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Rikard Gronborg

Snapshots: Gronborg, Oligny, Meier

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It’s not often you see a team that has won back-to-back league titles change their coach, but this decision was made long ago for Tappara Tampere of the Finnish Liiga. Back in October it was reported that Rikard Gronborg would not be returning to the ZSC Lions after this season, already agreeing to a multi-year contract with Tampere.

Gronborg was introduced today, taking over just a week after the club took home the 2023 title. Interestingly enough, when the commitment was initially reported, it included the note that Gronborg’s contract contains an out clause should the NHL come calling. For years, the decorated international coach has been linked to vacant NHL positions without anything ever materializing.

  • Jimmy Oligny is your Yanick Dupré Memorial Award winner for 2022-23, named AHL Man of the Year. The award is given to a minor league player for outstanding contributions to his local community and charitable organizations. Among his many involvements, the Manitoba Moose captain worked with the Kinship and Foster Family Network to host a foster family at every Moose home game.
  • Timo Meier was “okay” today, according to New Jersey Devils head coach Lindy Ruff, as the forward continues to recover from a massive hit suffered last round. Mike Morreale of NHL.com relays that Meier is still day-to-day and that the team will know more tomorrow. Without Meier in game one of their second-round series, the Devils were dismantled by the Carolina Hurricanes and will have to try to even things up tomorrow night.

Marc Crawford Hired In Switzerland

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The ZSC Lions, one of the most popular teams in Europe, has made a big change behind the bench. They have parted ways with Rikard Gronborg and hired Marc Crawford as head coach, signing the former NHL bench boss to a deal through the 2024-25 season. Crawford will be joined by Rob Cookson.

This is actually a return to Zurich for Crawford, who coached the team for four years starting in 2012-13. The Lions won the league championship in 2014 and put up a 125-47-28 record overall with Crawford in charge. His time there also included a 2015-16 season with teenage phenom Auston Matthews, who scored 24 goals and 46 points as an 18-year-old in just 36 games.

Gronborg was already going to leave ZSC at the end of the season and rumors had emerged about his connection to teams in Finland. He is a free agent now, however, and has drawn plenty of NHL interest in the past. The 54-year-old coach was with Zurich since 2019, and had previously served with the Swedish national team for many years.

Crawford, meanwhile was most recently with the Chicago Blackhawks and has served with the Ottawa Senators, Dallas Stars, Los Angeles Kings, Vancouver Canucks, and Colorado Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques. It was Crawford who took the Avalanche to a Stanley Cup championship in 1996 after the move from Quebec, though the rest of his NHL postseason resume isn’t quite as successful. Cookson worked with Crawford in Ottawa and served as an assistant with the Calgary Flames for many years previously.

Snapshots: Gronborg, Heiskanen, Talbot

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One of the names that used to come up every summer in connection to vacant NHL coaching jobs is Rikard Gronborg, former long-time coach of the Swedish national team programs. Gronborg has plenty of experience on this side of the ocean, after playing college hockey at St. Cloud State, coaching in the AWHL, and serving as an assistant in the WHL. For the last few years, his candidacy hasn’t been brought up for a while because of his commitment as head coach of the ZSC Lions in Switzerland, one of the most successful and popular teams in Europe.

Today, news has broken that Gronborg won’t be back with the Lions and instead is likely taking a multi-year contract with Tappara Tampere in Finland. However, the report out of Switzerland also states that if the NHL were to come calling, Gronborg’s new contract with Tappara has an out clause to let him pursue a North American opportunity. With seven World Championship medals, six World Juniors medals, and an Olympic silver, Gronborg has one of the most impressive international coaching resumes of all time. Whether that ever translates into an opportunity in the NHL remains to be seen.

  • Miro Heiskanen is still listed as day-to-day for the Dallas Stars and isn’t expected to play tonight, he could be back on Saturday according to head coach Pete DeBoer, who spoke with reporters including Saad Yousuf of The Athletic. Without Heiskanen in the lineup against the Boston Bruins, Nils Lundkvist played a career-high 22:04. Lundkvist had never gone above 16:39 with the New York Rangers but has now matched or exceeded that in six of seven games with Dallas.
  • Cam Talbot might be back ahead of schedule, according to Ottawa Senators head coach D.J. Smith. As Claire Hanna of TSN reports, Talbot was on the ice facing shots today and is “certainly ahead of the timeline” that had been set for him. There’s still no clear date set for his return but they could still use him, with Anton Forsberg dealing with a minor injury of his own. On that front, Forsberg was back at practice as well and is expected to be the starter when the team takes on the Minnesota Wild tonight.

International Notes: Imports, Masin, Gronborg

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Typically, the CHL Import Draft is held after the NHL Entry Draft with several NHL teams making attempts to get some of their international draft picks into major junior.  However, while the NHL draft has been delayed, the CHL festivities went ahead as scheduled on Tuesday with the full results here.  A pair of NHL picks from 2019 were taken in Red Wings winger Albin Grewe (Saginaw, OHL) and Jets center Henri Nikkanen (Winnipeg, WHL).

The top pick in the draft was Russian winger Matvei Petrov, who went to OHL North Bay.  The 17-year-old isn’t eligible for the upcoming NHL draft but will use next season to boost his case as his agent Dan Milstein confirmed to Ryan Kennedy of The Hockey News that Petrov will report.  German winger John-Jason Peterka is expected to be a late first-round pick or go early in the second round and he went late in the first round to OHL London.  However, he declined to come over a year ago when Barrie held his rights but whoever drafts Peterka in October will try to convince him to come over this time around.

More international news and notes:

  • Lightning defense prospect Dominik Masin is in discussions with Amur Khabarovsk of the KHL, reports Russian site AllHockey.ru. The pending restricted free agent has spent the last four seasons exclusively with AHL Syracuse, posting 16 goals and 42 assists in 269 games.  Masin was a second-round pick back in 2014 and with the fate of the 2020-21 AHL season in question at this time, opting to go overseas would guarantee him a full season worth of development.
  • Swedish coach Rikard Gronborg has indicated a desire to coach in the NHL at some point and even had some interest from New Jersey early in their coaching search. However, it will be a few more years before he gets that chance now as Zurich of the Swiss NLA announced that they’ve signed Gronborg to an early two-year contract extension that runs through the 2022-23 season.  The deal only contains an NHL out clause for that final year so his next opportunity to try to secure an NHL position won’t come until 2022 at the earliest.

Mitch Marner Camp Contacts Swiss Team

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3:25pm: The Lions have confirmed the request from Marner’s camp to practice with the team, though it has not been decided if it will happen.

12:20pm: As we’ve seen in the past with unsigned restricted free agents deep into unflinching contract negotiations, at some point in the summer they start to consider their non-NHL options. Skating with teams in Europe or using the KHL as a potential negotiating tactic are often the way things play out and it looks like this offseason will be no different. Rick Dhaliwal of Sportsnet has spoken with a source in Europe that tells him Mitch Marner’s camp has already reached out to the Zurich Lions of the Swiss NLA in case a deal can’t get done with the Toronto Maple Leafs in time for the season. Something like this does not by any means indicate that a contract won’t be signed between Marner and the Maple Leafs, but it would give him a potential place to keep his game sharp on a temporary basis.

The fact that it is Zurich may come as no surprise, given Auston Matthews’ connection with the organization and friendship with Marner. Matthews decided to play his draft year in Switzerland instead of North America, challenging himself against professionals before his eventual leap into the NHL. Zurich is known as an extremely stable organization and this season will have Rikard Gronborg behind the bench as head coach.

It is also important to note that these discussions with European or KHL teams rarely actually end up in a player spending time away from the NHL. In fact, other clients of Darren Ferris (Marner’s agent) have been known to use the Russian league as a leverage point over the years to try and get a deal done in North America. Both Sam Bennett and Andreas Athanasiou, clients of Ferris, were linked to the KHL in the summer of 2017 when they were at contract impasses with their respective clubs.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that Marner isn’t looking for a place to suit up and get on the ice however, similar to how William Nylander kept in shape with Swedish and Austrian clubs during his situation last year. If anything, this will hopefully put some pressure on both sides to get something done in the next few weeks as we are now less than a month away from training camp.

Rikard Gronborg Hired By ZSC Lions

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The idea of having Swedish coach Rikard Gronborg take over an NHL bench will have to wait, as the ZSC Lions of the Swiss NLA announced his hiring today. Gronborg has signed a two-year contract with the team. With Gronborg rumored to be linked to the Buffalo Sabres vacancy, John Vogl of the Buffalo News reached out today and was told that the team had not actually interviewed him at all. The Sabres prefer a coach with NHL experience, something that Gronborg has apparently heard from more than just Buffalo. He explained in a text to Vogl:

The main reason that I signed with ZSC, besides being the top job in Europe, is that no NHL team wanted a coach with no prior NHL head coaching experience. … My goal is to coach in the NHL sometime in the future. Just need to get a chance.

Gronborg, 50, has been a coach of Sweden internationally at various levels for nearly a decade. He’s totaled seven World Championship medals (three gold), six World Junior medals (one gold) and even an Olympic silver medal in 2014. While there is obviously a difference between coaching the best Swedish players in the world and taking over an NHL franchise, many have believed he would eventually find work somewhere in North America. That will have to wait, but as Gronborg says himself the Zurich job could be considered one of the best in Europe.

For Buffalo now, one has to wonder where they are leaning for their next head coach. Dave Tippett has already interviewed, and the team was linked to Jacques Martin previously. Toronto Marlies head coach Sheldon Keefe, who some have speculated could be of interest to the Sabres, also does not have any NHL experience and thus would seem out of the running.

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