The best Lord could hope for going direct to the AHL would be as an assistant. To AHL and even ECHL he is completely unproven. I’d even be surprised to see him get a HC role on an East Coast team.
That’s no disrespect to Andrew, it’s just how the EIHL is viewed in North America. Not only that, but it’s a very different set up. The HC does little, if any, of his own recruiting and has to put up with a plethora of personnel issues, be it veteran rules, call ups, scratches, trades etc - most of which are completely out of the hands of a HC. In the eyes of most teams he isn’t prepared for that yet and would be a gamble.