With the offseason underway for most teams, the annual coaching carousel is now in full swing. Several teams made moves behind the bench which is among the news recapped in our key stories.
Coaching Positions Filled: A pair of coaches got good news in recent days. The Blues decided they liked how they finished the season so they rewarded Drew Bannister by removing the interim tag and signing their bench boss to a two-year deal. He helped lead St. Louis to a 30-19-5 record after taking over from Craig Berube back in December and will now get the chance to lead the team through what’s expected to be somewhat of a retooling process.
Meanwhile, Travis Green didn’t wait to see if he was going to have his interim tag removed by New Jersey. Having been granted permission to talk to other teams despite being in consideration to stay with the Devils, Green found a new home as he was named as the new bench boss for the Senators, inking a four-year contract. This will be the third team that Green will run having held down the top job having spent parts of five seasons with Vancouver while replacing Lindy Ruff for the stretch run this season. The Sens made another decision of note off the ice as well, electing not to forfeit their first-round pick this year from the penalty assessed in the vetoed Evgenii Dadonov deal two years ago. They’ll have to give up either their 2025 or 2026 first-rounder now.
Coaching Positions Opened: While two vacancies were filled behind the bench, two more opened up. The Jets are now on the lookout for a new head coach after Rick Bowness announced his retirement. The 69-year-old had contemplated retiring after being let go by Dallas in 2022 but decided to give it one more go with Winnipeg. The Jets made the playoffs in both seasons that Bowness was at the helm but they were ousted in the first round each time.
The other opening is in Toronto after Sheldon Keefe was let go after five years with the franchise. The Maple Leafs had plenty of regular season success with Keefe behind the bench; his .665 points percentage is third-best among all active coaches. However, the team hasn’t had much playoff success during that time as they won just one series and were ousted in the opening round by Boston.
IIHF Issues Sanctions: Given that Ivan Fedotov and CSKA Moscow defied the IIHF’s ruling early in the season that Fedotov’s contract with Philadelphia was valid and not theirs, sanctions were expected. Those sanctions were announced over the weekend. Fedotov has been suspended from international play for the next three seasons while also receiving a six-month suspension if he was to leave the NHL to play for an international club. (He does have a new two-year deal with the Flyers being next season so this one shouldn’t be a concern.) Meanwhile, CSKA will be banned from making any international transfers for a two-year period beginning on August 11th while being assessed a fine of $1MM Swiss Francs.
Bridge For Reichel: After a tough season, it was a foregone conclusion that the Blackhawks wouldn’t work out a long-term deal with Lukas Reichel but rather a bridge pact. They wasted little time getting that done as the two sides agreed to a two-year, $2.4MM contract. The deal is slightly back loaded as he’ll be owed a $1.3MM qualifying offer in 2026. A first-round pick in 2020 (17th overall), expectations were high for the winger after Reichel put up 15 points in 23 games with Chicago in 2022-23. However, he struggled in his first taste of extended NHL action, notching just 16 points in 65 contests. Despite that, they’ll still be counting on him to be an important part of their future plans.
Losing Leads To A Win: This season was an ugly one for the Sharks who allowed the most goals in the NHL by a considerable margin and scored the second-fewest, leading them to a 32nd-place finish and one of their worst seasons in franchise history. However, they were rewarded for their ‘efforts’ as they were able to win the draft lottery, giving them the first-overall pick, one that’s expected to be used on Macklin Celebrini. They also won the first two draws for the second pick but since they already had the top pick, they had to redraw until another team won that one. The winner of the second draw was Chicago, the one team who had fewer goals than the Sharks this season. Those two teams had the top odds going in and the draft order wound up being unchanged by the lottery for the first time since 2010.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Can’t wait to hear the pathetic whining coming from the Bruins now. It’s going to long and weepy for sure. Go Panthers!
Where are the bruins mentioned in this article? Or even the panthers?
That’s odd. There’s usually something in every article about the Bruins whining about something. Huh. The biggest cheap shots in hockey being out hit and even better yet out scored. So how did Cheap Shot Charlies hit on Reinhart work out for them? ROTFLMAO.
Blackhawks fan rooting for the Panthers. 1 more to go.
Yeah, The Bruins rough stuff has definitely backfired on them vs. Florida.
I didn’t even mention Maroon parading around like an ape trying to get Bennett to fight when he’s barely playing since he took a slapshot in the hand in the last series. I was in hysterics when Bennett just skated away and even the analysts were like WTF?. Bennett isn’t going to fight anybody to protect his hand. I swear all that was missing was the Magilla Gorilla sound track. As Curly would say, ” What a Maroon”.