It was announced during Kevin Cheveldayoff's press conference this afternoon that True North Sports and Entertainment would extend the contract of current head coach Claude Noel for an additional year, carrying him through the 2014-15 regular season.
During his tenure here in Winnipeg, Noel has amassed a record of 61-56-13 (24-21-3 in 2013), falling short of the playoffs each of the first two seasons on the job, albeit narrowly during this lockout-shortened campaign.
Though some of his coaching tactics have been questioned over the better part of the past twenty-four months — particularly in his deployment of starting goaltender Ondrej Pavelec — management believes in the direction this team is taking under Noel’s guidance; enough so that they were comfortable in extending his leash by the smallest of margins.
Although, the extension of Noel was the big news to come from today's press conference — Cheveldayoff's first since his debriefing at the end of April — it was hardly the only pertinent information that was divulged this afternoon.
Among other things, GMKC expressed that he has reached out to each of Winnipeg's soon-to-be restricted free agents and that talks are on going with the players and their representation.
Furthermore, Cheveldayoff does not foresee any compliance buyouts, so you can forget the asinine notion that the Jets may be looking to buy out the allegedly large-and-in-charge Dustin Byfuglien.
And finally, the Jets will be looking to add another forward to the mix either via trade or free agency and aren’t opposed to trying to move up a few (or more) selections in Sunday’s NHL Draft.
So if you're asking yourself #whatdidchevydotoday?, one could argue he blew the doors off of the MTS Centre with enough sound-bytes to carry this city through the weekend.
