Rumor: NHL team reportedly targeting former Oilers coach Todd McLellan.

The life of a head coach in professional sports is never an easy one. Not only must you deal with the tremendous pressure put on you by the expectations of the organization that hired you as well as it's fan base, but you know that even the most successful of coaches end up fired after a few short years. That constant fear of impending doom also comes with a ton of benefits, high salary, quality of life, long offseasons, etc, and one of those benefits is that if you're good at the job there's always someone waiting around the corner to hire you. 

Earlier this week both St. Louis Blues head coach Mike Yeo and Edmonton Oilers head coach Todd McLellan were fired after both their teams failed to deliver on those aforementioned expectations. We don't know what the future may hold for Mike Yeo at this stage of his career but it sounds like McLellan may not have to wait long at all before getting back behind the bench of a team in the National Hockey League, assuming of course that this is what he wants to do.

On Saturday Sportsnet NHL insider Nick Kypreos reported that there are already NHL teams expressing interest in two of the recently fired head coaches, specifically McLellan and former Chicago Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville. Based on the comments made by Kypreos it appears that the Edmonton Oilers reached out to Quenneville, likely through a third party, in order to gauge interest before hiring veteran head coach Ken Hitchcock to replace McLellan. I would assume that Quenneville rebuked those advances and that is what eventually resulted in Hitchcock being hired by general manager Peter Chiarelli and the Oilers.

Interestingly enough in the case of McLellan Kypreos cited that he has started to hear talk of interest for the Los Angeles Kings organization, a team that has not only just fired their former head coach in John Stevens, but a team that also has hired Willie Desjardins to coach their players in the interim. It would be a rather fast turnover for Desjardins should the Kings move forward with an offer for McLellan but there are now two reports that dispute the claims from Kypreos. 

Kings insider Jon Rosen has come out and stated unequivocally that the Kings are not pursuing Todd McLellan and that report has since been echoed by Lisa Dillman of the Athletic. No way to tell which side of this story has got it right, but I would put my money on Rosen and Dillman given their history of very accurate reporting when it comes to the L.A. Kings.

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