The one-quarter mark of the season is fast approaching which should soon yield an increase in activity on the transactions front. In the meantime, here’s a look back at the top stories from the past seven days including several notable injuries around the league.
Veteran Retirements: A pair of veterans decided to officially call it a career. Long-time blueliner Dion Phaneuf announced his retirement at the age of 36. If you thought he had already retired, it would be understandable as he last played in 2019. Phaneuf’s playing days end with 1.048 games played, 494 points, and 1,345 penalty minutes across 14 seasons. He’ll remain on the books for the Kings through the end of next season with an AAV of just over $1MM due to his buyout in 2019. Meanwhile, winger Troy Brouwer also hung up his skates. He last played in 2020 with St. Louis and was unable to find a team for this season although his $1.5MM payment from Calgary in the last year of his buyout should serve as a nice consolation prize. Brouwer collected 363 points in 851 games over parts of 14 seasons.
Notable Injuries: Philadelphia didn’t have Ryan Ellis back for long. After the defenseman returned from his lower-body injury, he wound re-aggravating it and will now miss the next four to six weeks as a result. He was their most prominent offseason acquisition but Ellis has only been able to play in four games so far. Meanwhile, Sammy Blais’ season has come to an early end as he suffered a torn ACL in a collision with New Jersey’s P.K. Subban. Blais brought some physicality to the Rangers lineup as he had 37 hits in 14 games before the injury. He’ll become a restricted free agent this summer. Lastly, Lightning center Brayden Point is out indefinitely after being injured when tripped up on a breakaway in Saturday’s game (although he was able to finish the game). Tampa Bay is now without two of its offensive stars as Nikita Kucherov is also out for the next six weeks or so.
Bednar’s Sticking Around: It has been a quieter start to the year for the Avalanche as some early struggles coupled with injuries have had them hovering near the .500 mark. However, with head coach Jared Bednar in the final year of his contract, GM Joe Sakic decided to get rid of any lame-duck discussion by inking the bench boss to a two-year contract extension. Bednar is in his sixth season behind the bench in Colorado and is the second-winningest coach in Avalanche history. His clubs have also made the playoffs in four straight seasons heading into this one although they’ve yet to make it past the second round so far. It appears that Sakic believes that Bednar will be able to get them past that particular hurdle sooner than later.
More COVID Trouble: This past week was supposed to be an exciting one for the Islanders as they opened up UBS Arena after spending more than a month on the road to start the season. However, they’ve been the latest team to be hit with COVID as they have six skaters in COVID protocol – defensemen Adam Pelech and Andy Greene plus forwards Anders Lee, Josh Bailey, Kieffer Bellows, and Ross Johnston. To make matters worse, they also learned that they’ll be without top blueliner Ryan Pulock for the next four-to-six weeks due to a lower-body injury.
Back To Junior: While Mason McTavish made Anaheim’s roster out of training camp and was playing a regular role in the lineup, the Ducks have decided that he’s better served going back to junior as they assigned him to Peterborough of the OHL. The 18-year-old was the third-overall pick this past summer and had two goals and an assist in nine games which averaging just over 13 minutes per contest. By going back to junior, he’ll still have three years remaining on his three-year, entry-level contract after the season and he won’t accrue a season of service time towards UFA eligibility.
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