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Sharks Recall Two From AHL; Place Karlsson On IR

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The San Jose Sharks have recalled forwards Ryan Carpenter and Barclay Goodrow from the San Jose Barracuda of the AHL. Meanwhile, Melker Karlsson, who has been out since November 12th with an ankle injury, was placed on IR. The roster moves were first reported by Paul Gackle and later confirmed by the club.

Karlsson, in his third NHL season, has two goals and four points in 15 games with San Jose this season. He reached double figures in goals in each of his first two campaigns and for his career has recorded 47 points in 133 contests.

Carpenter appeared in the only NHL game of his career last December, playing just under 7 1/2 minutes. He was signed as an undrafted free agent out of Bowling Green State University in March of 2014. In three college campaigns, Carpenter scored 37 goals and 79 points. He has seven points in 12 AHL games this season for the Barracudas.

Goodrow has yet to see NHL action this season but has played in 74 games with the Sharks over the two previous seasons. He has accumulated four goals and 15 points along with 51 penalty minutes in his NHL career. Goodrow has tallied seven goals for the Barracudas so far in 2016-17.

 

Jimmy Howard Out With Groin Injury

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Detroit Red Wings goaltender Jimmy Howard will miss at least a week with a groin injury suffered last night against the New Jersey Devils. Howard sustained the injury midway through the first period and was replaced by Petr Mrazek. Detroit placed Howard on the injured reserve this morning.

Howard has been a pleasant surprise for the Red Wings, who entered the season with Mrazek penciled in as the de facto starter. A quarter of the way through the season, however, paints a different picture. Both goalies have platooned—each playing 11 games—but Howard’s numbers are far better than Mrazek at the moment. Howard has posted a spectacular .943 SV% and a 1.76 GAA. Conversely, Mrazek has a .901 SV% and a 3.16 GAA.

Howard’s success comes at a time when Detroit will have to choose which goaltender to protect in the expansion draft. The rules require that a team only protect one goaltender. The common wisdom suggests that Detroit protects Mrazek—he’s younger and costs less—but Howard’s continued success coupled with a disappointing season from Mrazek could cause the organization to reconsider. Considering his recent performance, Howard may be an ideal candidate to take the starter job with the Golden Knights next season.

Atlantic Notes: Hudon, Marchand, Sabres

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The Montreal Canadiens announced that young forward Charles Hudon is out indefinitely with a broken sternum. The rookie took a hard shot to the chest in practice on Friday and did not return. Hudon has played in just six NHL games, only three thus far this season, but has been looking strong in his early appearances and has earned an increase in play time as a result. However, a broken sternum is a rare and painful injury that usually recovers multiple months of recovery.

Hudon, a 2012 fifth-round pick, has greatly outplayed his draft slot and become one of Montreal’s top prospects and a major minor league contributor. After a strong junior career in the QMJHL, Hudon has dominated the AHL and was hoping to finally carve out a role for himself in the NHL. With that plan on hold, for the time being Montreal appears to be set to give 2013 second-rounder Artturi Lehkonen a spot back on the team. The rookie has played in 12 games with Montreal this season, but has missed the past few weeks with an injury. His return is well timed with Hudon now out long-term.

In other Atlantic news:

  • The Boston Bruins hope that a practice injury like that of Hudon is far from what happened at their practice earlier today. Star winger Brad Marchand blocked a big shot from defenseman Adam McQuaid and went down hard. Marchand left the ice and did not return to practice. The Bruins offense has been anemic of late, other than the contributions of the top line, featuring Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, and the upstart David Pastrnak. A long-term absence for Marchand would be difficult for the Bruins to overcome, especially with Zdeno Chara already injured. Stay tuned for more on this developing story.
  • The Buffalo Sabres continue to use their promotions and demotions with their AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans, pretty liberally this season. The team announced that they have sent down William Carrier, Cole Schneider, and Cal O’Reilly, a trio that has been up and down several times already this season.

Brandon Prust Signs In Germany

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TSN’s Darren Dreger reported this morning that the rumors of NHL veteran Brandon Prust accepting a deal overseas are indeed true. The veteran agitator is heading to Germany to pursue an opportunity to extend his playing career. While it is currently unknown exactly which team he will sign with, it will more than likely be a team in the country’s premiere league, the DEL. Prust will leave for Germany tomorrow and an announcement is expected in the coming days.

Right up until this decision was made, many expected that Prust could sign with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The 32-year-old forward accepted a PTO deal with the Leafs, but was unable to secure a roster spot in training camp. However, he has continued to practice with the team over the past few months. When Auston Matthews and Tyler Bozak missed time with the flu a few weeks back, Prust went as far as to join line rushes and many speculated that a contract offer was imminent. Just a couple of days ago, Prust’s agent, and a former gritty NHLer himself, Claude Lemieux was reportedly waiting to accept any offer from outside of North America while anticipating a deal with Toronto. However, that opportunity did not arise and Prust has moved on to a new adventure overseas.

A journeyman enforcer, Prust’s days in the NHL appeared numbered when he was demoted to the AHL by the Vancouver Canucks last season. Although never an offensive force, Prust showed an ability to chip in an occasional goal throughout his career. After being traded from the Montreal Canadiens to Vancouver for Zack Kassian last summer, that ability seemingly evaporated and led to Prust playing in just 35 games last season and was part of the reason he was unable to find a guaranteed contract in the off-season. In nine seasons split between the Calgary Flames, Phoenix Coyotes, New York Rangers, Canadiens, and Canucks, Prust recorded 40 goals and 75 assists for 115 points in 486 games. More memorable will be the 1036 penalty minutes he sat for in his career as well. With the league trending away from enforcers, especially those who are on the wrong side of 30, Prust has likely played his last NHL game, but will continue his career by bringing his tough, physical brand of hockey to Germany.

Pacific Notes: McDavid, Marleau, Jankowski

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This season, Edmonton’s Connor McDavid has been the dominant force that many predicted when he was taken first overall by the Oilers in 2015. The National Post put the results of a reader’s poll together that overwhelmingly selected McDavid to continue his torrid scoring performance and finish the season as the league’s Art Ross Trophy recipient. Through Thursday, McDavid had 27 points, (9-18), good for a three point lead over Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov who has 24 points. McDavid is averaging 1.29 points-per-game, and has been a major factor in Edmonton’s rise this season.

  • San Jose’s Patrick Marleau notched a game winning goal to power his Sharks past the New York Islanders Friday night. The goal was his 94th career game winner, which moved him past Joe Nieuwendyk and tied him with Red Wings legend Steve Yzerman, who sits ninth all time. Marleau is now just 13 goals from registering 500 in his career, placing him in elite company.
  • The Calgary Herald’s Wes Gilbertson reports on 2012 first round pick Mark Jankowski, who finally got the call to the big club Thursday evening. Gilbertson quotes head coach Glen Gulutzan on what the youngster brings to the Flames:

“He’s a great kid. He’s not a good kid, he’s a great kid,” said Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan of the latest arrival. “He didn’t know where to sit in the room (Friday), when the video was on. He was like, ‘Is there assigned seating?’

“The first thing I said to him is, ‘You can sit wherever you want, Janks. You don’t have to wait for everybody to sit down.’ I think he ended up sitting close to the front. It’s like going to high school, right? Nobody wants the front seat in a video session, they might have to answer a question.”

Allen’s Latest: Hamilton, Kane, Shattenkirk, Hanzal, Murphy

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The USA Today’s Kevin Allen is more than happy to suggest a holiday wish list for a handful of NHL teams. Allen offers advice to the follow clubs:

  • New York Rangers: Allen suggests that the Rangers could snap up Dougie Hamilton from the Calgary Flames should they be willing to give up J.T. Miller. But just as quickly as he suggests it, he provides rationale as to why it might be far fetched. First, the financials wouldn’t work with Hamilton’s $5.75MM cap hit. Second, Miller is playing well with 18 points in 21 games while Hamilton has been struggling. For the deal to work, Allen believes the Rangers would have to shed another contract to either Calgary or another team in need of a defenseman (Allen suggests Kevin Klein).
  • New York Islanders: The team in Brooklyn is Allen’s next focus and he suggests Evander Kane to the Isles. The losses of Kyle Okposo, Matt Martin, and Frans Nielsen coupled with the poor production from pricey free agent pickup Andrew Ladd makes Kane a reasonable target. However, Allen points out that the Isles do not have the cap room to add Kane’s bulky contract and would have to do some “juggling” in order to make it work. Allen adds that a defenseman would help out Buffalo’s cause if they were willing to talk about Kane.
  • Boston Bruins: How many people have suggested Kevin Shattenkirk to Boston? Allen chimes in here as well, believing that the right handed defenseman would be the perfect addition to the blue line. Further, Allen writes that if Boston can convince Shattenkirk to re-sign with them, overpaying a bit would be well worth it.
  • Montreal Canadiens: Arizona’s Martin Hanzal would be a great target for the Habs, who Allen feels could use another scorer to make a Stanley Cup run. What would it take? Allen believes a young player and a draft pick.
  • Detroit Red Wings: It hasn’t been easy to fill the enormous hole that Nicklas Lidstrom left four seasons ago, and the Wings have struggled to find any solutions. Allen believes the Carolina Hurricanes could provide some help in the way of defenseman Ryan Murphy. Allen predicts that the Red Wings could trade a young forward to land him, but also sees a number of potential suitors for Murphy, namely the Colorado Avalanche, Arizona Coyotes and Vancouver Canucks.

 

West Notes: Little, Avalanche, Domingue, Kopitar

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Winnipeg center Bryan Little is making progress as he continues to recover from his lower body injury sustained in the first period of the season opener.  He told Mike Sawatzky of the Winnipeg Free Press that he’s hoping to get back into the lineup soon, potentially some time next week:

“I feel good. It’s gotten a lot better in the last couple weeks. A lot stronger. There’s not much more that I can do besides getting into a full-contact practice and then I think I’m ready to come back. It’s just a matter of the doc taking a look at it in Winnipeg and trying to get through a practice with some bumps… hopefully not much longer.”

Dating back to last year, Little hasn’t had much luck with injuries recently. Last season, he missed the final 25 games due to a neck injury so in the last nine months, he has played just 2:48 of regular season action.

Little’s eventual return will give the Jets some much-needed good news from the infirmary as they have been hit hard with injuries this season.  Winnipeg is currently without centers Mathieu Perreault and Shawn Matthias, right winger Joel Armia, plus defenseman Tyler Myers while fellow blueliner Toby Enstrom is currently on a personal leave of absence.

[Related: Jets Depth Chart]

More news and notes from the West:

  • Colorado goaltender Semyon Varlamov is dealing with an upper body and won’t play on Saturday, writes Terry Frei of The Denver Post. He adds that the team is likely to recall prospect Spencer Martin to serve as the backup goalie against Vancouver.  Frei also reports that left winger Gabriel Landeskog skated in a non-contact sweater but isn’t expected to play tomorrow night.
  • Arizona has recalled goaltender Justin Peters on an emergency basis, notes Sarah McLellan of The Arizona Republic. Backup netminder Louis Domingue is dealing with a lower body injury so Peters will back up Mike Smith tonight against the Oilers.  Head coach Dave Tippett doesn’t believe the injury is serious but they will re-evaluate Domingue on Saturday.
  • The Kings are experimenting with playing center Anze Kopitar on the left wing, Jon Rosen of LA Kings Insider writes. The captain will be playing in his second game since coming back from an upper body injury tomorrow and was only able to take faceoffs on one side on Wednesday.  By placing him on the wing, they can ease him back in and make sure the upper body issue is completely healed before asking him to shoulder the extra load down the middle.

Matt Carle Retires

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Defenseman Matt Carle has announced his retirement, the Predators revealed in a press release.  The decision comes after he cleared regular waivers yesterday.  Nashville also placed him on unconditional release waivers earlier this afternoon, reports Adam Vingan of The Tennessean (Twitter link).  That would have permitted the team to terminate his contract to get him off of the cap and their 50-contract limit but this announcement makes that procedural move a moot one.

Carle was bought out by the Lightning in the offseason and signed a one year, $700K deal with the Predators to give them some more blueline depth.  However, he has played in just six games this season and has been a healthy scratch for nearly an entire month.

The 32 year old finishes his career having played parts of 12 NHL seasons with the Sharks, Flyers, Lightning, and Predators.  In 730 games, he had 45 goals and 238 assists while averaging 20:43 of ice time per game.  His 283 points rank third all-time among Alaskan-born NHL players.  Carle was also a frequent visitor to the postseason having played in ten different playoffs; he put up 44 points (6-38-44) in 127 games.

Although he never won a Stanley Cup (he reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2009 with Philadelphia and in 2015 with Tampa Bay), Carle was a two-time NCAA champion and also won the Hobey Baker Award for the best defenseman in college hockey back in 2006 while playing at the University of Denver.

Despite retiring, he’ll still be collecting an NHL paycheck for a little while yet as he’ll receive slightly more than $1.8MM per year from Tampa Bay every year through 2019-20.

Thanksgiving Trade Market: Defensemen

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Many teams view US Thanksgiving – typically around the one-quarter mark of the season – as the benchmark for evaluating their teams and determining what areas need to be addressed.  One area that most teams are always looking to shore up is their defense corps.   Some teams will be after top four blueliners while others will be after depth options.  There isn’t a big list of players available at this time but here’s a closer look at those that have had their names out there in trade talks so far.

Calvin de Haan (NY Islanders) – On top of shopping goalie Jaroslav Halak, the 25 year old blueliner is also believed to be available.  He is a solid stay-at-home second pairing option although he doesn’t bring much offensively to the table.  He has a manageable cap hit of a little under $2MM this season but his qualifying offer in the summer jumps to $2.9MM due to the back-loaded nature of his contract.

Deryk Engelland (Calgary) – The Flames made him available earlier this month but there hasn’t been much interest in the 34 year old.  He’s off to a decent start with Calgary this year, picking up four points in 22 games but he has seen his average ice time jump up over 18 minutes a night, a career high for him.  He has one year left on his contract with a cap hit of $2.9MM.  For teams that are looking for more of a physical presence on their third line, he will be an option although his cap hit is high for his role.

Jack Johnson (Columbus) – The Blue Jackets are believed to be looking to clear some salary and Johnson, who has a cap hit of $4.35MM this season and next, is one of the players GM Jarmo Kekalainen is willing to move.  He hasn’t turned in to the top pairing offensive threat that earned saw him drafted third overall by Carolina in 2005 but he has averaged more than 24 minutes per night the last four years.  His minutes are down a bit this year (just under 22 per game) but he is still a top four option in a market largely devoid of them.

Ryan Murphy (Carolina) – The former first round pick (12th overall in 2011) has failed to lock down a full-time role in this, his fourth NHL season.  In an effort to get him some game action, the Hurricanes recently sent Murphy to the AHL on a conditioning stint.  He has had considerable offensive success at the AHL level (66 points in 86 games) but that has yet to translate to much NHL success (36 points in 128 contests).  He has another year past this one remaining on his deal with a cap hit just under $800K and could be a fit for a team looking for some mobility and offense from their back end.  However, it’s believed that GM Ron Francis is looking to package him with other pieces for a defensive upgrade.

Kevin Shattenkirk (St. Louis) – Back at the draft, it was widely expected that the Blues would deal Shattenkirk but no deal came to fruition.  With the team already having Alex Pietrangelo and Jay Bouwmeester on big money, long-term deals beyond this season, the expectation is that he will be moved at some point during the season.  He’s off to a strong start this year (14 points in 21 games) and will almost assuredly be the most expensive to acquire among potentially available defenders.

Michael Stone (Arizona) – Last week, Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal noted (via Twitter) that the pending UFA is on the market.  The Coyotes sit last in the league in the standings so it’s not surprising that they’d be looking to move any pending free agents.  Stone has dealt with two separate injuries this season and has played in just nine games as a result but had 36 points last season while playing over 22 minutes per game.  With a cap hit and salary of $4MM, there should be a lot of suitors for his services.

Golden Knights Notes: Expansion, Coaches, AHL Affiliate

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In advance of June’s expansion draft, several teams have approached the league to see if they would be able to voluntarily expose exempt (first and second year) players in an effort to allow them to protect more expansion-eligible skaters.  However, as TSN’s Frank Seravalli reports, the league has told them that this will not be an option; exempt players are exempt.

Of course, that isn’t to say that exempt players can’t be made available to the Golden Knights via the trade market in terms of side agreements where GM George McPhee receives an exempt player as part of a trade agreement where he agrees to avoid picking a particular player left exposed.

Speaking with Stephen Whyno of the Associated Press, McPhee expects a robust trade market leading up to the expansion draft as teams try to shuffle their rosters around before setting their protection lists:

“There’s going to be a massive player redistribution before the expansion draft in the weeks leading up to it. We understand teams are going to try to not give us anything, and that’s the way expansion goes. There are a few teams that have expansion stress and we might be able to get a good player from them, and there’ll be some teams that don’t have anything and rather than take a bad contract we’ll take a throwaway pick.”

This week, we’ve been taking a closer look at the expansion draft, including the list of mandatory-protected players, potential goaltending options to choose from, and the impact of this draft on the Canadian teams.

More from Las Vegas:

  • Also from Seravalli, McPhee is in the process of vetting a list of potential head coaching candidates although the team is in no rush to hire one. In all likelihood, many of the potential options wouldn’t be available to hire at this time anyways.  He did note that his preference would be to not hire a first time NHL head coach but that he is open to any possibilities.
  • Seravalli also adds that the next item on the agenda for McPhee is to secure their AHL affiliation for next season. While they could conceivably start up their own minor league franchise, another option would be to share an affiliation for a year or two since they may not have enough players to fill their own team right away.  No team currently shares an AHL affiliate but there is a long history of NHL teams sharing a minor league team.  McPhee hopes to have that decision made by mid-December.

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