Action Off The Ice Too

On a night that could see the Pittsburgh Penguins sweep out the Hurricanes in 4 straight and send them back to the Stanley Cup finals in a probable rematch of last years finals with the Red Wings there are some other very interesting happenings off the ice that are worth mentioning.

In the City of Champions the Oilers have announced that they have solidified their bench by hiring both Pat Quinn as the new head coach with former Rangers coach Tom Renney being named an associate head coach. It was much rumored that Quinn was a front runner for the job, but it is a little surprising that Renney would be hired too as an associate. With all the openings for coaches one may have thought that he may have opted to take a run at a Head coaching gig. Maybe he did and there was no interest but he is a good hockey many and you would have thought that he may have at least been interviewed a few places first. In any event the Oilers have a pretty solid duo to lead the young team going forward and maybe this will help the recruitment of some free agents this off season.

Next up is the Calgary Flames where Darryl Sutter says he’s the best man right now to coach the Calgary Flames but will look at other candidates before making a final decision. It was an interesting decision to go public with comments like this. If he does hire someone other then himself he is already telling them that they are at best his second choice. Sure He may like to get brother Brent to take the job but that is very doubtful to happen with his position within the Devils.

The KHL may not be the safest place or the highest level to play but it just keeps attracting some native Russian talent. Jaromir Jagr went back last season and Alexander Radulov went back home too. Now it looks like Viktor Koslov and Sergei Federov are both planning to apply their craft back home. At the very least it opens up some positions and could possibly weaken the team a bit in Washington and also keeps the door open for other players to follow them and head over. LA Kings Jack Johnson has been linked to have some interest in that for at least a season. Things could be worse it could be more devastating to loose top level veteran talent to this league if it weren’t for the great development and influx of youth from the junior ranks that can more then make up for the loss of some ageing talent at the pro level.