With the offseason underway for most teams, the annual coaching carousel is now in full swing. Several teams made moves behind the bench which is among the news recapped in our key stories.
Coaching Positions Filled: A pair of coaches got good news in recent days. The Blues decided they liked how they finished the season so they rewarded Drew Bannister by removing the interim tag and signing their bench boss to a two-year deal. He helped lead St. Louis to a 30-19-5 record after taking over from Craig Berube back in December and will now get the chance to lead the team through what’s expected to be somewhat of a retooling process.
Meanwhile, Travis Green didn’t wait to see if he was going to have his interim tag removed by New Jersey. Having been granted permission to talk to other teams despite being in consideration to stay with the Devils, Green found a new home as he was named as the new bench boss for the Senators, inking a four-year contract. This will be the third team that Green will run having held down the top job having spent parts of five seasons with Vancouver while replacing Lindy Ruff for the stretch run this season. The Sens made another decision of note off the ice as well, electing not to forfeit their first-round pick this year from the penalty assessed in the vetoed Evgenii Dadonov deal two years ago. They’ll have to give up either their 2025 or 2026 first-rounder now.
Coaching Positions Opened: While two vacancies were filled behind the bench, two more opened up. The Jets are now on the lookout for a new head coach after Rick Bowness announced his retirement. The 69-year-old had contemplated retiring after being let go by Dallas in 2022 but decided to give it one more go with Winnipeg. The Jets made the playoffs in both seasons that Bowness was at the helm but they were ousted in the first round each time.
The other opening is in Toronto after Sheldon Keefe was let go after five years with the franchise. The Maple Leafs had plenty of regular season success with Keefe behind the bench; his .665 points percentage is third-best among all active coaches. However, the team hasn’t had much playoff success during that time as they won just one series and were ousted in the opening round by Boston.
IIHF Issues Sanctions: Given that Ivan Fedotov and CSKA Moscow defied the IIHF’s ruling early in the season that Fedotov’s contract with Philadelphia was valid and not theirs, sanctions were expected. Those…
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