So my phone rings this afternoon, I look at the caller id and it says, “Jacques Lemaire.”

I answered and Mssr. Lemaire proceeded to have a little fun with yours truly.

“Michael,” in that unmistakeable voice, “I got a job. I’m working again. I’ve got a scoop for you.”

Excitedly, I say, “Oh yeah,” while I quickly open my blog admin so I can literally publish what he says as he says it.

“Yeah, listen,” Lemaire said.

And all of a sudden, I hear unbelievably loudly, “Vrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.”

I go, “What the hell was that?” He goes, “A bench saw. I’m building a basement closet,” before he HYSTERICALLY started laughing.

Evil. Just evil.

I thought I got the New Jersey Devils scoop and this guy’s “been put to work by my wife.”

Then Lemaire gave his trademark, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” knowing that he got me.

I said, “Jacques, you better be careful. You already broke your elbow and shoulder this year.”

He said, “I’m watching my fingers. I won’t be able to shoot without them.”

I said, “How’s it possible to build a basement closet in Florida? I lived in Florida. You’re going to hit the ocean.”

He goes, “I’m in Montreal. If I was doing this in Florida, it’d be an entrance.” 

Have I mentioned Lemaire will be missed?

Lemaire was giving me a ring back from a few days ago when I called him about five minutes after Devils coach Brent Sutter quit.

Asked if he’s returning to the Devils as coach (he coached them from 93-98 and won a Cup there in 95), Lemaire said, “I can’t talk about that. There’s nothing done yet. There’s nothing that I can talk about right now.”

I told him I bet Brian Rolston wishes he comes there and Lemaire laughed and said, “Problem is he’s not the guy that decides.”

There’s no doubt though that Lemaire is interested in going back. He said he realized during the playoffs that instead of just taking any consulting job that came down the pike, maybe he does still want to coach in the right situation.

“That’s the thing I haven’t decided. After the season, I thought I was going consultant so I can be with the kids and the grandkids. But as I mentioned at that time, I’m not closing the door on coaching. I’ll look at the two options, and if I’m going to be busy, I’m going to be busy. So maybe I want to coach. We’ll see.”

The only other coaching job out there right now besides New Jersey and Minnesota is Calgary, and he’s not going to Calgary. 

If Lou Lamoriello calls Lemaire and the fit’s right, I bet he goes. Otherwise, he’ll take one of the consulting jobs.

He said he plans to come to stop by the Draft in Montreal “even if there’s nothing done, and then the Montreal press can speculate again. The day Jacques Martin was hired here, a radio station did a poll, who’d you rather have, Jacques Martin or Jacques Lemaire. Imagine that? Imagine that? Poor guy.”

Onward –

The Wild currently has the 12th overall pick (I bet they move down to try to gain more picks) in the June 26 Draft and assistant General Manager Tommy Thompson plans to bring five or six possible draft picks into Minnesota for tours of Xcel Energy Center and examinations by team orthopedist Joel Boyd. I’ll write more about this as the Draft approaches.

Three won’t have to come far though because they’re local – University of Minnesota’s Jordan Schroeder, Eden Prairie’s Nick Leddy and Edina’s Zach Budish.

“I’ve also invited myself into their homes for visits with their families,” Thompson said. “I’m not trying to make a moral judgment, but I want to see their personalities and their relationships with the parents.
“We don’t want any surprises.”

Also, I chatted with Chuck Fletcher for awhile today. He’s made significant progress in the coaching search, but he said he still has more work to do through the weekend and early next week. He said he’s not done interviewing candidates, and I think Red Wings assistant Paul MacLean will be one and it wouldn’t shock me if he called fired Dallas coach Dave Tippett, whose wife is from Minnesota and lives near Detroit Lakes. As I mentioned, Peter Laviolette is a top candidate.

But at the end of the day, I really believe it’s still going to be San Jose assistant Todd Richards. The more people I talk to about Richards, the better things I hear. He’s a very respected coach.

Yes, I’m back. Yippee do!

I figured I better blog because the smart aleck son of a friend of mine sent me a text message saying, “Think you’ll blog again this year?”

Like father, like son

Back from Hawaii, and Ireland, and I’m ready to go back to each. Two awesome places.

The Brown Fox — Chuck Fletcher — is back in the office after landing this afternoon from Pittsburgh, where he attended Game 3 of the Finals and attended his first official GM’s Meeting — well, as a non-Interim, non-assistant GM — in history. Had to be cool.

What’s Fletcher been up to? Well, while I was in Ireland, he attended the Draft combine in Toronto last weekend, where he interviewed players and dined with the staff, including Tommy Thompson. On Thursday and Friday, he’ll conduct his first pro scouting meetings with Tom Lynn, Blair Mackasey, Jamie Hislop and Todd Woodcroft, among others.

They’ll be talking free agency, trades and likely whether the Wild should tender any offers to their own unrestricted free agents (i.e. Skoula, Veilleux, Bergeron or Foster). We know they’ll go after Gaborik, although it’ll be difficult at this late juncture.

(updated)

Fletcher has also been working on the coaching search. Same candidates as I’ve mentioned before. Todd Richards is still the frontrunner. I know for a fact Chuck went out to California to interview Richards, and that’s the place he wouldn’t tell me he was calling me back from (remember?).

But I still think he’d want to interview Detroit assistant coach Paul MacLean, who’s a bit busy right now.

If Richards gets the job, possible assistants include Claude Noel, Curt Fraser, Tony Granato and Mike Ramsey. Like I’ve said, I think Matt Shaw and Bob Mason have tremendous shots at being retained.

Lots of news going around the league. Jacques Martin is now the coach in Montreal, leaving Florida at a marvelous time with less than a month before the Draft and free agency.

All sorts of rumors out of Montreal that Mario Tremblay could eventually join Martin on that bench.

Florida will now conduct a full-on GM search, but owner Alan Cohen appears close to selling the team because I’m told that GM candidates are being referred to Alternate Gov. Bill Torrey and Tony Tavares, the former Anaheim Mighty Ducks head who just so happens to be leading the ownership group close to buying the Cats.

Some possible candidates in Fla.? Former Panthers coach Doug MacLean, former Panthers GM Rick Dudley, former Panthers captain Scott Mellanby, Hall of Famer and former Panthers analyst Denis Potvin, former Bruins assistant GM Jeff Gorton, TSN and NBC analyst Pierre McGuire and former Lightning GM Jay Feaster. Maybe former Wild GM Doug Risebrough would be interested, although he’s still on a two-week solo canoe trip, so he may not even know the job’s available

Lastly, aren’t you glad you’re a Wild fan? Imagine being in Colorado. Sorry, but at least Wild owner Craig Leipold conducts a far and wide GM search to get the best possible candidate and then announces him with a little fanfare.

The Avs do what they always do — hire internally.

Greg Sherman — the assistant GM — was hired today to replace Francois Giguere accompanied by the most underwhelming press release announcement ever. From Pierre Lacroix: “Greg Sherman deserves the opportunity to prove he can be an effective general manager in our business.”

I bet Avs fans everywhere are excited after that line.

It was also classy of Lacroix to finally fire Tony Granato after offering his job around the league for a month, including to former Avs star goalie Patrick Roy. Kudos to Denver Post writer Adrian Dater, who’s been all over that story for some time.

Speaking of Dater, he talked to Marc Crawford, who’d be interested in returning there as coach. Dater reports that Joe Sacco’s got an inside shot. Wonder if Jacques Lemaire would be interested, eh?

OK, I’m back on the clock folks. Blogs will be updated more regularly.

(updated 11:45 p.m., Tuesday)

Believe it or not, I’m back in Minnesota — for a few hours at least. Because I got too tan in Hawaii, I’m heading to Ireland on Wednesday to untan, but just for the weekend. Everybody who knows me can attest to the fact that I’m a globetrotter.

But I’ll be back in town well before a new coach is hired.

Chuck Fletcher, who wouldn’t divulge where he was calling me back from late tonight because then I’d figure out what he was up to(ha), is still in the research phase of the coach hunt process. He’s compiling a list of names, then will do some due diligence and then will decide whom he wants to speak with. He said literally everybody and anybody is on the list, so he hasn’t defined exactly who’s really on the list. He wants to get it down to about four before conducting interviews.

He will definitely interview San Jose Sharks assistant coach Todd Richards, as I reported over the weekend. I also talked to Peter Laviolette today, who is interested in the job. Here is the link to that story. I listed a bunch of possible candidates in the article.

In the former-NHL-head-coach-department, Laviolette makes a ton of sense. Yes, he’s won a Stanley Cup, but he also coaches a system very similar to the prerequisites Fletcher has laid out — communication skills, up-tempo, physical, offensive.

Pat Quinn and Tom Renney are off the market. Craig MacTavish is still on the market, and he’d make the writers happy (quote machine). Fletcher also has a history with Newell Brown and Paul MacLean.

In the meantime, Fletcher was in Winnipeg on Monday night to watch the Houston Aeros, who were eliminated in Game 6 of the conference finals. He’ll be in the office later Wednesday and Thursday to meet individually with the staff and as many players (who are still in town) as he can. He will be in Toronto this weekend for the draft combine.

He’s started calling players as well.

To clarify one thing that was reported earlier this week, he has decided no staff member is leaving or staying. He’s been in the office for three hours total, and has met a precious few. He said there’s no reason for anybody to be walking on eggshells, but stories that he’s told anybody they’re safe or unsafe were premature. What does that mean? He’ll meet with staff over the next several weeks, ask a ton of questions and then things “will become apparent to me,” and that does include Tom Lynn and Tommy Thompson.

Incidentally, Fletcher’s played telephone tag Tuesday with agent Ron Salcer regarding initial contact on Marian Gaborik.

Fletcher’s old team, Pittsburgh, advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals tonight, and wow, actually touched and picked up the oft-snubbed Prince of Wales Trophy — thus, delighting the NHL. The Penguins are a better team this year than last, and Bill Guerin looks as ageless as ever.

Assistant GM Tommy Thompson and his staff are in Toronto interviewing players at the Draft combine. Thompson said the Wild interviewed a single-day record 23 draft-eligible players Tuesday.

Okee dokee, I’ve got to pack. I’ll hit a few golf balls for ya.

I wanted to give you some more reaction from people close to Chuck Fletcher that I wasn’t able to squeeze into the main story for tomorrow. First, I was able to confirm that both Tom Lynn and Tommy Thompson were asked to remain in their current jobs by Fletcher and both have accepted.

Also, our editor Mark posted an update from Russo on the beach about any potential Mike Keenan rumors but wanted to recast it. According to Russo (in between drinks from his mai tai) it’s not going to happen.

Fletcher said he hopes to begin interviewing candidates next week and have a guy in place by the draft. He said head coaching experience is not necessarily a requirement. 

Also, Russo was able to chat with Pittsburgh Penguins GM Ray Shero today and passed along his quotes.

“It’s so well-deserving for Chuck. He’s had such success in his career. Chuck and I have known each other a long time, but not real well. But when I got the job here, I approached Brian Burke about speaking with Chuck. He took the chance to come and it was a great fit. We have such similar backgrounds with our fathers (Fred Shero and Cliff Fletcher) being involved with the game and us being around the game forever. He’s got a great sense of humor.

“I gave him a ton of responsibilities that [Nashville GM] David Poile gave me. It was basically the same job I had in Nashville. The thing with Chuck I found is he’s very decisive. He makes decisions, and being my right-hand guy, for anything I did here, he would always be my first and last voice I went to for a final decision before I made mine. The great thing with Chuck is there never was any waffling. He had a strong opinion one way or the other, which is what I needed.”

(How instrumental was he in helping you figure a way of getting Crosby, Malkin, Staal and Fleury to long-term deals in a cap system?) “He was huge. My background with David Poile, David was such a planner. David was always looking ahead. The coaches worried about the upcoming game. David worried about next year. That’s what I learned from David, and that’s what Chuck and I always tried to do here, whether it was looking at available free agents and what that market can be and trying to stay ahead of everything as best you can. Chuck had so much to do with all the success we’ve had here so far. The good thing with Chuck is he was so experienced and it was good to bring in someone that had that type of background with different organization working with so many different people. It was perfect for both of us.”

Russo also asked Shero about Todd Richards, who presumably will be a leading candidate to become next head coach. 

“I have a great deal of respect for Todd Richards. He was one of my first hires when I came here. [With Nashville], he was one of my first hires in Milwaukee as an assistant coach. I got to work closely with Todd for a number of years. When I came here, I had already hired Chuck. While I knew that Todd was my guy, Chuck had all the responsibilities of running our farm team in Wilkes-Barre. Part of that was hiring a coach. I told Chuck I really believe Todd was a guy worth talking to, but having said that, it’s your decision. Chuck went through a real good list of candidates – maybe five, six, seven people to interview and came back and said Todd is the most qualified and best fit. So it was his decision at the end.

“Our organization has a lot of respect for Todd – his intellect, his communication skills, his passion for the game, he pushes the pace. One of the first things I heard back on Todd from Chuck was that our pregame skate was harder than some team’s practices. He really pushes the pace and makes players better. … He had the opportunity to move on to San Jose. It was a fantastic decision for him. This job in San Jose I believe really prepared him to being around the pro game with the fantastic coaching staff they have in San Jose. He’ll be a great head coach in the NHL, I believe, whoever will give him that opportunity. He’s got the right age, he’s got the right experience. I’m a big Todd Richards fan. He’ll be a great fit for someone.”

I also talked to Lou Nanne, who is close friends with Fletcher and his father. Lou had this anecdote about Fletcher’s work ethic:

“When [the Penguins] beat Washington in Game 7, they flew home and got home about 1 in the morning. He jumped right in his car and drove to Wilkes-Barre three-and-a-half hours away because the farm team got beat that night and he had to have exit interviews with all those players the next day. He did that, got right back in his car and went back to Pittsburgh. He’s really a committed guy. He loves the game and loves being in the game.” �

Goalie Niklas Backstrom will indeed have left hip surgery Friday in Vail. Brian Stensaas was on a conference call with acting GM Tom Lynn. He reports he has two cysts on the bony part of his hip.

Lynn says they won’t know how long he’ll be out until they operate. Worst case scenario, Stensaas says, could be four to six months!

But Lynn said the doctor cautions they can’t give a timetable yet. More from Stensaas in Wednesday’s paper.

Also, I hear Brent Burns is having shoulder surgery probably on Thursday.

Just got back from Tom Reid’s Hockey City Pub, where Doug Risebrough said farewell during a 30-minute press conference. He then talked on the side with the writers.

It was a classy goodbye where Risebrough thanked everyone from Jac Sperling and Bob Naegele for giving him this opportunity, to his staff inside the Wild, to the players, to the media to most importantly, the fans.

Brian Stensaas transcribed the presser (which I appreciate greatly), and it’s on the bottom of this post. I’ll throw a couple quotes up from his sit-down with the writers.

The coolest thing I saw? I’m standing outside the bar and a black SUV rolls up and I hear, “Mike!” It was Derek Boogaard, all drugged up and in discomfort literally after waking up from shoulder surgery. Boogaard’s fiancee drove him down there because he wanted to thank Doug for everything. He asked me if I could find him, and the two shared a few moments in the parking lot.

“You have no idea how much I owe him and Jacques for playing in the NHL,” Boogaard said. “I have so much respect for those two guys.”

Risebrough said he’s spoken and met with a number of players, even running into Marian Gaborik at the arena. He said after the initial natural discomfort Gaborik felt about talking to a GM that just got fired, the two shared some quality time together.

Risebrough also went to Brent Burns’ home to meet with the defenseman after the story came out about his concussion. He still maintains that this was not an easy diagnosis. You can read more about that in the paper Wednesday.

On whether he’s learned anything from Burns playing? “I went to see burnzie about that. I said, ‘brent, you should help participate in getting us to understand how we can do this better.’ One of them might be wives involved. Even when brent thought he was fine, his fiancée saw a difference in how he was feeling – sleeping longer, not eating as much. She was at the table expressing this to me. … the thing with the concussions is really a concern for the players is it’s hard to play the game with fear. You can’t enjoy the game if you’re worried. Going to see a guy like Brent saw, that guy gave him total confidence that this is just a one-time thing, don’t get all worked up about it.

“It was a good conversation with him, and I got to see the snakes, too – all 50 of them. It was quite interesting. He’s got quite the farm out there. I was glad they’re all kind of contained, too, because I can honestly say I’m not great with snakes. And then the birds, and then the guitars. That’s what I like about him. He plays somewhat the way he is.”

Risebrough also had some awesome stories to tell about Jacques, and guys like Mikko Koivu during his presser.

He admitted that there were lots of problems he’s had with agent Ron Salcer from Day One of Salcer taking Gaborik over from agent Allan Walsh. He said he and Salcer never spoke. “I get along with everybody. I think so. I’ve had a couple calls from agents. This was just an unusual one.”

But he doesn’t believe the relationship was a factor in his getting fired.

Risebrough said every decision he made with the Wild was done for the right reasons, and he knows he didn’t make all right decisions. I asked him — and this is what I was told from well-placed sources — about Leipold’s discontent with his conservative nature and the fact that he didn’t create some financial flexibility at this year’s trade deadline to make it easier to get Backstrom and Gaborik under the same salary cap for a long time.

After a long, “ahhhhhh,” Risebrough decided to decline comment because conversations with Leipold behind the scenes were “privy conversations.”

Unlike many GM’s, Risebrough is proud that he never made moves in Minnesota — especially in the last year of his deal — to save his own job.

He said he was shocked to learn of his dismissal, and Craig “will have to live with it,” but he said he didn’t blame Craig at all. He also said he’s happy Leipold fired him the say after the Lemaire press conference because even though he talked so much about the future and that was all for naught, he so thoroughly enjoyed the press conference and the fond farewell to Jacques.

“I always feel there’s a fit and if there’s not a fit, then it’s time to move on. So I wasn’t worried about that. I might be unusual that way. … There wasn’t [a fit] with Craig. But that’s OK. I spent a year, and he tried to find out, whether there was a fit. The difference is the fit’s in his control.”

As I reported last week, on Thursday, after the news was released of his dismissal, Risebrough got on his motorcycle and drove. He went to see Tommy Thompson, who was up in Fargo scouting the world under-18s.
“I wanted to go and talk to Tom Thompson because we’ve been together so long. And he was in Fargo. I said I want to see you Tommy, and we met halfway. And I looked up, and it was a blue sky, and I said, ‘what a great day for a bike ride.’ And it was a great day for a bike ride.”

Risebrough will leave Wednesday for three weeks in Palm Springs, then will go on a two-week solo canoe trip like he often does after the season. He hopes to manage again, and he said he will take any step to get there — meaning, maybe he consults, maybe he scouts, whatever. But he certainly wants to work again.

Asked if he’s cross over to the media, he joked, “I’m a bad writer.”

Asked about TV, he said, “I enjoy being able to communicate a perspective,” so he’d consider it. But in his mind, he said, staying in hockey means working for a team.

Lastly, from a personal point of view, I enjoyed covering Risebrough. Just a great guy to talk to with outstanding stories. He was always so assessable, which I appreciated, and even though we had a couple moments, there was a mutual respect. We didn’t always agree with each other professionally, but personally, it was a solid time.

It’s funny. I first met Risebrough at a wedding in Toronto in the summertime during the lockout. I actually sat at his table with guys like Doug MacLean, John Davidson, Dino Ciccarelli, John Shannon and a couple other league and team execs. I said to him, “Boy, you’d be a great guy to cover.” Not two weeks later, I landed in Paris, checked my voicemail and it was Star Tribune sports editor Glen Crevier asking if I’d be interested in interviewing for the Wild job.

Couple other tidbits:

– Boogaard is very sore, but had successful surgery and will begin rehab ASAP.

– From Pittsburgh sources, Craig Leipold has not asked for permission to speak with assistant GM Chuck Fletcher yet, but GM Ray Shero is expecting a call and would not only give permission, he’d advocate strongly on Fletcher’s behalf. “Quite frankly, it’s crazy that Chuck’s not a GM in this league already,” the source said. Actually, he’s been an interim GM a couple times. 

Here is the Risebrough transcript:

(more…)