During the Canucks' general manager search, we tossed around the idea of Hockey Canada's Bob Nicholson becoming a part of the organization. Now, TSN is reporting that Nicholson is close to taking an NHL job. From Darren Dreger:
Yes, very soon news will break that Bob Nicholson is jumping into the National Hockey League. He left Hockey Canada and will join the high ranks of an NHL team in a high executive capacity - above the level of president and below that of an NHL owner. But he's joining the NHL.
Vancouver has been mentioned as a possible destination, but the news bubbling on Twitter today is that Nicholson is likely headed for Edmonton—possibly to replace Kevin Lowe.
The Oilers have already made one hire this week, bringing in Craig Ramsay as an assistant coach, so we know they're working on their plan for next year. It looks like Dallas Eakins may actually break the pattern of the annual head coaching change, so it makes sense that they'll be looking to tweak the organization in other areas.
If Vancouver is still in the running, I'm not against the idea of Nicholson joining the Canucks. It seems like it could be a lot of cooks in the kitchen at the upper-management level, but he's another very well-connected hockey man whose knowledge could make a difference both in terms of evaluating prospects and potential trade/player personnel situations. Not holding my breath, though—Edmonton does seem like a very logical fit.
Nothing real new as far as the league's coaching situation today. Dale Tallon told reporters that he had a "real good" interview with Dan Bylsma on Tuesday in New York but emphasized that his candidate list still has six names on it. The others are Ron Wilson, Gerard Gallant, Marc Crawford, Bill Peters and Tom Renney.
Meanwhile, it sounds like the Carolina Hurricanes are targeting either Ulf Samuelsson or John Stevens. I'd have no problem with Stevens coming to Vancouver, but my gut feeling remains that the Canucks are going down the Wilie Desjardins road.
By the way, Desjardins' Texas Stars won Game 3 of the Calder Cup Final 2-1 in overtime on Wednesday, taking a 2-1 lead in the series.
Rule Changes out of General Managers' Meeting:
There's not a lot of detail yet on the rule changes that the NHL will be looking to implement for next year, but this article and video from NHL.com starts to lay out the key ideas.
Nothing will be definite under the Board of Governors' meetings in July, but here are some of the topics being discussed:
• Fines for embellishment, on a sliding scale for repeat offenders. Fines seem pretty pointless to me—it's not like any of the players are worrying about money when the league minimum salary is $550,000 a year. This statement from Colin Campbell makes it sound more like the goal is to use the fines as a tool for public shaming:
It's not about taking a player out of the game; it's about making everybody aware that this player does embellish. More than that it's about the players who don't embellish that ask the question, 'Should I start embellishing now because I'm on an uneven playing field here, they're getting calls because they embellish?'
I think the success or failure of this initiative will lie in its execution. A very subjective issue at a time when much of the focus is on solving problems that are black and white.
• Overtime: ice scrape before OT instead of shootout; teams switch ends. Thumbs-up from me here. The longer change in OT could open up the ice a bit more on the four-on-four.
• Widen faceoff hashmarks to give more room to make plays off faceoff. OK. Also, no more using a decoy player to get kicked out of the faceoff circle to buy time on icing calls. That's good, and something that needed to be addressed.
• Trapezoid behind the net is expanded. A sign that Martin Brodeur's career really is drawing to a close. Goalies permitted to handle pucks once again.
• Coach's challenge. Still in discussion—sounds like it probably won't be ready for implementation by next season. I don't mind this idea, and I think they'll figure out how to make it work through trial and error. Issues that could be addressed include disputes of offside calls, pucks that hit the netting before coming back into play, and correct identification of players who shoot pucks over the glass.
• Doesn't sound like there will be any changes regarding goaltender interference, which currently can't be analyzed with video replay. The feeling remains that it's still too much of a judgment call; the league only wants to go to replay situations when there is a right and wrong answer.
There has also been some talk of changing up the rules for the NHL draft lottery, though I'm seeing conflicting reports. TSN's Insider Trading is saying that the rules could potentially still be changed before the Connor McDavid draft in 2015, so this is a topic worth watching.
What do you think of the proposed rule changes? Can you foresee any potential pitfalls to what they're suggesting? Any other changes that you'd like to see?