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NHL, NHLPA Update League COVID-19 Protocol

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The NHLPA and NHL announced today in a joint press release that they’re issuing a set of modifications to the league’s COVID-19 protocol, which will come into effect for each team immediately following their last game before the league’s All-Star break in the schedule.

The five-point list of major edits to the league’s protocol is as follows:

  • The NHL/NHLPA recommend that players receive a booster vaccine as soon as they become available to them. However, at this time, no booster vaccine is required by the league for a player to participate in game action.
  • The league is removing enhanced safety measures put in place in December as the surge of Omicron cases in the United States begins to decrease. They are reverting back to the protocols that were in place at the start of the season, with only a few small changes.
  • One of those changes is the mask requirements for players. Cloth masks will no longer be permitted as appropriate face coverings; only N95 or KN95 masks will be accepted.
  • Fully vaccinated individuals will no longer be required to undergo daily testing.
  • The testing requirement for close contacts has been lifted.

It’s important to keep in mind that this is still a baseline requirement that teams and players are required to follow to fulfill league responsibilities. Local and federal regulations will always hold precedent over the NHL’s protocol.

With the testing requirement being lifted for fully vaccinated individuals, expect the number of players entering COVID protocol on a daily basis to continue to dwindle. Nearly every NHL player is fully vaccinated, and it’s likely that only symptomatic individuals will now enter protocol and be unavailable to teams.

Prospect Notes: Dickinson, Nemec, Prospect Rankings

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Tough news today out of the OHL’s Soo Greyhounds, as the team tweeted today that center Tanner Dickinson, the team’s third-highest scorer, has suffered a broken femur and could be out for the rest of the OHL season. Dickinson is a 2020 fourth-round selection (119th overall) of the St. Louis Blues, and the 19-year-old represented the United States at the 2022 World Junior Championships before the tournament was cut short due to COVID. He actually made his professional debut last season with the OHL completely shut down, going pointless in three games with the AHL’s Utica Comets. The speedy forward had 18 goals, 29 assists, and 47 points in 35 games with the Soo in 2021-22.

More notes from the world of prospects:

  • While longtime top prospect Shane Wright is solidifying his status as the projected first overall pick with a recent hot streak, there’s a hotly contested battle for who teams could look at with the second overall selection. Gone are the days when Brad Lambert and Matthew Savoie had strangleholds on the next two spots after Wright, as a variety of players have had impressive seasons to vault themselves into consideration. In their latest set of draft rankings, McKeen’s Scouting placed Slovak defenseman Simon Nemec at the number two spot, ahead of Savoie and other risers like Logan Cooley and Joakim Kemell. Nemec has broken out in the Tipos Extraliga, the top professional league in Slovakia, eating gigantic minutes for his team, HK Nitra. He has ten points in his last ten games and 23 points in 32 games on the season, incredible numbers for a 17-year-old defenseman in a top professional league, even if it is Slovakia. Fans of teams in the running for lottery picks will actually have a chance to watch Nemec at the Olympics, as he was named to Slovakia’s roster along with former NHLers Martin Marincin and Tomas Jurco.
  • The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler’s annual team prospect rankings are wrapping up, and after he released Winnipeg at the #11 spot today, it’s now evident who Wheeler believes has the top 10 pools in the league. The Anaheim Ducks, Buffalo Sabres, Carolina Hurricanes, Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Stars, Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota Wild, Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils will all get nods in the top 10. It’s incredible to see teams who are having such success this season like Carolina and Minnesota on this list, a true testament to the organizational depth they’ve built through skilled drafting and management. Carolina has the second-best points percentage in the NHL (.762) and is on pace for 125 points, while their AHL affiliate, the Chicago Wolves, has the third-best points percentage in that league.

Hossa, Olczyk, Sharp To Assist Blackhawks In GM Search

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The Anaheim Ducks brought in franchise greats Paul Kariya and Scott Niedermayer to help out in their general manager search and now the Chicago Blackhawks are following their lead. Marian Hossa, Eddie Olczyk, and Patrick Sharp have agreed to join as a group of advisors to assist in the search for the team’s next GM.

Hossa, a recent inductee to the Hall of Fame, spent eight seasons with the Blackhawks at the end of his career, winning the Stanley Cup three times. A legendary two-way forward that was as comfortable with the puck on his stick as he was backchecking the length of the rink, Hossa ended his playing career with 1,134 points in 1,309 regular season games and Selke Trophy votes in 13 different campaigns. The 12-year, $63.3MM contract he signed with the Blackhawks in 2009 only expired last summer, though he was forced to retire after the 2016-17 season due to a skin condition and the side effects medication was causing. His contract, which was just dead money at that point, was eventually traded to the Arizona Coyotes.

Olczyk meanwhile played 322 games for the Blackhawks, but it was split across two stints at the start and end of his career. Perhaps better known for his broadcasting work these days, as a player Olczyk was a great scoring talent who racked up 794 points in 1,031 NHL games. He too won a Stanley Cup, though it wasn’t with Chicago and it wasn’t in uniform; he raised the chalice with the 1994 New York Rangers despite being part of Mike Keenan’s Black Aces in the press box through most of the playoffs.

Sharp, recently a broadcaster himself, was also a three-time Cup winner with the Blackhawks as a teammate of Hossa. The smooth-skating forward put up 620 points in 939 career NHL games, spending the vast majority of those matches with Chicago. Sharp is now a coaching advisor for the University of Vermont hockey program, and will now help find the next Blackhawks general manager.

The Blackhawks also announced that they have been working with Mike Forde of Sportology since the start of the process. Forde’s work is best explained by the man himself on a recent episode of 32 Thoughts with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek.

Charlie Roumeliotis of NBCS Chicago reports that interviews for the position will begin this week.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Jake Bean Out Four Weeks With Groin Injury

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The Columbus Blue Jackets have lost another young player to injury, this time announcing that Jake Bean will miss four weeks with a groin strain suffered last night.

Bean, 23, was acquired from the Carolina Hurricanes last offseason in exchange for a second-round pick after he was passed over in the expansion draft by the Seattle Kraken. The young defenseman has played in 41 games for Columbus this season, normally averaging more than 21 minutes a night. He played just 6:53 yesterday before leaving and will be a big loss for a Blue Jackets team that is still trying to chase down those Eastern Conference wildcard spots.

A win against Montreal left them at 20-21-1 on the season, still 12 points behind Boston for the final playoff position. After announcing Alexandre Texier’s injury just recently, the team’s depth is certainly going to be tested in the next few weeks. Luckily for the Blue Jackets, tonight’s game against the Florida Panthers is the last before the All-Star break, meaning they have a full week of rest for any other bumps and bruises.

Bean meanwhile is in the first season of a three-year deal and was playing well enough to be considered a legitimate part of the future in Columbus. Even if the team struggles and decides to sell at the deadline, he seems an unlikely candidate to be traded even if healthy.

Snapshots: Three Stars, All-Star Skills, Muzzin

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The NHL has revealed its Three Stars for last week, with Nazem Kadri taking home the top spot. The Colorado Avalanche forward continues his incredible campaign with eight more points in four games, including three game-winning goals. The pending unrestricted free agent is having quite the platform year and is now just two points shy of his previous career-high in scoring with half the season to play. Sitting at 18 goals and 59 points in 40 games, Kadri is in for a huge contract in the offseason.

Second and third went to Frederik Andersen and Johnny Gaudreau respectively after their own outstanding weeks. The Carolina Hurricanes netminder posted another perfect 3-0 record and now leads the NHL with 24 wins. His .929 save percentage is easily the best of his career and puts him directly into the Vezina conversation. Gaudreau meanwhile is another pending UFA having an incredible year, with the difference being that he’s done this before. He registered 99 points in 2018-19, good enough for fourth place in the Hart Trophy race, and is once again playing at that level. With eight points in four games last week he continues to storm up the NHL leaderboard and now sits seventh in the league with 52 points.

  • The NHL All-Star Skills competition will have a pair of new events this year, as the league announced the Fountain Face-Off and Las Vegas NHL 21 in ’22. The former will take place in the fountains of the Bellagio and will need players to travel by boat to a platform and attempt to shoot pucks at targets floating in other parts of the water. For the latter, contestants will try to achieve a hand of 21 by shooting pucks at card targets out on the Las Vegas strip. Also making a return will be the Breakaway Challenge, where Trevor Zegras will join special guests Manon Rheaume and actor Wyatt Russell for the first time the event has been held since 2016.
  • The Toronto Maple Leafs can’t wait for the All-Star break to come, as the team has already ruled out Jake Muzzin their last two matches before the weekend festivities. The veteran defenseman is dealing with a concussion and after skating the last few days, was absent from morning skate today. Head coach Sheldon Keefe explained that Muzzin “is going to take a bit of a step back” through the break as the team’s medical staff continues to monitor him.

Minnesota Wild Extend Jordan Greenway

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1:10pm: Greenway’s extension is now official, and it’s a three-year deal at an even $9MM total. The deal keeps him under contract through the 2024-25 season, buying out one year of unrestricted free agency. PuckPedia adds that it includes an eight-team no-trade clause in the final year.

11:15am: The Minnesota Wild are on fire, winning eight of their last nine games including a 4-3 victory over the New York Islanders last night. Those good vibes are set to continue for one pending RFA, as Michael Russo of The Athletic has heard rumblings that the team is closing in on an extension with Jordan Greenway. The scribe posits that it would come in around the same $3.1MM cap hit that Marcus Foligno earned last January.

Greenway, 24, has just four goals and 13 points in 33 games this season but–as Russo points out–is a part of one of the best defensive lines in the NHL, when deployed alongside Joel Eriksson Ek and Foligno. That line has yet to allow a goal against at 5-on-5, certainly providing good value to the Wild despite Greenway’s relatively pedestrian offensive numbers.

In fact, after posting 32 points in 56 games last season, it seemed like his offensive game was set to really take off in 2021-22. It hasn’t, but the 6’6″ forward has increased his physicality even more and is contributing to the penalty kill. An extension, if it does come down the pipe, could potentially buy out both of Greenway’s remaining arbitration years, as he could become an unrestricted free agent in the 2024 offseason. If it buys out some of those UFA years as well, a $3MM cap hit would certainly be a bargain for a capable middle-six player that can provide value in several different ways.

The interesting part of Greenway’s development, of course, is that he’s no longer really needed to be a top-six player. The Wild have even younger players like Marco Rossi and Matt Boldy that are going to take up those spots, the latter already playing a big role in his short NHL career. According to Russo, Boldy has been told he’s going to stay with the Wild for the foreseeable future after recording nine points in nine games so far.

That ten-game entry-level contract threshold that many prospects deal with is not applicable to the 20-year-old Boldy, who is already in the second year of his ELC after signing last spring.

Latest On Ben Chiarot, Jeff Petry

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The Montreal Canadiens lost again last night, allowing four goals in the first period to the Columbus Blue Jackets and eventually going down 6-3.  The team is now 8-29-7 on the year, a points percentage of .261 that would be the very worst of the salary cap era–even worse than the Detroit Red Wings 17-49-5 2019-20 campaign. While they continue to suffer brutal results on the ice, a new management group will need to make some decisions on where to go from here.

One player that has been regarded as someone who will definitely be traded by the March 21 deadline is Ben Chiarot, given his position as a reasonably-priced pending UFA. Chiarot’s three-year, $10.5MM contract ($3.5MM AAV) will expire at the end of this season and includes a no-trade list of just ten teams. The 30-year-old played more than 26 minutes last night against the Blue Jackets and has been relied on more than he likely should throughout the season as the team has obviously felt the absences of defensemen like Shea Weber and Joel Edmundson.

Elliotte Friedman noted on the latest 32 Thoughts podcast that the St. Louis Blues are “very much in there” when it comes to Chiarot trade talks, adding that they’re not the only team involved. He believes that the pending free agent defenseman is likely the first move for new Canadiens GM Kent Hughes, who took over earlier this month.

Another name that has been brought up recently though is Jeff Petry, a player in a very different situation. Petry has three more years on his contract after this one, an extension that was only signed in 2020. He has a 15-team no-trade list and obviously signed to stay with the Canadiens, inking that four-year, $25MM deal as a perennial 40-point defenseman.

Hughes made it clear in a recent interview with La Presse that he’s open to moving Petry if there is a fit, but wouldn’t go so far as to guarantee it is coming soon. Friedman, meanwhile, explained how it might not be best to move him now:

All I’ll say with Petry is, there’s time. You can say ’okay, if someone wants to do it now, they can do it now.’ But because he’s got term, you can wait until the summer. The one thing about now is that there’s not a lot of cap space. If you trade a Chiarot, and you’re retaining [salary] to make your deal better you only have to do it for now. If you’re trading a Petry and have to retain, there’s term on that.

Among the biggest reasons for Montreal’s demise has been the stark difference in play from Petry, who has just six points in 37 games after posting four consecutive seasons with at least 11 goals and 40 points. In last year’s shortened campaign, he put those numbers up in just 55 games, playing incredible hockey all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals. At age 34 with three more years of term, he won’t be an easy deal to make even if someone believes they can get him back to his previous levels.

Taxi Squad Shuffle: 01/31/22

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Say goodbye to January with five games on the NHL schedule, including the first of a home-and-home between the New Jersey Devils and Toronto Maple Leafs. Unfortunately, the Devils will be without head coach Lindy Ruff for both games after his father’s passing a few days ago. Ruff is on leave from the organization, and assistant coach Alain Nasreddine will run the bench in his absence.

As those teams and others prepare, we’ll keep track of all the minor league and taxi squad shuffling:

Atlantic Division

  • The Detroit Red Wings have sent Calvin Pickard and Luke Witkowski to the AHL after the former made two appearances in recent days. Pickard, 29, stopped 36 of 38 shots he faced in an improbable win against the Pittsburgh Penguins a few days ago.
  • The Ottawa Senators have recalled Mark Kastelic and Lassi Thomson from the taxi squad ahead of their game tonight against the Edmonton Oilers. Erik Brannstrom has also been cleared from the COVID protocol and could be available.

Metropolitan Division

  • The Washington Capitals have recalled Lucas Johansen from the AHL to the taxi squad, suggesting the young defenseman could be close to his second game of NHL action. Selected in the first round in 2016, Johansen has just one game under his belt with the Capitals, coming exactly a month ago.

Central Division

  • The Minnesota Wild have reassigned Andrew Hammond and Kyle Rau to the Iowa Wild. After its game on Wednesday, the taxi squad will be dissolved, meaning Hammond would have needed to go back anyway. Later in the day, they assigned Matt Boldy and Connor Dewar to the taxi squad. Boldy at least will be recalled again before the Wednesday game.

Pacific Division

  • The Los Angeles Kings have loaned Austin Strand to the taxi squad while moving Christian Wolanin up to it from the AHL. The team has one game remaining before the All-Star break, in Detroit on Wednesday night.

This page will be updated throughout the day

Sweden Announces 2022 Olympic Roster

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Jan 31: Djuse and Gustafsson have been ruled out because of positive COVID results, meaning Theodor Lennstrom and Philip Holm will replace them on the roster.

Jan 21: With just three weeks until the 2022 Winter Olympic men’s hockey tournament gets underway, rosters are being finalized by all the participating countries. Sweden is the latest to reveal who will represent their country in Beijing next month, announcing a roster filled with names that are familiar to NHL fans. While the best league in the world won’t be going to the international event, there’s still plenty of NHL experience that will hit the ice.

The full roster:

G Magnus Hellberg
G Lars Johansson
G Adam Reideborn

D Lukas Bengtsson
D Erik Gustafsson
D Emil Djuse
D Oscar Fantenberg
D Christian Folin
D Linus Hultstrom
D Jonathan Pudas
D Henri Tommernes

F Daniel Brodin
F Mathias Brome
F Jacob de La Rose
F Dennis Everberg
F Max Friberg
F Pontus Holmberg
F Linus Johansson
F Carl Klingberg
F Marcus Kruger
F Anton Lander
F Joakim Nordstrom
F Fredrik Olofsson
F Gustav Rydahl
F Lucas Wallmark

Like the Finns, Sweden has gone with a veteran lineup filled with NHL and international experience, passing on many of the country’s top young prospects. One interesting name though is Holmberg, a 22-year-old forward that actually signed his entry-level contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs last summer. He’s playing in Sweden this season on loan and has 28 points in 33 games. He is the youngest player on the roster by several years and basically represents the only prospect included. Selected in the sixth round in 2018, it would be quite a find for the Maple Leafs if he can continue his high level of play in North America next season.

Sabres Place Zemgus Girgensons On IR; Activate Dahlin, Olofsson From Protocol

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The Buffalo Sabres activated defenseman Rasmus Dahlin and forward Victor Olofsson from COVID protocol ahead of tonight’s game against Colorado after erroneous COVID tests held them out of their last game on Saturday. The team also placed center Zemgus Girgensons on injured reserve retroactive to January 28th with an undisclosed injury.

Girgensons, the longest-tenured Sabre, missed the entirety of the 2020-21 campaign with a hamstring injury suffered during training camp. Back and healthy for this year, he’s brought his extremely solid defensive game to the team’s bottom six.

He’s been in and out of the lineup the past few weeks, though, missing time earlier in the month with another unknown injury and some time in December while on COVID protocol. The Latvian centerman has seven goals and 12 points in 34 games.

Getting Dahlin and Olofsson back in the fold is a large factor for the Sabres and head coach Don Granato. Dahlin, the 2018 first-overall pick, is playing some of the best hockey of his career right now and has 28 points through 42 games. Olofsson is a valuable depth piece who can put pucks in the net and is an important piece with Tage Thompson already out of the lineup.

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