Reports: Eakins to join Oilers, Komarov to KHL

Two bits of Leafs news today…

Dallas Eakins leaving to the NHL was essentially a done deal. When the Leafs decided to go with Randy Carlyle next season and leave Eakins with the Toronto Marlies, unless the Leafs fired Carlyle a year into his contract, Eakins would get his NHL shot with somebody else. With half a dozen teams needing to fill coaching vacancies, and possibly still more to come, it was unlikely that a team would pass over one of the most successful AHL coaches.

Jeffler will have more on Eakins a bit later. He’s covered the Marlies for years at this blog and his own Marlies HQ.

The second bit of news, about Leo Komarov, I’m not entirely convinced is accurate. This wouldn’t be the first time something was lost in translation dealing with Komarov in the last month, but I’d be unsurprised if Komarov did choose to go back to the KHL after a season with Toronto. He went from a well-paid first liner in Russia to a moderately-paid fourth-liner in Canada.

So perhaps there’s a dicey translation, or an inaccurate report based on a Finnish equivalent to Eklund. The Finnish reporter quoted by Igor Eronko doesn’t make reference to “Dynamo” or “Komarov” on his Twitter feed, so perhaps this could come as somebody misquoted on radio or in newspaper. I don’t know what the media landscape is like in Helsinki, but there’s not a whole lot of substance behind the Komarov rumour. We’ll wait for it.

Our Russian sources are currently tracking down the story (*I’ve sent a message to my Moscow-born Toronto-based friend Andrey Osadchenko to see how accurate the rumour could be) and I don’t think we can say anything concrete beyond “wait and see”.

Eakins looks done. At least he’ll be out West. OilersNation has some stuff on Eakins-Ralph Krueger, and the Oilers coaching carousel already.