NHL weekend rankings: Another coaching shocker rocks the East's pillow fight

The big news, for the second week in a row, is a shock coaching change. This time it’s the Islanders, with Patrick Roy being shown the door and Pete BeBoer taking over.

This kind of move needs its own section, so we’ll cover the Islanders in more depth down below. But first, three quick thoughts, which might be the same three thoughts you had when you first heard the news:

- Damn, Mathieu Darche is not messing around.

- This was tough news to hear for a whole lot of teams that thought DeBoer would be on their radar in a few weeks.

- Matthew Schaeffer, COACH KILLER?

- The latest “next coach fired odds” list sent to the media came out on Wednesday, and it had 13 names ahead of Roy. In other words, lots of coaches probably don’t want their phone to ring right now.

Way more on this to come down below. But first…

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How to make sense of a nonsensical NHL season? Just follow the chain of blowouts

How do you know if one NHL team is better than another?

We used to thank that that was a relatively simple question. You could just look at the standings, and they’d tell you who was good and who wasn’t. That was kind of the standings page’s whole job. But that was before the league started handing out points for losing (or did they?), encouraging everyone to play for overtime during the regular season and basically making a team’s won-loss record all but useless on its own.

And that’s in a good year. This one? It’s chaos. One division is terrible, another how arguably the three best teams in the league, and a bunch of teams are going to get screwed by the playoff format. We’ve got teams we thought would be bad winning divisions, and teams we thought would win their division who are completely unwatchable, the two-time defending Cup champs are terrible, the reigning Presidents’ Trophy winner is even worse, and a contender just fired their coach with eight games left. The Blue Jackets are good, the Blues might still make the playoffs, and the Sabres are doing whatever it is they’re doing. And we’re supposed to be able to figure out which teams are better than others?

Well, yeah. And I think it’s simpler than we’re making it out to be.

We’re overthinking this. Because while the standings page might lie, the results on the ice don’t. Or at least, they don’t as long as you know where to look.

Here’s my proposal: Forget about the won-loss records, and just ask your self what happens when two teams take the ice.

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Eight critical questions the Leafs should ask the candidates to be their next GM

The Toronto Maple Leafs are in the market for a new GM, and probably a president too. I’m offering my services.

No, not for the jobs themselves. But I’m willing to act as a consultant for the interview process. Specifically, I’ve got a few questions that I’d love to see Keith Pelley and his hiring committee ask potential candidates before making a decision on who’ll lead this franchise into the future.

Normally I’d charge a hefty fee to a corporate client for this sort of insight, but given the critical importance hanging over the coming decisions, I’ll make it a freebie. As my gift to the team that’s brought me so much joy over the years, here’s are the eight questions I wouldn’t let a candidate leave an interview without asking.

I’ll skip the obvious ones, like “Rebuild or reload?” or “What should we do with Auston Matthews?” or “Who’s the coach?” Those are important, but even Pelley doesn’t need my help to come up with them. Let’s dig a little deeper.

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NHL weekend rankings: A stunning coaching change in Vegas shakes up the Pacific

Well, we didn’t see that one coming.

Maybe we should have, given that the Vegas Golden Knights don’t exactly have a reputation as a patient franchise. They’ve spent every year of their existence as aspiring Cup contenders, and they’ve made it clear that failure isn’t an option. Given how much failing they’ve been doing this year, maybe we should have expected yesterday’s bombshell, with John Tortorella replacing Bruce Cassidy as head coach with just eight games left to play.

What does it all mean? Let’s dig into it…

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Ranking the 10 best opening round matchups that are still realistically in play

Did you catch another subtle sign of spring from the last few days? The NHL standings page added an “If Playoffs Started Today” link at the top of the page. And it doesn’t just go to a page that says “… it would be way too early, calm down”.

That’s because we’re almost there. There are just three weeks left in the NHL season, and while that’s plenty of time for teams to shift around the standings, it’s close enough to the playoffs that we can start thinking ahead to potential matchups. And as always, some are better than others.

Today, let’s have a look at some of those first-round matchups that are realistically in play, with a ranking of the 10 best. We’ll use the numbers from hockeystats.com, and limit our list to matchups with at least a 10% chance of happening (heading into last night’s games).

We’ll count them down, working our way to the best possible matchups, most of which of course will not happen because we’ll have jinxed it. We’ll get there, but let’s take this from the top…

>> Read the full post at The Athletic