Dater’s Daily: Blackhawks Scandal Fallout: Is Joel Quenneville Next Domino to Fall?; Annunen Struggling with Eagles

ST. LOUIS – Good Thursday to all. I’m here in the Gateway Arch City for tonight’s Avs-Blues game. I tried toasted ravioli for the first time here last night and…I’m a fan.

Let’s do some links from around the league…

• Joel Quenneville will have a meeting in New York today with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, and things aren’t looking great for Coach Q’s future, I don’t think. The report that came out from an independent investigation into the 2010 allegations of sexual abuse involving a player, who revealed himself last night as Kyle Beach – in an emotional interview with TSN’s Rick Westhead – and former Blackhawks video coach Brad Aldrich have already cost the jobs of Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman and another front-office chieftain. Quenneville, coach of the Blackhawks at the time and who Beach said was fully aware of the accusations against Aldrich but didn’t take any action against him and later wrote positive reviews of his job performance, was on the bench last night against Boston for his Florida Panthers club. That has drawn lots of criticism (Yahoo)
• My colleague at the Hockey Now family, George Richards, was on the scene in Florida last night and has more details of how the 7-0 Panthers are gearing up for potential fallout to a situation they had absolutely nothing to do with (Florida Hockey Now)
• Those positive reviews that Quenneville wrote on Aldrich – after the Hawks won the Cup, and after meetings in which it was disclosed that Aldrich was accused of abuse by a player – don’t look good in hindsight. The question is: did he and the rest of the Blackhawks really know the full extent of Beach’s accusations at that time? Or, was it just a vague, “something went on, we’ve gotta look into it” thing and Quenneville just thought “Hey, I’m a coach, that’s management’s job to look into this kind of thing, and Beach hadn’t disclosed that much at that time, like he did Wednesday night?
• I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. But I suspect that will be Quenneville’s main defense. Sure, he might have heard something happened, but maybe he just didn’t know the full extent of things until much later. All I know is, it is likely going to be a very tense meeting in New York today.
• Justus Annunen’s stats for the Colorado Eagles so far: 0-3-1, .847 saves percentage, 3.95 goals-against. Yeah, he’s just a kid, still adjusting to playing in North American rinks. But, obviously, it’s a slow start for the player considered the best goalie in the Avs’ system.
• Our Jimmy Murphy with a scoop: Eddie Olczyk might be Stan Bowman’s successor in Chicago (Boston Hockey Now)
• Tough news: Conor Timmins will be out up to three months with a leg injury (Arizona Sports)
• How the Flames got out to a fast start (Calgary Hockey Now)
• Sidney Crosby is close to a return with the Penguins (Pittsburgh Hockey Now)
• Jonathan Drouin let slip yesterday that Montreal Canadiens captain Shea Weber has effectively retired from hockey due to injury (Montreal Hockey Now)
• The Avs are -120 favorites to beat the Blues tonight, at SuperBook Colorado (SuperBook)