A quick mix of the things we gleaned from the week of hockey, serious and less so, and rolling four lines deep. Please don’t tell my employer that the buyout window is open.
1. When former general manager Kyle Dubas quietly signed Sheldon Keefe to a two-year contract extension following 2021’s disastrous first-round ouster by the Montreal Canadiens, we had a theory.
Dubas knew his own future with the Toronto Maple Leafs wasn’t guaranteed beyond 2023. And as Keefe’s biggest supporter, the executive wanted to reward the head coach while he could.
Since Dubas has been fired and hired by the Pittsburgh Penguins, intrigue circling Keefe’s future has only increased.
New GM Brad Treliving was initially noncommittal to Keefe. Hardly knew him. But after meeting with Keefe, it sure sounds like he’s sticking around.
Sportsnet can confirm Treliving and Keefe are interviewing candidates to replace former assistant Spencer Carbery on the bench, and, as previously reported by Elliotte Friedman, are even expected to talk about a second extension for Keefe himself.
This wouldn’t be the first time Treliving kept his fire-the-coach card in his pocket. When he got the GM gig in Calgary, he inherited Bob Hartley, stuck with him, and saw a 10-win improvement. Treliving then fired Hartley when the Flames missed the playoffs the following season.
Extension or not, Keefe’s leash cannot be long.
It’s only money. Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment has gobs of it. Just ask the coach Keefe replaced.
Absolutely, Keefe’s regular-season record is incredible (.678 points percentage). Yet he has routinely been outcoached in the postseason by more experienced opponents.
Look no further than the 2023 Stanley Cup finalists, Vegas and Florida, to see how a good team can be elevated by a fresh voice, a new perspective.
To be fair to Keefe, we are curious to see how he runs the Leafs under new management. There were occasions when he walked back criticism of his players and that bizarre admission that inserting EBUG Jett Alexander into a win over Montreal was not his call.
Will Keefe coach differently under Treliving? Will Treliving surround him with a more balanced lineup that allows him to?
What should be telling of where this is all headed is whom Treliving hires as Keefe’s assistant. Another up-and-comer like Carbery, hungry to prove himself?
Or will Keefe soon be sharing his bench with a more experienced coach, someone with a reputation and resume on par with Keefe’s himself?
2. The first time Ivan Barbashev lifted the Stanley Cup, back in 2019, he was an impending free agent. He made his arbitration case on three goals and six points over a 25-game championship run as an RFA depth forward with the St. Louis Blues.
The second time Barbashev won the Cup, Tuesday, he is an impending free agent. But after the rental pickup’s seven goals and 18 points in Vegas’s 22-game championship run, the edgy winger holds all the leverage.
The 27-year-old let the world know he can hang with elite forwards (Jonathan Marchessault and Jack Eichel) and deliver painful checks to hardnosed opponents (Radko Gudas).
That’s a rare combination, and it will get the Moscow native paid.
“I’ve always played some kind of a physical game. I think that’s what I brought over here. Just trying to bring some energy,” Barbashev says.
“They didn’t ask me to play a skill role, to be honest. It was up to me. Because when you play with Jack and Marchy, you got to make some plays for them, and you got to be an option for them as well.”
Until 2021-22, when he broke out for 26 goals and 60 points in St. Louis, Barbashev had been a career fourth-liner. Now that he has a taste of top-six life, he doesn’t want to look back.
He’d spent nine years in the Blues system, and despite getting a clear heads-up from GM Doug Armstrong that he was getting dealt at the deadline, Barbashev says the move to Vegas was a big adjustment. He plays fearless but admits he was “a little bit scared at first” by the trade.
Now, Barbashev’s preference is to re-sign. But his cap hit ($2.25 million) is going to more than double. The cap-crunched Knights already have five forwards making $5 million or more.
Brett Howden (RFA) has earned a raise, and with Robin Lehner’s future uncertain, Vegas needs a goalie to play with Logan Thompson. Laurent Brossoit and Adin Hill are both UFA.
The math gets complicated, and Barbashev’s agent, Dan Milstein, has proven adept at getting the most for his clients.
“I would love to stay in Vegas, for sure. I really enjoyed my time here,” Barbashev says.
“I love the city. I love the team. I love the organization.”
3. UFA Phil Kessel made it clear he wants to keep playing next season, despite being 36 when the puck drops on 2023-24 and despite not seeing the ice in Cup Final.
Well, fellow UFA and three-time champion Jonathan Quick isn’t planning a retirement party either.
The goaltender is five years removed from posting a career average save percentage, didn’t see game action for the Knights in their Cup run, and he’s 37.
“I’d like to continue playing,” Quick says.
Fellow King-turned-Knight Alec Martinez helped Quick make the surprise trade-deadline transition from L.A. (via Columbus).
“That’s a bit of a shell shock moment for him,” said Martinez, who was excited by the reunion. “He’s the ultimate competitor, and he just wants to do whatever it takes to help the guys win.
“I would imagine he’s been a really good sounding board for [the other goalies]as a guy that’s had a lot of success in this league has been around for a long time.”
Quick went a respectable 5-2-2 after getting dealt to the Knights. Will he find a mentorship-slash-backup role in the fall?
4. Projected top-five draft pick Will Smith has interviewed with so many NHL teams, he’s lost count.
The centre is trying to model his game (and hairstyle?) after fellow U.S. nation program graduate Jack Hughes.
Four years younger than the Devils’ MVP, Smith (6 feet, 181 pounds) is already bigger than Hughes.
Plus, he knows The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme by heart:
5. When looking for draft-floor trade action, it’s always wise to keep an eye on the teams with multiple first-round picks. They’re often open to moving one, usually the later one.
On June 28, that group features Arizona (picks 6 and 12), Detroit (9 and 17), Chicago (1 and 19), Philadelphia (7 and 22), and Nashville (15 and 24).
6. Florida’s Anthony Duclair has over-delivered as a $3-million skater for the Panthers and can re-sign as early as July 1.
Once again, he’ll be acting as his own agent, as he did as a UFA in 2020.
Duclair enjoyed the eye-opening experience the first time, and it’s probably no coincidence that he came to terms with the first GM who called up.
Cats GM Bill Zito and Duclair have a relationship that goes back to their Columbus days.
But Duclair fielded a number of calls and learned a ton about the business — and how the business viewed him.
“I wouldn’t change anything, to be honest. Just having the opportunity to talk to multiple GMs around the league, just telling my story. Get a feel for what my market is around the league and to get a feel for what they think about me as a player, as a person, and just trying to explain where I’m coming from,” Duclair says.
“It was great to experience and looking forward to it again.”
Paul Maurice has tons of respect for Duclair for how he attacked his rehab this season, and for taking charge of his own career.
That said, the coach has no interest in pulling a Duclair and negotiating his own contract.
“I might hire him today if I get another one,” Maurice said. “Like to have him do it.”
7. Erik Karlsson should win his third Norris Trophy next week in Nashville.
What means more to him, however, is being a finalist (alongside Connor McDavid and David Pastrnak) for the Ted Lindsay Award.
Peer respect trumps all.
8. Amid the tears and champagne Tuesday, veteran Alec Martinez was asked to compare his Vegas championship to the two he won with Los Angeles.
“This one’s probably the sweetest because it’s happening right now,” Martinez replied.
What an answer.
Admittedly falling into “a different end of the age spectrum,” Martinez turns 36 next month.
He figures his Cup party will be more low-key than it was in 2012.
“First one, I was single. And it’s just me and my buddies. And then a couple guys got married the second time around. And now there’s a lot of wives and kids around, so I’m sure it’ll get slightly out of hand, but it will be different,” he said.
Even minutes removed from the final buzzer and the falling streamers and the flinging gloves, Martinez’s celebration is calmer than most. He surveys the scene like a proud dad at graduation.
“You have a different approach. I’m able to kind of sit back, having gone through it before. You try to sit back and watch and try to notice little things,” Martinez explains.
“Whereas your first time, you — for lack of a better phrase — just want to blow it out, right? You want to do everything to the max and do it right, because you never know if it’s gonna happen again.
“It’s nice to have a little bit experience and be able to sit back and watch. Just stop and look around and see some of these young guys and see what they accomplished and see the milestone and the childhood memories fulfilled. I mean, doesn’t get much better than that.”
9. To watch Jonathan Marchessault play hockey is to watch joy.
During warmups in the Cup Final, he could be seen celebrating practice goals scored on Hill, waving to fans over the glass and yapping it up with teammates.
“I just try and be in a good spirit before every game. To be honest, I think it’s important to be happy before every game. To have a clear mind,” Marchessault says.
It’s not uncommon for players to toss a puck to fan during warmups, but I noticed Marchessault lobbed a whole bunch of pregame pucks to children in one corner of T-Mobile Arena.
Turns out, those were his kids. And he repeats this tradition every home game. No wonder he’s constantly seeing official VGK pucks at the family sport court.
“I have four kids,” Marchessault smiles. “And if they bring one friend, I gotta give them five.”
Great trivia answer: Marchessault became the first undrafted player to win the Conn Smythe since… Wayne Gretzky.
Except he was drafted, in expansion, from the Florida Panthers.
“I was disappointed when it happened,” said Marchessault, thinking back to the summer of 2017. “Honestly, I loved it [in Florida]. I loved living here. I’m a big Florida guy. I love the beach. I loved living here, to be honest. And I know the organization was going through changes at that time, and I was disappointed, to be honest.”
The Panthers Marchessault defeated only held a couple players (Aleksander Barkov, Aaron Ekblad) from his days there. He notes that he knows more players on the Lightning.
“I mean, give me a few months, and I get over it, right?” Marchessault says. “It’s behind me, for sure.”
10. Good for Andreas Athanasiou for securing a career-high $4.25 million AAV in his two-year deal with Chicago.
But if that’s the going rate for a 40-point winger (20 goals, 20 assists) heading to unrestricted free agency, a few agents should be licking their chops.
By Athanasiou’s new math, $4.5 million should be the absolute baseline AAV for UFA forwards Michael Bunting, Tomas Tatar, Max Domi, and J.T. Compher.
Alex Killorn and Barbashev should blow that out of the water.
Prepare for some overpays here.
11. Depth forward Michael Amadio has averaged just 0.29 points per game in the regular season.
Come playoff time, that number leaps to 0.65 points per game. Incredible value for a $762,500 player.
Amadio has quietly fit in nicely (and cheaply) on the Knights’ bottom six since Vegas scooped him off the waiver wire from the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“I still think if you told me when I got put on waivers that I’d be winning the Stanley Cup in two years, I wouldn’t believe it,” Amadio told me while celebrating with his family on the ice Tuesday. “It’s just been a crazy ride.”
Amadio figures he’ll take the Cup home to Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., this summer and throw a party that wouldn’t have been possible if Vegas didn’t believe in him at a low point.
“They took a chance on me last year. Picked me up off waivers. They showed confidence in me, and then I kind of just started playing my game. Got back to the basics and found confidence in myself again,” Amadio said. “I think that’s what carried me.”
12. Attack this weekend like Stephen Schoch. Don’t get caught up in the jibber jabber.
