The Utah Grizzlies are on the move to their brand-new West Valley Events Center. That's enough to energize fans and returning players even after the two-time Turner Cup champs were swept out of the second playoff round by Long Beach with a 3-2 overtime win Friday night.
They know where they'll be, but the Grizz don't know if they'll have a new coach, if the New York Islanders will remain a parent team or if they'll have two NHL parent clubs next season.General manager/coach Butch Goring was a candidate for an NHL job last year after back- to-back titles. He had some interviews. He wants an NHL head job and will soon contact the four clubs with vacancies (Boston, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and San Jose).
He has no idea if he'll have any real offers, so he's already planning next season's Grizzlies. He's in Denver today to see his daughters and an Avalanche game. "Everyone has caught up to us," said Goring. "I'm going to do a little scouting and build it back up again. We didn't win, so we need to be better."
Despite Friday's loss, Goring, sick all week, said he slept better that night than he has all week. But only after telling assistant Kevin Cheveldayoff at 1 a.m. to book him a flight to Denver.
"I'm still disappointed," Goring said. The key to going further in the playoffs, he says, would have been to finish third in the Western Conference instead of fourth. The Grizz were third with a few games left but lost it, and that meant they had to play the regular-season champion Ice Dogs in the second round instead of later. The more games the Grizz could have played, says Goring, the better they would have been with so many new players.
He'll padlock the revolving clubhouse door next season. The Islander partnership wasn't as productive as it had been, with players in and out and some of them not up to caliber plus the turmoil the N.Y. front office had with the firing of assistant GM Darcy Regier and a coaching change that left Rick Bowness behind the bench. Both are ex-Salt Lake Golden Eagles.
Goring says he'll want more say about players with whomever the affiliate is. Or are.
Goring is pursuing a second affiliation with the Los Angeles Kings, whose IHL partner in Phoenix went out of business last month. Goring is friends with the LA GM, and, "They've expressed that they'd like to be working with us," he says. He'd like to get six to 10 players each from the Islanders and Kings - quality players at low cost. The downside is that near-NHLers can be called up to the NHL, but Goring thinks that risk is better than having lower-echelon players.
Because of the affiliation question, Goring's unsure how many current Grizzlies will be back, though Jeff Sharples has an option contract for next season, and Rod Miller and Jeff Sirkka have Grizz contracts covering next season.
Miller and Sharples say the new building's intriguing, but both say they want to play in Utah if Goring is here. If not, they don't know. Miller said Goring designed the locker room to be state of the art, so he wants to see that. Sharples says, "Oh yeah, I'm real excited about it. Not many teams move out of a building as nice as the Delta Center to a new one." He said it will improve scheduling and practice times because the Grizz will control all that rather than the Jazz.