TSN’s Hockey Insiders have the latest on the Leafs and MLSE’s president and CEO, an update on Sens defenceman Thomas Chabot, young stars set to reset the market with new contracts and Rick Bowness and Lindy Ruff on expiring deals.
Gino Reda: We know the Toronto Maple Leafs aren’t going to make the playoffs, but other than that there is still much to be determined. To walk us through that and more, here are the insiders, Chris Johnston and Pierre LeBrun.
Pierre, the next step is for the man at the top of the Leafs organization to go on a fact-finding mission.
Pierre LeBrun: Yeah, so Keith Pelley, the president and CEO of MLSE, he is taking one-on-one meetings with different staff throughout the Leafs organization of late. He’s trying to do a deep dive on things.
For context, this is something that Pelley also did over the last year with TFC on the soccer side and with the Raptors on the basketball side, but of course, when it comes to the Leafs there’s a little more urgency to it.
I should point out that Pelley hasn’t limited his meetings to just within the organization but to also meting with people and picking the brains of people throughout the league.
The urgency is that he’s got a decision to make, and more than one, and that starts with the GM position, Brad Treliving, who has one more year left on his contract.
Does Pelley decide to stick with Treliving, or does he decide to make a change there?
The off-season is just a couple of weeks away, and if he does decide to make a change – I’m not saying he will, but if he does – then that process itself will require time and this is a critical off-season for the Leafs if they’re going to bounce back and get this team to the playoffs next year.
So a pretty interesting time here, in terms of what Keith Pelley is up to.
Reda: While the Leafs try to figure out the direction of their franchise, the Senators just got some bad news. Thomas Chabot, their No. 2 man in terms of ice time, is going to miss the rest of the regular season and maybe he’ll miss some playoff time as well, if they get that far CJ.
Chris Johnston: Yeah I think you could say he would certainly miss playoff games if the Senators manage to hold on and qualify this year.
Unfortunately for Ottawa, time is not on their side in this situation. Sens head coach Travis Green was a little bit vague with reporters when he first disclosed this injury, saying it could be four, six or eight weeks, and I don’t think that’s a case of trying to throw things off, it’s just that the truth is after having surgery on the broken bone in his forearm, it’s not sure exactly when Chabot would be back up and ready to go.
The key thing once the bone heals, which takes about four weeks, is how quickly he can regain strength and mobility.
Obviously there might be a splint or some extra padding that can be put in there, but there is risk of re-injury if a player returns too soon.
Those factors will have to be taken care of if his teammates can take care of business without him, but definitely disappointing news on this day for Chabot.
Reda: The Sens roster is filled with great, young talent, and CJ – young stars across the league combined with a rising salary cap could spell a serious salary spike in the NHL?
Johnston: Well everything points to that, right? Having multiple years where we had big jumps, and obviously we’re talking about some big-time players, guys like Connor Bedard, Leo Carlsson, Adam Fantilli all need new deals this summer.
Macklin Celebrini is also eligible to sign an extension as of July 1. I think what’s most interesting in terms of the dynamic here is which of those players goes first?
Because with the market being reset, you would think that whoever sets the bar will impact what happens with the others.
Now, you would think it would be Bedard, given that his contract is expiring, but I don’t know that his camp would necessarily mind if Celebrini put a number on the board first at this point in time, though it’s not clear if that is going to happen.
If the Sharks haven’t engaged at all with Celebrini’s camp on an extension, similarly quiet in the Bedard case but definitely it’s a case of these players being compared against one another, but also looking at each other and wondering who’s going to sign and where those numbers are going to go this summer.
Reda: Alright, to coaching, in his second season back with the Sabres, Lindy Ruff took him team from near cellar-dwellers to a battle for first in the Eastern Conference.
The Blue Jackets have just three regulation losses in their past 26 games since Rick Bowness took over – a nice place to be when you’re looking for a new deal, Pierre.
LeBrun: Yeah, talk about leverage. When Rick Bowness took over in January it was a mutual agreement with GM Don Waddell – let’s just take this for the rest of the year, and see where it goes.
For a couple reasons. One, when Rick Bowness announced his retirement from coaching two years ago it was mostly because of health reasons, not just for himself but also for his wife, Judy.
Amazingly, both are doing great right now, so all things being equal, I think that Bowness wants to come back and coach next season for the Blue Jackets. But he’s going to need a new contract.
He is 71, so the point is that everyone wants to see how he feels at the end of the year, but I do think he’ll be back.
Similarly, in terms of someone who is getting better with age – 66-year-old Lindy Ruff. Is there a better story than the Buffalo Sabres? Well, his contract is also up at the end of the season.
I asked Jarmo Kekalainen, the Sabres GM, about that situation and he declined to comment. Don’t read into that, Kekalainen never likes to comment on those things. I texted Ruff and asked him what he thought about coaching past this year and he said that he’s just trying to take it one game at a time.