- The Avalanche hired Jussi Ahokas as head coach of their AHL affiliate, the Colorado Eagles
- Ahokas turned down the Canucks’ Abbotsford job one day earlier
- Read below for how Colorado landed the reigning Memorial Cup winner
Jussi Ahokas said no to Vancouver. Colorado got a yes.
The Avalanche made it official Friday, naming Ahokas head coach of the Colorado Eagles, their AHL affiliate in Loveland:
That came about 24 hours after Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK reported the Canucks had offered Ahokas the Abbotsford job and the 45-year-old turned it down. Dhaliwal figured he wouldn’t sit on the market long.
He nailed it:
Mark Letestu created the opening. He went 41-20-11 and reached the Western Conference Final in his only season behind the Eagles bench, then Vegas hired him away as an assistant on Ryan Craig’s staff.
Ahokas shows up with a loaded trophy case. He became the first European head coach in OHL history when Kitchener hired him in 2023, then went 47-14-7 this past season and swept the Rangers to their first Memorial Cup since 2003.
Voters made him OHL Coach of the Year in 2024-25, the first Kitchener bench boss to take the award since 1988-89:
His work before Kitchener was in Finland. Ahokas went 74-41-12 over two seasons with KooKoo Kouvola and won Liiga coach of the year in 2019-20, then took TPS Turku to the 2022 Liiga final.
One of his Turku players that year was a teenager named Juraj Slafkovsky, who climbed from unheralded prospect to No. 1 overall pick in a single season.
Before any of the club jobs, he ran Finland’s junior programs from 2013-14 through 2018-19 and won gold at the 2019 World Juniors and the 2016 under-18s.
Colorado’s prospect pool is thin, and cheap young talent on entry-level deals is how a team keeps a Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar window open. Squeezing NHL players out of that group is Ahokas’ job now.
