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Marc-Andre Fleury Hopes To Play Next Season

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While Blackhawks goalie Marc-Andre Fleury is unsure if he’ll be staying in Chicago past next month’s trade deadline, it seems like he’s making plans for next season.  The veteran told reporters, including NHL.com’s Tracey Myers, that while his playing days are coming to a close, he’s hoping to play a 19th season in the NHL:

Fleury is a pending unrestricted free agent and carries a pricey $7MM AAV but there has been some speculation of some contending teams being interested.  While he doesn’t carry full trade protection, the Blackhawks have assured him that he will have a say on where he goes, if he winds up being moved. Fleury mentioned that while he has yet to speak to management about the possibility of a trade, he believes his agent Allan Walsh has been in touch with the team about that.

Teams Calling On Brandon Hagel

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  • Among the top few names on Daily Faceoff’s trade targets board is one that wouldn’t normally be expected; Chicago Blackhawks’ Brandon Hagel is listed fourth, with Frank Seravalli noting that the Florida Panthers, Toronto Maple Leafs, New Jersey Devils, and Calgary Flames have all looked into the young forward. With two more years on his contract at a very inexpensive $1.5MM cap hit, Hagel’s price tag would likely be extremely high.

Blackhawks Linked To Toronto Raptors Executive

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  • The Chicago Blackhawks continue to interview candidates from outside of the hockey world for their vacant general manager position. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet connects the Blackhawks to Teresa Resch, currently the Toronto Raptors vice president of basketball operations & player development. The Blackhawks already interviewed Chicago Cubs assistant GM Jeff Greenberg, along with several more traditional hockey candidates.

Dominik Kubalik Wants To Stay In Chicago

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Blackhawks winger Dominik Kubalik is one of the more interesting wingers that currently is in trade speculation.  He’s only two years removed from a 30-goal campaign and still has another year of team control remaining through arbitration.  However, he isn’t having a particularly strong year and that qualifying offer stands at $4MM, a high price for someone whose production is on pace for a 31-point season.  Accordingly, Mark Lazerus of The Athletic pegs (subscription link) the 26-year-old as a deadline enigma.  If Kubalik has his way, he’d like to stick around with Chicago and not be moved:

The question for Blackhawks interim GM Kyle Davidson will be figuring out where the line is between opting for what would probably be an underwhelming trade return (relative to how he played a couple of years ago as a rookie) and where the smarter play would be to keep and qualify him this summer to give him one more chance.  In the meantime, Kubalik will have another month to try to up his value both on the trade and contract front.

Colorado Has Shown Interest In Marc-Andre Fleury And Claude Giroux

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With several key veterans heading towards unrestricted free agency and a strong roster that’s already one of the top offensive teams in the league, expectations are high in Colorado with the belief that they will look to make a big splash to cement their contender status.  As part of his trade bait list released earlier today, TSN’s Chris Johnston reported in a separate segment (video link) that they’ve shown interest in a pair of prominent veterans in Blackhawks goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and Flyers center Claude Giroux.

Fleury has had a quiet year with Chicago compared to his Vezina-winning campaign last season but has still managed a respectable .910 SV% and a 2.88 GAA in 34 starts.  For context, starter Darcy Kuemper’s numbers are only a little better at a .916 SV% and a 2.54 GAA.  Pavel Francouz has been even better in limited action but missed all of last season and most of this one due to injury so some quality insurance between the pipes would make some sense.

As for Giroux, he has continually made it clear that he has not yet decided whether or not he’ll waive his trade protection to facilitate a trade.  It’s a decision that seems likely to come close to the March 21st trade deadline but it’s easy to see why the Avs would be interested.  He’s on pace for close to 30 goals and 70 points and would make a strong attack much deeper.  He’d also be a big boost for them at the faceoff dot as Colorado’s team success rate is only 47.3% while Giroux is one of the league leaders at 60.6% and with greater emphasis placed on situational draws in the postseason, that’s an element that will be of interest to many contenders, not just the Avs.

However, while Colorado may want these players, finding a way to fit them in on the cap will be tricky.  They project to have less than $1MM in cap space at the deadline, per CapFriendly while Fleury carries a $7MM AAV and Giroux checks in at $8.25MM.  Clearly, the Avalanche would need at least 50% retention on either player if they were to get one of them and would either need to send some sort of salary offset the other way or involve a third team to hold back another 25% of their contract to make the money work.  The fact GM Joe Sakic is showing interest in some of the top talents suggests that this is their year to go all-in and if there’s a way to get another top veteran, they’ll find a way to make the money work.

Edmonton Oilers Fire Dave Tippett

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The Edmonton Oilers have had enough, and Ken Holland has finally fired a coach. Dave Tippett is out, according to Darren Dreger of TSN, after another embarrassing loss last night. The Oilers managed 41 shots but fell 4-1 to the Chicago Blackhawks, allowing early powerplay goals in both the first and third periods. Dreger adds that Jim Playfair has also been fired, while Jay Woodcroft and Dave Manson from the Bakersfield Condors will take over as head coach and assistant respectively. In a release that followed, the team confirmed the dismissal of Tippett and Playfair, adding that assistants Glen Gulutzan and Brian Wiseman will remain with the team.

Tippett, 60, was in his third year as head coach of Edmonton and had thus far put up a 95-62-14 record. While that doesn’t look bad overall, the 23-18-3 mark this season just hasn’t been good enough for a team led by Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. The team has struggled to defend, has had a carousel of inconsistency in net, and still doesn’t have the secondary scoring required to contend for the Stanley Cup. While a lot of that is due to poor roster construction, Tippett will pay the price after some of his deployment concerns.

Mike Smith started both ends of a back-to-back over the last two days, despite him just coming back off an injury recently. He lost both, allowing four goals in each, and now has an .890 save percentage on the season. Smith has been connected to Tippett for years, and hasn’t been able to play to the level he showed last season.

Notably, the veteran coach’s contract expired at the end of the season anyway, one that was unlikely to be renewed given the way the Oilers have performed this year.

Woodcroft comes in as a fresh face, having never been a head coach at the NHL level. He has been in charge of the Condors since 2018 and previously served as an assistant with the Oilers and Sharks, but those aren’t the most interesting assignments on his resume. It’s the years he spent with the Detroit Red Wings that stick out here given he’s now being promoted by Holland. Woodcroft was a video coach with the Red Wings right after his playing career came to an end, and comes from that coaching tree that spawned Todd McLellan, who eventually brought him to San Jose and then Edmonton.

This is the first time that Holland has fired a coach in the NHL, something he has been vehemently against in the past. At a press conference earlier this year, he suggested that dismissing Tippett wouldn’t be the answer and that the Oilers couldn’t “keep whipping through coaches” to try and solve the problem. Well, they are now on the seventh coach since the 2012-13 lockout, as Woodcroft will follow Tippett, Ken Hitchcock, McLellan, Todd Nelson, Dallas Eakins, and Ralph Krueger trying to get the best out of a frustrating lineup.

Chicago Blackhawks Interview Jeff Greenberg

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The Chicago Blackhawks promised they would be looking outside of the hockey world in their search for a new general manager and they have done just that. The team confirmed today that they have interviewed Jeff Greenberg for their vacant GM position. Greenberg currently serves as assistant GM for the Chicago Cubs, a title he received in 2020 after climbing the ranks from intern to director of baseball operations.

He has been with the Cubs since 2012 and took on a bigger role when Jed Hoyer was promoted from GM to president following Theo Epstein’s departure. Just a few months ago, the Cubs hired Carter Hawkins as the club’s new general manager, sliding him into the top spot ahead of Greenberg and the other assistants. Greenberg joins interim GM Kyle Davidson, Eric Tulsky, Scott Mellanby, and Peter Chiarelli as the people confirmed to have already interviewed for the position.

That group certainly covers a lot of ground and suggests that the Blackhawks are wide open to hiring someone that hasn’t previously been a general manager in the NHL. Greenberg wouldn’t be the only baseball executive to make the move to hockey in recent years though. In 2019, Ned Colletti was hired by the San Jose Sharks as a pro scout after a long career in MLB front offices.

The connection between the Blackhawks and Cubs, in this case, goes deeper than just sharing a city, as Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet explained on a recent 32 Thoughts podcast:

Jamie Faulkner, who runs the business empire of the Blackhawks, her husband is an executive vice president of the Cubs, so there is a connection there. I’ve heard he may be involved. If you believe they have to go somewhere different, [Greenberg] would be different.

Jeff Marek, Friedman’s podcast partner, was on Sirius XM Radio this morning and noted that this isn’t the first time a Greenberg has been flirting with an NHL position. Jeff Greenberg’s father Chuck Greenberg was involved in an attempted purchase of the Carolina Hurricanes in the past and is a good friend of Mario Lemieux. While that purchase–and other less notable attempts–didn’t go through, his son could very well find his way into an NHL front office instead.

The Blackhawks have not given a clear timeline on when they expect to name someone to the position, only that there are more interviews scheduled in the coming days. The team is taking an approach not often seen in the NHL, announcing each interview as it is conducted, even for those like Tulsky and Chiarelli who are still working with another organization.

More On Chicago’s GM Search

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Feb 5: The Blackhawks have now confirmed Mellanby’s interview as well. More are scheduled for the coming days.

Feb 4: The Chicago Blackhawks are trying to fill a general manager position amid more controversy after chairman Rocky Wirtz’s public outburst when asked about the Kyle Beach sexual assault scandal. Recently Peter Chiarelli’s name surfaced as a potential candidate. The long-time NHL executive hasn’t been in charge of an NHL team since he left the Edmonton Oilers in early 2019 and has a checkered past in terms of successful moves, but Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet explained why he thinks the Blackhawks could be interested on the latest 32 Thoughts podcast:

If you’re only thinking of hiring a GM–let’s say for example that Kyle Davidson is your choice and he’s your GM. Now the question becomes do you need someone above him to manage up. To say that, after what happened on Wednesday night, you simply need a more experienced hand somewhere in your organization.

Friedman went on to mention Ed Olczyk–who was recently announced as part of an advisory committee for the team during the hiring process–as a potential candidate for a role in the organization.

On the other hand, it appears as though the Blackhawks will also consider some rather inexperienced candidates as well. Scott Powers of The Athletic reported today that the team will interview Scott Mellanby for the position. Mellanby, certainly not short of playing experience after nearly 1,500 regular season games, has never been an NHL general manager previously. He resigned his position as assistant GM with the Montreal Canadiens last year, an organization he had been with since 2012.

Another name that is on the Blackhawks’ list and will raise some eyebrows is Eric Tulsky, according to Friedman. The Carolina Hurricanes assistant GM is generally regarded as one of the brightest up-and-coming executives in the game and is credited for many of the moves that have turned his organization into a perennial Stanley Cup contender. Tulsky is certainly not someone you would call experienced though, having only sat in the AGM role for a little over a year. Just after the Friedman report, the Blackhawks confirmed that Tulsky had interviewed for the position.

With Chiarelli on one end and Tulsky on the other, the Blackhawks’ list of candidates run the gamut in terms of NHL front offices. They also indicated recently that they would look outside of hockey in their search, though it is not clear if that has produced any interviews to this point. Davidson, currently serving as interim GM has already done his, and Powers writes that the team is expected to meet with at least five people.

Hossa, Olczyk, Sharp To Assist Blackhawks In GM Search

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The Anaheim Ducks brought in franchise greats Paul Kariya and Scott Niedermayer to help out in their general manager search and now the Chicago Blackhawks are following their lead. Marian Hossa, Eddie Olczyk, and Patrick Sharp have agreed to join as a group of advisors to assist in the search for the team’s next GM.

Hossa, a recent inductee to the Hall of Fame, spent eight seasons with the Blackhawks at the end of his career, winning the Stanley Cup three times. A legendary two-way forward that was as comfortable with the puck on his stick as he was backchecking the length of the rink, Hossa ended his playing career with 1,134 points in 1,309 regular season games and Selke Trophy votes in 13 different campaigns. The 12-year, $63.3MM contract he signed with the Blackhawks in 2009 only expired last summer, though he was forced to retire after the 2016-17 season due to a skin condition and the side effects medication was causing. His contract, which was just dead money at that point, was eventually traded to the Arizona Coyotes.

Olczyk meanwhile played 322 games for the Blackhawks, but it was split across two stints at the start and end of his career. Perhaps better known for his broadcasting work these days, as a player Olczyk was a great scoring talent who racked up 794 points in 1,031 NHL games. He too won a Stanley Cup, though it wasn’t with Chicago and it wasn’t in uniform; he raised the chalice with the 1994 New York Rangers despite being part of Mike Keenan’s Black Aces in the press box through most of the playoffs.

Sharp, recently a broadcaster himself, was also a three-time Cup winner with the Blackhawks as a teammate of Hossa. The smooth-skating forward put up 620 points in 939 career NHL games, spending the vast majority of those matches with Chicago. Sharp is now a coaching advisor for the University of Vermont hockey program, and will now help find the next Blackhawks general manager.

The Blackhawks also announced that they have been working with Mike Forde of Sportology since the start of the process. Forde’s work is best explained by the man himself on a recent episode of 32 Thoughts with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek.

Charlie Roumeliotis of NBCS Chicago reports that interviews for the position will begin this week.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Jonathan Toews, Nathan MacKinnon In Concussion Protocol

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Jan 30: Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos was correct when he reported MacKinnon underwent surgery, as Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar confirmed today. MacKinnon has been ruled out for the All-Star Game, and Bednar told reporters including Baugh that Mikko Rantanen was “an easy case” as his replacement. That case may be ineffective though, as David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period tweets that it will be Roman Josi who replaces MacKinnon instead, giving the Central Division another defenseman.

Jan 28: Two high-profile centers are unavailable for their teams at the moment because of head injuries. Colorado Avalanche star Nathan MacKinnon has been ruled out for the team’s last three games before the All-Star break as he deals with a facial fracture and concussion from Taylor Hall’s hit on Wednesday night. The Chicago Blackhawks, Colorado’s opponent tonight, will be without Jonathan Toews as he is also in the concussion protocol. Toews finished his last game against the Detroit Red Wings, though Charlie Roumeliotis of NBCS Chicago noticed a hit that could have caused the issue.

With MacKinnon out, the Avalanche will go with a top line of Gabriel Landeskog, Mikko Rantanen, and Valeri Nichushkin, according to Peter Baugh of The Athletic. Dylan Sikura, recently recalled, will enter the lineup on the fourth line and play in his second NHL game of the season. Sikura has 31 points in 29 games for the Colorado Eagles this season.

Obviously, the loss of MacKinnon is a big one, given his place as one of the top players in the entire league. With 43 points in 31 games so far, he was named to the Central Division All-Star team, a spot that now seems up for grabs. It is unlikely that he would participate after suffering an injury like this, meaning there should be a replacement named in the coming days. Given he was the “captain” of the group, that will also have to be decided if MacKinnon is indeed held out of the event.

For Toews, this is just the latest in what has been a difficult season. Coming back from his missed 2020-21 campaign, the 33-year-old forward hasn’t exactly been himself, registering just four goals in 43 games so far. In 2019-20 he had 18 but had previously never recorded fewer than 20 in any of his first 12 NHL seasons. With just 19 points in those 43 contests, he ranks fifth on the Blackhawks in scoring, well behind Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat who have carried the load thus far. He’s also averaging fewer than 18 minutes a night for the first time in his career and will now potentially miss some time with a concussion.

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