Armstrong, Guerin Among Staff No Longer Involved In Olympic Selections

Dec 27: As expected, Quinn will take over the head coaching duties of Team USA. John Vanbiesbrouck, assistant executive director of USA Hockey, will serve as general manager–a position he already holds for the National Junior Team that is currently competing in Alberta. Without NHL participation, several members of that junior group could find themselves on the Olympic team in a few months.

Dec 22: The NHL isn’t going to the Olympics, and that doesn’t mean just Sidney Crosby and Patrick Kane. The active NHL executives and coaches that had previously been announced will also be pulled out, meaning, for instance, that Bill Guerin is no longer the general manager of Team USA and Doug Armstrong is no longer with Team Canada.

For the U.S. the announcement that the managers and coaches will no longer be involved was made this morning, though no direct replacements have been officially named. David Quinn, formerly of the New York Rangers, has been linked to the head coaching position by several reports, including Chris Peters of Daily Faceoff. The U.S. management group is expected to name the final roster–one that will now be made up of players from college, the minor leagues, and European leagues–by mid-January. Peters projected a potential “Plan B” roster earlier this month.

For Canada, Armstrong confirmed to Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic that he will step down as general manager. He’s handing the reins to Hockey Canada’s Scott Salmond who will now have to find a roster outside the NHL to compete at the Games, one that doesn’t have the luxury of the Spengler Cup later this month to prepare. In LeBrun’s interview with Armstrong, the St. Louis Blues manager confirms that Crosby would have been the team’s captain, something that was decided very early on. He also explained that they had already locked in “three full forward lines and two sets of D” with January 12 the date they would reveal the entire group.

The managers and coaches involved will all now have to focus on their own NHL schedules–ones that are currently on hold and seemingly changing by the hour.