Daniel Jacob Promoted To Laval Rocket Head Coach

The Rocket’s head coaching job had been left vacant by Pascal Vincent, who left the team on June 11th to take an assistant coaching job under Lane Lambert of the Seattle Kraken.

This will be Jacob’s first-ever job as a head coach of any professional hockey team. He was head coach of Canada’s Team Gold at the Youth Cups, but he hasn’t had any other head coaching gigs according to his Elite Prospects page.

Jacob had previously spent 5 of the last 8 seasons as the Rocket’s assistant coach across two different stints. He most recently spent the last two seasons behind Vincent on the Laval Rocket’s bench, but he had previously served as an assistant for Joel Bouchard with the Rocket from 2018 to ’21.

In fact, Jacob had previously been Bouchard’s longtime assistant coach everywhere that Bouchard had coached up until the 2024-25 campaign. When Bouchard left the Rocket after the 2020-21 season to pursue other coaching opportunities with the San Diego Gulls, the Anaheim Ducks’ AHL affiliate, Jacob went with him. The Rocket’s new head coach also joined Bouchard’s staff in the 2023-24 season with the Syracuse Crunch. Even before coaching in the AHL with Bouchard, Jacob had spent four seasons as his assistant with the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada of the QMJHL between 2014 and 2018.

While Jacob has not been a head coach at any significant level, he does have a lot of learning experience that came from working the last 12 years under good minor league head coaches like Bouchard and Vincent. Not to mention after spending five of the last eight seasons behind the Rocket’s bench, Jacob knows the players and the system very well. This means that despite Vincent leaving the Rocket, Jacob will be able to employ similar coaching for the team, which will make the transition for the team a lot easier than it would be if a head coach from outside the organization came in.

Given how Bouchard kept Jacob on his staff for almost all of 10 straight years (Jacob coached at the high school level during the 2022-23 season), it shows just how valuable the new Laval Rocket head coach has been as an assistant, and it’s time for him to show what he can do as a head coach.

What are your thoughts on the Laval Rocket’s decision to promote Daniel Jacob?