With the glut of free agent UFA coaches available, could the Seattle franchise consider hiring a coach as early as this off-season? As well, what happened with the Zach Parise deal at the deadline, and could it be revisited in the summer? Could Josh Anderson be dealt in the off-season? The Insiders discuss all of this and more.
Green light for Seattle to hire coach early
LeBrun: It’s realistic to assume that can now happen. That wasn’t the case originally. I mean when Ron Francis was thinking about his first head coach, he thought he would hire him between January and June 2021. Well now he has cleared it with ownership that he can now go out and hire a coach as early as this summer, a full year out that obviously costs money. But when you look at the depth at the coaching UFA position, you got Gerard Gallant who was fired this year in Vegas, Peter Laviolette of course is still out there. We know Bruce Boudreau is looking for a job and of course Mike Babcock. So that’s the kind of depth we haven’t seen at the coaching position in a while and so that’s why Seattle is thinking of hiring early.
Wild to begin coach search soon
Parise trade could be revisited
GMs to discuss potential Ayres rule
McKenzie: It’s going to be a hot button issue when the general managers get to Boca next week in Florida. And you’re right, James. I think there’s opposite ends of the spectrum on what could or should be done. At one end of the spectrum, you do have some general managers that believe you know what, this could’ve been catastrophic, especially because Ayres worked as an employee of the Toronto Maple Leafs, he’s 42-years-old, he’s never played at a high level. There are some who suggest yeah you know what we need to have each team adopt a non-roster third goalie that travels and lives with the team and pay him so that this potential embarrassment doesn’t happen again. And there’s other people, one general manager I talked to said, are you kidding me? This has only ever happened twice in the National Hockey League. Both times the emergency backup goaltender won the game. What’s everybody getting upset about? And of course there’s the in between – tweak the qualifications, make the standards a little higher, all those discussions next week at the GMs meeting.
Arizona testing issue continues to simmer
Columbus likely to trade Anderson?
LeBrun: I think there’s a strong possibility he gets dealt. He’s an RFA on July 1, he’s a year away from UFA so any normal circumstance would be do we sign this guy long term, we don’t want to walk him to UFA. Well that’s one layer. The other layer is this. I think there’s been a difference of opinion between the team and the player’s camp about how to handle an injury that was originally announced as four-to-six weeks back in December, well now that’s two months ago. So I think there’s been some tension here and I foresee a trade and it’s going to be a big one. A 25-year-old power winger.
Duthie: Josh Anderson, No. 1 on Frank Seravalli’s Trade Bait list.