I'm still shaking my head at the breakup between the Stanley Cup-winning Capitals and head coach Barry Trotz, who resigned Monday after failing to come to terms with the team on a long-term contract.
He entered the season as a lame duck … but he won the Cup! Pay the man.
The Capitals instead seem poised to promote associate coach Todd Reirden to head coach.
"Todd's a good candidate for it," GM Brian MacLellan said. "We're going to start with Todd here, and we've been grooming him to be a head coach whether for us or for someone else. We'll see how the talk goes with him and then we'll make a decision based on that. If it goes well, then we'll pursue Todd, and if it doesn't, we'll open it up a little bit."
Washington seems to have a lot of "smartest guys in the room" running the show. They'd better be right.
Read Michael Rand's blog at startribune.com/randball. mrand@startribune.com
