Links, News and Notes: Leafs Hire New GM, Predators Hire Brunette, Ownership Update and More

Between the long the wait for the Stanley Cup Finals and the freeze on ownership, it seems the offseason for the entire league is here. However, we still manage to find you the most interesting news bits from the hockey world.

• The Toronto Maple Leafs ended their season earlier than they had hoped (again). After the shock of being eliminated by the Florida Panthers, Brendan Shanahan's immediate reaction was to cut ties with GM Kyle Dubas in quite a dramatic fashion. It didn't take long for Shanahan to move on and he named Brad Treliving as Dubas's replacement. Treliving's most recent job was with the Calgary Flames where he infamously traded Matthew Tkachuk to the Florida Panthers so this should be a fun time for Leafs fans.
• The Washington Capitals have found their new head coach for next season. The Capitals announced this week that they have hired former Toronto Maple Leafs assistant coach, Spencer Carbery.
• The Nashville Predators have also filled their coaching void with a new hire. Andrew Brunette is a name some Sens fans were eyeing as a potential replacement for DJ Smith, if needed. However, with the ownership process taking so long, Brunette is already off the table as he was officially announced as the Predator's 4th coach this week.
• The team over at Locked On Senators had GM Pierre Dorion on the podcast on Wednesday where he covered everything from upcoming free agents to the 2021 draft to how busy he's been since the Sens season wrapped up. He even made some light comments surrounding the ownership situation, although nothing juicy came from that particular clip.
• Speaking of great podcast interviews, on the Senstenniel podcast this week, they had Chris Peters join to talk about the Sens NCAA prospect pipeline, who's coming down the line for Ottawa and what that could mean for the future of Ottawa's depth.
• After 200 days on the market, the Ottawa Senators are still not sold. Every week seems to be the same old story of "getting close" or "decision to be made soon". This week has been more silent than usual so maybe this is good news however, Bruce Garrioch from the Ottawa Sun reported that the entire process may take 60-90 days to close which is significant because the process won't officially be completed until right before training camp. This may put any potential big management changes in jeopardy.
• The IIHF introduced a new "female of the year" player award. While Team Canada and its players had a wonderful season, it seems winning the World Championship gave the US the edge in the voting. Hilary Knight was named the IIHF player of the year receiving an overwhelming 40.9% of the votes after having an exceptional World Champion tournament. Canada's Sarah Filler received 9.1% of the votes and Marie-Phillip Poulin surprisingly only received 2.3% of the votes.
• Over at The Athletic, Harman Dayal put together an interesting piece on the best value contract for every NHL team for the 2022-23 season. You don't need an Athletic subscription to guess that Tim Stützle, who was still on his Entry Level Contract for 2022-23 was Ottawa's runaway pick for best value on the team. I imagine he'll remain as such even when his $8.35M contract kicks in next season.
• The Latvia celebration may have not even ended but one of the most notable forms of celebration was a national holiday given to everyone to celebrate the country's Bronze medal and first ever World Championship medal. I personally think we too should have gotten a national holiday with the gold medal victory.
• Mark Borowiecki announced his retirement over a month ago and now he's starting to settle down into his future without NHL hockey, at least not as a player. Borowiecki relays the story of his encounter with a man in Nashville a year ago who was slumped in his car in the middle of traffic as he was heading to pick up his son. He also talks about that scary night at Bridgestone Arena which ended up being his final NHL game and how he plans to go back to school to study psychiatry.