Will free agents be eyeing the up-and-coming Montreal Canadiens because of Ivan Demidov?
TSN: Will the arrival of Ivan Demidov make the Montreal Canadiens a more desirable free agent destination this offseason? Darren Dreger thinks so.
“… but they didn’t expect it would be this immediate in terms of his NHL debut, so if you’re looking at the bigger picture, which we are here, you can also look around the division and look around the top contenders in the league and recognize that the Montreal Canadiens are going to have to add some pieces.
They’d like to add some top-six forwards either through free agency or through trade. So if you’re a player who has trade protection and Montreal isn’t on the list, or you’re a free agent looking at all your other options, and you see a star quality player like Demidov, that just adds to the sales pitch.”
NHL Trade Deadline Playoff Impacts from the West
It appears Rick Tocchet won’t coach at the World Championship given the situation with the Canucks
TSN: Chris Johnston said that Rick Tocchet had been a candidate to coach Team Canada at the World Championships. He was a part of the Four Nations coaching staff for Team Canada. It’s appearing like he may no longer be in consideration given the situation with the Vancouver Canucks.
“They’re looking for continuity, but this is a tough time right now for Tocchet and I think especially if there’s such a difficult season for the Vancouver Canucks, t’s expected the postmortem is going to be rather extensive, and that involves a lot of meetings with key players on the team.
Obviously, Tocchet also has to have conversations with Patrik Allvin and Jim Rutherford about his own future with his contract expiring, and so the timing right now does not seem to be right for Tocchet to take that extra responsibility with Canada.”
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