Curt

I think Kakko is pretty close, but not the others. Hughes has elite skating. He will immediately be among the top 10(or something like that) skaters in the NHL. That counts for a lot. Combine that with great stick handling and great vision, and you get someone who can dominate the play. I believe that he is going to be at least a PPG player in the NHL, with the upside to be even more. As a draft prospect, he is on par with Eichel/Matthews.

Regarding Gronborg, I would also like to add the question: When is the last time he coached in an actual league? It’s been a long while and there is no high level league experience. That’s what concerns me the most. Can he keep a teams ear for more than a couple weeks at a time? Over an 82 game season? Multiple years of 82 game seasons? It’s a lot easier to put up with someone when you know that your time together will be short. More difficult when there is no end in sight.

No word. If you want to get all cynical conspiracy theory-ish, I’ve got one. Theory: Botterill has contacted several candidates about the job, the rest have not become public. McLellan is one of them, but has also been negotiating with LA about possibly taking their job. McLellan’s camp leaked that he was in talks with Buffalo to the media in order to maybe light a fire under LA management to get a more favorable deal from them.

Haha, ok, true enough. Then a first round exit the next year. He got them to back to back conference finals appearances. Truth is, when Buffalo is a playoff team, then I’ll start fretting about whether the coach is “only” going to be able to get them to the conference finals! Right now, that’s not even on my radar. They need someone who is going to help mold this group into a playoff caliber team.

If you want to call not winning a cup underachieving, then sure. His playoff results there were not perfect, but they had a good deal of success and has the team done any better since he left? I consider the fact that he got the Oilers to the 2nd round of the playoffs a major accomplishment. To me, he would be acceptable. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t suck.

Right! No one is going to “get it done” (win a cup?) with a roster like that. I don’t care how good of a coach they are.

I think we all know that teams are more than just a couple players.

What type of innovative concepts does he use that only Swedes can understand?

If he doesn’t want to come here, then it might not matter if you offer $5M instead of $4M.

I’m fine if it’s McLellan. Experienced. History of success. He even got Edmonton into the 2nd round of the playoffs.

He got the Oilers into the playoffs, so he must be pretty good.

I’m not saying that you are wrong, but what is it that could be new and game breaking?

But who is the coach?

I’m with LGBL on this one. It really shouldn’t be Pegula’s task to make decisions on hockey coaches. He should be kept in the loop and give his opinion, but he/they need to trust Botterill to do the job they hired him for. If that’s what is happening, then that is a great look as far as I’m concerned.

Kruger is an interesting guy, but he hasn’t had any involvement in hockey in like 6 years. He is on the board of directors of an EPL football team. Would he even be interested?

We have some veterans but we are going to be incorporating youth into key positions over the next couple years. Dahlin, Mittelstadt, Thompson, Ullmark, Rodrigues, Pilut, Nylander, Olofsson, Borgen, Smith. All those guys have played in the NHL but have no more than one full season of experience and will be asked to fill even bigger roles going forward. Then there will also be Asplund, the 2019 1st and others after that. The team is actually going to get younger moving forward.

Not an endorsement, but John Stevens also fits your criteria perfectly. EDIT: Jack Capuano, Guy Boucher, Dave Tippett, Mike Yeo also

Nelson coached Edmonton for half a season, so a little NHL experience.

Quennville previously made the playoffs and won playoff rounds with Colorado and St. Louis. What’s your definition of success?

Bruce Boudreau, Alain Vigneault, Todd McLellan, Todd Nelson. I’m sure there are more. I dont want him because he has never ever coached a high level team in any league. He only coaches in short tournaments.

List of his teams’ league rankings in goals for. He was the coach of Washington way back when the knock was that they played no defense(Ovi, Semin, Green) Wild: 28th, 11th, 2nd Ducks: 18th, 10th, 2nd, 7th Caps: 19th, 1st, 3rd, 8th

I think so. Before this season he made the playoffs 19 years in row, when he was the head coach of a team for the full season. 1 in ECHL(championship), 8 in AHL (1 championship, another finals appearance), and 10 in the NHL. Not all those teams were great either. I feel supremely confident that Boudreau is at least very competent, if not excellent.

I don’t think a coach generally gets much input on such things, especially not a new one. The GM is going to pick a player who fits his vision for the team he is building. The GM is going to pick a coach who also fits his vision for the team he is building.

I wasn’t sure this was going to happen, but I felt that it probably should. The speed with which it happened tells me that the decision was made a while ago.

It’s possible, but that’s the type of stuff that a coach and GM talk about. I find it very unlikely that they were not on the same page in regard to what expectations were.