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Western Notes: Fedun, Oilers’ Front Office, Holden, Kubalik

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With lots of questions surrounding the last spot on the Dallas Stars’ defense, SportsDay’s Matthew DeFranks reports that Taylor Fedun is expected to play after participating in warm-ups before Game 6 of their second round series against the St. Louis Blues. The veteran defenseman was questionable to play, but he successfully warmed up with no issues.

The team has been hampered by injuries at the third pairing spot alongside Ben Lovejoy, as both Jamie Oleksiak and Joel Hanley are out with injuries, while Fedun has also struggled to get on the ice. The team had a number of options if Fedun could not go, including Dillon Heatherington and Gavin Bayreuther.

  • While nothing has been signed, the Edmonton Journal’s Kurt Leavins suggests that if/when Detroit Red Wings Senior Vice President Ken Holland takes over as General Manager in Edmonton, he’s likely to bring front office personnel with him. He writes that Detroit’s Director of Amateur Scouting Tyler Wright is a likely candidate to follow Holland, as well as Ryan Martin, the Red Wings Assistant General Manager, who is the team’s salary cap guru. He adds that rumors that Dave Tippett could end up as the team’s head coach would be a good move considering the relative success he had in Arizona when the team had little to work with.
  • After being relegated to the press box for all but one game in the playoffs, Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Nick Holden is motivated to come back and reclaim a spot on Vegas’ blue line, according to Las Vegas Review-Journal’s Ben Gotz. The 31-year-old played in his least amount of regular season games since the 2013-14 season after he was passed on the depth chart by Jonathon Merrill. With one more year on his contract at $2.2MM, Holden must prove he is capable of being a regular. “Whenever you’re sitting out, it’s added motivation to try to bring your level up,” Holden said. “It’s good for a team to have that healthy competition, because that pushes all of us to be better.”
  • The Athletic’s Scott Powers (subscription required) writes that while the Chicago Blackhawks are finalists in the sweepstakes to sign Swedish forward Anton Wedin, the team is also expected to sign NLA forward Dominik Kubalik after the World Championships. Kubalik, whose rights were acquired from the Los Angeles Kings on January 24th of this year, is coming off a 25-goal, 57-point season in the Swiss League. The 23-year-old is expected to challenge for a bottom-six spot in the Blackhawks’ lineup immediately.

Oilers Waiting On Ken Holland To Make Decision On GM Opening

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Sunday, 9:14 a.m.: TSN’s Ryan Rishaug reports that Holland is expected to give his answer today and all indications suggest that he is interested in the job.

Sunday, 8:11 a.m.: Late last night, Friedman signed off, reporting that Holland’s decision on whether to take Edmonton’s five-year, $25MM offer will come in either Sunday or Monday. If Holland does accept the position, Dave Tippett would become the lead candidate for the team’s head coaching job.

Saturday, 8:37 p.m.: Sportnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported (via Sportsnet’s Mark Spector) on Hockey Night in Canada that the Edmonton Oilers have offered Holland a five-year contract at $5MM per year to be the Oilers General Manager.

Saturday, 3:33 p.m.: No decision is expected to be made until next week, but the Edmonton Oilers could be close to choosing their future general manager. In fact, with the franchise having recently narrowed their search to three candidates in Detroit Red Wings Senior Vice President Ken Holland, interim general manager Keith Gretzky and former Toronto Maple Leafs’ assistant general manager Mark Hunter as their top candidates, The Athletic’s Allan Mitchell (subscription required) writes that it already looks like Holland has the inside track on the job.

Holland is expected to return from a trip overseas Saturday night, suggesting that negotiations might heat up soon. While just a few days ago the GM race was considered to be a “two-horse race” between Gretzky and Hunter, Sportsnet’s Marc Spector revealed one day later that the Oilers were going “all-in” on Holland. The question was whether Holland was interested in waiting for a potential general manager job opening in Seattle or would be willing to take over in Edmonton.

Holland is completing his 36th season in Detroit and his 22nd as general manager, but with Steve Yzerman taking over those duties, Holland could be looking for another GM position already. He certainly has a impressive resume, including three Stanley Cup Championships, four Presidents’ Trophies, and has seen his team reach 100-season points 13 times. Unfortunately, his recent resume hasn’t been as exemplary as he has continued to try to keep his franchise-winning teams in contention with questionable free-agent signings and only recently committed to rebuilding their salary-capped franchise. In fact, the Red Wings have finished with a worse record than the struggling Oilers franchise for several years now. Now 63 years old, many people wonder what Holland has done in the NHL lately and whether running a franchise has past him by.

The Edmonton Sun’s Terry Jones writes that CEO Bob Nicholson is likely banking on the team hiring Holland, as the scribe believes that Nicholson isn’t enamored with the two other candidates. After two interviews already with Hunter, the fact that they haven’t hired him suggests that Nicholson isn’t comfortable hiring him, while Jones also adds that he doesn’t think Nicholson believes that Gretzky is an “A-list” hire. The belief is that if Holland takes the job, he would have full control of the franchise and that he would never have even begun talking to Nicholson if he wasn’t interested in being a general manager again.

Mitchell adds that if Holland does take over, he will likely bring in his own people into the front office. And while, he believes that there will be a place for Gretzky no matter what, Holland has stated that your need four or five key people in place to run a franchise. One interesting option if Holland does take over is who might become the team’s next head coach, suggesting that Holland has close connections to current Dallas Stars assistant coach Todd Nelson. Changes could also come quickly depending on Holland’s assessment of the Oilers’ core.  That core of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Oscar Klefbom, Adam Larsson and Darnell Nurse could be altered, considering he wasn’t the man to bring them in.

Snapshots: Laine, Holland, NWHL

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The Winnipeg Jets and Patrik Laine have not had any contract negotiations, according to Andy Strickland of Fox Sports Midwest. The 21-year old sniper is scheduled to become a restricted free agent this summer and is in line for a big raise after his third consecutive 30-goal season to start his career. In fact, Laine has 110 goals over his first three years, but saw his overall point output drop to just 50 this season despite playing in all 82 games.

The Jets have plenty of work to do this offseason with Laine, Kyle Connor and Jacob Trouba all headed for RFA status, and don’t have an eternity to get it done. With more and more reporters believing there is an increased chance of an offer sheet this season, getting deals for Laine and Connor done before July 1st would limit that opportunity for other teams.

  • Ken Holland has been the focus of much speculation over the last few days regarding the Edmonton Oilers general manager job, but now some details are becoming clear. Mark Spector of Sportsnet reports that the Oilers are willing to offer complete autonomy to Holland in the role and are waiting to receive an answer. Mark Hunter, Keith Gretzky and Sean Burke, the most commonly reported final candidates, have not been ruled out as back up plans if Holland turns the Oilers down.
  • The first cracks are showing in the NWHL after more than 200 players announced a boycott of all North American women’s professional leagues. Hailey Salvian and Katie Strang of The Athletic (subscription required) report that the 2019-20 season for the Buffalo Beauts is “up in the air” and that several players have “serious doubts” whether they will be operational. The reporters also indicated that expansion into Montreal and Toronto, two markets that were left vacant when the CWHL closed their doors earlier this year, is no longer likely.

Seattle Willing To Wait For General Manager Candidates

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The Vegas Golden Knights had a valuable asset, and they knew it. When the team promoted Kelly McCrimmon to general manager yesterday, teams around the league had to change course on their own front office searches. The Edmonton Oilers were interested in McCrimmon, but according to Ryan Rishaug of TSN are now looking at either Keith Gretzky or Mark Hunter for the job. Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic adds that the Seattle expansion franchise is “willing to be patient” now that McCrimmon is off the market. The Seattle group “would have gone hard” this summer to hire McCrimmon, but could now wait until next year.

It was always a possibility that the new team wouldn’t have a GM until 2020. The Vegas Golden Knights hired George McPhee to lead their expansion preparation in July 2016, less than a year before they had to make their selections in the expansion draft. The Seattle team won’t be doing that until 2021, meaning there is still plenty of time to get the management group in order.

Still, McCrimmon seemed like a perfect candidate given his success with Vegas in the first draft. The Seattle team will try to emulate the Golden Knights’ success, but may not have quite so many opportunities to pull good young players away now that team’s have experience preparing for a draft of this nature. LeBrun notes that Ken Holland may still be of “serious interest” to the Seattle group, but the Red Wings executive is taking his time to decide what is next.

Of note is the recent report that Dave Tippett has interviewed for the Buffalo Sabres coaching position. The veteran coach was serving in an advisory role for the Seattle organization and some had speculated that he would join their front office in some capacity. It appears as though the coaching bug has bitten Tippett again however, leaving it unclear whether or not he will be part of the organization for much longer.

Speculation Still Surrounding Ken Holland

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The Edmonton Oilers lost a potential GM candidate today when the Vegas Golden Knights promoted Kelly McCrimmon in an effort to keep him with the franchise. It was no secret that the team was hoping McCrimmon would become available, but will have to turn their search in a different direction now. Immediately, the Golden Knights’ announcement made people wonder if former Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland would appear at the top of the Edmonton short list once again, or perhaps even be recruited by the expansion Seattle franchise which had also shown interest in McCrimmon.

Holland recently left the Red Wings position in order to bring Steve Yzerman back into the organization, but signed a multi-year extension in order to stay on in a senior position. That means there isn’t any rush for Holland to find another job, and he is apparently going to take some of that time. Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic tweets that Holland is “currently taking stock of what lies ahead for him” but that the jobs in Edmonton and Seattle are still possibilities. For what it’s worth, Ryan Rishaug of TSN believes that the Edmonton situation is essentially a “two horse race” between Keith Gretzky and Mark Hunter.

There is obviously good reason to believe Holland would be open to another front office role with increased responsibility. While he admitted that he allowed Yzerman to come back to Detroit in order to help the franchise, a 62-year old Holland had signed a two-year extension with the Red Wings just over a year ago, expecting to be leading the rebuild. That rebuild has gone quite well, despite the Red Wings’ struggles on the ice the last few seasons. The team has started to shed their long expensive contracts and has a better prospect pool than they have had in years. Detroit will also pick four times in the first two rounds this June, and ten times overall unless Yzerman makes an additional move.

Holland commands quite a bit of respect around the league, and if LeBrun is correct that he will “want to probably resurface at some point” there undoubtedly will be organizations willing to offer him the GM role. We’ll have to wait and see if that time comes this summer or down the road, but nothing seems imminent at this point.

Kelly McCrimmon Promoted To Vegas GM

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The Edmonton Oilers will not be hiring Vegas Golden Knights assistant general manger Kelly McCrimmon. That’s because the Golden Knights have promoted him to GM, while George McPhee will remain as President of Hockey Operations. Team owner Bill Foley released a statement:

This is a very exciting announcement for our club and Vegas Golden Knights fans around the world. George and Kelly are a fantastic team. From the mock draft exercises and preparation leading up to the Expansion Draft, building out our coaching staff, and continually improving our team through the draft, trades, signings and free agency, the work they have done over the last three years has been remarkable. Together they have constructed a championship-caliber team in a very short time. This personnel move ensures that our hockey operations group stays intact and positions our organization for long term success.

The Golden Knights have experienced unprecedented success for an expansion team, and a huge part of that has been the work that McCrimmon did as assistant GM. McPhee and McCrimmon were almost flawless in their execution of the expansion draft strategy that netted them players like Jon Marchessault, Shea Theodore and Nate Schmidt, and turned that strategy into a Stanley Cup Final appearance in their first season.

A promotion like this ensures that McCrimmon stays with the Golden Knights, something that wasn’t so clear before the announcement.  Edmonton who were reportedly interested in hiring McCrimmon for their front office vacancy, will now shift their focus somewhere else and perhaps back to interim GM Keith Gretzky. The team had wanted to interview several candidates for the opening, and have had at least two with former Toronto Maple Leafs assistant GM Mark Hunter. Hunter’s name is exactly who Darren Dreger of TSN suggests in a tweet, while also listing Gretzky and former NHL goaltender and Arizona Coyotes executive Sean Burke.

The next expansion franchise in Seattle will also have to cross McCrimmon’s name off the list, as they were another team with reported interest in bringing him aboard. That made a lot of sense given his experience in the process, but the new organization will have to find another way to navigate their expansion draft and inaugural season.

Edmonton Oilers Sign Ryan McLeod

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Wednesday: The Oilers officially announced a three-year entry-level contract for McLeod which will start next season, and an amateur tryout that allows him to join the Condors right away. McLeod will wear No. 28 for Bakersfield.

Tuesday: The Edmonton Oilers were far from playoff contention this season, but that wasn’t the case for their AHL affiliate. The Bakersfield Condors were one of the most exciting teams in the AHL this season and will begin a second-round playoff series on Friday against the San Diego Gulls. According to Mark Spector of Sportsnet they’re hoping to get some help for that series in the form of top prospect Ryan McLeod, who the Oilers are working to get signed this week.

McLeod, 19, was selected 40th overall last June and had another solid season in the OHL. The incredibly smooth skating forward recorded 62 points in 63 games split between the Mississauga Steelheads and Saginaw Spirit, only to record another 12 in 17 playoff contests. The Spirit were defeated by the Guelph Storm in seven games during the Western finals, meaning McLeod is free to join the AHL for the rest of the season.

Like his older brother, New Jersey Devils forward Michael McLeod, the Oilers prospect is a confident two-way player that looks ready to make a contribution at the professional level. While he may not have the huge point production of some of his contemporaries, his skating, size and work ethic are all good enough for him to take the next step. That speed is of considerable interest to an Oilers team that always seemed one step behind their opponents thi season—except of course for their captain—and something they will welcome happily into the organization.

Since he won’t turn 20 until September 21st, McLeod will not burn the first year of his potential entry-level contract even if he jumps right into the AHL playoffs this season.

2019 Hart Trophy Finalists Announced

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The finalists for the Hart Trophy, given to the player most valuable to his team, have been announced. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that the three finalists are Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby, Tampa Bay Lightning’s Nikita Kucherov and Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid.

Kucherov is considered to be a favorite for the award after putting up a tremendous year. The 25-year-old took his game to another level as he has already captured this year’s Art Ross Trophy for leading the league in total points. He finished the year with 41 goals and 128 points, the most in the league since the 1995-96 season. His totals are also the most-ever by a Russian-born NHL player. Kucherov has also been nominated for the Ted Lindsay Award, awarded to the most outstanding player and voted on by the players. Kucherov led his team to the Presidents’ Trophy, given to the team with the best regular-season record.

Crosby had an impressive season as well. Often forgotten when talking about the league’s best players, Crosby helped lead the Penguins to the playoffs this year and did it by breaking the 100-point mark for the first time in five years. On top of that, he was 18-points better than any other players on his team, making his season quite valuable for a Pittsburgh franchise that struggled to get into the playoffs this season.

McDavid’s name is not surprising either, other than the fact that the Edmonton Oilers didn’t have a very impressive season and while they weren’t mathematically eliminated from the playoffs until late in the season, they were never truly considered to be a playoff threat this season. In fact, McDavid is just the sixth player in NHL history to be a Hart finalist from a non-playoff team. McDavid, however, who won the Hart Trophy in the 2016-17 season when he tallied 30 goals and 100 points, continues to improve on each season as he tallied 41 goals and 116 points to reach new career highs.

Several interesting players were left off the finalist list as well, including Washington Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin and Chicago Blackhawks’ Patrick Kane.

 

Oilers Down To Three Candidates In Their GM Search

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It appears that the Oilers are making progress in their search for a new general manager.  In an appearance on 630 CHED (audio link), Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that   Edmonton has narrowed its list of candidates down to three names.  Two have been widely speculated for a while in former Toronto assistant GM Mark Hunter and current Vegas assistant GM Kelly McCrimmon while the third has yet to be determined.  Friedman suggests that Ken Holland would warrant consideration but there are doubts that the now-former Detroit GM would seek that position so quickly.  Interim GM Keith Gretzky could also be the other option being considered.  A decision on who to hire is expected after the World Under-18’s conclude on Sunday.

Snapshots: Bouchard, King, Canucks

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Evan Bouchard has been named OHL Defenseman of the Year, receiving the Max Kaminsky Trophy for 2018-19. Bouchard put up 53 points in 45 games for the London Knights, captaining the squad after returning from a brief stint in the NHL. Selected tenth overall last June, Bouchard played seven games for the Edmonton Oilers at the beginning of the season and recorded his first NHL goal in the process. The 19-year old then returned to the OHL where he routinely logged close to 30 minutes in ice time for the Knights and was a dominant player in the playoffs, recording another 21 points in just 11 games. He is now

Finished his junior career now, it seems likely that Bouchard will spend the 2019-20 season with the Oilers as a full-time member of their defense. The Oakville, Ontario native is an elite puck mover and has excellent offensive instincts. Jumping into rushes or getting pucks through traffic, Bouchard is one of the most dynamic goal-scoring threats in among junior defenseman and will try to carry over that production to the NHL level. Any doubt that he’ll be able to might have been pushed aside when he recorded three points in his AHL debut earlier this week.

  • The Rockford IceHogs have removed the interim tag from Derek King’s job title, making him the head coach moving forward. King took over when Jeremy Colliton was promoted to the NHL and finished with a 29-28-7 record behind the bench. The team has also given assistant coach Anders Sorensen a multi-year extension, providing some stability for the AHL organization.
  • Rick Dhaliwal of Sportsnet provides updates on several Vancouver Canucks prospects, tweeting that Linus Karlsson, Kristoffer Gunnarsson, Artyom Manukyan and Toni Utunen are all expected to stay overseas for next season. As Dhaliwal subsequently points out, Gunnarsson’s exclusive draft rights expire on June 1st of this season meaning he will become an unrestricted free agent if the Canucks don’t get him under contract. The 22-year old defenseman was a fifth round pick in 2017, but has just two points in his 124-game SHL career.

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