Mailbag: Fleury landing spot, next Red Wings coach

Here is the June 29 edition of the mailbag, where we answer your questions asked on Twitter using #OvertheBoards. Tweet your questions to @drosennhl.

Best fit for Marc-Andre Fleury? -- @punmasterrifkin
I like the New Jersey Devils, but does the 37-year-old goalie want to go to a team that isn't quite ready to make a Stanley Cup run when there might be a chance he could sign with the Colorado Avalanche? Darcy Kuemper, like Fleury, is a pending unrestricted free agent. If the Avalanche let Kuemper hit the market when it opens on July 13, Fleury could be their No. 1 target. He's a three-time Stanley Cup champion who has gone to the Stanley Cup Final five times. The Avalanche want to make a repeat run and having a goalie with Fleury's experience would give them a chance if they don't re-sign Kuemper.
The Devils need a quality veteran goalie to stabilize their back end. They need a leader who can communicate and have fun with a younger team. They need a goalie that everyone on the team can rally around. Fleury checks every box.
Of course, Fleury could stay with the Minnesota Wild and make this discussion moot.

Sneaky big name who might be on the move in a trade? -- @jasonjpevans
John Gibson.
The Anaheim Ducks goalie has five years remaining on the eight-year contract he signed Aug. 4, 2018. But the Ducks are in rebuilding mode and that means stockpiling as many draft picks and prospects as they can. Gibson, a 28-year-old in the prime of his career, might be seen as a luxury for the Ducks in their current state. Goaltending is a premium position but not for a team that is in rebuilding mode. If the Ducks can get a strong return for Gibson it could be worth trading him. The Edmonton Oilers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Devils and Washington Capitals could be targets. But I think the Ducks would have to be blown away by the return to trade Gibson. With so much time left on his contract, they can be patient.
The biggest mystery of all since Steve Yzerman is so secretive: Who is going to be the Detroit Red Wing new coach? -- @jetrier
Yzerman, the Red Wings general manager, was the Tampa Bay Lightning GM when they hired Derek Lalonde and Jeff Halpern to be Jon Cooper's assistants before the 2018-19 season. It's reasonable to think Yzerman was waiting for the Lightning's playoff run to end to interview Lalonde and Halpern, because each should be considered a candidate. If Yzerman is looking at the two Lightning assistants, Lalonde should have the inside track because he has head coaching experience. He had the position with Iowa of the American Hockey League before joining Cooper's staff in Tampa Bay. He was also the head coach in the ECHL with Toledo and the USHL with Green Bay, helping it win the Clark Cup as league champions in 2011-12. He won division titles with Toledo. Halpern has no head coaching experience. In finding a replacement for Jeff Blashill, the Red Wings are looking for a long-term solution similar to Cooper, who Yzerman hired when he was the GM in Tampa Bay. Lalonde is a coach with a track record of success, just like Cooper had before he got to the Lightning. Guessing here that Yzerman tries to follow the same script.
What is the consensus on the Paul Maurice hire in Florida? What parts of Florida's game plan is he going to address? -- @themoose0221
I like the hire. I like Maurice. He's a good coach, a veteran coach, a leader. He is also rested and refreshed, having spent time away from the game following his resignation as Winnipeg Jets coach on Dec. 17. Maurice was honest at the time, saying he couldn't get anything more out of the Jets and they needed a different voice. He left and it was clear that it wasn't coaching holding the Jets back. They didn't make the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They were 13-10-5 with him as coach and 23-22-6 under Dave Lowry. It wasn't much different. With all due respect to Andrew Brunette, who did a good job as the Panthers coach after Joel Quenneville resigned Oct. 27, Florida will benefit from Maurice's experience of guiding teams from training camp through the regular season, into the playoffs and potentially to the Stanley Cup Final. The Panthers are built to win and Brunette has never coached a team from start to finish in a season the way Maurice has. Brunette certainly has a future and he'll get his next opportunity soon, but for a team with championship aspirations like the Panthers I think it would have been too great a gamble to leave it in the hands of a coach who has never done it before.
Maurice won't mess with the Panthers' creativity on offense. He said as much in his introductory press conference. There won't be much tinkering there. But he will try to instill a hard-to-play-against mentality that teams must have to carry them through the playoffs. The Panthers were fast and fun this season, but they were in many respects one dimensional. If their offense was clicking, they were almost unbeatable. It did for most of the regular season, which is why Florida finished with 122 points and won the Presidents' Trophy. But it wasn't the same in the playoffs. It was more of a slog for the Panthers and they struggled to adjust. They defeated the Washington Capitals in six games of the Eastern Conference First Round, but had to mount comebacks in Games 4, 5 and 6 to do it. They had no answer once it got harder in the second round and got swept by the Lightning. Their offense was stifled, and they couldn't find other ways to win. They weren't hard to play against until Game 4, when Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made 49 saves in a 2-0 win. The Panthers need to be able to be comfortable in any type of game. That's Maurice's biggest task. It's more about mentality, work ethic and hockey IQ than skill.
The teams with the best goaltenders did not win the Stanley Cup. Is goaltending still the No. 1 key for a playoff run? -- @ericsagedean
Yes.
Two of the top five vote-getters for the Vezina Trophy this season were the goalies of the last two teams eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs. That would be Vezina Trophy winner Igor Shesterkin of the New York Rangers, who was taken out in the Eastern Conference Final by the Lightning, and Vasilevskiy, who was fifth in the voting this season, second last season, third in 2019-20 and the winner in 2018-19. Shesterkin and Vasilevskiy might not have won the Stanley Cup, but they were the biggest reason their teams went on long runs.
The Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup with Kuemper, not the best goalie in the NHL, but a solid No. 1 after going 37-12-4 with a 2.54 goals-against average and .921 save percentage in the regular season. Kuemper won 10 games and had a 2.57 GAA and .902 save percentage in the playoffs. The Avalanche did not need world-class goaltending to win the Cup. They had talent all over the ice and unmatched depth. They needed quality goaltending and got it on most nights, whether it was Kuemper or Pavel Francouz. Colorado would not have won the Cup with below average goaltending. It's impossible to do that, which is why goaltending is still the No. 1 key for a long playoff run.

What do the New York Rangers do with Kaapo Kakko? Will he be the chip for a top center (and let Ryan Strome and Andrew Copp walk), or does he stick for two more years to prove up? -- @Kotila_MW
My gut instinct is to say Kakko, who can become a restricted free agent July 13, signs a bridge deal with the Rangers, figure a two-year contract worth between $4-5 million. I don't think there will be or should be an overreaction to the 21-year-old forward being a healthy scratch in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Final against the Lightning even though the move has never really been explained beyond coach Gerard Gallant saying he was trying to win a hockey game. Kakko, while clearly bothered by being a scratched in such an important game, especially without a real explanation for it, didn't seem to be angry enough to seek a trade or want out of New York because of it. He instead said it will be motivation for him this offseason to come back a better player to prove to Gallant that he has to be in the lineup and be in an important role. General manager Chris Drury said the Rangers have high hopes for Kakko and believe he's a big part of the team. We have to leave open the possibility that Kakko will be traded if the Rangers receive a strong offer for the forward who had 18 points (seven goals, 11 assists) in 43 games this season, his third in the NHL since being the No. 2 pick in the 2019 NHL Draft. But at this point I don't think Kakko's value will be high enough in a trade for the Rangers to move him now. He's worth $2-2.5 million per season to see what kind of growth he can make before he turns 24.