Central Notes: Korchinski, Prospal, Rodrigue
After keeping him in the AHL for most of the past two years, the Chicago Blackhawks face a difficult scenario regarding Kevin Korchinski and his future. A restricted free agent this summer, Scott Powers of The Athletic believes they’ll retain Korchinski, while letting Ethan Del Mastro walk this offseason.
That’s not to say there was any indication the Blackhawks would let Korchinski head to a new team, but it’s still a question of where he fits. Powers rightly pointed out that Korchinski has little trade value (compared to his draft positioning) at the moment, is likely too good to return to the AHL, and not good enough to warrant consistent NHL playing time.
Hopefully, for Chicago’s sake, Korchinski has a big summer and comes into training camp like a bat out of hell. It wouldn’t do much for his development to keep him as the team’s seventh defenseman next season, but that’s the way things are headed unless he takes a major step forward.
Other notes from the Central Division:
- After spending the last three years with the AHL’s Rochester Americans, former player Václav Prospal may be headed to the NHL for the first time in his coaching career. On his 32 Thoughts podcast, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman indicated that Prospal may join the St. Louis Blues next season as an assistant coach. The last time we worked in the NHL was in the 2013-14 season when he served as a professional scout for the New York Rangers.
- According to a team announcement, the Minnesota Wild have named Sylvain Rodrigue as the team’s Director of Goaltending, a newly created post. Rodrigue will be tasked with working closely with Minnesota’s goaltending coaches at all levels of the organization and creating development plans for all of the team’s netminders. Rodrigue spent the last two years with the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers after spending nearly a decade in the Edmonton Oilers organization.
Snapshots: Merela, Sabres Staff, Krog
Yesterday, Lightning restricted free agent forward Waltteri Merela signed a one-year deal with SC Bern of the Swiss National League. The Lightning reportedly wanted Merela to return to the organization (as per Eduardo A. Encina of the Tampa Bay Times) but couldn’t offer him the guaranteed money that he could get abroad because of their need to keep salary cap flexibility. The Lightning plan to make Merela a qualifying offer to retain his NHL rights until he is 27.
Other notes from around the league:
- The Buffalo Sabres have hired Chris Bergeron as a scout, shares Lance Lysowski of the Buffalo News. Bergeron has served as the head coach of Miami (Ohio) University’s men’s hockey team for the last five seasons, posting a cumulative – and dismal – 35-116-16 record with the club. Those results earn Bergeron the title of lowest win percentage in Miami’s history, narrowly beating out Bill Davidge’s 39-111-3 record across four seasons in the late 1980s. Bergeron still has a storied hockey career despite a slow go of things in Miami, Ohio – serving as the head coach of Bowling Green State University for nine seasons and accumulating 43 AHL games, 119 ECHL, and 111 IHL games across a seven-year professional career of his own. Bergeron is expected to, unsurprisingly, serve as Buffalo’s NCAA scout after Jerry Forton was promoted to ‘Director of Amateur Scouting’.
- Buffalo has also shared that they will be maintaining AHL assistant coaches Vinny Prospal and Nathan Paetsch, shares Lysowski (Twitter link). The duo – both former NHL players – concluded the first year of their coaching careers last season, helping lead the Rochester Americans to a strong 39-23-7 record. With a year under their belts, the novice coaches will now lend their lessons learned to new head coach Mike Leone as he enters the first pro role of his own coaching career.
- The Vancouver Canucks have hired former NHL center Jason Krog as a skills and development coach for the NHL and AHL rosters (Twitter link). Krog played in four games with Vancouver to end a 202-game career in the NHL that was largely spent with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. Krog scored 22 goals and 59 games across his career, including a single-season high of 25 points in 2002-03. He flaunted fantastic agility and skill as an undersized pivot in a physical era of the NHL – and will now look to bring those lessons to a young Canucks organization.