Hitchcock Hits 600 Wins

with the Blues 2-1 shootout win Tuesday over Vancouver, head coach ken Hitchcock picked up career win number 600 behind an NHL bench. He becomes only the 11th coach in NHL History to hit the milestone, joining the likes of Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour, Dick Irvin, Pat Quinn, Mike Keenan, Joel Quenneville, Ron Wilson, Bryan Murray, Jacques Lemaire and Jacques Martin. Hitchcock is one of two active coaches in the NHL with 600 wins (the other is Quenneville). Only Bowman (.657) and Quenneville (.612) have better career point percentages than Hitchcock (.595).

Ironically both of the guys who have higher winning percentages than him also coached the Blues at one point during their careers (Bowman from 1967-1971 and Quenneville from 1996-2004). Both of those guys also led the blues to the playoffs every year they were bench boss in St. Louis (Bowman's first three years were appearances in the finals), so that may be a sign of things to come for Hitchcock and the Blues

Hitchcock has been head coach in four different cities, St. Louis (where he coaches now), Columbus, Philadelphia, and Dallas. During his career as coach, he won the Stanley Cup with the Stars in 1999 and the Jack Adams Award as Coach of the Year last year with St. Louis. Now as it relates to all time coaches, Hitchock is up there with some of the greats. Is he up at the same level as a coach with the likes of Scotty Bowman, Al Arbour or Dick Irvin? Not really no. Those guys are in a class all by themselves. Hitchcock does now how to be able to get the best out of his players on most nights and knows how to lead his hockey teams.

So congratulations to Ken Hitchcock on winning his 600th career game in the NHL!