Yesterday, Lightning restricted free agent forward Waltteri Merela signed a one-year deal with SC Bern of the Swiss National League. The Lightning reportedly wanted Merela to return to the organization (as per Eduardo A. Encina of the Tampa Bay Times) but couldn’t offer him the guaranteed money that he could get abroad because of their need to keep salary cap flexibility. The Lightning plan to make Merela a qualifying offer to retain his NHL rights until he is 27.
Other notes from around the league:
- The Buffalo Sabres have hired Chris Bergeron as a scout, shares Lance Lysowski of the Buffalo News. Bergeron has served as the head coach of Miami (Ohio) University’s men’s hockey team for the last five seasons, posting a cumulative – and dismal – 35-116-16 record with the club. Those results earn Bergeron the title of lowest win percentage in Miami’s history, narrowly beating out Bill Davidge’s 39-111-3 record across four seasons in the late 1980s. Bergeron still has a storied hockey career despite a slow go of things in Miami, Ohio – serving as the head coach of Bowling Green State University for nine seasons and accumulating 43 AHL games, 119 ECHL, and 111 IHL games across a seven-year professional career of his own. Bergeron is expected to, unsurprisingly, serve as Buffalo’s NCAA scout after Jerry Forton was promoted to ‘Director of Amateur Scouting’.
- Buffalo has also shared that they will be maintaining AHL assistant coaches Vinny Prospal and Nathan Paetsch, shares Lysowski (Twitter link). The duo – both former NHL players – concluded the first year of their coaching careers last season, helping lead the Rochester Americans to a strong 39-23-7 record. With a year under their belts, the novice coaches will now lend their lessons learned to new head coach Mike Leone as he enters the first pro role of his own coaching career.
- The Vancouver Canucks have hired former NHL center Jason Krog as a skills and development coach for the NHL and AHL rosters (Twitter link). Krog played in four games with Vancouver to end a 202-game career in the NHL that was largely spent with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks. Krog scored 22 goals and 59 games across his career, including a single-season high of 25 points in 2002-03. He flaunted fantastic agility and skill as an undersized pivot in a physical era of the NHL – and will now look to bring those lessons to a young Canucks organization.