There where two NHL head coaching changes this week and they came from teams that have won 5 Stanley Cups since the 2009-10 season.
John Stevens lasted just 13 games into this season going 4-8-1 before the Los Angeles Kings decided they needed to make a change. Stevens was the Kings head coach for a total of 82 games going 45-29-8 and while the Kings did make the playoffs last season they where swept out of the 1st round.
Stevens wasn’t the coach in Los Angeles when the Kings won their two Stanley Cups in 2012 and 2014. Darryl Sutter was the teams head coach them and that’s who Stevens replaced.
The Kings have tabbed Willie Desjardins to replace Stevens behind the bench. Desjardins has previous head coaching experience as he was with the Vancouver Canucks for three seasons 2014-2017. In his three seasons with Vancouver Desjardins had a record of 109-110-27 and one playoff appearance.
Desjardins head coaching career with the Kings got off to a good start last night as he notched his first win. Los Angeles beat the Anaheim Ducks 4-1 in Desjardins first game as head coach. Jack Campbell turned away 30 of the 31 shots he faced in goal while Dustin Brown, Kyle Clifford, Ilya Kovalchuk and Tyler Toffoli all scored in the Kings victory.
Desjardins and the kings get just one day off before they’ll host the 8-4-2 Minnesota Wild on Thursday night. Minnesota is currently in 2nd place in the Central division of the Western Conference.
While the Kings replaced a head coach who replaced a Stanley Cup winning head coach the Chicago Blackhawks replaced a head coach who won the Stanley Cup three different times.
After a 6-6-3 start to the season the Blackhawks decided it was time to make a head coaching change and they relieved Joel Quenneville of his duties.
Quenneville was the Blackhawks head coach for 797 games the second most in Blackhawks history. He had a career record of 452-249-96; those 452 wins are also second most in team history. Under Quenneville the Blackhawks played in 128 playoff games. They had a record of 76-52, but more importantly won the Stanley Cup on three occasions. The Blackhawks raised the Stanley Cup after the 2010, 2013 and 2015 seasons with Quenneville as their head coach.
After their last Stanley Cup win in 2014-15 the Blackhawks had two first round playoff exits and then last season for the since 2007-08 they didn’t make the playoffs; so after a slow start to this season the Blackhawks decided to let Quenneville go.
Replacing Quenneville behind the Blackhawks bench will be 33 year old Jeremy Colliton. As of his hiring Colliton will be the youngest active head coach in the NHL. Colliton has previously coached Mora IK in the Swedish professional hockey league. He was the head coach for the Rockford IceHogs in the American Hockey League before being hired by the Blackhawks.
Colliton has two days to get himself and the Blackhawks ready for his coaching debut. The Blackhawks return home after dropping three straight road games and five straight games in a row. On Thursday they’ll host the 6-7-2 Carolina Hurricanes. Carolina is currently in 7th in the Metropolitan division of the Eastern Conference. The Hurricanes are also currently on a five game losing streak; so one of these teams will get to end there losing streak tomorrow night.
I’m not sure if you’d call it a last ditch effort, but the Washington Nationals made what was describe as an “aggressive” offer to soon to be free agent Bryce Harper yesterday. As it turned out the offer from the Nationals was 10 years for $300 million dollars, but the offer was turned down.
I don’t think that there was anyone who was surprised that this offer was turned down. Free agency is going to start on Friday and there was no chance that a client of Scott Boras was going to sign any kind of contract before getting offers from other teams. Even with the Nationals having a good relationship with Boras and his other clients this deal wasn’t going to happen.
Now there are a coupe of questions that come along with this offer. Was this just a make good offer by the Nationals so when Harper signs with another team they can tell their fans that they made a good offer and he just decided to sign somewhere else. Or was this just a courtesy offer to see where Boras and Harper where money wise.
Now according to reports there where no opt outs or deferred money in the contract offer the Nationals made.
If this is just a starting point for contract negotiations with Boras for Harper you have to wonder what the other teams that are interested in signing Harper are thinking.
Harper is a former Rookie of the Year (2012) and MVP award winner (2015), but that was coming up on four seasons ago and he hasn’t really been close to have that type of year again. Harper did hit 34 home runs and he drove in 100 runs, but he hit just .249. In two of the last three seasons where Harper ha played 147 games or more he’s hit .249 or lower. The consensus is that Harper is a great player, but is he going to be worth whatever a team is going to have to pay him?
There are going to be a lot of teams that are associated with singing Harper, but who are the real players in this? There are the teams that have the money to sign him like the New York Yankees, Boston Red, Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers, but does he or would he fit in with any of those teams? The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are also a team that might have to money to sign a player like Harper, but they’re going to have to figure out how to keep Mike Trout; so signing Harper might not be high o their list of things to do. There has been a lot of talk that the Philadelphia Phillies are the front runner to sign Harper, but isn’t it too early to say someone is the favorite since we don’t even know contract terms yet. Maybe we’ll see when free agency tarts if ay team tries to get the jump on signing Harper, but I have a feeling this is going to be a long process and that he’ll be one of the last free agents to sign.
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