The week of American Thanksgiving is often viewed as the time where teams make to start changes. This year was no exception as a pair of teams made coaching moves which highlight the top stories of the week.
Blues Fire Yeo: The Blues made several big changes to their forwards over the summer in the hopes that doing so would vault them back into contention after just missing the playoffs last season. Instead, they got off to a slow start to their season and a coaching change was made with Mike Yeo being let go with assistant Craig Berube taking over on an interim basis. GM Doug Armstrong indicated that a full coaching search is now underway so there’s no guarantee that Berube (who will be considered in the search) will be in place for the rest of the season.
Ducks Staying Put: While there hasn’t been any speculation that the Ducks could one day be on the move, any thought of that can be put aside for a long time. Anaheim City Council approved a 25-year extension to their current arena deal with the team (that’s in place through 2023) meaning that the team has its home set through 2048. There are five additional five-year extension options in the agreement as well.
Asking Price For Skinner: Sabres winger Jeff Skinner is off to a torrid start to his season, his first with Buffalo after they acquired him from Carolina over the offseason. He has 18 goals through his first 24 games which certainly will help his case in free agency next summer. With that in mind, his reported asking price to forego testing the open market is between $9MM and $9.5MM per season, a significant raise on his current $5.725MM AAV. Talks between Skinner’s representation and the team are scheduled to start sometime next month.
Coaching Change In Edmonton: With the Oilers starting to struggle once again, a change was made behind the bench. The fact that they relieved Todd McLellan of his duties wasn’t necessarily too surprising but the fact that Ken Hitchcock has taken over caught many by surprise. Hitchcock had stepped aside at the end of last season in Dallas to move into a consulting role for the team and at that time, no one really anticipated that the 66-year-old would be looking to step behind the bench again. He’ll try to insert some more structure into Edmonton’s style of play as they look to get back into the playoff hunt but chances are that this will be a short-term hire.
Oilers Acquire Wideman: The Oilers have added some defensive depth, acquiring defenseman Chris Wideman from Ottawa in exchange for a conditional sixth-round pick (previously acquired from St. Louis for Jakub Jerabek). The 28-year-old will give Edmonton some mobility from the back end, an area that GM Peter Chiarelli acknowledged recently that he needed to address. Wideman was deemed expendable by the Sens with players like Maxime Lajoie and Christian Jaros stepping into regular roles. Speaking of the Senators, this wasn’t the only time they were in the headlines as their proposed arena project has taken a turn for the worse.
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