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Quick Hits: The Classic Datsyuk Edition

In Red Wings Land

Yesterday was Pavel Datsyuk’s birthday, and the team account posted a classic video to celebrate. Logan Couture had a good-hearted reaction.

Also, it looks like the Joe Hicketts info is in Capfriendly, although I still haven’t seen a report.

It’s a two year, two-way contract with a league minimum salary of $700k at the NHL level and $90k at the AHL level this year, with a bump to $115k next year if he plays in the AHL.

There is a minimum guaranteed salary of $110k this year and $135 next year.

Around the NHL

Mike Gillis ready to return to NHL, but not as general manager – Sportsnet.ca
Mike Gillis wants back in the National Hockey League, just not as a GM.

After being fired from the Vancouver Canucks in 2014, Gillis embarked on a five-year, globetrotting sabbatical, a personal mission intended to expand and deepen his thinking of the game.

The former player, coach, agent, executive and lifelong student of the game invested time studying how various sports teams and leagues outside of the NHL built, operated and created winning cultures.

Now Gillis is keen to lend his knowledge, vision and anti-groupthink point of view to a NHL franchise — yet the 2011 GM of the Year and builder of two Presidents’ Trophy winners maintains he’s not after one of the coveted 32 GM roles.

From talking to some people who are at the conference, it sounds like there was a lot of interest in what Gillis had to say.

Francis ready for Seattle comparisons after success of Vegas
After the Vegas Golden Knights made the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season of 2017-18, people joked the worst job in hockey would be general manager of the Seattle NHL expansion team.

The funny part is, one of them took the job.

“I used to joke that I’d probably want to be the second GM in Seattle, not the first one, because of the expectations after what Vegas did,” Francis said with a laugh over the phone after he was introduced at a news conference in Seattle on Thursday. “But I think it’s a great challenge.”

As someone who wrote a LOT about the Vegas expansion draft, I’m interested to see what teams learn from it to apply to the Seattle one.

If you’re curious, there should be an article in the near future updating Detroit’s Seattle expansion draft picture.

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