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Nolan no sure thing for Kings' job

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Posted: Wednesday May 12, 1999 09:56 PM

Insiders say former Buffalo Sabres coach Ted Nolan has his resume on the desk of Los Angeles Kings general manager Dave Taylor, but the Kings are a long way from making a final decision on hiring him to replace the fired Larry Robinson.

The Kings want to make some decisions on reducing payroll after they failed to make the playoffs and they would like to do that before the new coach comes on board, so the issue of who goes and who stays does not become a spot for infighting.

Nolan is said to be a front-runner by some in administration, but hasn't yet won over Taylor or the hockey department. Nolan comes with some baggage from his days in Buffalo, where stories of infighting with management, especially then general manager John Muckler, have followed him around the league.

Can the Senators afford to keep Yashin?

Ottawa general manager Rick Dudley is saying all the right things about wanting to keep prize forward Alexei Yashin. The problem is, the Senators don't really know if they can afford him.

Yashin is rumored to be looking for a contract extension, and the Senators want to oblige despite his poor performance in losing to Buffalo in the first round.

The decision the Senators have to make is whether or not to move some players currently on the roster in order to clear salary that can then be used to pay Yashin. It's expected that if the Senators do go that route, one of the first to go will be goaltender Damian Rhodes.

Schoenfeld on shaky ground in Phoenix

Phoenix Coyotes coach Jim Schoenfeld claims that rumors of his being fired if the Coyotes didn't make it out of the first round of the playoffs were partly a ruse designed to make the team player better.

Don't bet on it.

Coyotes players don't much like Schoenfeld, much like the Washington Capitals players didn't like him when they ousted him in that city. The New Jersey Devils also ousted Schoenfeld a few years back, largely for the same reasons.

Hard to imagine because Schoenfeld is actually a likable guy, but players argue that he is inflexible and since the Coyotes have not gotten out of the first round in each of their three years in Phoenix, it's reasonable to assume that Schoenfeld is on shaky ground there.

Ftorek not much better off

The same can be said for New Jersey coach Robbie Ftorek. Though there were lots of reasons the Devils failed to get out of the first-round after winning the Eastern Conference Championship, Ftorek is not likely to escape all of the blame.

His critics maintain he was too tightly wound and that carried over to the young players on the team, who certainly felt the pressure of being favorites.

Ftorek also rocked the veterans by making Dave Andreychuk a healthy scratch during a pivotal Game Six vs. Pittsburgh.

Andreychuk is slow, but he still has a scorers touch and he doesn't lose his confidence in a tight spot. Taking him out when the team was having trouble scoring goals made no sense to several players on the Devils team.

Ftorek is also taking some of the blame for winding goalie Martin Brodeur too tight. This is a little unfair in that Brodeur had not had a good playoff series since the Devils won the Cup in 1995, but the idea that Brodeur would be better if the Devils abandoned their defensive game and tried to score more goals didn't help the goalie any.

Once the offense started to dry up in the playoffs, the Devils needed Brodeur to save them. But the overall team defense simply wasn't there anymore and he wasn't able to do the job.

In truth, Ftorek deserves a chance to learn from his mistakes. He's had a great deal of success at the minor league level, and the Devils management has been grooming him for this job for years.

However, two straight upset losses to the eighth-seeded team has fans calling for heads to roll. Ftorek may well be sacrificed.

Atlanta Thrashers in good position

The NHL has a trade embargo until after the Stanley Cup playoffs, but you can bet a number of teams are talking casually with Atlanta Thrashers general manager Don Waddell in an attempt to make deals regarding protecting players from the upcoming expansion draft.

Nashville general manager David Poile wrote the book on how to play the expansion game. The key element in Poile's plan was to target goaltenders and then select them or make deals so that the targeted teams could keep them.

Since Atlanta is likely to come to the expansion draft in better financial shape than the smaller market Nashville team, it's expected that money won't be as big an issue for the Thrashers and that if team's try to slip a high-priced player through because they think the economics favor Atlanta not taking that player, they could get burned.

That's why there's lots of casual talk about protection and what it might take to have the Thrashers back off.

Jim Kelley covers the NHL -- and the Sabres -- for the Buffalo News. His notebook and rumor mill appear weekly on CNN/SI.com.

 

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