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Gerard Gallant

Poll: Which Coach Is Least Likely To Be Back Next Season?

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The NHL has gone almost the entire season without seeing a head coach fired, something that hasn’t happened in more than fifty years. Even with that said, it seems unlikely that all 31 head coaches will be back next season, either through expiration of their contract or termination by a frustrated GM.

Barry Trotz, for instance, is on the last year of his current contract and seems tied to the Washington Capitals playoff success this year. Though Washington GM Brian MacLellan was given a contract extension recently, there has been no word on Trotz, who has never advanced past the second round in his 19-year NHL coaching career.

There has been some talk of even the great Joel Quenneville being let go from Chicago, after the disappointing season the Blackhawks have suffered through. Quenneville is one of the greatest of all time, but even he might have to pay the price for underperforming stars and an aging core.

Who do you think is least likely to be brought back by their current team? Which coach won’t be wearing the same colors next season? Make sure to explain your vote in the comment section below.

[Mobile users click here to vote!]

Expansion Notes: Seattle Ownership, Bettman, Vancouver

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The NHL-to-Seattle movement is in full swing, and ESPN’s Emily Kaplan recently caught up with hopeful owners Jerry Bruckheimer, David Bonderman, and Tim Leiweke and talked about everything from the remodeling of KeyArena, to branding, to even acquiring an NBA franchise down the road. For now, the trio are just invested in being the ownership group of the league’s 32nd team (literally, as they paid a $10MM down payment along with their application paperwork earlier in the month). The next step is a season ticket drive, about which Bruckheimer told Kaplan “there’s a lot of momentum working in our direction”. Should the ticket drive prove successful, the NHL is likely to accept the bid and begin planning the next stage of NHL expansion. That would of course include another Expansion Draft. The Seattle ownership group has to be hopeful after seeing the success of the Vegas Golden Knights this season, and Bonderman told Kaplan “The commissioner has been consistent in saying it’s the same kind of process and procedures that they used in Vegas, and we’re going to hold them to that”.

  • Well, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman spoke about that exact topic today, telling TSN’s Farhan Lalji that the process would be exactly the same for Seattle as it was for Vegas. The expansion process was unlike any seen in professional sports before, allowing the existing NHL teams to only protect a maximum of 11 players from their roster. While first- and second-year players were exempt, Vegas GM George McPhee still had several valuable players to pick as well as several vulnerable teams to manipulate. The resulting roster did not blow anyone away, but proved to be the perfect fit for head coach Gerard Gallant’s system and the Knights are now contenders in their inaugural season. The Seattle ownership group is a ways away from naming a GM or coach, but they’ll have to make strong selections if they wish to maximize the entry draft process like Bill Foley and the Golden Knights did.
  • The other decision that may still be a ways away but will nonetheless draw major attention and speculation is the team name. The name, logo, and colors of any sports team is a huge factor and the reveal of the Golden Knights was a major, televised event. So when is the earliest we could find out the Seattle moniker and see some colors and logos? How about the 2019 NHL Draft? The league announced today that the Vancouver Canucks will host the draft in 2019. What better time to reveal the first details about Seattle than at a key league event hosted by the team that will eventually be their natural geographic rival to kick off the league year prior to their planned induction ahead of the 2020-21 season. It hardly seems like a coincidence that Vancouver was chosen to host this specific draft, the last in which they will be the only NHL team from the Pacific Northwest. Bettman and company are thinking ahead. Stay tuned.

PHWA Announces Midseason Awards

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The Professional Hockey Writers Association this season asked their members to vote for the end of year awards at the halfway point, and today announced the winners. Votes were cast on all the awards given annually to the top players in the league, and though they may not actually win when the time comes it is is a good look into which players will be in consideration.

The results are as follows:

Hart Memorial Trophy (League MVP):

Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay Lightning

Second place: Nathan MacKinnon, Colorado Avalanche
Third place: John Tavares, New York Islanders

James Norris Memorial Trophy (Top defenseman):

Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay Lightning

Second place: Drew Doughty, Los Angeles Kings
Third place: John Klingberg, Dallas Stars

Frank J. Selke Trophy (Top defensive forward):

Patrice Bergeron, Boston Bruins

Second place: Sean Couturier, Philadelphia Flyers
Third place: Anze Kopitar, Los Angeles Kings

Calder Memorial Trophy (Rookie of the year):

Mathew Barzal, New York Islanders

Second place: Brock Boeser, Vancouver Canucks
Third place: Charlie McAvoy, Boston Bruins

Vezina Trophy (Top goaltender):

Andrei Vasilevskiy, Tampa Bay Lightning

Second place: Connor Hellebuyck, Winnipeg Jets
Third place: Pekka Rinne, Nashville Predators

Lady Byng Memorial Trophy (Sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct):

Johnny Gaudreau, Calgary Flames

Second place: Auston Matthews, Toronto Maple Leafs
Third place: Ryan O’Reilly, Buffalo Sabres

Jack Adams Award (Coach of the year):

Gerard Gallant, Vegas Golden Knights

Second place: Jon Cooper, Tampa Bay Lightning
Third place: Paul Maurice, Winnipeg Jets

General Manager of the Year:

George McPhee, Vegas Golden Knights

Second place: Steve Yzerman, Tampa Bay Lightning
Third place: Ray Shero, New Jersey Devils

Top Defensive Defenseman:

Drew Doughty, Los Angeles Kings

Second place: Zdeno Chara, Boston Bruins
Third place: Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay Lightning

Comeback Player of the Year:

Steven Stamkos, Tampa Bay Lightning

Second place: Brian Boyle, New Jersey Devils
Third place: Claude Giroux, Philadelphia Flyers

NHL Reveals Coaches For Upcoming All-Star Game

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The NHL announced the coaches for the 2018 NHL All-Star game in Tampa Bay on Jan. 28, as Tampa Bay Lightning’s Jon Cooper, Vegas Golden Knights’ Gerard Gallant, Washington Capitals’ Barry Trotz and Nashville Predators’ Peter Laviolette will coach their respective divisions.

For the third straight season, the all-star game will feature a 3-on-3, three-game tournament, showcasing each division. Each divisional team will have six forwards, three defensemen and two goaltenders. The coaching selections were based on the team that had the highest point percentage as of Jan. 6, the halfway point of the season.

Cooper earned his first trip to the all-star game in six years as an NHL coach. Tampa Bay has the best record in hockey at 29-9-3. Gallant has earned the invite by taking a first-year expansion team and given them the second-best record in hockey at 28-10-2. It is his second all-star selection in seven years of NHL coaching. Trotz will make his third NHL all-star appearance in 19 years of coaching. The Capitals boast a 25-13-3 record. Laviolette will make his second appearance in 16 seasons as a coach. The Predators have a 25-11-6 record, tied for second in the Central Division, but have a slightly higher points percentage than Winnipeg Jets coach Paul Maurice, who has one more overtime loss.

Full all-star rosters will be released Wednesday. The all-star captains were already named by fan votes as Edmonton’s Connor McDavid (Pacific), Washington’s Alex Ovechkin (Metropolitan), Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos (Atlantic) and Nashville’s P.K. Subban (Central) were voted in.

 

Marc-Andre Fleury’s Agent Blasts NHL Concussion Protocol

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NHL agent Allan Walsh blasted the league Friday over the NHL’s concussion spotter protocol, referring it to a public relations spin to pretend to show the league cares about player safety. The agent, who happens to have Vegas Golden Knights’ goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury as a client, elabortated further in an interview with the Las Vegas Review Journal’s David Schoen.

“I just want to be very clear,” said Walsh to the RJ the following day. “I am not in any way, what I said yesterday, referencing any specific client or in any way referencing any specific club. It is the league-wide implementation of the concussion spotter protocol that I am criticizing because it is not being applied properly. And, like I said, the way the NHL is allowing players to remain in games is a joke.”

Fleury has been on injured reserve for two weeks already, since Oct. 15, with concussion-related symptoms after he was kneed in the head by Detroit’s Anthony Mantha. Schoen writes that the Golden Knights have said that Fleury passed all the in-game tests, but showed concussion symptoms after the game. Since then, there have been no updates suggesting he may come back soon. Coincidentally, Walsh’s comments on Friday came 30 minutes after Vegas head coach Gerard Gallant announced that Fleury would not accompany the team for the start of their six-game road trip.

The comments from Walsh also might be more relevant after a recent injury to Los Angeles Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick, who took an inadvertent blow to the head from teammate Derek Forbort. The Hockey News’ Ken Campbell wrote a story last week detailing that teams have too much leverage and power when it comes to determining whether their players should come out for the game, referring to Quick’s experience. He cites that the league representative informed the NHL home office of the injury, but it took three play stoppages before Quick was taken off the ice with 1:14 remaining in the period and went down the tunnel into a quiet room, but returned seconds later and returned to his place in the crease during that same stoppage. However, before play started, he was removed again. This time backup Darcy Kuemper took his place in the net and played for 36 seconds before play was stopped and Quick came back and finished out the period’s final 35 seconds.

Campbell points out that it’s impossible to imagine that he received a proper concussion test in that short of a time. He said that the league felt that the injury was caused from a stick to the head, which only causes one percent of concussion injuries and Quick was therefore cleared quickly, but the scribe points out that the league is playing a dangerous game if they are determining whether players should or shouldn’t receive concussions tests based on replays.

 

 

Reilly Smith Gamble Could Pay Off For Golden Knights

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Usually when you hear of a team giving up a prospect of young player, there is a reason behind it, often another bloated contract of a veteran who is making too much money on the decline of his career. Yet, for the Vegas Golden Knights, the team was able to make a deal with the Florida Panthers in which they got 26-year-old Jon Marchessault, a 30-goal scorer last year. The cost? Not a bloated contract of a 30-something player, but the contract of 26-year-old Reilly Smith, who himself is only a year from putting up 25 goals.

Smith is a former third-rounder who has flashed a ton of potential, but has failed to be consistent throughout his career. After putting up a great season in 2015-16, which included 25 goals and 25 assists and being the team’s top scorer that year in the playoffs, Smith was rewarded with a five year, $25MM extension just last year. Unfortunately, he only scored 15 goals last year and struggled just the like the team did. When the Panthers new administration came in, Smith was no longer in their plans and getting rid of his new contract to open up cap space to focus on more important players became a priority.

However, Smith could easily prove to be more than just a throw-in player. At 26 years old, Smith has plenty of more hockey left and he returns to his old coach, Gerard Gallant, who coached him during his 25-goal season. Now on an expansion team, Smith could easily pick up big minutes with few veterans on the team and the possibility that any of those veterans could be traded at any minute.

If Smith could return to form with Gallant’s help and put up a 50-point season like he did two years ago or in 2013-14, he could become a key piece to the team’s offense for years or, more likely, become a quality trade candidate in the future. If Smith can put up big numbers again this year, he could be moved much easier in a year or two when he has just three or four years remaining on his contract.

Mike Kelly To Join Golden Knights’ Coaching Staff

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Former Florida Panthers Assistant Coach Mike Kelly will be joining Gerard Gallant behind the bench in Las Vegas this fall.

This news comes from TSN insider Darren Dreger, who says an official announcement regarding Kelly and other assistant coaches is a few weeks away.

Read more: Gerard Gallant Named Vegas’ Head Coach

Kelly has previously served alongside Gallant when the pair were in Florida from 2014 to 2016. Both men were fired last November after the Panthers won 11 of their first 22 games.

Prior to his time in Florida, Kelly spent four years with the QMJHL’s Saint John Sea Dogs, spending two years as the Director of Hockey Operations and Associate Head Coach before being promoted to Head Coach and General Manager. The Sea Dogs won the Memorial Cup in 2011. Kelly has also been a head coach or assistant in the AHL, OHL, WHL, Canadian University hockey, and both the U-18 and U-20 Team Canada teams.

Coaching Notes: Baumgartner, Vegas, Quinn

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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.

Snapshots: McCarron, Golden Knights, Zito

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The Montreal Canadiens have sent Michael McCarron back to the AHL to play in the IceCaps playoff run. The young forward had 19 points in 32 games in the AHL this season, but spent the better part of the year either on the Canadiens’ fourth line or in the press box. After being selected in the first round (25th overall) in 2013, McCarron has yet to make a real impact at the NHL level. His size and goal scoring ability has been on display at the lower levels, but will need to find more consistency to play a regular role in Montreal next year.

For now, he’ll join St. John’s for their playoff series with the Syracuse Crunch, currently tied at a game apiece. The two teams are back at it Wednesday night as they look for a first round victory and a step closer to the Calder Cup. McCarron should give the IceCaps a big boost up front, joining other young forwards like Charles Hudon and Nikita Scherbak.

  • Vegas Golden Knights’ head coach Gerard Gallant believes that his squad will be more talented than either of the Columbus Blue Jackets or Minnesota Wild when they entered the league, telling NHL.com that they will have a better chance at getting “a few more high-end players”. While it’s true that the Golden Knights don’t have to battle with another team in the upcoming expansion draft, the Wild were lucky enough to get Marian Gaborik third overall in their first entry draft, something that Vegas will need to emulate should they want to compete in their first few years. The Golden Knights will have the most important day to-date for their franchise on Saturday when the league holds the Draft Lottery. Vegas currently holds a 10.3% chance to select first overall, and will almost assuredly be drafting somewhere in the top-5.
  • John Vogl of The Buffalo News reports that Blue Jackets’ assistant General Manger Bill Zito should be considered a candidate for the vacant GM role in Buffalo. Vogl has compiled a list of names that should be considered with many likely interviewing for the job. It includes current assistants Zito, Tom Fitzgerald (Devils), Jason Botterill (Penguins), Chris Drury (Rangers) and Norm Maciver (Chicago). It will be interesting to see if Terry Pegula and the Buffalo organization do hire someone who hasn’t held a GM position before, as he stated in a recent press conference that experience was one of the things they would prioritize in the search.

Golden Knights Expansion Roster Will Be Revealed At NHL Awards

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The NHL announced today that the 2017 NHL Awards will return to Las Vegas for an eighth straight year on Wednesday, June 21 at the T-Mobile Arena and this year will include Las Vegas like it never has before. The NHL plans to incorporate the NHL Expansion Draft into the festivities as it will announce the 30-player roster that the Las Vegas Golden Knights select in a two-hour broadcast.

The show, which will air at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBCSN in America and in Canada on Sportsnet, is expected to put quite a bit of emphasis on the new expansion franchise, highlighting majority owner Bill Foley, general manager George McPhee, new head coach Gerard Gallant and even highlight some of the players the Golden Knights will select.

NHL Awards and nominations for the awards will begin being revealed day-by-day, starting tomorrow with the Selke Award. Here are a list of some of the top awards and potential nominees:

Selke Trophy (nominations will be out tomorrow) — It should be a tight race, but the leading candidates for the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game come down to a handful, including Anaheim’s Ryan Kesler, Washington’s Niklas Backstrom, Boston’s Patrice Bergeron and possibly even Calgary’s Mikael Backlund.

Calder Trophy (nominations to be released Thursday, April 20) — The trophy that goes to the top rookie is almost guaranteed to go to Toronto’s Auston Matthews, but other possible candidates include Winnipeg’s Patrik Laine, Pittsburgh’s goaltender Matt Murray and Columbus’ Zach Werenski.

Norris Trophy (nominations to be released Friday, April 21) — The top defenseman award will come down to a few including the Senators’ top blueliner Erik Karlsson, Lightning’s Victor Hedman and Sharks’ veteran Brent Burns.

Vezina Trophy (nominations to be released Saturday, April 22) — The top netminder award falls to a few including Columbus’ Sergei Bobrovsky, Washington’s Braden Holtby and Minnesota’s Devan Dubnyk.

Other nominees that will be announced before the June 21 awards include Lady Byng Trophy on Sunday, April 23; Masterton Trophy on April 24; NHL Foundation Player Award on April 25; Jack Adams Award on April 26; Mark Messier Leadership Awards on April 27; Hart Trophy on May 1 and the Ted Lindsay Award on May 2.

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