Wow, the coaching carousel has been in overdrive for the past 24 hours.
After Carolina's hiring of Bill Peters yesterday, all indications out of Pittsburgh were that Willie Desjardins was practically a sure thing with the Penguins, while Gerard Gallant would land in Florida.
The timeline seems to be that Desjardins won the Calder Cup in Newfoundland on Tuesday, then had a phone interview with the Penguins on Thursday, which seemed to be enough to lead to the rumours that he had secured the job. Desjardins was absent from the Texas Stars' Cup celebration on Thursday evening, which matches up with the idea that he was on his way to Pittsburgh—supposedly, to finalize the deal.
Here's what Darren Dreger said last night:
It's believed Willie Desjardins has made his way to Pittsburgh. He's the frontrunner for the coaching job but a deal needs to be finalized.
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) June 20, 2014And here's what he says this morning:
Change of heart in Pitt? Hearing Desjardins no longer a slam dunk following meeting last night. Ulf?
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) June 20, 2014Public perception of Willie in Pittsburgh is definitely not the same as it is here in Vancouver:
What if said coach were hired from minor leagues -- after @Penguins said NHL experience was vital -- AND never had face-to-face interview?
— Dejan Kovacevic (@Dejan_Kovacevic) June 20, 2014This same writer, Dejan Kovacevic, wrote an impassioned and well-reasoned argument in favour of Ulf Samuelsson for the Penguins job here. I wouldn't advocate for Ulf here in Vancouver, but he's built a stronger coaching pedigree than I'd realized, and won Cups in Pittsburgh in the 90s. Makes pretty good sense for them.
Ex-Canuck Kevin Weekes is leading the charge on the idea that the Canucks are now the front-runners for Desjardins' services:
Hearing from sources involved that @TheAHL Calder Cup Champ Coach Willie Desjardins has chosen the @VanCanucks Job w multi-yr deal
— Kevin Weekes (@KevinWeekes) June 20, 2014I was out working far too late last night to catch Trevor Linden on TEAM1040 at 7:30 this morning. Nucker posted a good summary of his appearance in yesterday's comments. Elliott Pap offers up this more concise version.
In today's interview, Linden holds firm on his July 1 deadline for hiring a coach—that's still a 10-day window. Here's what he had to say about Willie:
We’ve had some discussions over the last couple of days and we’ll continue that through the weekend. We haven’t had a chance yet to really sit down with Willie because he just won the Calder Cup so, I mean, until you do that, it’s hard to know.
Sounds to me like Jim Rutherford may have been trying to accelerate the process in Pittsburgh, demanding that Desjardins commit before he had a chance to talk seriously with the Canucks. If he was told last night that he needed to make an immediate decision, that may have been enough for him to balk. If I was in his shoes, I wouldn't want to make a snap decision on something so important, especially if I had another suitor waiting in the wings.
Trevor made it sound like he will be spending some time with Willie over the next few days, but doesn't sound like he's already put an offer on the table. Desjardins could be playing the two teams off each other in an effort to negotiate more favourable contract terms—which would be the right thing to do. So I wouldn't order the new brass nameplate for his door just yet.
For the moment, only Bill Peters is out of circulation. And we didn't even talk about Bill Peters here in Vancouver, though he sounds like a very solid candidate. An assistant coach from the Red Wings who was previously the head coach of the Blackhawks' farm team, the Rockford Ice Hogs. Sounds like he has a deft touch with player development. Why wasn't he on our radar?
One final note on Willie before I leave him for today:
If Desjardins heads to Vancouver, #txstars might be out an assistant coach as well. Desjardins may take Lidster with him to Canucks.
— 100 Degree Hockey (@100degreehockey) June 20, 2014Of course, Lidster was a Canuck defenseman from 1983-1993—a period that overlaps with Linden and Bennings' time on the ice here in Vancouver. Are we seeing a pattern emerge?
News n' Notes:
All this intrigue is enough to fill an entire blog, but a few other items should also be noted today:
On Ryan Kesler, Linden said:
We have talked at length internally but we haven’t completely resigned ourselves that (a trade) is the path we’re going to go down. Jim Benning has a real vision of what he wants. Jim likes Ryan as a player so we’re not totally at the point where we’re down one path or the other.
He also talks about being in "constant communication" with Kesler, so it sounds like they could still be trying to find a way to keep him on board.
Linden also speaks positively about the prospect of bringing back Mike Santorelli:
We’re working on Mike. It comes down to dollars and cents. That’s where we have to feel comfortable and so does Mike. We’d like to have Mike back obviously. He’s a local kid, very versatile and had a good first half of the season until he got injured.
Elsewhere around the league, it looks like the Brad Richards buyout is going through in New York. For all of Torts' flaws, maybe he wasn't so misguided after all when he took all that heat for scratching Richards during the 2013 playoffs. AV had him down to the fourth line by the final this year too, even with the spark provided by his old buddy Martin St. Louis.
I saw speculation on Twitter that Richards could fit in Vancouver's second-line centre spot if Kesler is traded. Not sure how a 34-year-old who can't really play anymore would fit our bright new future. We have enough 34-year-olds already!