THN.com/podcast. From THN On The 'Dub': WHL Final Preview and Ty Halaburda on the U-18s Sheldon Keefe is one of the coaches who may still find themselves joining the coaching carousel this off-season. [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MTk3OTQyMTUzMjA3MzU5MzUw/usatsi_20639094.jpg] Sheldon Keefe is one of the coaches who may still find themselves joining the coaching carousel this off-season. Monday night, Dave Hakstol will try to guide the Seattle Kraken through another successful Game 7 and reach the Western Conference final in the franchise's first-ever playoff run. Hakstol has been on the job for less than two years. The announcement of his hiring came on June 24, 2021. That was three days after the Kraken unveiled their expansion draft roster on the shores of Lake Union and 17 days after the Tampa Bay Lightning raised the Stanley Cup at Amalie Arena to cap off a strange, pandemic-shortened season that was played in empty or sparsely filled buildings. Even before his playoff success, Hakstol was named a finalist for the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year on May 5 after guiding the Kraken to the best single-season improvement for a second-year team in NHL history. His fellow finalists are Jim Montgomery of the Boston Bruins and Lindy Ruff of the New Jersey Devils. Hakstol is the last of the three Adams finalists left standing in the playoffs as the Kraken try pull off their second series upset. And less than two years after he was hired, Hakstol is already the 13th-longest tenured coach in the NHL. In hockey's salary-cap world, these last few years, organizations can foster change more easily by bringing in a new voice behind the bench than by making major changes to their playing rosters. And the fall from hero to zero can be rapid. All three Adams finalists from 2022 — winner Darryl Sutter and runners-up Gerard Gallant and Andrew Brunette — are no longer with the teams where they were nominated. Last summer was especially wild, with 10 off-season changes in the span of just over two months, including Brunette's departure from Florida. And because the 2021-22 regular season ran until May 1, the coaching carousel also started to spin later than usual. It all got crazy after the New York Islanders fired Barry Trotz on May 9, 2022. This year, we saw just one change during the season when Rick Tocchet took over from Bruce Boudreau in Vancouver. But five positions have come open since the end of the season — and there could be more to come. Here's a rundown of which teams are looking, which coaches may still be on shaky ground, and which candidates to keep an eye on this summer. RIPE FOR RECYCLING As of May 14, these five jobs are open, in alphabetical order: * undefined * undefined * undefined * undefined * undefined Will there be some recycling of these teams' departed bench bosses? Probably. Peter Laviolette, in particular, agreed to split with the Capitals and is looking for a new position. With his two decades of NHL experience, he is being linked [https://nypost.com/2023/05/12/peter-laviolettes-former-islanders-in-favor-of-rangers-role/] to the Rangers. The 58-year-old was the main man for four NHL franchises before his time in Washington — the New York Islanders, Carolina Hurricanes, Philadelphia Flyers and Nashville Predators. He coached the Hurricanes to their only previous Stanley Cup win in 2006 and also reached the final with the Flyers in 2010 and the Predators in 2017. Gallant, 59, has also been a coach with nine lives. He was promoted into his first head gig midway through the 2003-04 season with the Columbus Blue Jackets after serving as an assistant since their 2000 expansion debut. Fired in the fall of 2006, Gallant didn't get another NHL head coaching job until the Florida Panthers brought him on in 2014. After the infamous taxi-cab firing in Carolina in the fall of 2016, he joined the expansion Vegas Golden Knights and took his squad of misfits to the Stanley Cup final in his first season. The Knights parted ways with him a year-and-a-half later, then he used a gold-medal win with Team Canada at the 2021 World Championship as his calling card for the Rangers' job, where he lasted two years. Known as a players' coach and a strong motivator, Gallant's name has been loosely linked to the Flames' opening. But he does have his detractors, who say that he doesn't take advantage of the analytics that are available to today's coaches, and he's not nimble with his in-game adjustments. It would be surprising to see Sutter back behind an NHL bench anytime soon. The 64-year-old has those two Stanley Cup rings with the Los Angeles Kings, but his gruff 'my way or the highway' style clashes with what's expected from today's players and in the modern media landscape. The Flames job also wasn't far away from his home base in Viking, Alta., and he had served a previous tour of duty with the organization. Those seemed to be unique enticements to come out of retirement when Sutter was lured into replacing Geoff Ward in March 2021. Dallas Eakins and Brad Larsen may also have a tough time earning consideration for other head-coaching openings. For Eakins, he's now at 404 NHL games coached across the Anaheim Ducks and the Edmonton Oilers without a single .500 season or playoff game. The same is true for Larsen. He's looking for work after two seasons as coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets. FUTURE UNCERTAIN Will more openings come up this summer? Of the six teams left in the playoffs, at least five have matched or exceeded expectations. Eastern Conference finalists Rod Brind'Amour and Paul Maurice should be good. Peter DeBoer and Bruce Cassidy have also made solid debuts in Dallas and Vegas, respectively. Hakstol's an Adams finalist, so he should be fine until at least next year, even if the Adams curse eventually does him in. With Edmonton, Jay Woodcroft seems to have control of the narrative — for now, anyway. If the Oilers end up falling to the Golden Knights, that could still change as the clock ticks on the prime years of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl's careers. As for the two most recently eliminated coaches, their futures are both somewhat uncertain. According to CapFriendly [https://www.capfriendly.com/staff/lindy-ruff], Lindy Ruff is in the last year of his deal in New Jersey. He engineered a breakout year for the Devils and is also a Jack Adams finalist, but Brunette is also waiting in the wings as a Devils associate coach. If he doesn't get promoted, he could very well be departing for a head job with another team. In Toronto — well, anything's possible. According to CapFriendly [https://www.capfriendly.com/coaches], coach Sheldon Keefe has one year remaining on his current deal. But GM Kyle Dubas is coming to the end of his contract and could be courted by other organizations while the Leafs organization and fan base grapple with another season of disappointment. Larry Brooks of the New York Post shared a scenario [https://twitter.com/NYP_Brooksie/status/1656050503829037056] where Dubas fills the vacant GM position with the Pittsburgh Penguins and brings Keefe with him. That bumps Mike Sullivan to the sidelines, despite his two Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh — and the fact that he has a three-year contract extension that doesn't even kick in until the 2024-25 season. The purpose of Brooks' exercise appears to mainly be finding a way to free up the well-respected Sullivan, the league's second-longest-tenured coach behind Tampa Bay's Jon Cooper, to take the Rangers job. PUT ME IN, COACH Of the past NHL coaches who have been on the sidelines a bit longer, Joel Quenneville's name carries the most intrigue. He's a four-time Stanley Cup winner, dating back to his days as an assistant coach with the Colorado Avalanche in 1996. But he resigned from his position with the Florida Panthers in October 2021 in the wake of the Chicago Blackhawks sexual assault scandal, and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has made it clear that no team can hire Quenneville until he receives league approval to return. Bettman has not yet given any indication of a timeline for Quenneville's reinstatement, and the Rangers have indicated that they won't make that request. For now, it seems unlikely that Quenneville will get the green light to return anywhere anytime soon. Another name to keep an eye on is Mike Babcock. A Cup winner with the Detroit Red Wings in 2008 and the coach of Canada's gold-medal-winning Olympic squads in 2010 and 2014, Babcock was fired from his eight-year, $50-million contract by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2019, early in Year 5, after the team stumbled out of the gate. Allegations also surfaced [https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/28268199/maple-leafs-president-says-mike-babcock-coaching-tactics-were-not-appropriate] that he had mistreated some of his players with the Red Wings and Maple Leafs. For the last three years, Babcock has had 6.25 million reasons not to sign on to a new NHL team. But he has kept himself busy as a senior advisor to the University of Vermont in 2020-21 and coach of the University of Saskatchewan in 2021-22. The contract he signed with the Leafs is set to expire on June 30. Will the 60-year-old make a push to get himself back into the game? Other familiar names that have been getting bandied about as potential candidates for coaching openings include former Washington coach Todd Reirden and ex-Canucks bosses Bruce Boudreau and Travis Green. MOVIN' ON UP In his overview of the current coaching landscape, Greg Wyshynski of ESPN [https://www.espn.com/nhl/insider/insider/story/_/id/37599273/nhl-head-coach-candidates-carousel-rumors-buzz] mentions two NHL assistants and an AHL coach who could get the nod to fill one of the current vacancies. His list includes Blue Jackets associate coach Pascal Vincent, AHL Hartford boss Kris Knoblauch, who had a successful COVID-relief stint with the Rangers in 2021-22, and Tampa Bay assistant Jeff Halpern. The Flames have indicated they want to get Brad Treliving's replacement into the GM's chair before a coach is hired. When they do, their top candidate may also be in-house. Mitch Love is in his second year at the helm of the Flames' AHL franchise and has been named the league's coach of the year in both seasons. In 2021-22, he got the Stockton Heat to the Western Conference final before falling to the eventual champion Chicago Wolves. This year, the relocated Calgary Wranglers finished as the top team in the AHL and are currently tied 1-1 in their Pacific Division final series with the Coachella Valley Firebirds. Knoblauch's Hartford Wolf Pack are also still alive in the AHL playoffs but are on tenuous ground. They're down 0-2 in their best-of-five series against the Hershey Bears.
