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Capitals Hire Reid Cashman As Assistant Coach

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New Washington Capitals head coach Todd Reirden has begun filling out his staff. Just as Reirden was promoted internally, he has made his first hire from within. According to Mark Divver of the Providence Journal, the Capitals have hired Reid Cashman as an assistant coach. Cashman has been an assistant coach with the Hersey Bears, Washington’s AHL affiliate, for the past two years but is set to make the jump. While the team has yet to formally announce the hiring, Divver’s report last night has since been followed up by confirmation from a local radio source and a former colleague of Cashman’s.

It has been a meteoric rise for the 35-year-old coach. Cashman was still playing in the AHL less than a decade ago – including a season with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins with Reirden as his coach – after a highly successful collegiate career at Quinnipiac University. He then returned to his alma mater as an assistant right after his playing days were over and coached the Bobcats until 2016. He then joined the Bears and just two years later is already on to the NHL level with the Capitals.

A high-scoring defenseman in his time, Cashman will be tasked with working on the Washington blue line as the replacement to the departed Lane Lambert. His style as a player and experience as a coach at the younger levels should stand to benefit Capitals defensemen like Dmitry Orlov, Christian Djoos, Madison Bowey, and rookie hopeful Lucas Johansen. The defending champs need their younger players on the back end to step up this season with some lacking depth and Cashman will be the man to get them going.

Coaching Notes: Cronin, Rallo, Lalonde

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Greg Cronin will be the new head coach of the Colorado Eagles as they move from the ECHL to the AHL for the 2018-19 season. Cronin had served with the New York Islanders for the past four seasons, first as an assistant coach and then as an associate with Doug Weight last season. With Barry Trotz coming in and bringing in a new group, Cronin will head to the AHL where the Eagles are trying to follow up incredible ECHL success with a bang in their first year of AHL contention.

Under Aaron Schneekloth—who will remain with the team as an assistant coach—the Eagles have won two consecutive Kelly Cups in the ECHL. They’ll be trying for the Calder this year, but Schneekloth, assistant Ryan Tobler and goaltending coach Ryan Bach will still be there for the journey under Cronin’s leadership. It is experienced leadership, as Cronin has many years of experience in the NHL as well as time spent as a head coach in both the AHL and NCAA.

  • Greg Rallo won’t have to wait long for his next career to begin, as the 36-year old has been named an assistant coach with the Milwaukee Admirals. Rallo only finished his playing career recently, suiting up for 29 games with the Texas Stars in the 2017-18 season. He’ll join head coach Karl Taylor—who was an assistant coach with Texas while Rallo played there—as part of a new staff with the Nashville Predators’ AHL affiliate.
  • The Tampa Bay Lightning have nabbed a coach from the Minnesota Wild organization, hiring Derek Lalonde as an NHL assistant coach for next season. Lalonde had been the head coach of the Iowa Wild in the AHL for the last two years, and is on a fast track to being an NHL head coach one day. He’s flown quickly through head coaching roles in the USHL, ECHL and AHL with winning records at all stops, and will now join a staff in Tampa Bay that is expected to compete for the Stanley Cup. Lalonde was hired to coach the Green Bay Gamblers just a year after now-Lightning head coach Jon Cooper left that organization following a championship season, only to bring the USHL team another championship in 2012.

Buffalo Sabres Hire Steve Smith As Assistant Coach

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It didn’t take long for Steve Smith to land on his feet after resigning from the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday. The Buffalo Sabres have announced they’ve hired the veteran assistant coach to join Phil Housley’s group, where he will take over defensive and penalty kill responsibilities.

There are few opportunities like this one for Smith, who will get to work directly with phenom defenseman Rasmus Dahlin as he begins his NHL career. Smith and Housley will be tasted with developing Dahlin into the perennial Norris candidate that many are projecting him to be, and they have quite a bit of experience between the two of them for the job. Housley of course is a Hall of Fame defenseman with 1,200 career points, but Smith was no slouch in his playing days and brings the knowledge of three Stanley Cups to the table. He was a key member of the Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier-led Edmonton Oilers championship teams, and finished his career with over 800 games played (and 2,100 penalty minutes).

Dahlin isn’t the only young defenseman that will be taken under Smith’s wing, as the team also boasts Brendan Guhle, Mattias Samuelsson and others coming through the system. Even Rasmus Ristolainen is still only 23, despite already having five seasons under his belt. The Sabres have struggled to put anything close to a championship-caliber blue line together for years, but can take a huge step towards that goal this season.

Canucks’ Offseason Signings Were Critical To Improve Team

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The Vancouver Canucks dealt with a lot of criticism when free agency started last week when they went out and signed bottom-six players Jay Beagle, Antoine Roussel and Tim Schaller to long-term deals (Beagle & Roussel got four years, while Schaller signed for two). While the general addition of these three players was to add some size, grit and leadership to an incredibly young team, there is another key advantage of bringing in those three, especially with their abilities to help with penalty killing. Both Beagle and Schaller were solid contributors to their teams last season on the penalty kill and they both will bring those skills to Vancouver now.

“We’ve added some players which is, I think, important. We need guys who can kill penalties,” Vancouver head coach Travis Green said. “The longer you’re in the league, the better the penalty killer you are. Some won’t understand what that means, but there’s a lot of reading plays, and making changes on the fly that you get better at over time. It’s an art learned. You don’t see a lot of young guys come in who are great penalty killers.”

The hope is that Beagle and Schaller should improve the team’s 21st-ranked penalty killing unit, which must improve dramatically if the team wants to start winning. However, their signings also have another key importance to the team.

Perhaps more than anyone, the most likely benefactor to these signings will be center Bo Horvat, who has always been forced to take penalty killing minutes in the past as part of his responsibilities. However with the retirement of Henrik Sedin, suddenly Horvat’s responsibilities have changed, according to Jason Botchford of the Vancouver Sun. The team needs more scoring without the Sedin twins and the team will turn to their four-year pro to take his game to that next level and reducing his minutes on the penalty kill should only help him carry that out.

Horvat’s numbers have been solid, but now that he’s likely moving into the No. 1 center position, he must continue to improve. The 23-year-old has increased his scoring over the past four years, going from 14 goals in his rookie campaign, to 16, then 20 and this year posting 22 goals, even though he played in the least amount of games in his career (64).

That grit created by Beagle and Roussel especially should benefit someone like Elias Pettersson, who the team hopes will become one of the next great scorers in Vancouver. However, while the 19-year-old is 6-foot-2, he weighs in at 161 pounds and the presence of one of those players could remind other teams to stay away from their prized prospect.

 

Atlantic Notes: Bruins, Barkov, Canadiens

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While the Boston Bruins added a couple of small, but important pieces to their team this offseason in goaltender Jaroslav Halak and defenseman John Moore, their two biggest Atlantic Division rivals seem to be working at a much bigger scale. The Toronto Maple Leafs have already successfully signed superstar center John Tavares to a long-term deal, while the Tampa Bay Lightning are trying hard to acquire superstar defenseman Erik Karlsson.

Those two moves (although nothing is definite about Karlsson going to Tampa) suggest that maybe Boston isn’t doing enough to improve their own team. The team looks like they lost veteran Rick Nash who is still trying to decide if he intends to return to the NHL and hasn’t added much to their forward core this season. No doubt Boston general manager Don Sweeney is trying to work the trade market in hopes of picking up a Jeff Skinner or Artemi Panarin. However, NBC Sports Joe Haggerty writes that there is nothing wrong if the team can acquire such a player, but the team needs to stay the course and not overreact to the whatever the Maple Leafs or Lightning do.

Haggerty writes the team had a plan at the end of the season and they need to stick to it, which means the team must hold onto their talented young players and not consider moving them for big-name players. The team already had a plan in place in hopes to upgrade its team, using prospects and pieces such as Torey Krug and Anders Bjork. However, the team also needs to keep their elite young players like Charlie McAvoy and Jake Debrusk, because they will need them to stay with the organization for the next decade. The team shouldn’t panic and attempt to grab a big-name player if it will cost them their long-term future.

  • The Florida Panthers could be making major shakeups in their lineups next season, according to Matthew DeFranks of the SunSentinel. With the addition of more talent this season, including Mike Hoffman and a host of young talent, coach Bob Boughner has a lot of option for loading up his top line which features star Aleksander Barkov. The talented center has spent much of the last three years playing alongside Jonathan Huberdeau and Evgeni Dadonov, who arrived last season. However, with Hoffman and how well forward Nick Bjugstad played on the top line at times last season, it’s likely Barkov could get all new linemates next season, giving the team more depth on both their second and third lines.
  • Brendan Kelly of the Montreal Gazette writes that the Montreal Canadiens have done nothing to get better this offseason. The scribe writes that when you finished the season as the 28th worst team in the league, you need to make big changes. Instead, the team’s biggest trade of Alex Galchenyuk for Max Domi didn’t make the team better, especially since most experts believe that Arizona won the deal, but at best it’s a wash. Then the team’s biggest free agent signing was bringing back Tomas Plekanec, who isn’t the same player he once was and since he spent the majority of the season with Montreal last season, also can’t be anything more than a wash as well. The scribe also points out that if the team was rebuilding then they wouldn’t have tried so hard to go after Tavares or Paul Stastny this offseason. It just looks like another down year in Montreal.

Central Notes: Blackhawks, Kovar, Seguin, Eriksson-Ek, Yeo

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Many teams in the Central Division have been quite active this offseason as they attempt to force their way to the top of the standings next season. However, the Chicago Blackhawks who need to move up in the standings more than anyone have been quite quiet so far this offseason.

If fact, the team have made just a handful of small moves, which included signing a 39-year-0ld forward, a backup goaltender and a depth defenseman in Chris Kunitz, Cam Ward and Brandon Manning. However, after a season that saw the Blackhawks drop from perennial playoff powerhouse to a team that lost more games than they won with a 33-39-10 season, these moves aren’t going to propel them back to the top of the Central. Mark Lazerus of the Chicago Sun-Times writes that the team is likely done with the free agent market and if there is any plan to improve the team, it will need to be done through the trade market.

The Athletic’s Scott Powers (subscription required) adds that the team must address its defensive deficiencies and Manning doesn’t add anything to a team that showed its defense has slowed down considerably. While the team has quite a few defensive prospects, none are likely to be ready to help the team next year, suggesting the team must address that deficiency via trade.

Both writers suggest the team must engage the Carolina Hurricanes for defenseman Justin Faulk, who would complement the team’s defense. Now with Dougie Hamilton and Calvin de Haan in place in Carolina, Faulk would seem to be quite expendable.

  • NHL.com’s Chris Kuk reports that the Blackhawks are not in the mix of  teams to land KHL forward Jan Kovar, who has expressed interest to come to the NHL this season. His agent, Allen Walsh tweeted that Kovar is considering various offers and will make a decision Sunday.
  • In a mailbag segment, NHL.com’s Mike Heika writes about what the likely scenario could be if the Dallas Stars are unable to work out an extension with star center Tyler Seguin. He suggests that Seguin, whose six-year, $34.5MM contract expires after next season, very likely will want to look at options, much like Steven Stamkos and John Tavares did. The fact that the Dallas Stars have only reached the playoffs once in the past four years isn’t in the team’s favor when they are trying to convince him to stay. Heika writes that if an extension isn’t reached before the 2018-19 season ends, the team would trade his rights rather than lose him for nothing. However, there is also high hopes that new head coach Jim Montgomery will have a major effect on the team as well as on Seguin.
  • In another mailbag, The Athletic’s Mike Russo (subscription required)writes that the team hasn’t made many moves as they are in a precarious position where they are left with many unmovable contracts to go with a group of young, talented players, who they would like to develop, leaving the team with few trade assets. The injury to defenseman Ryan Suter at the end of last season also has hindered the team’s trading ability as the team does have excess defense they could move, but won’t now that Sutter’s target date for a return is still up in the air. However, Russo writes that team has high expectations for Joel Eriksson Ek, who they want to move into a top-six center position and he could envision a position battle between Eriksson Ek and Mikko Koivu, who coach Bruce Boudreau wouldn’t mind moving to a checking role in the near future.
  • In yet another mailbag, Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes that with the acquisition of top talents in Ryan O’Reilly, David Perron and Tyler Bozak, that much of the team’s success will now fall on head coach Mike Yeo who could find himself on the hot seat quickly. If the team falters early on, Yeo is likely to be replaced with Gordon suggesting that Dave Tippett or Alain Vigneault would be candidates to replace him midseason.

Snapshots: Chychrun, Lambert, Legace

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The Arizona Coyotes were shocked by how quickly Jakob Chychrun recovered year, as the then-19 year old defenseman made his return to the lineup just three months after undergoing knee surgery in August. This time they won’t be so surprised. Chychrun, who suffered another brutal knee injury at the very end of the season, is expected to be ready for training camp in September with the Coyotes according to Craig Morgan of AZ Sports. His remarkable ability to rehab doesn’t faze GM John Chayka at this point, who said that Chychrun is “just one of those guys who just recovers on his own schedule.”

That’s big news for the Coyotes, who are looking to ride a late-season surge last season all the way to the playoffs in 2018-19. After acquiring several players including Derek Stepan, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Antti Raanta last summer, Chayka was busy again in bringing in Alex Galchenyuk, Michael Grabner and Marcus Kruger to round out the lineup. All eyes though will be on the young core of Chychrun, Clayton Keller and Dylan Strome, who are the key to getting the Coyotes back to long-term respectability.

  • The New York Islanders have shocked no one by hiring Lane Lambert as an assistant coach, reuniting him with Barry Trotz behind the bench. Lambert has worked alongside Trotz for the last seven seasons, prior to which he worked as the head coach of the Milwaukee Admirals implementing the same system Trotz was using while with the Nashville Predators. The two are almost inseparable at this point, and now face the task of returning the Islanders to success in 2018-19.
  • As many have expected, the Columbus Blue Jackets have named former NHL goaltender Manny Legace as their new goaltending coach, promoting him from a similar position with their minor league affiliates. Legace, known as an incredibly consistent backup goalie during his playing career, is now an extremely well-regarded coach that was destined for the NHL ranks. He’ll get to work with two-time Vezina winner Sergei Bobrovsky in his first season in Columbus, but will likely focus more on preparing Joonas Korpisalo for the starting role should the team not be able to reach a contract extension with the former. Bobrovsky is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent next summer, and could command a deal like Carey Price’s eight-year $84MM extension.

Edmonton Oilers To Sign Tobias Rieder

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Darren Dreger of TSN is reporting that the Edmonton Oilers have decided the price is no longer too high on Tobias Rieder, and will sign the free agent forward to a one-year contract worth $2MM. Rieder did not receive a qualifying offer from the Los Angeles Kings and became an unrestricted free agent.

The deal is the optimal “prove it” contract as the Oilers aren’t risking more that $2MM to see if they can get him to have a breakout season and if it fails, they can move on with no repercussions. With Rieder’s speed, he might be a solid fit next to Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl on one of the top two lines. If he is a success, then Edmonton still gets his restricted free agent rights next season, so they can keep him in the fold. And at age 25, he’s still has potential to improve his game and fit in well with the younger core of Oilers. He also has some penalty killing experience, which can’t hurt an Edmonton team that struggled with special teams last season.

The speedy winger has always had a tremendous amount of potential and looked to be well on his way after his first three years in Arizona in which he tallied 13, 14 and 16 goals. However, he fell out of favor with Rick Tocchet and the team opted instead to send him and goaltender Scott Wedgewood to Los Angeles for backup goalie Darcy Kuemper. Rieder posted four goals and six points in 20 games after the trade, but it wasn’t enough for the Kings to give him an qualifying offer.

Golden Knights Sign Forward Curtis McKenzie

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The Vegas Golden Knights add another name to the mix up front, signing former Dallas Stars forward Curtis McKenzie. Sportsnet’s Rich Dhaliwal reports that it is a two-year, $1.5MM contract for the high-scoring AHLer. At just $750K AAV, McKenzie should compete for a regular job next season as an affordable depth option.

The 27-year-old already has some NHL experience as he has played in 99 games so far in his career, including 53-game season for the Stars during the 2016-17 season in which he tallied six goals and 16 points. However, he was not able to crack Ken Hitchcock’s rotation last year, spending the majority of his season with the Texas Stars where he posted 25 goals and 48 points, including being a major factor in the Texas Stars’ playoff run that got them to the Calder Cup Finals. He tallied 11 goals and 20 points in 22 playoff games.

The AHL veteran will have a tough time winning a spot on the Golden Knights bottom-six, but will be a great depth option as well as beef up their minor-league system as the one-year expansion team still has much work to add to their prospect pool.

Capitals Name Todd Reirden As Their New Head Coach

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In a move that comes as little surprise, the Capitals have officially announced that they have named Todd Reirden their new head coach.  He takes the place of Barry Trotz who resigned earlier in the month and later became head coach of the Islanders.  GM Brian MacLellan released the following statement on the hiring:

“We feel that the time is right for Todd to lead our hockey club. Based on his coaching experience, communication abilities, his approach to the game and the respect he commands in our locker room, we feel that Todd has earned this opportunity. Todd has played an integral part in helping lead our team to the Stanley Cup championship and we feel his appointment as head coach will enable our organization to transition seamlessly into next season and beyond.”

Reirden was long viewed as Washington’s head coach in waiting as the team had denied him permission to pursue other opportunities going back to last summer.  MacLellan was certainly fixated on him being Trotz’s successor as ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski notes (Twitter link) that no other interviews for the position were conducted.

This will be Reirden’s first head coaching job at the NHL level but not his first time running a team as he was at the helm of the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins for parts of two seasons nearly a decade ago.  He’s certainly no stranger to the Capitals as he has been in the organization since 2014-15 serving as an assistant or associate coach.

After running the defense during that stretch, Reirden will now be tasked with attempting to guide Washington back to what they hope will be another Stanley Cup run.  The team has been quite busy this offseason keeping their players in the fold as they have already finalized new contracts with defensemen John Carlson and Michal Kempny as well as winger Devante Smith-Pelly.

With this hiring, all 31 head coaching vacancies around the NHL are now filled.

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