Dater’s Daily: Quenneville Resigns, Tortorella Up Next?

ST. LOUIS – Good morning, from a little airport breakfast spot in Lambert International Airport. Flight back to Denver at 8:25, just enough time to do this post and have a few scrambled eggs, sausage and toast, and lots of coffee. Terrible night’s sleep, major back pain from a mattress that was a bit too soft. But, so it goes…

Let’s do some hockey links, along with those sausage links:

• Former Avs coach Joel Quenneville resigned from the Florida Panthers, in the fallout from the Chicago sex abuse scandal involving former player Kyle Beach. It’s a sad story all around. Our Florida Hockey Now’s George Richards has the inside story on what’s next for the 7-0 Panthers (Florida Hockey Now)
• ESPN’s Kevin Weekes said John Tortorella is a leading candidate to succeed Quenneville – while former Av Andrew Brunette serves as interim coach. (Weekes Twitter)
• A Tortorella hire would seem to be heavily connected to the fact that he and Panthers GM Bill Zito worked together in Columbus, and Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky thrived under Torts with the Jackets.
• But, sorry, count me among those who think this is a cliche hire, if it happens. I thought the NHL wanted to get away from the “Good Old Boy” network that was so heavily criticized as part of the Blackhawks mess? I think Torts is a bully, and a guy whose expiration date as a coach expired a while ago. He flamed out in Columbus. Now, he’s going to take over a fast-skating, freewheeling team. We all know Torts is a defense-first coach who wants every guy to dive in front of shots and chip pucks in and play “half-court” hockey. I think he’s the wrong guy for that job, but what do I know?
• With the GM job now open in Chicago, don’t overlook Avs assistant GM Chris McFarland as a potential candidate. He’s going to be a full GM at some point in this league.
• The Boston Bruins looked at this week as a “measuring stick” of sorts against undefeated Florida and Carolina, and thus far it looks like they aren’t measuring up. (Boston Hockey Now)
• TJ Oshie is out “week-to-week” with a lower-body injury as absences start to creep in for teams like the Washington Capitals. (Washington Hockey Now)
• Book recommendation: “The Contrarian”, a book about tech mogul Peter Thiel, the man who took down Gawker (and the world is a much better place for that, even though it is back in a tamed-down form). (Amazon)
• Gawker, Deadspin and the rest of those scumbag sites died a deserved death in their old form. A bunch of hypocrite, doxxing hacks who worked there. Peter Thiel, who was unwillingly outed as gay in a disgusting form of doxxing, deserves the Medal of Freedom for what he did. In my opinion, anyway.
• Sorry, back to hockey…
• Dylan Larkin scored the OT winner to beat the Capitals. Five takeaways–Detroit is…better than most expected. 
• Zach Whitecloud signed a six-year extension with Vegas (Vegas Hockey Now)
• How will Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, who were on that 2010 Blackhawks team, deal with things moving forward? (Hockey News)