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Archives for October 2016

Seattle Arena Deal Clears Important Hurdle

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The NHL has long been interested in the city of Seattle, either as home to a new expansion team or as a possible landing spot for a relocated franchise. However a group looking to build an arena in Seattle couldn’t agree with the city on a financing plan. The municipality was unwilling to use public funds, as previously proposed, and the project appeared dead until today.

Chris Hansen, who fronts the group of investors looking to build the arena, has revealed a new proposal that offers to forgo public funding in order to obtain approval to begin construction on a new venue in the city’s SoDo neighborhood, according to a report from King 5 News in Seattle. This development would seem to pave the way for eventual placement of an NHL franchise in the city but there’s at least one hurdle remaining.

The group’s primary objective is the acquisition of an NBA team and during the NHL’s recent expansion process, no one representing Seattle submitted an application to the league in pursuit of a franchise.

Below is an excerpt from the letter outlining the Hansen group’s new proposal to the mayor of Seattle, the King County Executive and Seattle City Councilmembers, which spells out their interest in the NBA:

Our goal has always been to return the NBA to Seattle and to build a new arena to make that possible.  Our partnership with the City and County started five years ago was based on a recognition that private financing of a new arena in the prevailing economic conditions was not economically feasible.  The goal of this partnership was to build the arena and bring an NBA team to Seattle.  Public financing was simply a mechanism that made that possible at the time.

Now it’s possible, if not even likely, that once an NBA team is placed in the city an NHL franchise will soon follow. According to the article the NBA may begin to focus on expansion once the league and the player’s union agree to a new CBA.

The NHL currently has 31 members, creating unbalanced conferences and scheduling difficulties. Adding a 32nd franchise would solve those issues. Quebec is of course another possible candidate but would seem to be a better fit in the Eastern Conference an therefore might be best suited as a fallback in case the league needs to relocate a team in the East. With the Seattle arena project appearing to be back on track, the Pacific Northwest is again an appealing expansion option for the NHL.

Flyers Recall Leier; Simmonds Avoids Hearing

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Update (3:25pm): Panaccio, via Twitter, confirms that the team has placed Raffl on IR creating the need for the recall of Leier.

The Philadelphia Flyers have recalled LW Taylor Leier according to a tweet from Sam Carchidi of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The reason for the recall is currently unclear though it appears it won’t be to take the place of Wayne Simmonds, who seems to have avoided a hearing with the Department of Player Safety after cross-checking Canadiens defenseman Andrei Markov into the boards during last night’s game. Simmonds defended the hit, arguing he “barely touched” Markov, suggesting the Habs blue liner was trying to sell the penalty call, as Tim Panaccio of CSN Philly adds.

The Flyers currently have the maximum 23 players on their roster and will have to make a corresponding move to make room for Leier. Dave Isaac of the Courier-Post suggests that move may be placing Michael Raffl on IR retroactive to last Wednesday. Raffl was injured in last Tuesday’s game against Chicago.

Leier appeared in six games for the Flyers last season, failing to register a point while averaging just 7:43 of ice time. He was originally selected by the Flyers in the fourth round of the 2012 entry draft. Leier tallied 20 goals and 49 points last season for Lehigh Valley and has netted 81 points overall in 147 AHL games.

More to follow.

Pacific Division Snapshots: Boedker, Megna, Stecher, McGinn

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After an “underwhelming” start to the 2016-17 campaign, San Jose bench boss Peter DeBoer has shuffled his lines in an effort to spark the 2 – 3 Sharks, writes Paul Gackle of The Mercury News. Tomas Hertl, who has spent much of the season skating on the top line with Joe Pavelski and Joe Thornton, slides down the lineup and will center the third line. Meanwhile, Mikkel Boedker and Joel Ward have been promoted and will each move up a line.

Hertl, who has two goals and three points in six contests, will center a line with Patrick Marleau and Melker Karlsson on his wings. Boedker joins the aforementioned Pavelski and Thornton on the first line. Ward takes over as the second line right wing and will skate with Logan Couture and Joonas Donskoi.

For DeBoer, it’s not about punishing poor play or rewarding good; it’s about trying to find the right combinations that will allow the coach to roll four forward lines.

“It’s not a panic situation or anything, but you’re always looking for ways to get the most out of your group and our four-line game hasn’t been where I want it to be. I want to make sure that we are a four-line team and we’ll keep shuffling things until we are.”

Hertl’s play at center last year when Couture was out gave DeBoer the necessary confidence to move the young Czech forward back to the pivot spot.

 “Hertl can play anywhere, his game is at that point. He’s a good enough player now that, not only can he play anywhere, I think he can make other people better around him.”

The Sharks currently sit tied with Anaheim for third in the Pacific Division but have a minus-four goal differential and have tallied just 14 markers on the season. Whether DeBoer’s changes pay off for the Sharks remains to be seen but it’s evident some form of shakeup was needed in San Jose.

Elsewhere in the Pacific Division:

  • The Vancouver Canucks have announced via their team website that they have recalled forward Jayson Megna and defenseman Troy Stecher from Utica of the AHL. Furthermore, according to Jon Abbott who covers the Canucks for TSN1040, Megna is slated to play on the fourth line tonight against Ottawa. Stecher is set to make his NHL debut tonight and will skate with Alex Edler, with whom he partnered during preseason action, again per Abbott. Megna appeared in six games for the New York Rangers in 2015-16, netting a single goal and two points for the Blueshirts. Stecher signed with Vancouver as an undrafted free agent following three seasons playing for the University of North Dakota. The two draw into the lineup due to the continued absences of Derek Dorsett, Alexandre Burrows and Chris Tanev.
  • The Arizona Coyotes will receive a welcome boost tonight as offseason free agent addition Jamie McGinn is set to make his 2016-17 season debut, as Coyotes Senior Director of News Content Dave Vest writes. McGinn missed the team’s first five games due to an upper-body-injury. Head coach Dave Tippett says the veteran wing will have to quickly readjust to the speed and pace of the game:  “He’s going to have to get up and going. At least he had exhibition games (and) played well in the exhibition games. He’s been off for a couple weeks now. The pace has gone up. He’ll have to get into the pace of the game, but he’s a good veteran guy. He’s hard around the front of the net. Hopefully he brings us a little veteran presence we need right now.” Vest also notes that goalie Justin Peters is slated to make his first start of the 2016-17 campaign between the pipes tonight for the Coyotes. The 30-year-old Peters, who has 67 NHL starts on his resume, appeared in a relief role for the Coyotes last Thursday and stopped 23 of the 24 shots he faced. Peters has assumed the backup role in Arizona behind Louis Domingue following the lower-body-injury to Mike Smith.

 

Poll: 2005 NHL Draft Take Two: Fifteenth Overall Pick

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Hindsight is an amazing thing, and allows us to look back and wonder “what could have been.” Though perfection is attempted, scouting and draft selection is far from an exact science and sometimes, it doesn’t work out the way teams – or players – intended. For every Patrick Kane, there is a Patrik Stefan.

We’re looking back at the 2005 NHL Draft, which kicked off the salary cap era and ushered in many of the current NHL superstars. The question we’re looking to answer is knowing now what we didn’t know then, how different would this draft look now with the benefit of hindsight?

Here are the results of our redraft so far:

1st Overall: Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins)
2nd Overall: Carey Price (Mighty Ducks of Anaheim)
3rd Overall: Anze Kopitar (Carolina Hurricanes)
4th Overall: Jonathan Quick (Minnesota Wild)
5th Overall: Kris Letang (Montreal Canadiens)
6th Overall: Tuukka Rask (Columbus Blue Jackets)
7th Overall: Bobby Ryan (Chicago Blackhawks)
8th Overall: Marc-Edouard Vlasic (San Jose Sharks)
9th Overall: Ben Bishop (Ottawa Senators)
10th Overall: James Neal (Vancouver Canucks)
11th Overall: T.J. Oshie (Los Angeles Kings)
12th Overall: Keith Yandle (New York Rangers)
13th Overall: Paul Stastny (Buffalo Sabres)
14th Overall: Marc Staal (Washington Capitals)

Now we move forward to the 15th pick, which was held by the New York Islanders.

To recap how this works:

  • We will go through the 2005 NHL Draft and have our readers select, through a voting process, who they think should have been taken with the selection.
  • The entire first round will be redrafted, spanning picks one through thirty. The new selection is chosen by the majority of votes.

Back in 2005, the Islanders selected center Ryan O’Marra out of Erie of the Ontario Hockey League.  However, he wasn’t in the organization for long as he was dealt two years later to Edmonton as part of the Ryan Smyth deal.  Neither one of them worked too well for the Isles as O’Marra played in just 33 career NHL games scoring only a single goal while Smyth didn’t help the team reach new heights in the postseason back in 2007 as the team was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs that year.

With the 15th pick of the 2005 NHL Redraft, who should the New York Islanders select?  Cast your vote below!

Mobile users, click here to vote.

Kings To Sign Anders Lindback To PTO

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The Los Angeles Kings are nearing a contract with unrestricted free agent goaltender Anders Lindback according to a report from Sport-Expressen’s Henrik Sjoberg (link in Swedish).  Lisa Dillman of the LA Times reports (Twitter link) that it’s a PTO deal and that he will start in the AHL.

With Jeff Zatkoff also out for a few more games, the team currently has a goaltending tandem of Peter Budaj and Jack Campbell and as a result, there has been plenty of recent speculation that the Kings were going to be on the market to add some depth between the pipes.

Lindback was most recently with New Jersey back in training camp but failed to land a contract with the team as the Devils opted to keep Keith Kinkaid as their second string goalie.

The 28 year old has bounced around in recent years in various backup roles and was in Arizona last season, posting a 5-7-1 record with a 3.11 GAA and .894 save percentage, both well below the league averages.  The emergence of youngster Louis Domingue also played a role in the Coyotes not renewing his contract.

In his career, Lindback has played in 130 games with Nashville, Tampa Bay, Dallas, Buffalo, and Arizona.  He has a lifetime 45-58-8 record with a 2.87 GAA, a .904 SV%, and three shutouts.

Anton Khudobin Out Three Weeks

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Boston’s goaltending depth is about to get put to the test as the team announced on Tuesday that Anton Khudobin will miss the next three weeks with an upper body injury that was sustained in practice on Monday.  This comes at the same time that the team is currently missing starter Tuukka Rask due to general body soreness and there remains no timetable for his return to action.

Khudobin has played in a pair of games this season while subbing for Rask.  Both contests were losses with the 30 year old posting a 4.10 GAA and a .849 save percentage.

As a result of the injury, the team will be running with a duo of prospects Malcolm Subban and Zane McIntyre for the time being, the latter being recalled on an emergency basis today.  McIntyre leads the AHL in both goals against (0.44) and save percentage (.977) this season while Subban, Boston’s first round pick in 2012, has struggled, being pulled in two starts already while posting a 4.50 GAA and a .846 save percentage.  Subban is expected to get the start between the pipes tonight against Minnesota.

The team will also be without center David Backes for that game, who is day-to-day with an unspecified injury, adds Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe (via Twitter).  However, veteran blueliner Adam McQuaid will make his season debut for the Bruins, the team announced (Twitter link).

The Bruins also assigned defenseman Rob O’Gara to their AHL affiliate in Providence.  The rookie has played in three games with Boston this season, logging just over 16 minutes per night in ice time.

Metropolitan Notes: Sanford, Jooris, Bickell, Boulton

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The Washington Capitals did some heavy recruiting on left winger Zach Sanford back in the summer, writes Tom Gulitti of NHL.com.  Although the team had his exclusive rights for at least one year, they wanted to sign him a year early for a couple of reasons.  One of those was a concern that his development might stagnate if he played at the lower level for another year while another was to avoid any possibility of him opting for unrestricted free agency like Jimmy Vesey did before joining the Rangers or former Washington prospect Thomas Di Pauli did before joining Pittsburgh.

For his part, Sanford admitted to needing a bit of convincing to turn pro early:

“I was pretty set on going back to school and they told me I had a chance to make the team.  I thought I might not ever get this opportunity again, so I had to take advantage of it.”

Sanford has been up with the team all season, appearing in three of five games while alternating with Brett Connolly in the lineup.  He has been held off the scoresheet so far but is averaging a respectable 11:55 per contest.  Despite being in and out of the lineup, head coach Barry Trotz told Isabelle Khurshudyan of the Washington Post that there are no plans to send him to their AHL affiliate in Hershey at this time.

More from the Metropolitan Division:

  • Despite picking up his first goal of the season over the weekend, Rangers center Josh Jooris could be in danger of losing his roster spot in the immediate future, opines Peter Botte of the New York Daily News. The Rangers are carrying the maximum 23 players on the roster and Pavel Buchnevich is nearing a return to the lineup.  If Chris Kreider’s neck injury is a short-term one as expected, the team will have to waive someone to make room for Buchnevich.  The primary candidates are Jooris and defenseman Dylan McIlrath but given McIlrath’s first round pedigree, the more likely candidate to be risked on the waiver wire would seem to be the 26 year old Jooris.
  • Bryan Bickell has impressed Carolina head coach Bill Peters so far this season despite playing on the fourth line, writes Chip Alexander of the Carolina News and Observer. Bickell has yet to pick up a point through five games but Peters highlighted his physicality as a strength so far.  Despite not scoring in a year and a half, the Hurricanes have used Bickell regularly on the power play in the hopes of getting something from the veteran.  Back in the offseason, the team acquired Teuvo Teravainen from Chicago but had to assume the remainder of Bickell’s contract to do so.  With a cap hit of $4MM and a salary of $4.5MM, it’s unlikely that Carolina will be able to flip him during the season unless they can help him rediscover his form from a few years ago with the Blackhawks.
  • After clearing waivers over the weekend, veteran winger Eric Boulton has not yet reported to Bridgeport of the AHL, affiliate of the New York Islanders. Michael Fornabaio of the Connecticut Post notes (via Twitter) that Boulton is currently “sorting family issues”.  Boulton signed a two-way deal in the offseason but has only played two AHL games since the 1999-2000 season.

Snapshots: Three Stars, Expansion Draft Tool, Senators

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News and notes around the NHL this evening:

  • The NHL named its three stars of the week today: (1st) Edmonton Oilers goalie Cam Talbot, (2nd) Chicago Blackhawks center Artem Anisimov, and (3rd) Detroit Red Wings defenseman Mike Green. Cam Talbot leads all goalies in wins, and racked up a 3-0-0 record with a .970 SV% and a 1.00 GAA. Talbot topped it all off with a shutout in the Heritage Classic last night against the Winnipeg Jets. Artem Anisimov led the league in points this week, scoring 4G and 3A in three games. Anisimov has struggled to find his foothold in the NHL, but with more opportunity in the Chicago Blackhawks organization after they shed salary to remain cap compliant, this year could be the year Anisimov fulfills his potential. Finally, Mike Green scored 3G and 2A in four games, though all three came in a 5-1 win against the Ottawa Senators.
  • Capfriendly—PHR’s cap tracker website of choice—has unveiled a new Expansion Draft tool that allows visitors to mock a team’s expansion draft protections. The addition comes a week after the Las Vegas NHL Expansion Team hired General Fanager creator Tom Poraszka and shut down the General Fanager site, including its popular Expansion Draft tool.
  • The Ottawa Senators have mixed up their offensive lines ahead of their three-game Western road trip, reports Ottawa Sun reporter Bruce Garrioch. The Senators are 3-2 this season and sit 6th of 8 in the Atlantic Division. Tom Pyatt joins Mike Hoffman and Kyle Turris, and Ryan Dzingel gets a chance to play with Bobby Ryan and newcomer Derick Brassard. Ottawa has struggled to find chemistry after losing winger Clarke MacArthur to yet another concussion in the pre-season.

Sabres Move Sam Reinhart to Center

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The Buffalo Sabres have done some line-shuffling this week to cope with the loss of star prospect Jack Eichel. Sam Reinhart, a natural centerman, was moved to right wing to start the season in an attempt to stack the Sabres’ offensive lines.

Reinhart initially played wing alongside Ryan O’Reilly and Kyle Okposo. Despite the star power around him, however, Reinhart managed only two assists in the Sabres’ first four games. Dan Bylsma’s move back to wing puts Reinhart in between Tyler Ennis and Zemgus Girgensons. Lesser talent perhaps, but Reinhart playing his natural position should help him regain his scoring touch. Last season Reinhart scored 23G and 19A in 79 games for the Sabres, and the team is looking for the young forward to produce as much or more this season.

Bylsma alluded that the move would be temporary, and that he would like to see Reinhart play alongside Jack Eichel or Ryan O’Reilly in the future. That would mean that Reinhart would move back to the wing. When Eichel returns the Sabres will be set for first and second line centers, and Bylsma does not want to leave Reinhart languishing on the third line. But for now Reinhart is anchoring the Sabres’ second line, and tomorrow’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers should serve as a test on whether the move sparks something inside the former 2nd overall pick.

[See Buffalo Sabres Depth Chart at Roster Resource]

Snapshots: Rantanen, Canucks, Ullmark, Pelkey

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News and notes from around the NHL this evening:

  • The Colorado Avalanche have recalled top prospect Mikko Rantanen from the San Antonio Rampage today. The Colorado first round draft pick—10th overall in 2015—dominated in San Antonio last year, scoring 24G and 36A in 52 games. The Avs called him up for nine games last season but the Finn failed to score a point. Rantanen was set to make the Colorado roster out of training camp but he suffered an ankle injury that has kept him out since mid-September. The team sent him down to San Antonio for a conditioning stint last week, and believe he is now ready to contribute. In his four games with the AHL club this year he registered two assists.
  • The Vancouver Canucks called up two players today from the Utica Comets: forward Jayson Megna and defenseman Troy Stecher. Megna was an undrafted free agent who has played for the Pittsburgh Penguins and New York Rangers before signing with the Canucks this season. The 26 year-old American has always put up decent numbers in the AHL but has not translated that into a permanent spot in the NHL. Stecher is another undrafted free agent, and played three years for the University of North Dakota in the NCAA before signing with the Canucks last April.
  • The Buffalo Sabres have called up goaltender Linus Ullmark from the Rochester Americans (Amerks) today, per the team’s twitter account. Bill Hoppe of the Olean Times Herald reports that Robin Lehner is sick and that Anders Nilsson will get the start tomorrow. The Sabres needed a goalie for practice this morning and had to use 40 year-old goaltending coach Andrew Allen. Ullmark is currently sporting a 2.75GAA and a .926 SV% in 4 games with the Amerks. Last season Ullmark was called on to start 20 games after both Robin Lehner and Chad Johnson suffered injuries, and performed modestly with a 2.60GAA and a .913SV%. Ullmark hopes to take the backup position away from Anders Nilsson at some point.
  • Team USA’s Women’s National Team (USWNT) has added Amanda Pelkey to their lineup for the Four Nations Tournament in Finland this November. Pelkey replaces Amanda Kessel who is out with a lower body injury. The former University of Vermont phenom currently has 2G and 1A in 4 games for the NWHL’s Boston Pride, and was recently named the player of the week.

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