Kitchen's firing is expected to cause more conflict between Quenneville and general manager Stan Bowman, wrote Hine. The two Blackhawks staffers engaged in a power struggle over personnel back in 2012 that was alleviated by the pair of subsequent titles.
Bowman likely fired Kitchen to reassert authority over the organization's personnel and to send everyone, including Quenneville, a message, according to the report.
The GM said Saturday that changes were coming, but the head coach was not going to be let go at this juncture, following a first-round sweep at the hands of the Nashville Predators.
Kitchen was fired Monday after seven seasons with the Blackhawks that began when he was reunited with Quenneville in the summer of 2010.
The two men are "best friends," according to the report, and their time working together dates back to 1998-2003 with the St. Louis Blues.
They also played together with the Colorado Rockies and New Jersey Devils from 1979-83.
The award is voted on by the PWHA and recognizes players who best exemplify perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to the game.
Anderson earned his nomination after the tough year he endured. Back in late October, his wife Nicholle was diagnosed with a rare form of throat cancer.
The diagnosis forced Anderson to miss various chunks of time with Senators during the regular season, but still turned in incredible performances. Ultimately, he concluded the year with a 25-11-4 record in 40 games with a 2.28 goals-against average and a .926 save percentage.
Cogliano got the nod for his unmatched durability. The 29-year-old is now in his 10th season in the league and has yet to miss a game since he stepped on the ice in his first season in 2007-08.
He is the current Ironman with 779 consecutive games played and has now played the second most games to begin a career in NHL history behind Doug Jarvis, who played 964 games.
Ryan rounds out the nominees, having made the NHL on a full-time basis this season after a rather unorthodox journey to the league. Ryan earned his first full-time gig with a team this season, playing 67 games with the Hurricanes and chipping in 11 goals and 29 points.
This comes after he went undrafted while playing in the Western Hockey League, the United Hockey League, for the University of Alberta, in Austria, in the Swedish Elite League, and the American Hockey League.
Ryan has certainly payed his dues and is finally living the dream.
Los Angeles Kings forward Marian Gaborik underwent a procedure and won't be ready for the start of training camp, according to Helene Elliott of the LA Times. Newly named general manager Rob Blake also said the club won't buy out Gaborik, per Elliott.
Whether Blake had plans to buy out Gaborik is irrelevant now, since the league prohibits teams from buying out injured players.
Gaborik comes with a cap hit of $4.875 million through the 2020-21 season. Given how much he has struggled the past two seasons, a buy out seemed like a legitimate possibility.
It appears Blake is willing to give the veteran forward the benefit of the doubt, though, as he said Gaborik played hurt and will have a clean slate next season.
Over the past two seasons, Gaborik has played in just 110 of a possible 164 games, recording 22 goals and 21 assists in that span. The 35-year-old has a long injury history, dating back to his younger days with the Minnesota Wild.
It's possible Blake could try to trade Gaborik this offseason, but it's hard to believe any team in the league - even the Vegas Golden Knights - would take on his contract.
Another season has gone by, and defensive woes are still holding Alex Galchenyuk back from becoming a true No. 1 center.
In the Montreal Canadiens' end-of-season press conference on Monday, general manager Marc Bergevin said Galchenyuk's short-term future will be playing on the wing, according to Tony Marinaro of TSN 690 Montreal.
Galchenyuk spent the bulk of 2015-16 and 2016-17 playing down the middle under two different head coaches, but both Michel Therrien and Claude Julien have had a difficult time trusting him enough to stick on the club's top line. This season, he was often left in the dust to skate with grinders in the bottom six, leaving Phillip Danault and Tomas Plekanec to center the team's top two lines.
This comes in spite of the fact that Galchenyuk is by far their most talented center. A case could be made that he even has more pure talent than wingers Max Pacioretty and Alexander Radulov.
"Ideally, we'd love to have (Galchenyuk) play center," said Julien, who was hired as the head coach on February 14. "You have to be good at both ends of the ice and you have to be responsible."
(Photo courtesy: Action Images)
Galchenyuk has now spent five seasons in the NHL. He is still just 23 years old, but if he hasn't grasped the concept of defense by now, when will he?
He certainly has the size (6-foot-1, 210 pounds) and skating ability to be a true No. 1 center. All the tools are in place. He just needs to learn how to apply his offensive creativity to the defensive side of the puck. A move back to the wing will only delay his defensive potential further.
"Hopefully he took a step back this year to take two steps forward next year," said Bergevin, according to TSN's John Lu.
From a statistical perspective, Galchenyuk has steadily improved almost every season since coming into the league as an 18-year-old.
Year
Age
PPG
ATOI
12-13
18
0.56
12:19
13-14
19
0.48
14:24
14-15
20
0.58
16:26
15-16
21
0.68
16:16
16-17
22
0.72
15:56
*Bold = season spent primarily as a center.
Yet, with Galchenyuk, it clearly isn't about just the offensive production. The move to wing to start next year would signify that Montreal's patience with his defensive game is wearing thin.
"At some point, players have to take ownership," said Bergevin. "Until young players realize there's an issue and they need to get better, they never will."
Galchenyuk admitted that he needs to work on all aspects of his game. He wants to be "a very complete player."
If Montreal fails to address the center position in the offseason, they could be looking at another early playoff exit. Teams comprised of Plekanec, Danault, and Torrey Mitchell down the middle usually don't make it too far. Galchenyuk is their X-factor. If he can improve his play without the puck and earn the trust of Julien, it'll go a long way for Montreal making a deep playoff run in 2018.
Rob Blake knew he wanted John Stevens as his head coach when Darryl Sutter was fired.
"There was no search," the Los Angeles Kings general manager told reporters Monday. "We went to John as soon as the changes were made."
Stevens was named the Kings' new head coach Sunday, less than two weeks after the organizational shakeup by parent company AEG that left Sutter and former general manager Dean Lombardi unemployed, while Blake and new team president Luc Robitaille earned promotions.
Stevens, who had been the Kings' associate head coach since 2014 and a Los Angeles assistant since 2010, already has a plan to fix a team that failed to qualify for the postseason this spring.
John Stevens: "There needs to be a real focus on getting more shots in the middle of the ice and going hard to the net" pic.twitter.com/4shu5d8tBz
The Kings were the NHL's best possession team this season, but they scored only 2.43 goals per game, which ranked sixth-worst in the league.
Stevens said Anze Kopitar will remain captain next season. The center had the worst non-lockout season of his NHL career from an offensive standpoint, managing only 12 goals and 52 points in 76 games.
Montreal Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin spoke to the media Monday, and he discussed the curious case of Price and his pending contract situation - he's eligible for an extension July 1 - where he made it quite clear that Price won't be going anywhere, even breaking a personal rule in the process.
“I never comment on trades, but in this case I will; [the answer is] no.” Bergevin on the possibility of trading Carey Price #gohabsgo
Instead, Bergevin expressed his intent to not only sign Price to an extension, but to preferably do so around July 1, according to ESPN's Pierre LeBrun.
"We’ll find the means to get (an extension) done," Bergevin said. "Carey is a main piece to our team."
Earlier in the day, Price was adamant in his desire to remain in Montreal, feeling the team still has the pieces to win a Stanley Cup.
Price has one year remaining on his contract with a cap hit of $6.5 million before he becomes an unrestricted free agent. New York Rangers netminder Henrik Lundqvist rakes in the most money by an NHL goaltender, with a cap hit of $8.5 million. One would expect Price's next contract could make him the NHL's highest-paid goalie.
Sergei Bobrovsky is indeed up for the award - given to the best goalie in the regular season - but once again proved to be a bit shaky in the postseason, allowing 20 goals in five games against the Pittsburg Penguins.
Still, general manager Jarmo Kekalainen believes regular-season Bobrovsky and playoff Bobrovsky will merge at some point down the road.
"He will be better (in playoffs)," Kekalainen said Monday per, Aaron Portzline of the Post Dispatch. "I'm convinced about it. I'm 100 percent confident in it."
Bobrovsky has made 11 career playoff appearances for the Blue Jackets, posting a save percentage of .897 in a pair of first-round series losses. Over five regular seasons in Columbus, however, his save percentage sits at .923, with a Vezina win back in 2013 to go with this year's finalist nod.
Ideally for Columbus, Bobrovsky will prove Kekalainen right by this time next year.
An early playoff loss has put the San Jose Sharks at a bit of a crossroads.
With the team unable to build on last year's Stanley Cup Final appearance and achieve the goal of being the last team standing, general manager Doug Wilson now faces the dilemma of what to do with longtime Sharks Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau, both of whom are set to become unrestricted free agents on July 1.
Both players expressed a desire to re-sign with the club on Monday.
Thornton says he wants to come back. "We'll have to see. I'm sure we'll be talking." #SJSharks
Marleau and Thornton rank in the top three in franchise history in games played, goals, assists, and points, and have both served as captain during their tenures. They've both seen their leadership roles reduced in recent seasons, however, with trade rumors swirling as recently as just prior to the Sharks' run to the Final last season.
Whether Wilson and the Sharks decide to retain their services or keep trending younger remains to be seen.
The NHL playoffs are well underway - and with them, the greatest tradition in sports begins. I'm talking about playoff beards. Other sports have tried to copy the phenomenon, but no one does it quite like the NHL.
That said, not all playoff beards are created equal. In this article, I narrow them all down to the five different kinds you'll see over the course of the Stanley Cup playoffs:
The Jumbo
Joe Thornton and Brent Burns, San Jose Sharks
(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)
How can you not love the two shaggiest, longest, dirtiest beards in the National Hockey League? Growing beards like this takes serious commitment - years of it, in fact. If you want one of these, you have to be all-in, which doesn’t surprise me with these two. They are two of the best players and characters in the league.
Unfortunately for the Sharks, these beards don’t have fatigue-fighters. After a long playoff run in 2016, a World Cup, and 82 regular-season games, these two stars and their teammates ran out of gas en route to a first-round playoff knockout at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers.
The Kassian
Zack Kassian, Edmonton Oilers
(Photo courtesy: Action Images)
Here you have the Elvis Presley style, where you grow the mutton chops on the sides with a clean shave down the middle. This beard will scare the life out of the other team, get you two game-winning goals, and throw some huge hits in the first round of the playoffs. It also captures the resurgence of a career, in which you reward the team that gave you a shot after others had given up on you.
The Crosby
Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins
This is the beard you sport when you’re still the best player in the NHL, but no matter how old you get, the damn thing just won’t grow (I'm more of a Crosby beard guy, minus the skill). This configuration gets you two Stanley Cups and 144 points in 129 career playoff games - and that's not all.
It also has superhero powers, allowing you to score a playoff goal on Vezina nominee Sergei Bobrovsky with a one-timer from an impossible angle. It goes crossbar down and helps your team advance to the second round. Who needs a thick playoff beard when you can do that?
The McMatthews
Connor McDavid, Edmonton Oilers; Auston Matthews, Toronto Maple Leafs
(Photo courtesy: Action Images)
This is what you get when you’re not old enough to grow a full beard. In fact, you can’t grow one at all, but you can still lead the NHL in scoring with 100 points or score 40 goals as a rookie.
The future of the NHL is in good hands. McDavid has led his team to the second round of the playoffs, while Matthews has given Leafs Nation a future to get excited about. With all the money these two teams save on razors, maybe both can sign a No. 1 defenseman, because that’s all they're missing.
The Holtby
Braden Holtby, Washington Capitals
(Photo courtesy: Action Images)
This lumberjack-style beard is thick and bushy - and looks as though it’s a full-body beard grown from the chest up. This beard will get you a Vezina trophy nod, and will carry you through the first round of the playoffs against a young Leafs team that had nothing to lose.
It has mental toughness as well, since being a huge favorite to an underdog team comes with all sorts of pressures as a goalie. Holtby handled Round 1 with a few bends, but he never broke, which is why, to me, the Capitals are still the odds-on favorite to win the Stanley Cup.
So which is my true favorite?
It’s definitely the one on a player that has scars, missing teeth, and captures the pure exhaustion of pouring your soul into finally hoisting the Stanley Cup.
