The Vancouver Canucks pest seemed determined to antagonize his opponents during Game 1 of their second-round series, but it didn't phase the Golden Knights as Vegas marched to a 5-0 shutout victory.
"He's running around out there but I don't think he's distracting anyone but himself," Golden Knights forward Reilly Smith said postgame, according to SinBin.Vegas.
Jonathan Marchessault is also unconcerned about dealing with Roussel's antics as the series continues.
Roussel eventually tried to fight Reaves, but the Golden Knights enforcer was having none of it with his team up 4-0. Roussel earned a 10-minute misconduct for the attempt.
Hiring Todd Reirden's replacement is one of the biggest decisions Brian MacLellan will face in his executive career. The Washington Capitals general manager fired his head coach on Sunday after just two seasons, and finding his successor will be an integral part of the franchise's quest for another Stanley Cup.
Despite modest regular-season success, Reirden couldn't replicate the same defensive formula as his predecessor, Barry Trotz. In two seasons under Reirden, the Capitals ranked 19th in the NHL in goals against per 60 minutes at five-on-five (GA/60). In the previous two years under Trotz, Washington ranked first.
MacLellan will surely target a coach with a track record of defensive success. And considering the organization's history of head coaches during the Alex Ovechkin era (MacLellan has been with the franchise since 2000, but he only became GM in 2014), he's going to pursue someone with extensive NHL head coaching experience.
Coach
Year hired
NHL experience
Glen Hanlon
2003
None
Bruce Boudreau
2007
None
Dale Hunter
2011
None
Adam Oates
2012
None
Barry Trotz
2014
15 years
Todd Reirden
2018
None
Five of the six head coaches since Ovechkin arrived were hired with zero NHL head coaching experience, and the only one to truly pan out was Boudreau.
Washington needs a veteran head coach who can immediately get players to play a tighter defensive system (like they were with Trotz) for the club to take a run at another Stanley Cup. There's no time to mess around with a rookie bench boss.
Here are the five best candidates for the job:
5. Mike Babcock
Norm Hall / National Hockey League / Getty
Hiring Babcock seems highly unlikely, considering the Toronto Maple Leafs are still paying him handsomely to hunt and travel. The Capitals, remember, were unwilling to meet Trotz's contract demands before he left for Long Island. Ponying up for Babcock doesn't seem to fit Washington's modus operandi.
Babcock has his flaws, too. In his four full seasons in Toronto, the Leafs finished in the top half of the league in goals against just once, and the Detroit Red Wings only reached that level twice over his final five campaigns in the Motor City. Babcock has also recorded just one playoff series win in the last eight years.
However, he's still one of the most decorated coaches of this era, which could tempt the Capitals. He's earned two Olympic gold medals, a World Cup title, a Stanley Cup, and has been to the finals on two other occasions. His attention to detail is impeccable and he can be a great motivator, though sometimes Babcock's methods are questionable.
4. John Stevens
Jeff Bottari / National Hockey League / Getty
Stevens is by far the least-experienced candidate on this list with only 362 career games as an NHL head coach, making him a bit of an underdog for the Caps' gig.
After an up-and-down tenure in Philly from 2006 to 2009, he joined the Los Angeles Kings' staff as an assistant coach in 2010, spending parts of six seasons under Darryl Sutter. The Kings were a defensive juggernaut during that time, winning Stanley Cups in 2012 and 2014.
He became Los Angeles' head coach prior to the 2017-18 season, making the playoffs on the strength of the league's No. 1 defense in goals allowed. The team received exceptional goaltending though, as its expected goals against rate was middle of the pack (xGA/60). He was fired after a rough start to the following campaign and spent this season as an assistant coach for the Dallas Stars, who ranked second in GA/60 and seventh in xGA/60.
3. Peter Laviolette
John Russell / National Hockey League / Getty
Laviolette's coaching career has been a tale of instant success. After the Carolina Hurricanes hired him in 2003, he won the Stanley Cup the next season. In his first campaign with the Philadelphia Flyers, he made it to the 2010 Stanley Cup Final. In his third season with the Nashville Predators, he also made it to the final.
That trend should certainly be enough to tantalize the Capitals' front office and earn Laviolette an interview. But he's also established himself as an excellent defensive coach.
Over his last three full seasons with the Preds, they ranked second in GA/60. Pekka Rinne playing well certainly helped, but the Predators also ranked eighth in xGA/60, which doesn't factor in goaltending.
2. Gerard Gallant
Bill Wippert / National Hockey League / Getty
Gallant has also achieved instant success often. His Jack Adams Award-winning season in 2017-18 after he brought the expansion Vegas Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup Final is well documented. But he's also responsible for the Florida Panthers' lone playoff appearance over the last eight years, leading the team to the postseason in his second campaign on the job.
The 56-year-old hasn't really received a fair shake, either. In Florida he was fired 22 games into the following season after making the playoffs, despite posting a tolerable 11-10-1 record. His replacement, Tom Rowe, went 24-26-10. Gallant was also infamously forced to wait for a taxi after his dismissal.
In Vegas, he was fired this season even while owning a respectable 24-19-6 record, and the league's second-best expected goals share. Gallant was unlucky, as Vegas posted the NHL's fourth-worst PDO (shooting percentage plus save percentage) at the time he was canned.
1. Bruce Boudreau
Bruce Kluckhohn / National Hockey League / Getty
Boudreau returning to D.C. would be quite the story. He got his first NHL head coaching gig with the Capitals during the 2007-08 season, promptly winning the Jack Adams Award after that campaign. He led Washington to four straight playoff berths, including a 121-point Presidents' Trophy-winning season in 2009-10 before being fired 22 games into the 2011-12 season.
His inability to advance past the second round was Boudreau's undoing in Washington. He's made the playoffs 10 times in his 13-year coaching career, but postseason failure followed him during stops with the Anaheim Ducks and Minnesota Wild.
Boudreau had a bit of a reputation as an offensive coach during his time in Washington, but he's actually morphed into one of the league's best defensive coaches. Over his three full seasons in Minnesota, the Wild ranked first in the NHL in xGA/60, and ninth in GA/60. Even this season before he was fired, the Wild ranked first in xGA/60, but 14th in GA/60 due to some horrendous goaltending.
Most importantly, Boudreau has prior relationships with Caps players, giving him a leg up on other candidates. Five players still remain on the Capitals from the last Washington squad Boudreau coached, and he's appeared to maintain his connection with Ovechkin.
"Itβs going to be a greasy series," Vigneault said Sunday. "Itβs going to be a lot of fun."
The Flyers squeezed past the Montreal Canadiens in the first round of the playoffs despite being outscored in the six-game span. Vigneault liked what he saw from his team, but believes they can elevate it to another level for the upcoming series.
"We were able to win that first round playing hard hockey, good hockey," Vigneault said, according to NHL.com's Adam Kimelman. "But when you analyze it, I do believe there's another level we can attain if our top-end guys execute the way that we've seen them execute throughout the year."
The Islanders and Flyers met three times during the regular season, with New York winning each game. The teams last met on Feb. 11, just before Philadelphia caught fire and went on a 10-2-0 run that was halted when the season paused on March 12.
Islanders head coach Barry Trotz thinks his team has figured out the recipe for success in playoff hockey after decimating the Washington Capitals in the first round.
"I think our 5-on-5 play, you can say (has) confidence, I think we just trust it," Trotz said. "We know what works for us. I think we understand how you win in the playoffs. We've basically gotten through two rounds right now from a mental and physical standpoint that it's sort of ingrained in your DNA of what you need to do and how you have to play."
The first game of the series is Monday at 7 p.m. ET.
Bednar added he's not sure how long Grubauer will be sidelined.
Grubauer suffered an apparent groin injury in the second period of Colorado's 5-3 loss in Game 1 on Saturday night. He went down after stretching to make a save and had to be helped off the ice.
Pavel Francouz stopped 18 of the 20 shots he faced after replacing Grubauer, who allowed three goals on 10 shots before his injury.
The backup netminder authored a 27-save shutout of the Stars in the round-robin stage and now has a .941 save percentage across three postseason appearances in 2019-20.
Francouz took over as the Avalanche starter earlier this season when Grubauer was hurt in a Stadium Series game against the Los Angeles Kings on Feb. 15. After stepping into the No. 1 role, Francouz went 8-2-2 with a .919 save percentage in 12 games before the pause.
Grubauer regained the starter's role for the postseason and has gone 5-1 with a .922 save percentage in seven playoff contests.
Washington Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan acknowledges that bringing Braden Holtby back won't be easy, and he says a decision regarding the goaltender's future hasn't been made.
"Still to be decided," MacLellan told reporters after firing head coach Todd Reirden on Sunday. "I think it's going to be difficult, but sometimes opportunities come up that you don't expect, and I think we'd like to play it out and see what happens here."
Holtby, a pending unrestricted free agent, has spent his entire 10-year career with Washington. He's in the final season of the five-year, $30.5-million pact the puck-stopper inked with the club in 2015.
The netminder, who will turn 31 in September, backstopped the Capitals to a Stanley Cup championship in 2018, but he's been mostly mediocre since. Holtby went 25-14-6 in 48 games this season while authoring a paltry .897 save percentage along with a minus-16.76 goals saved above average.
He posted a 2-6 record in the 2019-20 playoffs - including the round-robin stage - producing a pedestrian .906 save percentage over those eight contests.
McLellan also noted Sunday that Ilya Samsonov, the team's potential goaltender of the future, is expected to be ready for training camp. The 23-year-old didn't join his teammates in the Toronto bubble this postseason after suffering an injury beforehand.
Samsonov outplayed Holtby during the regular season, albeit over a smaller sample size. The rookie went 16-6-2 with a .913 save percentage and a 2.3 GSAA across 26 games.
The Capitals have nearly $71 million in team salary committed for 2020-21, when the salary cap will remain stagnant at $81.5 million. Holtby is currently carrying a cap hit of $6.1 million, and a handful of other Capitals players are slated to become either restricted or unrestricted free agents.
Marc-Andre Fleury's agent, Allan Walsh, tweeted a photo Saturday of his client being stabbed in the back by a sword inscribed with Vegas Golden Knights head coach Peter DeBoer's name.
Walsh is apparently not happy the team relegated Fleury to backup duties (he's started two of Vegas' eight playoff games) in favor of trade-deadline acquisition Robin Lehner.
Fleury faced the music regarding the since-deleted tweet Sunday, and he declined questions about whether he had prior knowledge that Walsh would post the photo, according to the Las Vegas Sun's Justin Emerson.
"I really appreciated (Walshβs) passion for the game that he has, and this was a way to defend me in this situation," Fleury said. "Iβm here to win with my team, to have success. Thatβs what matters. I asked him to take that picture down."
Fleury also reiterated that he and Lehner have a good relationship.
"We all want to win, that's why we're here," Fleury added. "I really like Robin. We have a good friendship, and I think he's a really good goalie also. There are no hard feelings."
Vegas expects Lehner to start Game 1 against the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday.
