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I'm all for Luke Richardson now. He's the obvious name with the connection with Tim Murray, but it's not like he doesn't warrant legitimate consideration. The B-Sens missed the playoffs the year before he arrived and finished with a 29-40-7 record. In his first season he led them to a 44-24-8 record which was good enough for 4th in their conference. That's a 31 point improvement. He finished with the exact same record the following season. This year the record was down to 34-34-8, but the dip could probably be attributed to Ottawa pulling up Hoffman, Stone and others in large chunks of the season. He's had a hand in the development of Ben Bishop, Mark Stone, Mike Hoffman, Jakob Silfverberg, Shane Prince, JG Pageau, Cody Ceci and Mika Zibanejad. The Hamburglar's numbers weren't nearly as impressive as his NHL numbers are, but he's about the only goalie that didn't have great success under Richardson when given time to do so. Possible Sabres target Robin Lehner also did well in Binghamton. That's a lot of talent that has gone through Binghamton while Richardson was the coach. Obviously if the talent is there it's hard for them not to succeed, but many of the players above had immediate success once they got to Ottawa. That tells me that he's coaching them up well for future success. To me, that tells me he can coach talented players in the NHL. Most of the forwards are skill guys, but Richardson was rugged player so I'm sure he can coach both styles when asked to do so. Also, looking at that list, I think Ennis and Reinhart would thrive under Richardson. Goaltending doesn't seem like an issue for his teams. Looking at the stats of players he has coached in Binghamton: Mark Stone - Year 1: 15-23-38 in 54 games Year 2: 15-26-41 in 37 games then 26-38-64 in his first full NHL season Mike Hoffman - Year 1: 13-15-28 in 41 games (this was his 3rd AHL season) Year 2: 30-37-67 in 51 games then 27-21-48 in his first full NHL season Jakob Silfverberg - Year 1: 13-16-29 in 34 games before being called up to Ottawa for the remainder of the season where he put up 10-9-19 in 48 games Shane Prince - Year 1: 18-17-35 in 65 games Year 2: 21-27-48 in 69 games Year 3: 28-37-65 in 72 games plus 2 NHL games Matt Puempel - Year 1: 1-0-1 in 9 games Year 2: 30-18-48 in 74 games Year 3: 12-20-32 in 51 games plus 13 NHL games JG Pageau - Year 1: 7-22-29 in 69 games with 9 NHL games Year 2: 20-24-44 in 46 games with 28 NHL games Year 3: 11-10-21 in 27 games with 10-9-19 in 50 NHL games Ben Bishop - .909 NHL save percentage in 10 games prior to working with Richardson in 2012; .922 NHL save percentage in 13 games after spending time with Richardson the following year He's also battled some personal adversity that hits home for me... http://www.difd.com/ I will provide more details on his candidacy when I'm off work.