{"id":678580,"date":"2026-05-18T12:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T12:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/678580\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T12:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T12:19:07","slug":"five-key-stories-5-11-26-5-17-26-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/678580\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Key Stories: 5\/11\/26 \u2013 5\/17\/26 \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

With just five teams still alive in the playoffs, most of the NHL is in offseason mode.\u00a0 There was plenty of news away from the ice, including a unanimous<\/a> Calder Trophy winner plus a pair of coach firings, which are featured in our key stories.<\/p>\n

Canucks Set Front Office: With now-former GM Patrik Allvin gone and Jim Rutherford set to move into an advisory role for next season, the Canucks have now set their new-look<\/a> front office.\u00a0 Well, new in the sense that they\u2019ve promoted people into roles they haven\u2019t had before.\u00a0 Ryan Johnson, who briefly played for Vancouver late in his career, has been promoted from his Assistant GM role to GM to replace Allvin.\u00a0 It will be his first opportunity running an NHL franchise.\u00a0 Meanwhile, with Rutherford\u2019s role change opening the Team President role, the organization decided to split the role, naming long-time Canucks mainstays Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin as Co-Presidents.\u00a0 Their promotion is a little less gradual as they were only working as development coaches but will now turn their focus to the business side of operations.<\/p>\n

Six For McAvoy: The Bruins will be without their top defenseman for the first couple of weeks of next season.\u00a0 This isn\u2019t due to injury, but rather a suspension<\/a> as he received a six-game ban for a slash on Buffalo\u2019s Zach Benson<\/a> late in the first round.\u00a0 The ruling indicated that McAvoy used his stick as a weapon, even winding up for the strike, which undoubtedly played a big role in the ruling.\u00a0 As the suspension is for longer than five games, McAvoy has the right to appeal the penalty if he so chooses.\u00a0 Barring that happening, he\u2019s set to forfeit a little over $300K in salary as a result of this suspension.<\/p>\n

Six For Coyle: The number six was notable for Blue Jackets center Charlie Coyle<\/a>, albeit for a much happier reason.\u00a0 One of the few centers of note who was set to test the open market, that will no longer be the case as he signed<\/a> a six-year deal to stay with Columbus, one that will carry a $6MM AAV.\u00a0 The 34-year-old bounced back quite nicely this season with 58 points, the second-highest total of his 14-year NHL career.\u00a0 While there is certainly some risk in giving someone his age a six-year contract, the dearth of impact middlemen available on the open market gave Coyle\u2019s camp plenty of leverage.\u00a0 Had the Blue Jackets not offered a deal like this, someone else likely would have in July.<\/p>\n

Expensive Silence: The Golden Knights won their second-round series against Anaheim in six games earlier this week but didn\u2019t open up the dressing room to the media while John Tortorella didn\u2019t speak either.\u00a0 After apparently warning them several times for their failure to adhere to playoff media regulations, the league issued<\/a> a steep punishment.\u00a0 Tortorella has been hit with a $100K fine while the team has been stripped of its highest draft pick in next month\u2019s draft, their second-rounder.\u00a0 The Golden Knights have the right to appeal and will undoubtedly do so in an effort to at least reduce the forfeited selection.\u00a0 But this sent a strong message across the league that the NHL expects its postseason media obligations to be met at all times with strong penalties for frequent non-compliers.<\/p>\n

More Head Coach Openings: A pair of teams have decided to part ways with their head coaches.\u00a0 First, new Toronto GM John Chayka didn\u2019t waste much time making a change, firing<\/a> Craig Berube after just two seasons with the team.\u00a0 Toronto made the second round last year but struggled mightily this season, missing the playoffs altogether.\u00a0 Overall, he departs with an 84-62-18 record in the regular season.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Edmonton has relieved<\/a> Kris Knoblauch of his duties, just weeks before his three-year extension was set to begin (he\u2019ll still be paid the money owing on that deal).\u00a0 Knoblauch took over early in the 2024-25 season and ultimately led the Oilers to two straight Stanley Cup Finals, coming up short against Florida each time.\u00a0 This year, they were ousted by Anaheim in the first round.\u00a0 He leaves with a 135-77-21 regular season record (plus a 31-22 mark in the playoffs) and it wouldn\u2019t be shocking to see him get another opportunity to run a bench down the road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With just five teams still alive in the playoffs, most of the NHL is in offseason mode.\u00a0 There…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":678581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85,26176],"class_list":["post-678580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-week-in-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/678581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}