An NHL first for Ted Nolan, Craig Berube

For the first time in NHL history, two coaches of First Nations descent will go head-to-head.

By Adam Gretz Nov 21, 2013, 12:08pm EST

When the Buffalo Sabres and Philadelphia Flyers meet on Thursday night it's not just going to be a meeting of two teams that went through in-season coaching changes.

It's also going to feature an NHL first.

When Ted Nolan's Sabres and Craig Berube's Flyers take the ice in Philadelphia, it will be the first team in league history that two First Nations coaches have ever coached in the same NHL game. Nolan, who is in his second stint with the Sabres after replacing Ron Rolston, is of Ojibwe descent, while Berube, who replaced Peter Laviolette after just three games this season, is part Cree.

Shortly after Nolan was hired by the Sabres William Douglas at Color of Hockey first pointed out that it was probably the first time two First Nations coaches were behind the bench at the same time in the NHL.

And now they will have a chance to coach against each other.

"It's huge," Nolan told Marcus Hayes of the Philadelphia Daily News on Wednesday. "The significance of it is not really what it means to me, or Craig Berube, but what it means when you think of what our ancestors went through."