Latest update on Joel Quenneville’s future in the NHL

UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM

The heat is on for Florida Panthers head coach Joel Quenneville. After Chicago Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman “stepped aside” from his position following Tuesday’s release of an independent third party investigation into allegations that the team covered up a sexual abuse scandal from within the organization, the focus has turned to Quenneville.

Chicago law firm Jenner & Block released a report today implicating Bowman, then-Blackhawks assistant GM Kevin Cheveldayoff and then-head coach Joel Quenneville in the cover up of sexual abuse allegations levied against former team video coach Brad Aldrich. Attorney Reid Schar outlined how the team’s executive staff in 2010 swept Aldrich’s assaults under the rug and enabled him to go on to commit even more crimes at his next job in the NCAA. Both Quenneville, now with the Florida Panthers, and Cheveldayoff, now with the Winnipeg Jets, have denied knowing anything about the allegations. But Schar has revealed both of these men to be liars.

On top of that, the report shows that now Florida Panthers head coach Quenneville did not want to deal with this issue because they were contenders to be Cup winners. Bowman told investigators that during this meeting McDonagh and Quenneville “made comments about the challenge of getting to the Stanley Cup Finals and a desire to focus on the team and the playoffs.” To make things worse, Quenneville wrote an evaluation on Aldrich, knowing what he had done, stating that he had done a great job while having several people relying on him.

Pierre LeBrun revealed later that same night on Insider Trading on TSN that Quenneville will meet with commissioner Gary Bettman, though he did not know when that would take place.

“The Florida Panthers aren’t going to comment any further at this point until after Joel Quenneville has met with commissioner Gary Bettman, don’t know exactly when that meeting will happen, except I was just told by a source “sooner rather than later."

However, the insider is almost certain that Quenneville will coach his Panthers Wednesday against the visiting Boston Bruins.

“In the meantime there is no reason to believe that he won’t be behind the bench Wednesday night, but I can’t tell you that 100 per cent. But clearly despite putting out a statement this past summer about this, Joel Quenneville will obviously have more questions to answer from media after his meeting with Bettman given how prevalent his presence is in the report.”

Quenneville will be available to media around 10am this morning with the morning skate ahead of the game vs. Bruins later today.

There will be more to come on this story.

Here is what Quenneville had to say on Wednesday upon meeting with reporters. He will have a meeting with commissioner Gary Bettman on Thursday: