Dave Pagnotta was on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio’s Morning Skate with Gord Stellick and Scott Laughlin and was asked about the coaching changes with the New York Rangers and Anaheim Ducks, as well as how these teams are in different situations.
NHLRumors.com Transcriptions
Gord Stellick: “Just saying that if it wasn’t the first round the Stanley Cup Playoffs, you get more play about coaching, you know, like John Tortorella. We talked about it for two days, for example. But I think someone expected or expected in Peter Laviolette with the New York Rangers. One, not as much about Greg Cronin out in Anaheim. So any thoughts of names that fits that jump to your mind in these two very different situations?”
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Dave Pagnotta: “I thought, and I feel that the mindset in New York will be, get an experienced guy to come in there and help push this team over. There’s going to be more turnover in Manhattan, without question. The Rangers are going to be making more moves over the course of the offseason. We’re going to see some roster moves. We’re going to hear Chris Kreider‘s name reemerge and possibly discuss trade talks later in the summer, around the draft. They don’t have a ton of cap space this off-season, so it’s going to take a lot of creativity in rejigging a little bit of this roster.
But Chris Drury, that’s what he’s going to have to do, him and his staff. And B, he acknowledged, with respect to the coaching side of things, that he’s open to any possibility. A first-year NHL head coach, a veteran guy who’s been there for a while, he will consider all of his options, as he once said, once they let Laviolette go. I still believe, as I mentioned earlier, that they’re going to kind of lean towards experience, unless somebody kind of blows them out of the water here. But we’ll see kind of where they end up going.
Is it a guy like Joel Quenneville who can return and he’s your finisher type to put a team over? I think, I don’t know if they necessarily want to rush into any decision, because I think some of the roster moves are going to dictate the type of coach that they go after, and maybe it’s gonna be vice versa. Maybe they bring in the coach and then make some additional roster moves that complement that system and style. But you know, the search has started for them.
It started for Anaheim as well. Now that one, both guys, Laviolette and Cronin, have one year left on their contracts in Anaheim. It seemed like they just wanted a bit of a different voice. Now, typically, when you make and have a 21-point improvement going back from how they performed last season, you think, okay, things are looking good. It just seemed like they wanted to change things up a little bit further.
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In addition to what I anticipate, they will be much more active this offseason as well. Because they’ve got a ton of cap space, they’re going to start to implement some additional veteran pieces to complement some of their young guys. For Anaheim, I’m really curious about guys like David Carle is going to be the center of attention for a lot of teams. He’s on Chicago’s radar. He’s on Philly’s radar. They’re going to be, and I would imagine Anaheim is going to want to have some type of conversation there.
Jay Woodcroft’s name has popped up already as a potential candidate for them to pursue. Has obviously that NHL experience, but a younger type coach. I think that might be the direction that Anaheim goes in. Then we’ll see what or how things end up shaping up for them, I think, over the next few weeks here.”
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