Fantasy Take – Latest NHL Moves

The Chicago Blackhawks have hired former NHL defenseman Luke Richardson as their new Head Coach. Richardson was a big (6-4, 210 pounds), tough stay-at-home defenseman who played 1417 career NHL games and compiled 2055 penalty minutes. He works his players hard, but is also a player’s coach in the sense that he does things such [...]

The Florida Panthers were disappointed with their early playoff exit under Jack Adams finalist Andrew Brunette, and so they hired Paul Maurice in his place… a coach with a history of failing to get teams far in the post-season. On an unrelated note, you get one guess who holds the all-time NHL record for most [...]

The Vancouver Canucks have signed undrafted free agent forward Andrei Kuzmenko to what is reportedly a one-year, two-way contract worth just north of the NHL minimum at $925,000. Performance bonuses could push this up to as high as $1.775M. The Canucks get: A 26-year-old late-bloomer who finished second in the KHL in scoring (behind our [...]

The Philadelphia Flyers have hired John Tortorella to be their new head coach. Tortorella likely needs no introduction here. Not looking to start a full rebuild, the Flyers were rumored to be searching for an established name to breathe some life into a team that has missed the playoffs the past two seasons. Even if [...]

Vegas tried to trade winger Evgenii Dadonov back at the trade deadline, only to have it nixed because of his no-trade clause. With the team still need to free up cap space, it seemed likely he would be on the move sometime in the offseason. That came to fruition on Thursday night: https://twitter.com/CanadiensMTL/status/1537549208458346497 Shea Weber [...]

The moment the Boston Bruins said they were firing head coach Bruce Cassidy, most of the hockey world seemed to agree that he would not be off an NHL bench for very long. Considering the end of his Bruins tenure came a week ago, this might be a bit faster than anyone anticipated. Regardless, the [...]

In a move that seemingly came out of nowhere, the Boston Bruins have fired head coach Bruce Cassidy. Boston is a few weeks removed from being bounced out of the playoffs in seven games by the Carolina Hurricanes. The team announced it officially on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NHLBruins/status/1533946865988812802 They haven’t announced a replacement and the coaching search [...]

The Dallas Stars have announced that Rick Bowness has decided to step down as the team’s head coach. Three assistant coaches (John Stevens, Derek Laxdal and Todd Nelson) will also not be returning to the Stars. After taking over as the team’s interim head coach in 2019-20, Bowness led the Stars to the Stanley Cup [...]

Those of you scooping up Islanders forwards such as Anthony Beauvillier and Mathew Barzal after Barry Trotz was fired can go ask for a refund now. Because the Isles are going with Trotz’s good buddy and faithful, long-time assistant Lane Lambert. Lambert served under Trotz in Nashville from 2011 to 2014. Then he served under [...]

After two-plus seasons at the helm, Pete DeBoer has been fired from his four NHL team after they failed to make the postseason. In all fairness, the Golden Knights had 484 man-games lost to injury. The numbers: Reilly Smith out 26 games, Max Pacioretty out 43 games, William Karlsson out 15 games, Mark Stone out [...]