Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun is reporting that Nolan Baumgartner is expected to join the newly-hired Travis Green behind the Vancouver bench. Baumgartner was an assistant coach of Green’s in Utica, and is the epitome of a professional hockey journeyman. Playing for seven different NHL franchises, but only getting into 143 games, Baumgartner is considered a solid coaching prospect that has a good insight for the game. This will be his first opportunity behind an NHL bench.
The Canucks will announce their new staff tomorrow afternoon, and will begin to work on their roster for next season. As MacIntyre writes, Green and the new staff will be expected to just develop the younger players coming up for the immediate future, with no pressure to compete for the playoffs right away. If the Canucks do in fact stay the course with a rebuild, Green will try to slowly shepherd the team back towards a competitive culture during his four-year contract.
- Gerard Gallant won’t start his assistant coach search until after he’s done his work at the World Championships, but he already has an initial list of names to potentially join him on the Vegas bench. Though he’s set to help Jon Cooper coach Team Canada at the Worlds, he hopes to have the search completed in about six weeks. “When it’s a good job, a lot of people want the job,” he told Dan Marrazza of NHL.com who also reports that GM George McPhee and AGM Kelly McCrimmon will have to sign off on his staff.
- Among the many staffing notes in Elliotte Friedman’s latest “30 Thoughts” column for Sportsnet, is one about David Quinn and the potential job in Buffalo. Obviously, Quinn—who currently coaches at Boston University—would be a solid fit with a young team looking to take the next step but it is his connection to Jack Eichel that now makes it a bit awkward. The report that Eichel wouldn’t sign an extension with Dan Byslma as coach was thoroughly dismissed by both sides, but it did precede Bylsma’s firing by just a day. The optics of Eichel being a “coach-killer” would get pumped up even further if the replacement was his old college coach, even if the report was incorrect. Terry Pegula likely doesn’t want to pour any more gasoline on that Eichel fire, after working so hard to put it out immediately.
It’s been widely reported that Eichel denied the claim that he won’t sign long term in Buffalo while Dan Byslma is head coach and I have no idea where the media are getting that from… Eichel never once denied the initial report. Go back and read his statement. He’s says several times that he wants to stay in Buffalo long term but never denies what was initially reported. Byslma lost his job because Eichel didn’t want him there and that should be very concerning to Sabres fans.