The Ontario Reign, the Los Angeles Kings’ AHL affiliate, named Mike Haviland an assistant coach on Tuesday, the team announced. Haviland, 58, arrives with more than two decades of coaching experience across nearly every level of the pro game, most recently spending the past two seasons as an assistant with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Before his time on Columbus’s NHL bench, he served as an associate coach with the club’s AHL affiliate, the Cleveland Monsters, from 2022-24.

His resume runs deep beyond that. A native of Middletown, New Jersey, Haviland won a Stanley Cup as an assistant with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010, part of a four-year run on Chicago’s NHL staff from 2008-12. He has also been an AHL head coach three times, with Norfolk, Rockford, and Hershey, and made his name in the ECHL earlier in his career, capturing back-to-back Kelly Cups in 2003 and 2005. He gives Ontario a wealth of bench experience as it develops the Kings’ prospects.

Additional notes:

• The Henderson Silver Knights, Vegas’s AHL affiliate, announced the hiring of Alex Loh as an assistant on first-year head coach Joel Ward‘s staff. Loh, 41, is an unconventional hire in that he never played professional hockey, instead climbing the ladder from a video-coach role with the AHL’s Portland Pirates. He has been in the Golden Knights organization since 2022, first as an assistant and later interim head coach with the ECHL’s Savannah Ghost Pirates, before spending the past two seasons as head coach of the ECHL’s Tahoe Knight Monsters, where he compiled a 76-55-13 record and two playoff berths. He joins holdovers Jamie Heward and goaltending coach Fred Brathwaite in Henderson.
• The Coachella Valley Firebirds, Seattle’s AHL affiliate, announced they have added Scott Ford to Derek Laxdal‘s staff, making him, like Haviland, a former Blue Jackets assistant on the move. Ford, 46, spent recent seasons on Columbus’s NHL bench following an 11-year playing career as a defenseman, most of it with the Milwaukee Admirals, where he captained the club and became its AHL-era games-played leader. He transitioned to coaching with Milwaukee in 2015 and later worked with the Chicago Wolves, helping the Admirals to three division titles and back-to-back Western Conference Finals appearances along the way.