Somehow the name Kevin Dineen escaped our attention when we were speculating who would replace Jamie Kompon and whatever it was he actually did here. It probably shouldn’t have. After all, Dineen was a Whaler when Q was, and a very decent one at that. What Dineen didn’t have was previous coaching experience with Quenneville, so maybe that’s why we missed him.

Dineen has various head coaching experience in a lot of places. He was an AHL coach for six years in Portland, for both the Anaheim and Buffalo organizations. His record there was very impressive, as the Pirates amasses 39+ wins five out of six seasons.

He then went to Florida, to take over the Panthers in their Garage Sale Binge phase, where Dineen took all of their 11 signings and acquisitions in the summer of 2011 and got the Panthers to a Southeast Division title, even if that division was terrible. It took until overtime in a Game 7 for the Devils to eliminate them. But Dineen only got a season and a month after that, and was axed, even though the team was basically garbage.