Five Key Stories: 12/2/24 – 12/8/24

The first full week of December is in the books and it was a busy one across the NHL.  The biggest news is recapped in our key stories.

4 Nations Rosters Set: While the 4 Nations Face-Off is still more than two months away, the four countries participating – Canada, Finland, Sweden, and the United States – all released their rosters for the event.  Players can still be substituted as injury replacements until the event begins so it wouldn’t be shocking if most (if not all) will have one or two different players in the lineup when it gets underway on February 12th.  In terms of NHL representation, the Panthers lead the way with eight players participating while the Golden Knights have seven.  Florida is one of only two teams to have a player for each different country with Toronto being the other.  Meanwhile, the Kraken and Metropolitan-leading Capitals do not have a single representative.

Trouba To Anaheim: After being unable to move him during the summer, the Rangers had made it known recently that defenseman Jacob Trouba was still available.  Eventually, they had enough prospective deals lined up that they went to the blueliner and asked him to pick one he liked or else he’d potentially land on waivers.  He accepted a trade to Anaheim in exchange for blueliner Urho Vaakanainen and a fourth-round pick (the earlier of Detroit’s or Boston’s).  Notably, the Ducks assumed the entire $8MM cap charge on Trouba for this season and next and while they get an upgrade on the back end (and potentially a flippable player with retention down the road), the Rangers picked up some significant cap space.

Shesterkin’s Sticking Around: New York wasted little time putting the cap space freed up for 2025-26 in the Trouba trade to use, signing goaltender Igor Shesterkin to an eight-year, $92MM contract extension that begins next season; the deal contains a no-move clause while the majority of the deal will be paid out as signing bonuses.  The $11.5MM AAV is a new NHL record for a netminder.  Shesterkin has been one of the top goaltenders in the NHL since coming to the league in the 2019-20 season and it was widely expected that he’d top Carey Price’s $10.5MM price tag in this agreement.  While his camp was believed to be seeking more than Artemi Panarin ($11.643MM), that didn’t wind up happening.  With the signing, the goaltending position is now sealed up for the better part of the next decade.

Hip Surgery For Seguin: Stars center Tyler Seguin is set to miss the next four to six months due to hip surgery.  It’s a big blow for Dallas as the 32-year-old was off to one of his best starts in recent years, tallying nine goals and 11 assists in his first 19 outings.  On the short end of the timeline, it’s possible that Seguin could return in early April, the likeliest scenario is that he misses the rest of the regular season.  While Dallas has cap space for now and doesn’t need to move Seguin to LTIR, they could look to do so closer to the trade deadline.  While the exact amount they could spend is dependent on their roster composition at the time of placement, they could potentially use a big chunk of his $9.85MM AAV to add to their roster.

Coaching Change In Chicago: The Blackhawks became the third team to make a coaching change this season (joining Boston and St. Louis) when they fired Luke Richardson.  Taking his place will be now-former AHL Rockford bench boss Anders Sorensen who has been named as interim head coach, a role he’ll hold for the rest of the year.  Richardson was in his third season with the rebuilding Blackhawks and his team played to a 57-119-15 record, good for a points percentage of just .338.  That said, the team was selling off assets early in his tenure so the poor overall record isn’t surprising.  However, GM Kyle Davidson brought in several veterans over the summer to try to give the team a better foundation but it didn’t result in on-ice success with the team recording just 18 points in 27 games before the change.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.