While the past seven days did feature as many significant headlines as last week did, there were still some notable stories around the league. Here are the top stories from the past seven days.
Bridge For Nurse: It took a lot longer than many expected but the Oilers gave defenseman Darnell Nurse a two-year bridge deal worth $6.4MM. Given Edmonton’s salary cap situation that seems them now with less than $800K in cap room, this was always the anticipated outcome as locking him up long-term would have forced them to deal away someone else. It’s worth noting that there is no back-loading in this contract as some players push for to yield a higher qualifying offer; instead, he’ll receive $3.2MM in each year with that amount serving as his qualifier in 2020.
Domi Gets Five: Max Domi’s first game in a Montreal uniform was a memorable one but for all the wrong reasons. A punching incident involving Florida’s Aaron Ekblad in the third period of their preseason game resulted in him receiving a match penalty and after a hearing with the league, he was suspended for the remainder of the preseason. The decision has received a lot of negativity with some suggesting getting a pass on the rest of the exhibition schedule ultimately is a reward to Domi and not any sort of deterrent for others moving forward.
More On Dotchin: Tampa Bay’s decision to terminate the final year of Jake Dotchin’s contract for a material breach citing poor conditioning caught many by surprise. More information has started to come to light, suggesting he came in significantly overweight and with a very high BMI percentage. It will certainly be interesting to see what Dotchin’s market around the league will be with this information coming out as it’s going to take a while for him to get into playing shape while the NHLPA still has to decide whether or not they want to grieve this case.
Bridge For Reinhart: Sam Reinhart was believed to be hoping for a long-term deal but he too had to settle for a short-term pact, inking a two-year, $7.3MM deal with Buffalo. Last year was a tale of two separate seasons for him. He was very slow out of the gate with just 20 points in his first 50 games but when the calendar flipped to February, he was much more productive, collecting 30 points in his final 32 contests. It’s that type of inconsistency that likely played a role in Buffalo’s hesitance to commit a big-money, long-term pact at this stage. Instead, he’ll look to show that his late-season play is a sign of things to come. Reinhart will earn $3.55MM this season and $3.75MM in 2019-20 with the latter number representing his qualifier in the 2020 summer.
Four-Year Deals: While Nurse and Reinhart had to take bridge deals, that surprisingly wasn’t the case for Devils winger Miles Wood. Despite having only 49 career points over 137 games, New Jersey signed him to a four-year, $2.75MM contract, buying out the majority of his remaining RFA years. The 23-year-old had a breakout campaign in 2017-18 with 19 goals in 76 games and if he can repeat that production moving forward, New Jersey will have a bargain deal on their books. Meanwhile, Montreal winger Paul Byron has gone from potential trade bait to part of the long-term plans after he put pen to paper on a four-year, $13.6MM extension. He has turned into one of the top waiver claims in recent years and has scored at least 20 goals in each of the last two seasons. Byron will play out the upcoming campaign on his existing deal that carries a cap hit of just $1.167MM.
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