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Submit Your Questions For The #PHRMailbag

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The first two rounds of the playoffs are in the books with only four teams remaining in contention for the Stanley Cup while the other 28 await what’s expected to be a particularly busy offseason in terms of activity.  Meanwhile, a handful of teams are still working through their searches for their next head coach while another is in the home stretch for finding their next general manager.

With all that in mind, it’s a good time to open up the mailbag once again.  Our last call for questions had enough for two separate columns.  The first talked about Winnipeg’s attractiveness to players, the Quinn Hughes situation in Vancouver, what could happen this offseason for the Kings, and more.  Meanwhile, topics in the second included discussing the idea of San Jose moving its top draft pick, buyout discussions for the Blues, and what Detroit might be looking to do in the coming weeks.

You can submit a question by using #PHRMailbag on Twitter/X or by leaving a comment down below. The mailbag will run this weekend.

Evening Notes: Ehlers, Red Wings, Kings

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Although it’s already been heavily reported that winger Nikolaj Ehlers has no intention of signing a new contract with the Winnipeg Jets, that won’t change the team’s approach. According to TSN’s John Lu, the Jets are still expected to make a run at Ehlers before he hits the open market.

Specifically, Lu quoted Winnipeg General Manager Kevin Cheveldayoff saying that the team will “put our best foot forward” in making their case for Ehlers to stay with the only organization he’s ever known. Still, the team is pausing until Ehlers finishes his run at the IIHF World Championships with Team Denmark, which pulled off a miraculous win against Team Canada earlier today.

There is a slight chance that Ehlers may re-sign with Winnipeg, despite earlier reports this year. He’s arguably the second-best winger on the free agent market this summer behind Mitch Marner, and he may become a rebound candidate for teams that strike out on the former, giving the Jets some additional time.

Other notes from this evening:

  • If Max Bultman of The Athletic is correct, the Detroit Red Wings will be on a few key forwards during this year’s free agency period. Bultman believes the Red Wings will take a run at Marner, Colorado Avalanche center Brock Nelson, and Florida Panthers’ Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand. In all seriousness, even though Detroit has the financial flexibility to pursue any free agent, Bennett is the only player whose age aligns with their timeline, making them tougher to compete against and filling both short- and long-term needs.
  • In a long-winded interview with the Los Angeles Kings’ new General Manager, Ken Holland, The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun believes the Kings are going ’big game hunting’ under their new leadership. Per a quote from the interview, Holland said, “I plan to be aggressive. Ownership is prepared to go to the cap. The goal is to put a competitive team on the ice and, at the right time, be aggressive to try to make the team better and more exciting. Whether that happens in the next six to seven weeks or next year at the trade deadline or next offseason … but certainly the plan is to be aggressive at the right time.“

International Notes: Radulov, Simashev, Forsell, Kämpf

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According to a report out of Russia, Alexander Radulov is transferring from Lokomotiv Yaroslavl to SKA St. Petersburg only a day after winning the second Gagarin Cup championship of his career and being named the playoffs’ MVP. The news confirms that Radulov will suit up in his fourth consecutive KHL season after leaving the NHL after the 2021-22 season.

It’ll be a one-and-done year for Radulov. He joined Lokomotiv after two years as captain for the Ak Bars Kazan, scoring 41 goals and 97 points in 120 games from 2022 to 2024. His scoring dissipated this year, putting together an 18-goal, 34-point season in 60 contests.

Still, Radulov left some gas in the tank for the postseason. He finished fourth in playoff scoring with seven goals and 16 points in 21 games, leading the next closest on Lokomotiv by two points. He’ll join a St. Petersburg club that hasn’t advanced past the quarterfinals in two years and has former NHL players such as Mikhail Grigorenko, Valentin Zykov, and Nikita Zaitsev on the roster.

Other international notes:

  • Confirming a report from a month ago, Utah Mammoth prospect Dmitri Simashev said he’ll be coming to North America next season (Tweet Link). Alongside Radulov and fellow Utah prospect Daniil But, Simashev became a first-time winner of the Gagarin Cup yesterday. Still, his offensive struggles continued throughout the KHL postseason, tallying only one assist in 21 playoff contests with a -1 rating. There shouldn’t be any guarantees that Simashev will make the Mammoth’s roster out of training camp in September.
  • Per a report from Rick Dhaliwal of The Athletic, the Vancouver Canucks are content with letting 2021 seventh-round pick, Lucas Forsell, join a different organization this summer. Vancouver selected Forsell with the 201st overall pick of the 2021 NHL Draft, and he’s been playing SHL’s Färjestad BK since. Still, it’s unlikely Forsell will gain much traction once his contractual rights expire on June 1st, given he’s failed to score more than 10 points in any SHL season since being drafted.
  • Team Czechia couldn’t defeat Team Sweden today despite having an extra reinforcement. TSN’s Chris Johnston reported yesterday that Toronto Maple Leafs forward David Kämpf joined his home country for the quarterfinals. He managed one shot on net in 17:09 of ice time with a -1 rating in the loss.

Metro Notes: Islanders, Capitals, Peca

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According to David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period, the New York Islanders are closing in on their next General Manager. Pagnotta did not provide specifics but mentioned that Mathieu Darche and Marc Bergevin remain in the conversation. Arthur Staple of The Athletic confirmed Pagnotta’s findings.

Neither name is surprising, as the Islanders reportedly gave both a second interview a few days ago. Still, as Staple notes, it could prove a hurdle if the Islanders hope to hire Brendan Shanahan. Yesterday, New York reportedly received permission to interview Shanahan. Although the Toronto Maple Leafs announced they will proceed without him, he may not appreciate that a General Manager was appointed before him.

Whoever is ultimately named the Islanders’ next General Manager will have an important task ahead of them in the coming weeks. Aside from the needed roster changes, the Islanders won the 2025 NHL Draft Lottery on May 5th, giving them this summer’s first overall pick.

Other notes from the Metropolitan Division:

Canucks Agree To Terms With Anri Ravinskis On Entry-Level Contract

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4:30 p.m.: According to PuckPedia, Ravinskis will make an NHL salary of $775K in each year of the deal, with a signing bonus of $97.5K, and an unspecified games-played bonus of $102K, bringing his cap hit to $872.5K and his AAV to $975K.

2:09 p.m.: The Canucks announced today they’ve agreed to terms with undrafted forward Anri Ravinskis on a two-year, entry-level contract starting in 2025-26. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Ravinskis, 22, just wrapped up representing his native Latvia at the World Championship. He registered a goal and an assist in all seven group stage games as the Latvians failed to qualify for the quarterfinals for the second year in a row after winning bronze in 2023.

A 6’3″, 201-lb winger, Ravinskis isn’t a stranger to North American hockey. He played U18-level hockey in the Toronto area in the 2019-20 season before returning home when COVID hit. He returned to play at the major junior level with the QMJHL’s Blainville-Boisbriand Armada in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 campaigns, recording a 29-25–54 scoring line in 98 games. He was also on the Latvian Division IA World Juniors team in 2022 that won promotion to the top-level WJC, where the country remains through at least 2026.

Since heading back to Europe following the conclusion of his junior career with Blainville-Boisbriand, he’s spent time in Finland in the HPK organization. After splitting the 2023-24 season between the junior level and the professional second-tier Mestis, he made his top-level Liiga debut this season and impressed with an 8-9–17 scoring line in 27 games. Over the last two seasons, he’s also scored 22 goals and 51 points in 68 games with Kettera, HPK’s Mestis affiliate.

Ravinskis was under contract for two more years with HPK. It’s unclear if his deal carries a European assignment clause that would force the Canucks to loan him back to HPK if he spends too much time in AHL Abbotsford without an NHL call-up. Regardless, it’s unlikely he’ll go straight from logging significant time in second-tier European professional hockey to even limited NHL minutes the following season.

Ravinskis will be a restricted free agent when his deal expires in the 2027 offseason. Vancouver will control his rights through the 2029-30 season.

Maple Leafs Won’t Renew Brendan Shanahan’s Contract

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The Maple Leafs will not be renewing the contract of team president Brendan Shanahan, the club announced.

In the announcement, MLSE President and CEO Keith Pelley wrote:

          “Over the past 11 seasons, Brendan Shanahan has made countless contributions to the Toronto Maple Leafs on the ice, off the ice, and in the community. Brendan is one of the most respected leaders in the game, and he has instilled many of the traits that were the signature of his Hall of Fame career throughout the organization, uniting this storied franchise in the ‘Honour, Pride and Courage’ that it was founded on. Our responsibility and driving motivation, however, is to add a new chapter to the Maple Leafs’ championship history, and it was determined that a new voice was required to take the team to the next level in the years ahead. The franchise will be forever grateful for Brendan’s contributions and wishes him and his family every success and happiness in the future.”

In a follow-up statement provided by Jonas Siegel of The Athletic, Shanahan said, “While I am proud of the rebuild we embarked on starting in 2014, ultimately, I came here to help win the Stanley Cup, and we did not. There is nothing more I wanted to deliver to our fans, and my biggest regret is that we could not finish the job.”

Although the Maple Leafs never advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals under Shanahan’s leadership, the organization embarked on a meaningful return to relevancy. Before Shanahan took on the role as team President, the Maple Leafs had only qualified for the postseason once in the previous decade.

Shanahan helped put the pieces in place for the development of the ’Core Four’ in Toronto, although the team selected William Nylander a year prior to Shanahan’s hire. The quartet has combined for a plethora of individual hardware, and has pushed the Maple Leafs to the postseason in nine consecutive years.

Still, as Shanahan mentioned, the team hasn’t had much success in the postseason. Toronto has only made it out of Round One twice during that span, and has accumulated a playoff record of 31-39 under his stewardship.

Outside of Shanahan, all signs indicate that the Maple Leafs aren’t localizing this summer’s changes in the executive suites. There’s expectation that the team will let winger Mitch Marner walk during this year’s free agency, opening up financial room to explore other options.

Shanahan shouldn’t be available for long. Reports yesterday indicated that the New York Islanders have already been granted an interview with Shanahan for their top leadership position.

Lightning Sign Wojciech Stachowiak To Entry-Level Deal

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The Lightning have signed left-winger Wojciech Stachowiak to an entry-level contract, the team announced today. It’s a one-year deal, but financial terms weren’t disclosed.

Stachowiak, 25, is the second undrafted player today to earn an NHL deal after a strong showing at the World Championship. Latvian winger Anri Ravinskis also landed one with the Canucks.

While Polish-born, Stachowiak is a German national as well and has played the vast majority of his career there, outside of a three-year run in North America, including two years with Michigan State from 2018 to 2020. After wrapping up his collegiate career with just four goals and one assist in 40 games, he returned home to Germany to make his professional debut with ERC Ingolstadt of the DEL, Germany’s top league.

The 6’1″, 187-lb winger has remained with Ingolstadt ever since, aside from a pair of brief loans to second-league club Ravensburg Towerstars a few years back. He has a 42-64–104 scoring line in 239 career DEL games, including 10 goals and 30 points in 52 games this season.

Stachowiak’s signing is more related to his performances on the international stage, though. He’s been one of Germany’s best players over the last three World Championships, recording a 7-14–21 scoring line in 25 games with a plus-five rating in three straight tourney appearances. He helped his country to a silver medal at the 2023 edition and was named a top-three player on the 2024 team, when he tied for the team lead with nine points in eight games.

With six years of professional experience in Europe, he arrives as a bit more of a polished product than the 22-year-old Ravinskis and stands a much better chance at making a surprise bid for an opening-night roster spot in Tampa in the fall. Tampa will hold Stachowiak’s signing rights through the 2026-27 campaign, so he’ll be a restricted free agent when his deal is up next year.

Blackhawks, Kevin Dean Part Ways

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Blackhawks assistant coach Kevin Dean will not return to the club next season, reports Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff.

In fact, it doesn’t appear any of the assistants, including Derek King and Derek Plante, will be back next season after the club announced the hiring of new head coach Jeff Blashill today. Reports indicate longtime NHL center Michael Peca, most recently an assistant coach with the Rangers, is joining Blashill’s staff. Anders Sorensen, who finished the season as Chicago’s interim head coach, has reportedly accepted an offer to stay with the club in an assistant role, while David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period added they’re expected to bring in a third fresh assistant, likely Penguins assistant coach Mike Vellucci.

Dean and King were named assistants simultaneously in the summer of 2022, shortly after the club hired Luke Richardson, whom Blashill succeeds, to be their head coach. The former had spent the previous five seasons as an assistant with the Bruins and, working with an understaffed blue line in Chicago, has furthered his reputation as a high-end defensive coach during his time with the Blackhawks. He’s gotten better-than-expected results with developing names like Alex Vlasic and, at least in smaller samples this past year, Ethan Del Mastro and Wyatt Kaiser.

Dean is currently in Europe as an assistant with the United States at the World Championship, so an official announcement on his and the rest of the aforementioned names’ departures likely won’t come until the tournament concludes. Before jumping into coaching as an AHL assistant with the Devils back in 2006, Dean logged over 300 games as a defenseman in the NHL with the Devils, Blackhawks, Thrashers, and Stars from 1995 to 2001.

Bruins Have Interviewed Jay Leach, Mitch Love, Luke Richardson For Head Coach Job

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The Bruins have had several external candidates linked to their head coaching vacancy for several weeks since the regular season ended. Today, Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic confirmed they’ve held initial interviews with most of the names already mentioned. Still, he added that they’d also considered promoting assistant coach Jay Leach to the head job. They’ve also interviewed Capitals assistant Mitch Love and former Blackhawks bench boss Luke Richardson, LeBrun adds.

LeBrun’s report comes after general manager Don Sweeney told Steve Conroy of the Boston Herald earlier this week that they’re entering the final stages of their search and are narrowing their list of candidates to make a hire in the next couple of weeks. Other previously known candidates who haven’t been snapped up elsewhere are former Bruins winger and current AHL Ontario head coach Marco Sturm, ex-Oilers bench boss Jay Woodcroft, and interim head coach Joe Sacco, LeBrun confirms.

It’s not the first time the Bruins have interviewed Leach to be their head coach. He was a finalist for their vacancy in 2022 before they ended up hiring Jim Montgomery, but they got him anyway last summer as an assistant after he spent three years in the same role with the Kraken.

Boston faces competition from the Penguins on many of the names here. Pittsburgh has also reportedly interviewed Leach, Love, and Woodcroft throughout their process. That’s likely a factor in the Bruins wanting to get their search wrapped up sooner rather than later, so they can ensure the Pens don’t take their first choice.

Leach spent a few years in the Boston organization in the NHL and AHL during his playing days, and is now in his second stint with the club as a coach. He was previously the head coach of AHL Providence from 2017 to 2021.

Love, meanwhile, is now connected to all three remaining head coach openings, including the Kraken, after the Blackhawks concluded their search with the hiring of Jeff Blashill today. After receiving some interest for head coach openings in the 2023 hiring cycle but ending up in an assistant role in Washington, he’s one of the top candidates this time around. The 40-year-old would be a first time head coach in the NHL but has experience in the top coaching role with the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades (2018-2021) and the AHL’s Stockton Heat/Calgary Wranglers (2021-2023), where he won Coach of the Year honors in each of his two seasons behind the bench.

They’re not facing any known competition on Richardson, though. It’s the first time he’s been linked to a head coaching job since the Blackhawks fired him in December following an 8-16-2 start to the campaign. The 56-year-old compiled a 57-118-15 (.339) record in parts of three seasons behind the bench for a rebuilding Chicago club.

Blackhawks Hire Jeff Blashill, Michael Peca

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11:12 a.m.: Chicago had made Blashill’s hiring official. They’re also bringing in Rangers assistant Michael Peca to serve in the same role on Blashill’s staff, Arthur Staple of The Athletic reports. Peca, 51, had been working under Peter Laviolette in New York for the past two years. He’s also worked as a development coach for the Capitals and an assistant coach for AHL Rochester. Sorensen will be on Blashill’s staff as an assistant as expected, while Penguins assistant Mike Vellucci is a strong candidate for the third and final assistant job on Blashill’s bench, per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period.

10:26 a.m.: The Blackhawks will announce Lightning assistant Jeff Blashill as their next head coach later today, per Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff.

Blashill was the only name to be publicly linked to Chicago’s vacancy throughout their search aside from University of Denver bench boss David Carle, who opted to stay in his NCAA role. The Hawks have had nearly a month to explore other options after Carle withdrew his name from consideration for the position, and while there were some other unknown candidates they were considering as recently as a few days ago, Blashill has been positioned as the favorite for the role ever since his name first emerged.

Chicago will be Blashill’s second stop as an NHL head coach. His first, a seven-year run as head coach of the Red Wings, was a tough assignment as the team slowly entered a full teardown with him at the helm. That understandably led to a poor record – a 204-261-72 (.447) mark in the regular season with just one playoff series and one playoff win to his name, coming in Game 3 of the 2016 first round against the Lightning in his first season behind the Detroit bench.

There are legitimate reasons for optimism that Blashill can be a more effective head man with a Blackhawks club in the latter stages of their rebuild rather than with a Detroit club in the early stages. Since being let go by the Wings in 2022, he’s served as Jon Cooper’s top assistant in Tampa for the last three years. He also put together a strong minor-league resume with Detroit’s AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids before being promoted to the top role there, guiding the Griffins to a Calder Cup championship in 2013 and being named the league’s Coach of the Year the following season.

Blashill will take over for interim head coach Anders Sorensen, who was behind the Chicago bench for most of this year after the team dismissed Luke Richardson in early December. Sorensen, who coached the team to a 17-30-9 (.384) record in the season’s final 56 games, is expected to remain with the Blackhawks in some capacity.

The 51-year-old Blashill will likely have a significantly bolstered roster to manage come opening night compared to how the Hawks are beginning the offseason. Not only do they have the No. 3 overall pick in this year’s draft that could potentially slot into Blashill’s first-year lineup, they’re expected to be one of the most aggressive clubs in free agency this summer with nearly $31MM in cap space and no high-priced pending RFAs to re-sign.

While Blashill may not be the person behind Chicago’s bench when they’re a consistent playoff team again, he’ll at least be tasked with helping the club exit its years-long rebuild. He’ll do with a stacked group of under-25 players that includes forwards Connor Bedard, Oliver Moore, and Frank Nazar, defensemen Artyom Levshunov, Sam Rinzel, and Alex Vlasic, as well as goaltender Spencer Knight.

With Chicago making Blashill’s appointment set in stone, only three head coaching vacancies remain: the Bruins, Kraken, and Penguins.

Image courtesy of Kim Klement-Imagn Images.

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