CHANGES COMING NORTH OF THE BORDER

TORONTO, ON — The water continues to boil in Montreal and Vancouver, with the Canadiens and Canucks urgently looking to reshape parts of their organizations.

While chatter of change in Canucks Nation has been active for some time, news broke Saturday evening in La Belle Province when Habs Assistant GM Scott Mellanby resigned and reports surfaced over the Canadiens receiving permission to speak with former New York Rangers GM Jeff Gorton about an upper-management role within the club.

In Vancouver, ownership has been contemplating the right route to take with the team. Canucks GM Jim Benning is on a short leash and with one year left on his contract after this season, we may soon see a change at his position. But whether the team axes the GM or the head coach first seems to be the question.

The Canucks signed coach Travis Green to a two-year extension in May. He, like Benning, has one-year remaining. At the start of the season, it appeared as if a roster change was more likely, but the Canucks have continued to struggle and whispers over a coaching change have gotten louder and louder – so much so that some within the industry believe it is now an inevitability.

Do the Canucks go for the combo, A-B-A-B-UP-DOWN, uppercut punch and whack both Benning and Green simultaneously? That has been hard to gauge. And as Elliotte Friedman reported on Saturday night, there is no definitive timeline as to when a move(s) will be made. But it sounds like some type of move is coming.

The bulk of the roster seems to be waiting for whatever change is coming. At least, that’s how it has looked on the ice. The Canucks play Boston tonight and then head to Montreal tomorrow. They finish up their five-game roadtrip Wednesday in Ottawa before six-game home stretch starting Saturday. Something’s gotta give, it’s just a matter of when.

In Montreal, the ‘when’ has already started. Mellanby left the Habs after it became apparent that he wasn’t going to replace Marc Bergevin as GM or take a role higher up in the organization. Bergevin’s time with the Habs is nearing its end. Canadiens owner Geoff Molson is no longer willing to be patient. As the Aquilinis do their work in Vancouver, Molson’s doing his in Montreal.

Gorton could come in as President of Hockey Operations, or something near that type of role, as many have already reported. But the club’s next GM will have French Canadian roots. Given the marketplace, and Gorton effectively overseeing the direction of the club, this type of formation makes sense. A trip to the Stanley Cup Final, their first appearance since 1993, was expected to be followed up with an exciting, playoff-competing season. Injuries and no Carey Price dampened those expectations, but nobody projected the Canadiens to be the third-worst team in the NHL based on point percentage at the quarter-mark. C’est pas bon.

Gorton will presumably oversee replacing Bergevin – unless he person decides he wants him to stick around (but, c’mon). The Habs haven’t reached out to Patrick Roy yet, despite reports to the contrary, and there are plenty of other candidates for the GM position. But that seems to be a decision the PHO will make.

Big news has a tendency of dropping on Sundays. We may not necessarily hear much today from either the Canadiens or Canucks, but the hammer’s about to drop in both cities. It is just a matter of when.

ALL-STAR LEVEL COVID CONCERNS

This season’s All-Star Game in Las Vegas had a lot of people around the game excited – even with the Olympic break. Showcasing the sport in Sin City after two shortened seasons led to plenty of creative planning for both the Skills Competition and the ASG itself. But as Covid has made its way into the locker rooms of a few teams, the Players are getting more and more concerned about Beijing 2022.

Emily Kaplan first reported the Players will be changing venues, going from the Encore Las Vegas to another property on the strip without a casino. While the venue will be closer to T-Mobile Arena, the NHLPA spearheaded this change as they want tighter control and protocols in Vegas to limit the risk of exposure prior to China. This also restricts most extra curricular activities any of the Players may want to experience while in town.

The NHL has a charter flight scheduled to take the Olympic players to Beijing after the game, which may start at 3pm ET/12pm PT. The last thing the NHLPA wants is to fly over to the Winter Olympics with an unknown positive case – that would be a “nightmare scenario,” an NHLPA representative expressed to me.

This is a storyline to keep tabs on. It is no secret the owners prefer no Olympic participation or break in the schedule, especially this season. Even though they agreed to it in the CBA, that won’t stop them from nudging the Players to opt out, something that can happen between now and Jan. 10, 2022. If that does happen, the three-week break in February will be shortened by roughly 10-14 days as the League will attempt to move up the schedule as best they can.

FEELING BLUE AND ORANGE

The New York Islanders are the most recent team battling Covid, with members both on and off the ice testing positive. While the NHL finally decided on Saturday to postpone some of their upcoming games, the Islanders tried to convince the League to do that earlier in the week. And while GM Lou Lamoriello publicly denied asking for games to be postponed, my sources suggest he was adamant about it – which was the right thing to do, anyway.

We can argue whether the NHL took too long to postpone games until we’re blue (and orange) in the face, what’s done is done. But this could have repercussions that extend beyond the NHL.

The Islanders had several players from Bridgeport play with the team this past week. As the NHL roster reassembles, some of the call-ups will be sent back down to the AHL. If any of them test positive for Covid after they rejoin the B-Isles, then another team is affected. And we just saw the AHL announce Saturday the next two games between Hershey and Lehigh Valley have been postponed due to Covid protocols.

FUTURE GAMES

As tough as the first quarter of the season has been for the Islanders, brighter days are ahead. Their players will return, and they’ll start to climb the standings. And as they straighten out their season in brand new UBS Arena, which is absolutely stunning, bigger games are on the horizon.

The Islanders are vying to host an upcoming All-Star Game at UBS. It is too early to tell when that will be, but the expectation is one of the next few All-Star Games will take place at Belmont.

Due to the pandemic, the Florida Panthers lost their 2021 All-Star Game and they are supposed to get one to make up for it. Could we see the Panthers host in 2023 and the Islanders in 2024? Maybe. Seattle’s hoping for one, too, but an upcoming NHL Draft could be in their future.

And as Dennis Bernstein and I have noted multiple times on The Hot Stove on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio, the NHL would like to bring back the Global Series as early as next season. It all depends on local restrictions related to Covid, but have regular-season games in Europe is something the NHL wants to resume as soon as it can.