By: Jack Studley | Follow me on Twitter/X @jackstudley13
On Friday morning, the Boston Bruins announced that the team has hired Steve Spott as an assistant coach. Spott will join first-year head coach Marco Sturm, and assistants Jay Leach, Chris Kelly, and goaltending coach Bob Essensa as the Bruins finalize their coaching staff for the 2025-26 season.
Spott comes with a lot of NHL experience and checks boxes that the Bruins were looking for. He spent the last three seasons as an assistant to Pete DeBoer in Dallas. He focused on the powerplay unit, which went 23.7% over Spott’s three seasons running the unit. His powerplay expertise is what Marco Sturm mentioned that he was looking for in his introductory press conference. The Dallas Stars have made it to the Western Conference Finals for three straight seasons, however they have not made it over the hump and into the Stanley Cup Final.
Spott’s NHL experience is not limited to the Dallas Stars; he has also worked for the Vegas Golden Knights and San Jose Sharks and spent a season on the bench of the Toronto Maple Leafs. In the summer of 2015, Spott was hired by Pete DeBoer as an assistant coach, working alongside DeBoer during his stops in San Jose, Vegas, and Dallas. This season will be the first time that Spott is not on DeBoer’s bench since the 2014-15 season.
In 2013, the Toronto Maple Leafs hired Spott to be the head coach of the Toronto Marlies. The team went 45-25-6 and made a playoff run to the Western Conference finals. After that season, the Maple Leafs promoted him to an assistant spot on the NHL bench. Before his time in Toronto, he coached for the Kitchener Rangers and Plymouth Whalers in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), serving as an assistant to Pete DeBoer in Kitchener and then taking over as head coach after DeBoer moved to the NHL.
Spott has also won two gold medals with Team Canada, both coming at the Under-18 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament. Spott was an assistant in 2008 and the head coach in 2011 when the Canadians won gold at the tournament. He was also an assistant for Canada at the 2010 World Junior Championships, winning a silver medal.
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