Gallant is two wins away from his 200th

DALLAS (AP) When Barry Trotz left the Washington Capitals fresh off winning the Stanley Cup Sean Monahan Jersey , the New York Islanders couldn’t move fast enough to talk to him.Minutes after word circulated that Trotz resigned from the Capitals, Islanders president of hockey operations Lou Lamoriello got in touch. On Thursday, the Islanders hired Trotz and hope to benefit from the first Stanley Cup-winning coach leaving his team in a contract dispute in 24 years.”It’s certainly not something that you see every day,” Lamoriello said Thursday after the NHL general managers meeting. ”But I think we’re the fortunate recipient of it that we were able to have him come in our organization.”The Capitals weren’t willing to pay top dollar to keep Trotz in the fold, so the Islanders pounced and have a fresh selling point to try to retain face of the franchise John Tavares. Trotz, who brings his resume with the fifth-most wins in NHL history, two Presidents’ Trophy seasons and now a Stanley Cup, has already been in touch with Tavares, a 27-year-old point-a-game center who can begin speaking with other teams next week and become a free agent July 1.”That’s something that really is John’s mind,” Lamoriello said. ”We don’t know what he’s thinking, but certainly he’s a very important part of this franchise.”Trotz considers himself one piece of the puzzle of re-signing Tavares and believes the process is in good hands with Lamoriello TJ Brodie Jersey , who won the Cup three times as New Jersey’s GM and also helped turn Toronto back into a playoff team.”If you know anything about those two parties, they are of the highest integrity, both of those gentlemen,” Trotz said of Lamoriello and Tavares. ”I think that they’ll have great dialogue and we’re hoping to have John be a part of it.”Trotz is now a part of it after the Islanders gave him the kind of long-term, big-money contract the Capitals weren’t willing to commit to the 55-year-old who coached them the past four seasons. The deal is reportedly for five years at $4 million or more annually, more than double what he would have made in Washington.After hoping the Capitals would renegotiate the automatic two-year extension that kicked in for winning a Cup and offered only a $300,000 raise to about $2 million, Trotz took the chance on leaving and found an immediate home three days after resigning.”It’s good to be wanted,” Trotz said. ”It happened really quickly because you’re going from one emotion of winning the Cup to the next emotion of leaving the team you just won a Cup with and you have to make some quick decisions.”The Capitals were barely done celebrating their first championship in franchise history when GM Brian MacLellan and Trotz sat down to talk contract. Trotz thought the deal he had with the Capitals was ”a little unfair based on value around the league,” thanks in large part to the $50 million, eight-year contract Toronto’s Mike Babcock signed in 2015 that helped raise coaching salaries.When it was clear to each side right away there wasn’t a fit Womens Travis Hamonic Jersey , Trotz asked for and was granted his release. MacLellan wasn’t surprised Trotz immediately went to the Islanders.”Could’ve guaranteed it,” MacLellan said. ”I’m happy for him. I think he got what he wanted, and that’s a good opportunity for him. It’s a good payday for him, too. So it worked out good.”It worked out great for the Islanders, who go from GM Garth Snow and previously inexperienced coach Doug Weight to Lamoriello and Trotz. They already have rookie of the year Mathew Barzal as a building block of the future, and now they have a coach who brings with him a shiny new Cup ring.”What we need is we need an individual who can walk in that locker room with the players who are there who have not really had a lot of success and he walks in there with instant success,” Lamoriello said. ”People follow that, and I think that that’s a very important thing for these young men.”In the past 40 years, Trotz is just the fifth coach not to return to a Stanley Cup winner and the first since Scotty Bowman retired after winning with Detroit in 2002. Mike Keenan in 1994 was the last coach to leave a Cup champion in a contract dispute when he did not return to the New York Rangers.MacLellan will move on to interviewing associate coach Todd Reirden to replace Trotz, but the strangeness of this situation isn’t lost on the veteran hockey executive.”It’s so weird,” MacLellan said. ”It’s awkward. It’s weird. I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t know what we could do with it.”MacLellan said Trotz wanted to be compensated among the top four or five coaches in the NHL. His deal with the Islanders puts him behind Babcock Custom Los Angeles Kings Jerseys , Chicago’s Joel Quenneville and Montreal’s Claude Julien – all fellow Cup winners – but ahead of most of the rest of the league.— VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Casey DeSmith wanted another crack at the Vancouver Canucks, and he didn’t waste it.The backup goalie stopped 29 shots for his second career shutout, and the Pittsburgh Penguins got two goals apiece from Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin in beating the Canucks 5-0 on Saturday night.DeSmith lost the previous matchup between the teams Oct. 16 when Brock Boeser scored 34 seconds into overtime.“I don’t like losing and the way we lost, I felt the overtime goal I could have had, so that has kind of been on my mind since the last time and that was actually the last game I played,” DeSmith said. “It just so happened my next game was against these guys and that worked out well.”He got the nod over Matt Murray in the final game of Pittsburgh’s four-game trip to Canada and helped his team complete a sweep. The Penguins also won at Toronto, Edmonton and Calgary.DeSmith’s previous shutout came on April 26 against Ottawa.Phil Kessel also scored for Pittsburgh, which has just one loss in regulation this season.“They’ve got some world-class players that can score if you give them the chance,” Canucks coach Travis Green said.Jacob Markstrom stopped 30 shots for Vancouver. He kept the Canucks in the game with several clutch saves, including in the first period when he sprawled to turn away a rocket from Malkin with his left skate.Still http://www.hurricanesshoponline.com/auth...kov-jersey , the goaltender wasn’t happy with his performance.“No, 5-0 on the board, you can’t be happy,” Markstrom said. “It’s a 60-minute game. You’ve got to play good all 60.”Pittsburgh opened the scoring midway through the second period, following a patient move by Olli Maatta. The defenseman had been waiting for a chance at the point and fired a shot that bounced off Markstrom’s pads. Kessel sneaked around the back of the net and found the rebound, banging it in for his seventh goal of the season, which leads the Penguins.Kessel played in his 255th consecutive game for Pittsburgh, surpassing Malkin for the franchise record.Crosby scored later in the period, collecting the puck in front and sending a backhand past Markstrom.Malkin’s goals came 59 seconds apart in the third. The Russian center also assisted on Kessel’s goal, and said the two have good chemistry.“When Phil plays good, I am playing good. When he is feeling it Brock McGinn Jersey Kids , I feel it, too. When he is lazy I am like, I can’t do it myself,” Malkin said.Malkin’s first goal came off a saucer pass from Daniel Sprong that he quickly buried in the side of the net. Less than a minute later, Malkin again found the puck in front and sliced it in past Markstrom. He has four goals and 11 assists in his last seven games.Crosby capped the scoring with just more than two minutes left, firing in a shot from the side of the net. The Penguins’ captain has five goals and three assists during a four-game scoring streak.NOTES: Boeser and 19-year-old rookie center Elias Pettersson returned from injuries for Vancouver. Boeser had missed two games with a groin injury, while Pettersson had been sidelined with a concussion since Oct. 13. Boeser has six points in 10 games, and Pettersson registered five goals and three assists in his first five NHL outings. Green had the pair skating together on a line with Nikolay Goldobin for much of the game. The trio combined for six shots. “I thought we came out fast and spent a lot of time in their zone,” Green said. “But at the end of the day, you’ve got to find a way to put a puck in the back of the net.”UP NEXTPenguins: Host the New York Islanders on Tuesday.Canucks: Continue their four-game homestand Monday against Minnesota.