It’s Saturday, it’s just a few days away from the official summer equinox, the Stanley Cup Finals are still at go as of this writing, but 28 NHL franchises are largely idle. Some have business to attend to such as Anaheim Ducks, who bounced head coach Bruce Boudreau after the conclusion of their season. The club is still wheeling for a new coaching staff.
And the relevance of such a fact is made evident by Elliotte Friedman via Twitter:
Hearing TB associate coach Rick Bowness went deep into the mix for ANA job. Interesting. That’s a name that wasn’t out there.
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) June 11, 2016
This isn’t surprising, in fact it’s probably overdue for any speculation of an advancement potential for Bowness, who has had a glutton of assistant and head coaching tenures through the last 30 years. His longest stint as a HC was during the Ottawa Senators inception into the NHL in 1992-93 into the 1995-96 season. In the regard of Bowness’ experience in coaching, again, the potential for him to move forward is overdue.
From the Lightning standpoint, this is eyebrow raising and opens the simple question of what happens if Rick departs the club and takes over the Ducks? How does head coach Jon Cooper and GM Steve Yzerman fill the vacancy in the coaching staff?
There’s no guarantee that anything will happen, but with fodder like that out there then the door is open for speculation from all angles.
