Rumour Roundup: Ekman-Larsson fallout, interest in Brown, Leafs coaching staff search

With the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the rear-view mirror, hockey fans and front offices across the NHL are officially in full-blown off-season mode.

The Vancouver Canucks bought out the final four years of Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s contract over the weekend and Jeff Marek and Elliott Friedman spoke about some of the potential fallout from that move on the latest episode of 32 Thoughts.

Ekman-Larsson is set to now hit the open market on July 1 and Marek pointed out the Boston Bruins have been a team that in the past had shown interest in acquiring the defenceman. Friedman chimed in to say Ekman-Larsson also liked the Bruins.

Boston is a team potentially set to lose Dmitry Orlov in free agency. Keeo in mind the Bruins already have seven blueliners under contract for 2023-24 with six of them carrying salary cap hits of at least $3 million.

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Teams showing early interest in returning Brown

Connor Brown remains under contract with the Washington Capitals yet will soon be an unrestricted free agent. Brown was acquired by the Capitals prior to the 2022-23 season in a trade with the Ottawa Senators but the forward only managed to suit up for four games this past season after tearing his ACL in a game against the Canucks in October. He required surgery that shut him down for the remainder of the season.

Friedman said “I don’t even know if teams are even allowed to talk to him yet” but “there’s teams kinda looking in there. What’s his situation gonna be? What does he want to sign for? Where does he want to go?”

The two-time 20-goal scorer – once with Toronto in 2016-17 and once with Ottawa in 2020-21 – is coming off a three-year contract that saw him earn an AAV of $3.6 million.

The Edmonton Oilers re a team likely to be mentioned in the same breath as Brown with his connections to Connor McDavid. The two played together with the OHL’s Erie Otters in junior a decade ago and they are represented by the same agency.

Friedman pointed out the Oilers are tight to the cap so there’d be a dollar limit to any potential offer from Edmonton.

Sticking with Edmonton, Mark Spector wrote over the weekend: “There is some talk in Edmonton about Jonathan Toews at 4C, pushing the newly re-signed Derek Ryan to a preferred spot at right wing. Toews is at a crossroads, done with the Blackhawks but reportedly unsure about what comes next.”

Toews only suited up for 53 games this past season in Chicago but is also a pending UFA.

The Oilers have been eliminated by the eventual Stanley Cup champion in each of the past two seasons and boast the best one-two punch in the game with McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. The team currently has around $5 million in projected cap space.

Toronto searching for assistant coach

Marek said he has had a few names float his way as possible replacements for Spencer Carbery on the Maple Leafs coaching staff: Karl Taylor, Todd Nelson and Mitch Love.

Taylor has been the head coach of the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals, Nashville’s farm team, since the 2018-19 campaign. Nelson is one win away from winning a Calder Cup title in his first year as head coach of the Hershey Bears, Washington’s affiliate. Love is the head coach of the AHL’s Calgary Wranglers and was considered for the Flames’ head coaching job that was recently filled by Ryan Huska.

Friedman suggested this focus on replacing Carbery would indicate Sheldon Keefe will indeed return as head coach of the Maple Leafs. Carbery was named head coach of the Capitals in late May after spending the past two seasons as an assistant in Toronto.

Blue Jackets getting calls about third-overall pick

Jarmo Kekalainen was a guest on The Jeff Marek Show Monday afternoon and the Columbus Blue Jackets general manager said he has already had multiple proposals regarding the No. 3 overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft but he said “none of them have been even close to what it would take” to trade out of that spot.

Kekalainen has shown over the years he isn’t afraid to pull off blockbuster deals. Since 2021 he has traded Pierre-Luc Dubois, Seth Jones, Cam Atkinson, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Gustav Nyquist, Nick Foligno and Jakub Voracek among others. Not to mention earlier this month he acquired Damon Severson and Ivan Provorov in separate deals to bolster his blue line. Kekalainen added he’s open to trading the No. 3 pick if the right offer were to hypothetically come his way but as it stands he expects Columbus will end up selecting a quality prospect that will help the franchise long term.

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Keep a close eye on the Blues

One Western Conference team looking to shake things up this summer is the St. Louis Blues. The team has only won a single playoff series since the franchise hoisted its first Stanley Cup back in 2019 and missed the post-season in 2023.

Friedman mentioned St. Louis “has made a lot of noise about wanting to do things but they haven’t done anything major yet” but he had one source tell him “you’d be foolish to think that they won’t be doing something” and “there’s no way they’re sticking with the status quo.”

The source suggested the Blues will be an interesting team to watch around the draft (June 28-29) and they could be interested in a difference maker like Coyotes forward Clayton Keller if he were to become available. Keller, 24, has five years remaining on his contract with Arizona and is a native of Chesterfield, Mo., which is near St. Louis.

The Blues have three 2023 first-round picks they can use to draft or trade. St. Louis has their own pick as the No. 10 overall selection, plus the No. 25 pick acquired from Toronto in the Ryan O’Reilly trade and the No. 29 pick they got from the Rangers (that originally belonged to Dallas) in the Vladimir Tarasenko trade.

More from Sportsnet

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Wiebe’s World: Golden Knights face big decisions after Stanley Cup triumph

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