For the fifth time in seven years, the Buffalo Sabres will have a new head coach behind the bench.
On Sunday, general manager Jason Botterill made the decision to relieve Phil Housley of his head coaching duties with the Sabres. In just two seasons with the Sabres, Housley amassed a record of 58-84-22, with a 31st place finish in the 2018-18 season and a 27th place finish this past season.
Now the search commences for a new head coach in Buffalo as a number of names will be in the mix for the job in Buffalo. Botterill said during his press conference that he will meet with his management team over the next few days and culminate a list of potential candidates that they will want to talk with.
John Shannon of Sportsnet took some time on Monday to join Howard Simon and Brayton Wilson on WGR. He talked about some of the potential options at head coach for the Sabres, about options for other teams around the NHL that are looking to hire a coach, and on the question of whether Jeff Skinner will re-sign with the Sabres.
Here is some of what Shannon had to say:
"I think Todd McLellan will be the coach in L.A. and I think Dallas Eakins, the old coach in Edmonton, will end up being the coach in Anaheim, so those two positions will be filled."
"Paul Fenton in Minnesota has an interesting one, whether he wants to cut bait with Bruce Boudreau and that decision will probably come in the next 72 hours as well. If that's the case, that means Dean Evason, who Fenton brought to Minnesota as a coach will probably get that job."
"Bruce has been fired in Washington and fired in Anaheim and hired for the next job in 48 hours. The question becomes, how damaged now is he? Does he need a break? Does he need a reset? Obviously he's a great communicator with the media, he's great to be around for the media, he's lots of fun. Does he connect with his players? That's something that Jason is going to have to figure out."
"Ken Hitchcock will not be back as the coach. What's going on in Edmonton is that they have to hire a manager first, then the manager's going to hire the coach. That could take up to another six to eight weeks."
"I don't think this is a difficult sell at all. I think that there are enough good parts here in Buffalo for any coach who's at the top of his game to be able to say, I wanna be with Jack Eichel, I wanna be with Rasmus Dahlin, I wanna be with Ristolainen, I wanna be with Jeff Skinner when he re-signs. There's enough here in a really good hockey market that makes the Sabres job really attractive."
"You have to look at somebody like Alain Vigneault, who has a pretty good track record. He was a victim of a roster in New York that got very old very quickly, but other than that, has a really good track record. And he will be in demand too, I would not be surprised to see Vigneault at the top of the list in Ottawa. So that becomes someone that Jason and the Pegulas should be very interested in."
"I don't think he'll hit the market, I think that he'll re-sign in Buffalo before July first. I think it's such a good setup for Jeff, he's had arguably his most successful season in the National Hockey League playing in Buffalo, I think the fan base appreciates what he does, I think the fact that he's a Southern Ontario boy and it's not too far for his family to come and watch him is attractive. There are too many good things in Buffalo for Skinner that it doesn't make sense for him not to re-sign."
"We heard what Jason said yesterday that he's confident that he can re-sign Skinner. I think Skinner wants to re-sign in Buffalo and I think you just have to figure out what that number is. What's a 40-goal scorer get? Obviously I would suspect a seven or eight year deal, and how much north of eight million dollars is it?"
You can listen to the entire interview below: