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Archives for September 2022

2023 Trade Deadline Set For March 3

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The trade deadline festivities have a date. Chris Johnston of NorthStar Bets reports that this season’s deadline will be on March 3, 2023 at 3 pm ET. That’s a Friday, meaning it might be quite the celebration for some hockey fans and a day of remembrance for others. It is also nearly three weeks earlier than this year’s deadline, which was late due to the Olympic break that was built into the schedule. Things are finally getting back to normal on the NHL calendar.

March 3 seems to be a fitting date after 33 trades were completed on deadline day this year, including some huge names switching teams. Marc-Andre Fleury, Hampus Lindholm, Rickard Rakell, Artturi Lehkonen, and Nick Leddy were all on the move but have decided to stick around with their new teams. Others like Max Domi and Andrew Copp found new homes after failing to help their clubs reach the Stanley Cup.

The day is always a fun mix of excitement and disappointment, and this season should be no different. With players like Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Ryan O’Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko, Max Pacioretty, James van Riemsdyk, John Klingberg, David Pastrnak, Dylan Larkin, Tyler Bertuzzi, Damon Severson, MacKenzie Weegar, and Bo Horvat all still on expiring contracts, there could be some serious fireworks as the deadline approaches. While some of these will be extended, and others kept for Cup runs, there will likely be a handful of big names on the market.

So hockey fans can circle this date on their calendar as one that could be as important as any other this year, both for contending and rebuilding clubs. With the season right around the corner, it will come quicker than you think.

Training Camp Cuts: 09/27/22

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Another day, another round of cuts for NHL teams across the league. The preseason is chugging along and the regular season is right around the corner, meaning prospects and tryouts will start to be sent home. Here are today’s cuts:

Anaheim Ducks (via Eric Stephens of The Athletic)

F Sasha Pastujov (to Guelph, OHL)
F Connor Hvidston (to Swift Current, WHL)
D Pavel Mintyukov (to Saginaw, OHL)
D Tristan Luneau (to Gatineau, QMJHL)

Dallas Stars (via team release)

F Francesco Arcuri (to Kingston, OHL)
F Justin Ertel (to North Bay, OHL)
F Conner Roulette (to Saskatoon, WHL)
F Matthew Seminoff (to Kamloops, WHL)
D Jacob Holmes (to Sudbury, OHL)
D Christian Kyrou (to Erie, OHL)
F Logan Morrison (released from ATO)
D Jacob Murray (released from ATO)

Edmonton Oilers (via team release)

F Reid Schaefer (to Seattle, WHL)
D Max Wanner (to Moose Jaw, WHL)

Minnesota Wild (via team release)

F Tanner Kaspick (to Iowa, AHL)
F Ty Ronning (to Iowa, AHL)
F Mike O’Leary (to Iowa, AHL)
D Turner Ottenbreit (to Iowa, AHL)
D Benjamin Finklestein (to Iowa, AHL)
G C.J. Motte (to Iowa, AHL)

Nashville Predators (via team release)

D Jack Matier (to Ottawa, OHL)
D Graham Sward (to Spokane, WHL)

New York Rangers (via team release)

F Adam Sykora (to HK Nitra, Slovakia)

Vegas Golden Knights (via Jesse Granger, The Athletic)

F Colt Conrad (to Henderson, AHL)
F Daniel D’Amato (to Henderson, AHL)
F Connor Ford (to Henderson, AHL)
F Patrick Guay (to Henderson, AHL)
F Marcus Kallionkieli (to Henderson, AHL)
D Kyle Marino (to Henderson, AHL)
F Lynden McCallum (to Henderson, AHL)
F Mason Primeau (to Henderson, AHL)
F Alex Swetlikoff (to Henderson, AHL)
D Connor Corcoran (to Henderson, AHL)
D Peter DiLiberatore (to Henderson, AHL)
G Jordan Papirny (to Henderson, AHL)
G Isaiah Saville (to Henderson, AHL)
F Jordan Gustafson (to Seattle, WHL)
F Ben Hemmerling (to Everett, WHL)
F Matyas Sapovaliv (to Saginaw, OHL)
D Artur Cholach (to Barrie, OHL)
D Joe Fleming (to Sherbrooke, QMJHL)
G Jesper Vikman (to Vancouver, WHL)
D William Riedell (released from PTO)

Winnipeg Jets (via team release)

F Danny Zhilkin (to Guelph, OHL)
D Dmitry Kuzmin (to Flint, OHL)
G Domenic DiVincentiis (to North Bay, OHL)

This page will be updated throughout the day

Florida Panthers Extend Spencer Knight

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The Florida Panthers have locked up their future in net, signing Spencer Knight to a three-year extension. The deal kicks in for the 2023-24 season and will carry an average annual value of $4.5MM. Panthers general manager Bill Zito released a statement:

Spencer is a phenomenal goaltender, as well as an exceptional athlete and person. He has thrived in his professional career, dedicating himself to his training through his first two seasons with our organization. With this extension, we are excited about the present and future of Panthers goaltending.

A three-year extension means Knight’s contract status now lines up with Sergei Bobrovsky, with both expiring after the 2025-26 season. While the team will have to carry a combined $14.5MM cap hit those three years, Knight will still be an RFA in the summer of 2026, meaning a long-term extension can still be worked out with the money that Bobrovsky was earning.

For this year, the 21-year-old netminder is still in the final season of his entry-level contract, despite already being a regular at the NHL level. The 13th overall pick from 2019 played in 32 games for the Panthers last season, registering a .908 save percentage. He also got into 11 games with the Charlotte Checkers to stay fresh, posting a .905 in the AHL.

Incredibly composed in net, Knight is basically the prototype for the modern NHL goaltender. Big and agile with strong positioning, there are few goaltending prospects better. While his results do leave a little bit of room for improvement, the Panthers obviously believe he is the real deal, signing him to a rather expensive bridge deal. He comes in ahead of Jake Oettinger (3 years, $4.0MM AAV), and Carter Hart (3 years, $3.979MM AAV), two other young goaltenders with big expectations.

It will be interesting to see how much Knight starts to take over in Florida, and whether the Panthers will ever consider moving on from Bobrovsky. While he holds a full no-movement clause at the moment, that will change to a 16-team no-trade list in the summer of 2024. It would obviously be difficult to move his massive contract but one thing in the Panthers’ favor is the financial structure. Bobrovsky will have earned $57.5MM of the $70MM deal by the end of 2023-24.

Regardless, locking up Knight at this point was important if they plan on giving him more responsibility this season. A breakout campaign would send his price skyrocketing, and potentially take a bridge deal off the table. Locking him in now is a bit risky, as it assumes he will continue to progress, but there aren’t many goaltenders that would be a better bet.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports

Evening Notes: PWHPA, Hischier, Hodgson

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There’s some exciting news coming on the women’s hockey front. In an interview with The Hockey News’ Ian Kennedy, Canadian National Team captain Marie Philip-Poulin confirmed that the current touring structure for PWHPA games will turn into a league for the 2023-24 season, bringing two professional women’s leagues back into the fold for the first time since the CWHL and NWHL were both active.

The PWHPA Dream Gap Tour is the main pool of talent that Canada and the United States select for their national teams. They’ve effectively been limited to playing exhibition games without a league structure governing competition, although that shouldn’t diminish the level of talent and competition on display. A league structure should bring more financial stability and a better plan for growing the women’s game in North America.

  • New Jersey Devils captain Nico Hischier left the team’s in-progress preseason game against the Montreal Canadiens at the first intermission. The team reports that Hischier’s absence is simply due to cramping and that he won’t return to the game for precautionary reasons. Hischier registered a shot on goal and played 6:24 in the first period, his preseason debut.
  • Philadelphia Hockey Now’s Sam Carchidi tabs winger Hayden Hodgson as a candidate to crack the Flyers’ roster out of camp this year. Hodgson made waves in the Flyers organization this season after a breakout year in AHL Lehigh Valley, earning an NHL contract near the end of the season and a six-game call-up, where he registered three points. Hodgson hadn’t even played in the AHL since 2017-18, spending every season since then entirely in the ECHL (and partly in Slovakia).

Training Camp Notes: Stone, Biakabutuka, Mangiapane

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Injury troubles plagued the Vegas Golden Knights last season, something they can ill-afford a repeat of in 2022-23. There’s some good news on that front regarding one of their star players, though, as right wing Mark Stone skated in a contact jersey today for the first time during training camp.

The Golden Knights will count on Stone to have a rebound year as their captain, especially with their offensive depth thinning. The 2021 Selke Trophy finalist and 2019 runner-up played in just 37 games due to injury last season, registering nine goals, 21 assists, and 30 points. Hopefully, the serious back injuries that plagued him last season don’t become a long-term issue for the 30-year-old.

  • Somewhat of a rarity these days, a player attending camp on an amateur tryout might do well enough to earn a contract within the organization. Detroit Hockey Now’s Kevin Allen notes that the Red Wings have been impressed with defenseman Jérémie Biakabutuka, with head coach Derek Lalonde complimenting his skating and compete level. The 20-year-old is set to return to the QMJHL’s Charlottetown Islanders next season but could receive an NHL entry-level contract from Detroit or receive an AHL offer from the Grand Rapids Griffins when his season is over.
  • Calgary Flames winger Andrew Mangiapane was a full participant in camp today after missing the first four days of group skates with what the team called a “minor lower-body injury.” He made his return to scrimmages skating on a line with newcomer Nazem Kadri, a role he’s likely to reprise in the regular season as well. Mangiapane is coming off a career-high 35 goals and 55 points.

Philadelphia Flyers Add Cal O’Reilly On PTO

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In conjunction with announcing today’s training camp cuts, Philadelphia Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher also announced that the team has added veteran forward Cal O’Reilly to camp on a professional tryout (PTO).

O’Reilly, 35, hasn’t played in the NHL since a one-game call-up to the Minnesota Wild in 2017-18. Before that, however, he spent quite a bit of time bouncing up and down between the NHL and AHL. After the Nashville Predators selected him 150th overall in the 2005 NHL Draft, he stayed in the organization through the beginning of the 2011-12 season. In Nashville, O’Reilly never managed to crack the lineup full-time but did finish his Predators career with 11 goals, 24 assists and 35 points in 85 games. Just a few weeks into the season, though, Nashville dealt O’Reilly to the then-Phoenix Coyotes for a fourth-round pick, essentially moving up one round in total value while also getting a solid, yet brief NHL stint out of O’Reilly. After just five points in 22 games, though, the Coyotes attempted to waive O’Reilly, whom the Pittsburgh Penguins claimed for the remainder of the season, where he had one assist in six games.

After playing 33 games in that busy 2011-12 season, O’Reilly would only see NHL ice again in three more seasons: 20 games with the Buffalo Sabres in 2015-16, another 11 games with the Sabres in 2016-17, and that one-game call-up in Minnesota in 2017-18. O’Reilly did remain in the Wild organization for another season after that, though, serving as the captain of the AHL’s Iowa Wild from 2017 to 2019.

O’Reilly’s technically been in the Flyers organization ever since, spending the last three seasons as a leader for the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms. Already signed to an AHL contract for 2022-23, O’Reilly will enter his third straight season as the Phantoms’ captain. His 53 points last season were his most since he scored 67 points in 67 games during his last season in Iowa.

With Philadelphia’s depth continuing to get hit by injuries, the Flyers will have O’Reilly in camp to evaluate if he’s still NHL call-up material at age 35. He essentially comes in (maybe just temporarily) to replace one of the team’s other PTO additions, Artem Anisimov, who currently is day-to-day with a lower-body injury.

Snapshots: Extension Talks, Sutter, Border Mandates

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There are several players around the league that have been involved in extension talks over the summer, including the likes of MacKenzie Weegar and Bo Horvat. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet touches on several of these situations in the latest 32 Thoughts podcast, giving his thoughts on whether in-season negotiation will be an option.

In Weegar’s case, Friedman notes that there is a feeling that once the season begins, extension talks will be shelved to the end of the year. The 28-year-old defenseman is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season and is coming off a career-best 44 points last season. While Horvat’s situation is a bit murkier, Friedman believes that David Pastrnak of the Boston Bruins is open to talking throughout the year.

  • Another important member of the Calgary Flames is in the final year of his contract but he isn’t a player. Friedman believes that Darryl Sutter will likely be extended at some point, as his three-year deal approaches expiry. Sutter was hired in 2021, making the first year of his deal the end of the 2020-21 season, and has had a strong effect since returning to Calgary. Under his leadership, the team went from missing the playoffs with a sub .500 record in 2020-21 to winning the Pacific Division and reaching the second round.
  • The Canadian government is dropping all vaccine requirements for non-citizens entering the country as of October 1, meaning that unvaccinated players in leagues like the NHL, NBA, and MLB should now be able to travel with their teams for games in Canada. Last season, for instance, the Detroit Red Wings were forced to leave Tyler Bertuzzi behind when they went on road trips north of the border, something that may well have cost him the team lead in scoring, given the pace he produced at through 68 games. Hopefully, the league will not need to deal with these limitations in the future, as health officials continue to reduce restrictions.

Brock Boeser Undergoes Hand Surgery

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After signing a new three-year, $19.95MM contract this summer, there was plenty of excitement around a potential bounce-back season for Brock Boeser and the Vancouver Canucks. Unfortunately, his debut will have to wait, as Boeser suffered a hand injury at practice on Saturday and underwent surgery today. He is out for three to four weeks.

The 2021-22 season was something of a disappointment for Boeser, who dealt with injury and the death of his father. He still scored 23 goals in 71 games, but his 46 points were the worst per-game pace of his career. With contract security in tow, it seemed likely that he could make it back to the dynamic offensive piece he was in years past.

Now, with another training camp disrupted by injury, it’s not clear what the Canucks will receive from Boeser for the first part of the year at least. A hand injury is certainly not what you want to hear for a player that relies so much on his shot, but hopefully, the three-week timeline has him back on the ice after missing just a few games.

With Boeser out – and Ilya Mikheyev, who is still being evaluated – there will be some minutes up for grabs in the top six. General manager Jim Rutherford did tell Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK TV today that Nils Hoglander has impressed him, and that Andrei Kuzmenko still has some adjustments to make with the North American game.

Conor Geekie Returned To WHL

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As we now get closer and closer to the start of the regular season, some of the top selections of the 2021 and 2022 drafts will be sent back to their junior teams to continue developing. Making the NHL is a difficult task, and with CHL players under the age of 20, the AHL is not an option due to age restrictions. Today, the Arizona Coyotes have sent Conor Geekie back to the WHL’s Winnipeg ICE, where he will remain for the rest of the season. The team has also sent undrafted netminder Anson Thornton to the Barrie Colts.

Geekie, 18, was the 11th overall pick in this year’s draft, after his outstanding 2021-22 season that saw him score 70 points in 63 games with Winnipeg. He and Matthew Savoie, the ninth overall pick (Buffalo), drive one of the most exciting offensive teams in junior hockey, and should make the ICE a contender once again this year.

Standing 6’3″ but with a game focused more on skill than size, Geekie projects to be a long-time asset down the middle for the Coyotes. At this point in the rebuild, there is no benefit from rushing a player like him, meaning a trip back to junior was always in the cards. Still, it will be interesting to see what kind of forward momentum he can build this year after already dominating most nights as a 17-year-old.

Notably, since he only turned 18 in May, Geekie will not be eligible for the AHL in 2023-24 either, as he will still be under the 20-year-old cutoff. That means the ICE could potentially get him for two more years, should he fail to make the Coyotes again next fall. For now, he’ll likely be a candidate for the Canadian Word Junior team in December, and a top performer all year in the WHL.

Latest On Nic Hague

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There are just a handful of restricted free agent negotiations still going on and at least one of them doesn’t appear to be headed to the finish line. According to Jeff Marek of Sportsnet, Nicolas Hague has left Vegas and will start training with the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers tomorrow, the junior team located in his hometown.

Hague, 23, has played 142 games in his NHL career to this point, but hasn’t yet cracked the 19-minute mark for average time on ice. That’s because of the huge minutes that players like Alex Pietrangelo and Shea Theodore log, keeping Hague buried deeper in the lineup than perhaps he could be somewhere else. With the Golden Knights also not in a place to spend much on a multi-year deal because of their cap situation, it’s a difficult needle to thread.

Still, skating with a junior team is certainly not NHL training camp, meaning whenever he does sign, Hague is going to be behind the rest of his competition. As we’ve seen in the past, players who miss training camp are usually slow starters. In the case of a player like William Nylander, who sat out the first part of the season, it was basically a lost year.

Generally, these negotiations are completed by the time the season starts, and with Vegas’ long-term injured reserve issues, they will have more flexibility just before training camp ends. But at this point, it doesn’t seem as though you’ll see the young defenseman on the ice with his teammates for a little while.

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