a unique position heading into training camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe players that were here in 23 when we won, the players that I\u2019ve coached, whether it\u2019s this year or over the last three years in Henderson, they understand who Ryan Craig is,\u201d Craig said. \u201cThe ones that don\u2019t will have conversations, get to know each other. But overall, I\u2019m ahead of the curve because of having been here for nine years and understanding the standards, the culture, the expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 KVVU. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS (FOX5) \u2014 Ryan Craig has been named head coach of the Vegas Golden Knights after spending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5129],"tags":[149,66843,67015,5317,11049,5,1596,67012,8716,1040,4,32851,7596,74,39,67011,5316,67013,67014],"class_list":["post-603926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vegas-golden-knights","tag-golden-knights","tag-golden-knights-coach","tag-golden-knights-locker-room-leadership","tag-goldenknights","tag-henderson-silver-knights","tag-hockey","tag-kelly-mccrimmon","tag-las-vegas-nhl","tag-las-vegas-sports-news","tag-mark-stone","tag-nhl","tag-ryan-craig","tag-stanley-cup-contender","tag-vegas","tag-vegas-golden-knights","tag-vegas-golden-knights-head-coach","tag-vegasgoldenknights","tag-vgk-coaching-change","tag-vgk-training-camp"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116789493305549032","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603926","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=603926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}