Less than two weeks after lifting the Stanley Cup Luca Sbisa Jersey , Barry Trotz is a free agent and the Washington Capitals are looking for a new coach.

Trotz stepped down as Capitals coach on Monday after a contract dispute over salary and term that leaves the newly minted Stanley Cup champions without a coach with the draft and free agency fast approaching. General manager Brian MacLellan said the Capitals accepted Trotz’s resignation after they were unable to agree on terms on a new contract.

Winning the Cup less than two weeks ago triggered a two-year extension for Trotz that would have given him a slight bump in salary to just over $2 million, a person with direct knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the team did not announce the extension.

”His representative wants to take advantage of Barry’s experience and Stanley Cup win and was trying to negotiate a deal that compensates him as one of the better coaches in the league, top four or five coaches,” MacLellan said at a news conference in Arlington, Virginia. ”I think the five-year term is probably a sticking point. You have a coach that’s been here four years, you do another five, that’s nine years. There’s not many coaches that have that lasting ability. It’s a long time and it’s a lot of money to be committing to a coach.”

Toronto’s Mike Babcock makes the most at $6.25 million on an eight-year deal after coaching Detroit for 10 seasons, Chicago’s Joel Quenneville is next at $6 million entering his ninth full season with the Blackhawks and Montreal’s Claude Julien brings in $5 million after coaching Boston for nine-plus seasons. All three have won the Cup like Trotz, including Quenneville three times.

If Trotz was paid among the top five, it would have put him in the $4 million-plus range annually – a price the Capitals have not been willing to pay for coaches.

”After careful consideration and consultation with my family, I am officially announcing my resignation,” Trotz said. ”When I came to Washington four years ago we had one goal in mind and that was to bring the Stanley Cup to the nation’s capital. We had an incredible run this season culminating with our players and staff achieving our goal and sharing the excitement with our fans.”

The 55-year-old Trotz went into the season with an uncertain future after ownership and MacLellan declined to talk about a contract extension last summer after back-to-back Presidents’ Trophy-winning seasons that ended with second-round exits.

”We were struggling at the time to get over the hump,” MacLellan said. ”We couldn’t get out of the second round and Barry hadn’t been able to coach out of the second round yet either. I think from the organization’s perspective Geoff Swaim Jersey , some changes would’ve had to be made if we lost in the second round again.”

That didn’t happen as a relaxed Trotz played a vital role in Washington’s first title in franchise history. He survived a rough start to the season and other struggles before he and the team found a stride in the playoffs.

As part of the uneasy arrangement, associate coach Todd Reirden – who was not allowed to interview with other teams last summer – remained on staff and was considered the coach-in-waiting. Reirden is now the leading candidate to take over for the defending champions, though MacLellan wants to go through an interview process with the former Pittsburgh assistant first.

”Todd’s a good candidate for it,” MacLellan said. ”We’re going to start with Todd here, and we’ve been grooming him to be a head coach whether for us or for someone else. We’ll see how the talk goes with him and then we’ll make a decision based on that. If it goes well, then we’ll pursue Todd, and if it doesn’t, we’ll open it up a little bit.”

After the Capitals accepted his resignation, Trotz will be an intriguing figure on the coaching market.

Only the New York Islanders have a current coaching vacancy, though given Trotz’s success in Nashville and Washington, other teams might consider making a move to hire him. Trotz has the fifth-most victories in NHL history and has guided a team to the playoffs in 11 of his 19 seasons. He is 762-568-60-134 overall with the Predators and Capitals, and he won 205 of his 328 regular-season games (63 percent) since taking over as Washington’s coach in 2014.

Trotz had his fingerprints all over this championship, pushing all the right buttons by putting goaltender Braden Holtby back in net early in the first round and making the correct lineup decisions throughout the playoffs. He was also a popular coach with his players Youth Matt Irwin Jersey , helping playoff hero Devante Smith-Pelly and others find their stride.

”He changed this team with family mentality,” top-line winger Tom Wilson said last week. ”He did a really good job of creating that team atmosphere. You look three or four years back, there was a lot of skill on this team, but there wasn’t really that team mentality and you can never take that away from what that did for this locker room.”

Despite his contract situation, Trotz appeared relaxed throughout the postseason, even as Washington vanquished playoff nemesis Pittsburgh. After the Capitals trailed in all four series and came back to win the Stanley Cup, Trotz told fans at the victory parade last week: ”We’re going to do it again!”

Instead, Trotz is looking at the next stop in his career and the Capitals are looking for a new coach.

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If the football federations follow FIFA’s guidance, the 2026 World Cup should be awarded to the North American bid on Wednesday.

Success for Morocco relies on the electorate to follow the trend of recent hosting decisions and vote for a risky bid facing doubts about the ability to pull off the vast reconstruction project required to stage soccer’s showpiece.

The 16 stadiums proposed by the joint United States-Canada-Mexico bid already exist and only need minor upgrades over eight years.

All 14 Moroccan venues must be built or renovated as part of the $16 billion investment in new infrastructure the African nation says is required.

FIFA’s inspection reports highlighted three ”high-risk” elements to Morocco’s bid: stadiums, hotels and transport.

NEW YORK (AP) – Manchester United has been rated by Forbes as the world’s most valuable soccer team for the second straight year.

The team’s worth increased to $4.12 billion from $3.69 billion a year ago and ranked just ahead of Real Madrid ($4.09 billion) and Barcelona ($4.06 billion).

The magazine says Manchester United had nearly twice as much operating income as any other soccer team.

Rounding out the top five are Bayern Munich ($3.06 billion) and Manchester City ($2.47 billion).

Eight of the top 20 are English teams. Forbes attributes the dominance to the Premier League’s lucrative broadcasting deals.

Forbes says most of the appreciation of club value is because of the decline in the U.S. dollar relative to the Euro since last year.

BASEBALL

DETROIT (AP) – The Detroit Tigers lost much more than a game Tuesday night.

Miguel Cabrera ruptured his left biceps tendon in the third inning of a 6-4 loss to the Minnesota Twins and will have season-ending surgery later this week.

”This is obviously a very sad day for Miggy and for the entire ballclub,” manager Ron Gardenhire said. ”It is obviously a huge blow to the team, both on and off the field, but we will have to find a way to overcome it.”

Gardenhire said Cabrera’s status for the 2019 season won’t be known until after the operation. He still has $154 million left on a contract that runs through 2023.

Cabrera swung awkwardly at Jake Odorizzi’s slider and immediately walked to the dugout with his arm limply at his side. When he was joined by team trainers Yanni Gourde Jersey , the slugger gestured to his biceps and continued walking into the Detroit clubhouse.

HOCKEY

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) – The wife of Ottawa Senators captain Erik Karlsson has filed an order of protection against the girlfriend of one of Karlsson’s teammates, alleging harassment and cyberbullying.

In an application for a peace bond filed May 4 in an Ottawa court, Melinda Karlsson alleges that Monika Caryk posted hundreds of derogatory online messages aimed at her and her husband. Caryk is the longtime partner of Senators forward Mike Hoffman.

”Monika Caryk has uttered numerous statements wishing my unborn child dead,” Karlsson said in the sworn statement. The Karlssons’ first child, a son named Axel, was stillborn in March.

The Ottawa Citizen was first to report on the allegations.

Karlsson also claimed that Caryk ”uttered that she wished I was dead and that someone should `take out’ my husband’s legs to `end his career.’

ATHLETE ABUSE

LANSING, Mich. (AP) – Michigan Lt. Gov. Brian Calley on Tuesday signed two bills inspired by the Larry Nassar scandal, including one giving childhood sexual abuse victims more time to sue.

The current cutoff to file a lawsuit in Michigan is generally a minor victim’s 19th birthday, which critics say is out of step with other states and does not account for how many victims are afraid to report abuse or have suppressed it. Starting in three months, people who were sexually abused as children will be able to sue until their 28th birthdays or three years from when they realize they have been abused. Victims of Nassar, the imprisoned former sports doctor who worked for Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, will get a 90-day window to sue retroactively.

As part of a $500 million settlement with Michigan State Ryan Kesler Jersey , his hundreds of accusers agreed to withdraw their support for legislation that would have eliminated the immunity defense in lawsuits for entities that are negligent in the hiring, supervision or training of employees, or if the governmental agencies knew or should have known and failed to report sexual misconduct to law enforcement.

PRO FOOTBALL

ST. LOUIS (AP) – A jury in St. Louis ordered the NFL’s Rams to pay former running back Reggie Bush $12.5 million for a severe knee injury he suffered in 2015, the team’s final season in St. Louis before moving to Los Angeles.

The jury found the Rams 100 percent liable for Bush’s injury and ordered the team to pay $4.95 million in compensatory damages and $7.5 million in punitive damages, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Attorneys for the Rams said they plan to file a motion for a new trial.

Bush was playing for the San Francisco 49ers when he was pushed out of bounds during a game on Nov. 1, 2015, at what was then the Edward Jones Dome, now known as the Dome at America’s Center. He slipped on a surface that the lawsuit dubbed the ”concrete ring of death,” about 35 feet (11 meters) behind the 49ers’ bench.

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