LeBrun rumblings: NHL coaches on expiring contracts, Gerard Gallant ‘eager’ to

It’s wild how quickly things changed this year on the NHL coaching front.

Back in late March, as the 2022-23 regular season was winding down, I wrote a piece looking at where a handful of coaches stood with their teams, including eight whose contracts were set to expire after the 2023-24 season. That list included:

Since then, Keefe, Hakstol and Tourigny have signed extensions, and Larsen and Hynes were let go. That leaves us with three coaches entering this season on expiring deals: McLellan, Brind’Amour and Smith.

(There’s also the matter of the New Jersey Devils’ Lindy Ruff, which we’ll get into in a minute.)

Let’s start in Ottawa, where really everything had been on hold waiting for the sale to Michael Andlauer to go through, which it finally did last week. We’ll see what the new owner wants to do when it comes to his general manager, Pierre Dorion, and eventually his coach. It did sound from Andlauer’s remarks Friday at his introductory news conference like he’s not going to make any rash and quick decisions.

Brind’Amour should be used to being in this position after signing a three-year contract just a few weeks before the expiry of his last deal in June 2021. The delay at the time was largely because he was ensuring extensions for other staff members. For a guy who means as much as he does to that franchise, it is surprising in some ways that Brind’Amour would start the season without an extension, but owner Tom Dundon does things his own way, and given Brind’Amour’s past comments about not wanting to coach anywhere else, I guess Dundon doesn’t stress this situation.

“We are going to get it done, for sure,” Dundon told The Athletic via text message Monday regarding eventually extending Brind’Amour.

How much that extension will pay Brind’Amour will also be interesting. Brind’Amour is getting paid around $2 million this season, which is an unreal bargain given what other teams would be willing to pay him if he ever ventured onto the open market.

McLellan has proved to be an excellent hire for a rebuilt Kings team that has ascended quicker than expected. He signed a five-year deal worth around $5 million per season in April 2019 when he was hired. My understanding is that the Kings have had extension talks with McLellan and that something should get done. Or at least that’s where it seems to be headed.

Ruff extension talks

The Devils picked up a club option on Ruff’s expiring contract in June, which keeps him under contract through this season. That caught a lot of people off guard because the belief was that his deal was expiring June 30 and he needed a new deal. Well, it would have expired had the team not picked up the option by the June deadline.

But Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald was also quick to point out after picking up the option year that he wanted Ruff, 63, signed to an extension — so the team’s intention is for Ruff not to be on an expiring deal this…