from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet,

- When Ottawa contacted Philadelphia about Dean Lombardi’s availability (first reported by John Shannon), the Senators indicated the open position was going to be more of a Senior Advisor role. Now, they are calling it a President of Hockey Operations, so we’ll see how this evolves. The team made sure to indicate GM Pierre Dorion is safe.

It sounds like the NHL is involved in the process, and one of the names that jumped out to me is Don Maloney, now Vice-President of Hockey Operations in Calgary. The league likes him, particularly for what he did under difficult circumstances in Arizona....

- Last week, I mentioned Todd McLellan as a high-level candidate for Los Angeles’s permanent coaching job. Add Dave Tippett. Four months ago, he said, “I’m happy in Seattle, and I will be staying here.” But there is word the coaching bug has bit him again, and it is believed at least one team this season asked him about a return.

- More than ever, players are letting it be known to the NHLPA that they are unhappy with the playoff format. I was a little skeptical because it is CBA time, and no one easily gives up anything during negotiations. However, the complaints are legit. It is unlikely that things will be changed for next year, but the players have to sign off on anything longer than that and have asked for more proof that the current setup works as intended.

While it has fuelled rivalries in California and certainly Pittsburgh/Washington, it hasn’t given a Battle of Alberta, a Battle of Ontario, a Montcalm/Wolfe re-enactment, Islanders/Rangers or even Florida/Tampa. If we had more of those, there’d be fewer complaints. One of the reasons the previous method was changed was NBC wanted more certainty of match-ups in the second round. In theory, you could go to brackets (1-vs.-8 winner faces 4-vs.-5 winner, etc.) as opposed to the previous re-seeding.

- With two weeks to go in the season, three forwards are averaging 18 minutes of even-strength ice-time per game. That’s Connor McDavid (18:51), Patrick Kane (18:40) and Dylan Larkin (18:04). Since the NHL began to track this two decades ago, there’s never been a season where three players broke 18. Pavel Bure’s record 19:12 is safe from an earlier-season McDavid challenge. Because McDavid missed four games, Kane is on-pace for the highest individual total, at 1,511:23. That would be third-best in history, behind Bure (1,574:36 in 2000–01) and Jaromir Jagr (1,517:06 in 1998–99).

more on the first topic plus other Thoughts and a look at Roberto Luongo...