Each week in “Rink Rumblings” we’ll take an in-depth look at some of the players, games, news and rumors from around the National Hockey League in the past week.
Coaching Compensation Craziness
The most peculiar event of last week was not that Columbus fired Todd Richards eight games into the regular season in favor of John Tortorella, but that the fact that the Blue Jackets had to give the Vancouver Canucks a draft pick as compensation.
The Stanley Cup winner was signed by Vancouver to a five-year, $10 million contract in 2013 after being let go by the New York Rangers and lasted only one season before being fired. As per the rules adopted by the NHL this summer for hiring of coaches or general managers still under contract for other teams, a club is compensated a third round pick if it is done during the off season and a second round pick if it is done during the season.
The Canucks should have been thanking Columbus for hiring Tortorella and eliminating their responsibility to pay their former coach $6 Million over the next three years. The two sides reached an accommodation, with Vancouver paying a portion of the salary and Blue Jackets giving up the draft pick, but the new rule nearly prevented Tortorella from getting another shot behind the bench.
A similar quandary could prevent former Leafs and Ducks coach Randy Carlyle from a second go around in Anaheim if the Ducks continue to struggle and decide to replace Bruce Boudreau. Boudreau may be on the verge of losing his job after consecutive shutout losses to Minnesota and Chicago and a 4-3 defeat in Dallas on Tuesday.
The Maple Leafs would likely not waive compensation for Carlyle (who is under contract until the end of the 2015-16 season) since adding a high draft pick would aid in their rebuild and would help compensate for the pair of third round picks they have to surrender for head coach Mike Babcock and GM Lou Lamoriello.
Ducks GM Bob Murray may omit Carlyle from consideration and choose to promote assistant Paul McClean, Trent Yawney or possibly former Edmonton Oilers coach Dallas Eakins as a less costly option.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that the NHL Board of Governors will address this issue at the next meeting and that possibly any compensation for coaches fired by other teams will be eliminated after January 1st.
The Over-The-Hill Gang
The St Louis Blues have been plagued by injuries to key players early in the season. Patrik Berglund is out until the New Year after undergoing off-season shoulder surgery, defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk has been in and out of the lineup with groin problems, center Paul Stastny could be out up to six weeks with a broken foot and winger Jaden Schwartz suffered a fractured ankle last weekend that will keep him out at least three months.
Head coach Ken Hitchcock is giving young blueliners Colton Parayko and Joel Edmundson an opportunity to play while Shattenkirk is in and out of the lineup, but is relying more on veteran forwards in the twilight of their career to fill in the gaps up front.
35-year-old Scott Gomez and 32-year-old Scottie Upshall were invited to training camp on professional tryout contracts and signed to one-year-deals at the start the season and the injuries to Stastny and Schwartz prompted GM Doug Armstrong to offer tryouts to former Devils Martin Havlat and Dainius Zubrus.
The Blues have young forward options inside the organization in Robby Fabbri, Ivan Barbashev, Dmirtij Jaskin and Ty Rattie that all have a potential upside greater than Havlat or Zubrus can offer, but this may be a case of Hitchcock preferring experienced players who will not make mistakes.
Early Bird Specials
Teams traditionally do not make trades until the 20-game mark of the regular season, which coincides with American Thanksgiving. That may not be the case this year, since a number of teams that were expected to be playoff contenders have struggled mightily.
Columbus continues to look for help on the blueline and are shopping forward Cam Atkinson. According to Aaron Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch, the Jackets may be targeting Devils defenseman Adam Larsson, but it would be curious for New Jersey GM Ray Shero to trade the 22-year-old after signing him to a six-year contract extension this summer.
With the injury to Duncan Keith, the Blackhawks may be looking for some veteran depth on the blueline with veteran Michal Rozsival still a few weeks away. Chicago does not have a lot of room to work with under the salary cap and head coach Joel Quenneville has had to rely more on youngsters Trevor van Riemsdyk and Viktor Svedberg to pick up the slack.
In their 1-0 overtime victory over Anaheim on Monday, Brent Seabrook played close to 27 minutes, Niklas Hjalmarsson over 24 minutes, while sophomore van Riemsdyk saw nearly 22 minutes and rookie Svedberg more than 19 minutes of ice time.
Winnipeg’s Paul Postma, who has been a healthy scratch for all nine of the Jets games this season and makes under $1 Million has been mentioned as a trade possibility.
Written by Michael Augello, who can be found on twitter @MikeInBuffalo
