I really don't see how firing Berube is going to save this season with this roster!
Mike Babcock no doubt. Back up the brinks truck and get him here.
I feel like Babcock would be loved in this city too for some reason.
I doubt if he'd take the job after he boogied out of Washington but Dale Hunter is my first choice. If not him, then Doug Jarvis. I don't think that Babcock is realistic. He wants to be HC and GM.
That's why I posted that I doubted that he would take the job. Also that time in Washington may have soured him on coaching in the NHL.Dale Hunter isn't going to leave the Knights. He's getting paid an insane amount of money to run that team (~$7m a season). There's a reason why he went back after coaching the Caps for only one season
Babcock by a country mile. Don't worry about the price, Ed will pay it.
If Babcock really wants a lot of control like is being rumored that could be a dealbreaker before a bidding war even starts. I don't see Hextall or Snider wanting to give the coach too much of a say in personnel decisions, that's the GM's job.
He's a great hockey mind. I wouldn't give him too much say but his input would probably be pretty helpful. He's also in agreement with Hextall's philosophy on young players, is he not?
On a side note, I just saw that we're a quarter of the way through the season we only have two more wins than the Oilers and Sabres... maybe getting McDavid or Eichel isn't as unlikely as some think, especially if Hextall does what we're expecting.
Aside from the obvious Babcock, Todd McLellan is a guy I'd have interest in, and he's going to be under pressure soon. He's been excellent at finding use of unheralded players to fill out his roster. Guys like that are capable of finding NHL utility out of players by, you know, actually using them in roles that maximize their skill sets.
We all say, "oh well, player X was a tweener, and probably wouldn't have been much anyway", but that mentality is terrible, imo. I think a guy like McLellan could players like Cousins, Akeson, Gustafsson, etc. into effective, though unspectacular, NHL players. And getting the most out of the roster has ALWAYS been a concern for this team.
But like GG said above, I also don't know who's available outside of the NHL. But if we're looking for guys with experience, Babcock and McLellan are at the top of my list.