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Edmonton Oilers GM Ken Holland to Columbus? Rumours won't quiet down, says NHL insider
This in from NHL insider Andy Strickland: “Ken Holland to CBJ rumors don’t seem to quiet down anytime soon. Maybe a long run to the Final would change things but there are many who feel he could be headed to Columbus to fill their GM vacancy. Mentor Rick Nash to eventually take over?” My take 1. This is a credible rumour on a few levels. First of all, Strickland is a credible source, a long-time writer on the NHL, the St. Louis Blues Rinkside Report for Bally Sports Midwest and host of 590 the Fan KFNS, co-host of the Cam & Strick podcast. 2. It’s also credible because Ken Holland’s contract is up in Edmonton after this season. Jeff Jackson has moved in as the big boss of Edmonton Oilers hockey operations. I could see Holland staying on as a senior advisor, but Jackson has now had the entire season to learn the ropes from Holland. It’s hard to imagine that Jackson would not now prefer his own man and a younger man in the G.M. job. Related Plot twist: Vancouver benches Top 6 winger, creates Swede Line for Game 5 Knoblauch picks Pick for Game 5 3. Perhaps Holland would prefer a move stateside. He spent a lot of his life in Michigan. He might not be ready to fully retire. He could take a general manager job, or maybe he’d like to lead hockey ops. Who says he’s too old? Lou Lamoriello is 81 and he’s still the hockey boss for the New York Islanders. Jim Rutherford, a big cheese in Vancouver, is 75. Holland is just 68. Why retire when you’re having fun? 4. It’s too early to do a full assessment of Holland’s time with the Oilers. Much depends on this playoff run. There have been moves that failed, such as trading for Andreas Athanasiou and over-paying on a few deals, most notably the Jack Campbell contract. There’s been some moves that have worked out well, such as signing Zach Hyman, trading for Brett Kulak and Mattias Ekholm, and taking a chance on Evander Kane when so many other NHL GMs were too cautious and/or too politically correct to give the notorious Kane another chance. The story of Holland’s Oilers, though, is yet to be fully written, with a crucial chapter going into the books tonight. At the Cult of Hockey Plot twist: Vancouver benches Top 6 winger, creates Swede Line for Game 5 Knoblauch picks Pick for Game 5
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Plot twist: Vancouver Canucks bench Top 6 forward, go with Swede Line in Game 5 vs Edmonton Oilers
This in from Brendan Batchelor, play-by-play announcer of Vancouver Canucks radio, news that Vancouver is benching Top 6 winger Ilya Mikheyev and grinder Sam Lafferty and going with an all Swede line led by struggling Elias Pettersson. Höglander. Lindholm. Pettersson. Suter. Miller. Boeser. Joshua. Blueger. Garland. Di Guiseppe. Åman. Podkolzin. Extras: Mikheyev, Lafferty, Karlsson Hughes. Hronek. Soucy. Myers. Zadorov. Cole. Friedman. Juulsen. Said Sportsnet’s Irfaan Gaffar “All 🇸🇪 (Swedish) line reunited. Pettersson on wing. Hopefully they’ll be able to scoot around and get some more offence going for Vancouver tonight.” Sportsnet’s Dan Riccio noted: “Höglander-Lindholm-Pettersson played 57 minutes together at 5v5 during the regular season. They scored 5 goals and gave up 2 while carrying a 48.9xGF%. (as per moneypuck).” And Mike Kelly, analyst for the NHL network: “Elias ‘The Fixer’ Lindholm will have Elias Pettersson on his wing tonight. Great opportunity for Pettersson to increase his impact in the playoffs as he’s been stuck on the perimeter in the offensive zone far too often. Pettersson scored 40% of his goals from the inner slot this season – he has 0 shots from there in 10 playoff games.” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said that he felt he had to give Pettersson better linemates, reported Noah Strang of The Daily Hive. Said Tocchet: “We watched video together, he’s energized… That’s my job. I’ve got to help the kid out too.” My take 1. Star forward Pettersson has been in a scoring funk in the playoffs, just one goal and three assists in 10 games. Changing up his linemates is a way to get things going, and that includes the benching of his former linemate forward Ilya Mikheyev. Mikheyev is in the second year of a four-year deal that pays him $4.75 million per. He’s been a Top 6 forward for the Canucks much of the season. 2. Mikheyev has no goals and no points in 10 playoffs games. He’s playing just 12 minutes a game. In the regular season, he played 14 minutes per game and had 31 points in 78 games. Clearly Mikheyev was one of the 5-to-7 passengers that Tocchet lashed out at after the Game Four loss. There’s been no shortage of criticism of Mikheyev in Vancouver, with blogger Daniel Wagner saying, “I can’t speak for Elias Pettersson, but if I was an elite hockey player who had to watch my primary linemate repeatedly lob pucks into the crests of opposing goaltenders, I would also sink into an existential malaise.” There’s also heat on Pettersson, with radio announcer Brook Ward of Sportsnet saying: “Maybe Pettersson simply can’t handle the tough going of the playoffs. He looks like he’s about 14O pounds. Looks like a kid playing against men. Maybe playoffs are simply not a good fit for him.” Related Rest by day, thunder by night for Kane, Draisaitl and Ekholm Knoblauch picks Picks: Happy trend started for Calvin Pickard 3 years ago and now look! 3. Vancouver has got to change up something. The Canucks are in this series mainly because of goaltending, Van getting great goaltending from Arturs Silovs and the Oilers not getting it from Stuart Skinner. The Grade A shots in the series are 70 for the Oilers, just 38 for Vancouver. The Oilers are dominating the flow of play. For Vancouver to win, they must reverse that trend somewhat. 4. After the Game Four loss, Tocchet included Pettersson on his list of playoff passengers, a heavy insult for a top forward, but the coach also mentioned that having better linemates for Pettersson might work. Vancouver has now made that attempt, forming a Swede Line, with Pettersson, Nils Hoglander and Elias Lindholm. Hoglander has just one assist in eight games, but Lindholm has been one of the best Canucks in the playoffs with eight points in 10 games. 5. Things are certainly getting salty in Vancouver. As you will recall, Tocchet questioned the effort and performance of a third of his team after Game 4, saying, “We need five or six guys to get going here. I mean, it’s the Stanley Cup playoffs. With some guys I don’t know if they thought it was playoffs. We can’t play with 12 guys. We got to figure it out quick.” And: “You can’t win if you have five or six passengers, or seven. I don’t know how many, but there was at least half a dozen just passengers tonight.” Asked about Pettersson not getting it done, he said, “Like I said there’s five or six guys. He’s got to get going. I don’t know what else to say.” It will be interesting to see what this public scolding brings out in the Canucks but it’s hard to imagine one team will be more desperate than the other. This Oilers team has crashed out of the playoffs repeatedly in the playoffs. It’s won some series, but has yet to get out of the Western Conference. The clock is ticking on the Oilers, so plenty of reason for them to play with ferocity and urgency as well. 6. Optimism is now rising in Vancouver, it seems, with Canucks radio host Satiar Shah saying, “Old enough to remember people putting a fork in JT Miller and Brock Boeser last year to watch them have a resurgence this season. The same lesson will apply to Pettersson who has clearly been underwhelming but he’s far from the finished product.” P.S. Here is how I remember Darren Dutchyshen, the TSN anchor who worked at Edmonton ITV in the 1990s, endearing himself to sports fans with his wit and humour. At the Cult of Hockey McCURDY: Rest by day, thunder by night the recipe for Kane, Ekholm and Draisaitl STAPLES: Risky bet from Vancouver Canucks’ Rick Tocchet in high-stakes game with Kris Knoblauch of Edmonton Oilers
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SIMMONS: Brilliant GM work by Bill Zito in Florida trumps everything Kyle Dubas did with Leafs
When Kyle Dubas was named general manager of the Maple Leafs some six years ago, he began his hockey journey fortunately with Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner and Morgan Rielly already on a star-laden roster. You couldn’t ask for a better launching point for a young GM on the rise. When Bill Zito was hired as general manager of the Florida Panthers, without much applause, he being 21 years older than Dubas, he inherited a roster that included Sasha Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Aaron Ekblad and what seemed to be an overpaid goaltender in Sergei Bobrovsky. The Panthers had missed the playoffs the year before Zito arrived. They were undoubtedly a work in progress for the former player agent to solve. The first big move Dubas made in Toronto was the free-agent signing of John Tavares, so exciting at the time, and so strangling and numbing after COVID-19 hit and the salary cap froze, hampering his ability to be bold in his Maple Leafs manoeuvring. Zito, who arrived on the job one year after Dubas and inherited less, wasn’t considered the next great anything. He began with a Panthers team in 19th place in the league and all he’s done since is had a near-sensational run with Florida, winning the Presidents’ Trophy in 2022 even after losing his coach, Joel Quenneville, to unofficial suspension. Dubas had five seasons to make the Maple Leafs better. Zito, in five seasons, has put on a managerial clinic that has everyone in hockey taking notice. He has moved the Panthers from average to great, with bold creative deals, and built a team that already has played for one Stanley Cup and likely will play for more under his supervision. The Panthers likely are on their way to a second Eastern Conference final in two years after winning a Presidents’ Trophy the year before with a different kind of team and a different coach. Zito was like one of those TV show renovators — he took an axe to a lot of the Panthers roster. Most GMs fall in love with first-place teams. Zito let coach Andrew Brunette walk, hired Paul Maurice and began the further dismantling of the roster. This after a 122-point season. In all, Zito has changed five of his six defencemen. He has changed 10 of his 12 starting forwards. He has altered backup goaltenders behind Bobrovsky, many of them playing a large role in the success of the Panthers. But the work done — in particular the trades and free-agent signings (none of which got the splash of a Tavares signing) — has not won him a Jim Gregory Award for GM of the year, but if there was an award for GM of the past five years, he’d be the runaway winner. Over a three-month period in 2021, Zito showed his moxie as a manager by making deals for right-shot defenceman Brandon Montour, game-changing centre Sam Bennett and scoring winger Sam Reinhart. He took advantage of the inexperienced GM in Buffalo, Kevyn Adams, getting Reinhart for goaltender Devon Levi and a first-round draft pick just after he plucked Montour for a third-round choice from Buffalo. What’s happened since then? Montour, the pending free agent, has been so good on the Florida blueline that he gets Team Canada mentions for the 2026 Olympic team. So does Reinhart, who was second behind Matthews in goal-scoring this year in Florida and also has his contract up at the end of the season. All the whirling dervish Bennett has done is take Brad Marchand out of the second round of the playoffs, all but physically overwhelm the Maple Leafs last year and, in between, has provided the Panthers with a different kind of look as an unconventional second-line centre. That was 2021 for Zito. By comparison, that summer, Dubas signed David Kampf, Michael Bunting and Ondrej Kase as free agents. Almost all of the Panthers’ big moves came after Zito signed a relatively inexpensive free agent in one-time Leafs draft pick Carter Verhaeghe. All he has done is score at a 31-goal pace over his four seasons in Florida. But the big move — the franchise-changing move — would come in the summer of 2022. The Panthers had finished first in the league with Brunette as interim coach and led by the explosive winger, Jonathan Huberdeau. There was something about the team — even with a record 122 points — that Zito didn’t buy. On July 22, 2022, he made a blockbuster deal with Brad Treliving, then GM of the Calgary Flames, to bring Matthew Tkachuk to South Florida. In the trade, which seemed relatively even at the time, he gave up Huberdeau and one of his top defencemen, MacKenzie Weegar. It hasn’t turned out to be even at all. Treliving was fired in Calgary. The Flames are now in rebuild mode. And Tkachuk has become one of the NHL’s premier leaders in his two seasons in Florida. The deals for Bennett and Tkachuk do not look impressive on Treliving’s resume at a time he has been given the reins to run the Leafs. Whether intentional or not, the moves Zito has made, one by one, have taken the Panthers to a new level. He picked up Gustav Forsling on waivers at the delayed start of the 2021 season. All Forsling did this season was lead the NHL in plus-minus at a rather startling plus-56. He will get some Norris Trophy votes. Makar scores 2 goals, Avs win Game 5 to stay alive in NHL playoffs Maple Leafs' prospect Easton Cowan caps OHL playoff ride with MVP honours Zito had to beef up his defence of Ekblad and not much else and added near all-stars in Montour and Forsling and later signed veterans Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Dmitri Kulikov at rather inexpensive prices. Dubas’ best signing on the blueline was bringing in the now-extinct TJ Brodie. Since his large moves, Zito has done some roster finishing. He brought in Steven Lorentz, Eetu Luostarinen and Kevin Stenlund — all inexpensive depth forwards — before he swung big for rentals Vladimir Tarasenko and Kyle Okposo at the trade deadline. And now, a possible shot at the Stanley Cup, brought to you by Bill Zito. The general manager whose name everyone should know. ssimmons@postmedia.com x.com/simmonssteve
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Coyotes goaltender Connor Ingram named Masterson Memorial Trophy winner
NEW YORK — Arizona Coyotes goaltender Connor Ingram has been named the winner of the Bill Masterson Memorial Trophy. The award recognizes the player who “best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey.” It was presented by the Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA) to honour the late Bill Masterton. Calgary Flames defenceman Oliver Kylington and Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen were the other two finalists. Ingram posted a 23-21-3 record, 2.91 goals-against average, .907 save percentage and tied for a league-best six shutouts in 50 appearances for Arizona in 2023-24. Ingram almost retired due to an undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and lingering depression before he sought help through the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance program in 2021. Claimed off waivers by Arizona in October 2022, Ingram appeared in 27 games for the club in 2022-23 before establishing himself as the Coyotes’ starting netminder this season.
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