- Sergei Brylin is leaving the Devils to become head coach of the KHL’s Dinamo Minsk
- The three-time Stanley Cup winner lands his first head coaching job on a three-year deal
- Read below for the Devils’ farewell and Brylin’s new Belarus national team role
Sergei Brylin is getting a bench of his own.
The three-time Stanley Cup winner and longtime New Jersey assistant is leaving the Devils to become head coach of the KHL’s Dinamo Minsk, the club announced. It’s the first head coaching job of Brylin’s career, and he signed a three-year deal to take it.
Brylin, 52, spent 14 years inside the Devils organization across two different lives. He played 13 seasons in New Jersey and won Cups in 1995, 2000 and 2003, then went into the club’s Ring of Honor in 2023 as one of the most beloved figures in franchise history.
Take a look back at his Ring of Honor moment:
The coaching path started in 2013. Brylin worked nearly a decade as an AHL assistant in Albany, Binghamton and Utica before Lindy Ruff pulled him up to the NHL staff in 2022-23. He stayed for four seasons under Ruff and then Sheldon Keefe, helping the Devils reach the playoffs twice.
Everything changed after a miserable 2025-26. New Jersey overhauled its hockey operations, replaced GM Tom Fitzgerald with Sunny Mehta, and reshuffled the coaching staff. Brylin was moved off Keefe’s staff in May and handed an unnamed front-office role. That role never materialized.
Now he’s headed overseas. Brylin will run the Dinamo Minsk bench and also take over as head coach of the Belarus national team, giving him two jobs in his first year as a boss. He knows the league too, with close to 200 KHL games on his own playing résumé.
The Devils sent him off with a wink on social media:
Keefe made it clear this spring how much the room valued him.
“The players naturally respect him. They listen to him because he truly knows what he’s talking about.”
Sarge gets his first shot as a head coach at 52, a long way from the Meadowlands.
