Now or Never Time?

Earlier in the week, the Chicago Blackhawks and Arizona Coyotes swapped former first round picks in the hope that either or both teams will get their anemic offenses going. The trade also symbolizes a need for all the participants in the trade to justify their status as first round picks.

The Coyotes will get Nick Schmaltz, who was the 20th overall pick in 2014. He had a pretty good first season in the league, scoring 21 times last year. However, he has only scored twice with nine helpers. The Blackhawks get Brendan Perlini and Dylan Strome. Perlini, the 11th overall pick in 2014, scored 17 goals last year, but has been held to just two goals and four helpers this season. Strome was the third overall pick in 2015 behind Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel, and has had trouble sticking in the NHL, as he has been back and forth between the NHL and AHL since turning pro last season. He scored three goals and three helpers prior to the trade this season.

Both teams have struggled with offense, as the Coyotes haven't gotten the bang for their buck from players such as Alex Galchenyuk and Clayton Keller while having injury issues with Anttii Raanta. The Blackhawks are having the same issues, but with more depth issues. Adding both Strome and Perlini should at least mean more chances to score, but whether or not it means anything in the grand scheme of things this year remains to be seen. Meanwhile, Schmaltz is another in the long line of changes for the Coyotes, who jettisoned Max Domi for Galchneyuk, only for Domi to already match his goal total from last year, and it's not December yet. For nothing else, the trade is a wake up call for all involved and may very well change the fortunes of the teams if any of them pan out.

Cutting Room

The past month has seen some changes in the NHL, as four teams as of this writing have changed head coaches in the middle of the season...and it's not December, yet. Let's run them down, and look at who may be next to go.

• The Chicago Blackhawks parted ways with Joel Quennville and replaced him with Jeremy Colliton, who was the head coach of the team's AHL affiliate in Rockford. The Quennville firing comes as a shock, but the reality was there was a major butting of heads lately between Quennville and General Manager Stan Bowman. Someone had to go, and soon, the other half may be gone by the end of the season, so this change is definitely a referendum on Bowman, who has put the Blackhawks on the verge of salary cap hell and hasn't adequately addressed the team's depth problem lately.
• The Los Angeles Kings were also in the mood to fire their head coach, as John Stevens was given his walking papers. Willie Desjardins was named interim coach. Stevens had a decent regular season last year, but his inability to get any offense out of the team come playoff time was exposed, and it has been further exposed this season despite adding Ilya Kovalchuk in the off-season. While Desjardins is an interim coach, was it really the best decision? Marco Sturm is the likely head coach in waiting, and skipping the middle man would have made more sense, although the Kings haven't been able to field a healthy goaltending unit lately, since Cal Petersen, he of a handful of games thus far, is now on the NHL roster until the likes of Peter Budaj and Jonathan Quick can get healthy again.
• Speaking of the Kings, they were the last team that Mike Yeo would be facing as the head coach of the St. Louis Blues. The Blues were shut out last night by that team, and an offensive dry spell that topped a team struggling to meet expectations meant the Mike Yeo experiment it over. Before I get to who is replacing him, it should be noted that the Blues hand-picked Yeo to replace Ken Hitchcock after the 2016-17 season, only to speed up that process by a few months, as Hitchcock was fired for Yeo. Just over two years later, Yeo is now looking for a new job. His replacement is...Craig Berube? This may be an interim move, but given that Berube was terrible as head coach in Philadelphia, it almost seems like the Blues WANT to fail.
• Spekaing of Hitchcock, he was lured out of retirement...again, as the Edmonton Oilers fired Todd MacClellan this morning. Hitchcock will be behind the bench for at least the rest of the season. One has to wonder if General Manager Peter Chiarrelli should be answering the phone because his job is now on the line. A team that has underachieved despite Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and is also on the verge of salary cap hell, the Oilers may need to do more than just fire the head coach.

So, who could be the next coach to go? Randy Carlyle in Anaheim seems like a safe bet, as does Jeff Blashill in Detroit and Guy Boucher in Ottawa.