Former NHL player turned coach Alex Burrows is making a career change.
The 43-year-old will not be returning to his role on the Montreal Canadiens coaching staff next season per TVA Sports’ Renaud Lavoie. Burrows is reportedly looking to spend more time with his family and is thus leaving the busy responsibilities of coaching in the NHL behind on his own accord.
Alex Burrows won’t be back with the @CanadiensMTL coaching staff next season. It’s his decision, not the team decision. He wanted to spend more time with his family. He’ll normally stay in the organization in another position.
— Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) July 1, 2024
The former winger played 913 NHL games for the Vancouver Canucks and Ottawa Senators. He finished his career with 205 goals and 204 assists for 409 total points. The pesky player was a key part of the dominant Canucks teams of the early 2010s.
The 6-foot-1 forward scored more than 25 goals in four different seasons. He was inducted into the Canucks’ Ring of Honour back in 2o19.
Burrows stayed in the hockey world after retiring as he joined the Canadiens staff in 2021 as an assistant. He’s stayed in that role for the past few seasons but will now be leaving. It seems as if there’s a chance he won’t be fully done with hockey as he could be staying attached to the organization but in a new role per Lavoie’s report.
Burrows has visited Vancouver many times as a member for the Canadiens organization post-playing days. His face looms large above the ice in the team’s Ring of Honour and it led to a few jokes from the players he coached.
“They were for sure,” said Burrows last season about Canadiens players teasing him. “Every time I stood in that corner, they were like ‘you’re doing that on purpose.’ They were giving it to me, I can take it. I think I got a good relationship with them and they were cracking jokes out there.”