SHORT SHI FTS
Watching Jakub Kindl’s strong play in the closer against Tampa Bay rekindled my memory of the trade deadline story in which the Detroit Red Wings tried to sell the Oilers on Kindl for Jeff Petry and they took a pass. Kindl, who got back into the Detroit lineup when Niklas Kronwall was suspended, has a very good price point ($2.5 million this upcoming season, then $3 million) and he’d be as good as Nikita Nikitin and about half the salary. And, this is probably it for ex-Oilers winger Danny Cleary, who forged a nice career in Detroit after he dug in after failed stops in Chicago, Edmonton and Phoenix. Cleary, 36, (936 career games) played only 15 games and none in the playoffs this season for the Red Wings.
Even if the St. Louis Blues bring in a new head coach, they have to tinker with their core a bit after three straight first-round exits. T.J. Oshie has tons of talent but how about moving him to Boston, looking for more offence, for, say, the disturber Brad Marchand? Same size player, different styles of game. Or you can also trade Backes to an Eastern Conference team. If you were the Toronto Maple Leafs, would you take on the aggressive No. 2 centre Backes for, say, winger James Van Riesmdyk?
Barret Jackman still has lots of game left in St. Louis and is a heart-and-soul guy but with his contract up, he’s pricey as a third-pairing defenceman at $3 million, which is why the Blues might not bring him back. They have young Finn Petteri Lindbohm, who can be a top six blueliner, plus Joel Edmundson, who’s close to be an NHLer. They’ll likely let Milan Michalek go as an unrestricted free agent, too.
If the San Jose Sharks are in a rebuild, do they go with an experienced coach in Randy Carlyle or do they feel the need for someone younger? Carlyle has won 364 games in Anaheim and Toronto, 100 more than he’s lost, and certainly wants back on the horse, but he’s 59. I suspect NHL assistants Tony Granato, an ex-Sharks player, and Kevin Dineen will very much be in the coaching search.
Pekka Rinne will finish second or third in the Vezina Trophy voting — the league’s GMs cast votes for the award — but the Nashville Predators goalie did not have a stellar playoff against the Chicago Blackhawks. He recorded a pedestrian .909 save percentage, although he battled hard in the sixth game, especially late. Netminding was supposed to be Nashville’s edge against the ’Hawks. It was not.
Take this to the bank: the Ottawa Senators will be moving defenceman Jared Cowen, their first-round pick in 2009, this summer. Betting is Carolina Hurricanes coach Bill Peters, who coached him in junior with the Spokane Chiefs and wants to get bigger on the back-end, is in GM Ron Francis’s ear about the sixfoot-five, 228-pound Cowen. He never played down the stretch as Ottawa fought to make the playoffs, a major tell he didn’t fit in, or in the series with the Canadiens. He was beaten out by Patrick Wiercioch, and yes, you’re entitled to ask how Wiercioch is good enough to play for Canada at the worlds, yet spent most of the last two years trying to convince his coaches in Ottawa he should be a regular, not Cowen.
Lots of names will come up, but if Buffalo Sabres GM Tim Murray has full autonomy on hiring a coach, he will hire ex-Oilers defenceman Luke Richardson, the Senators’ farm coach who’s done terrific work with Ottawa’s prospects. If owner Terry Pegula has a say, it may have to be someone with a higher profile.
Interesting that Detroit brought up Ray Ferraro’s son Landon, a former Red Deer Rebels forward, late in the season and gave him a shot through the playoffs more than hotshot Teemu Pulkkinen. Ferraro has run out of options, so he would have to clear waivers next season to be sent back to Grand Rapids. He looked like an NHLer (he plays like Patrick Eaves did there) against Tampa Bay and took, as dad Ray says, “12 zippers” to close a gash over his eye when he crashed into the end boards in Game 7.