Canucks Recall Jiri Patera, Kevin Lankinen Out Day-To-Day
The Vancouver Canucks have recalled depth goaltender Jiri Patera under emergency conditions. His recall comes after Kevin Lankinen sustained a day-to-day, upper-body injury during Monday’s morning practice per Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK News. Patera will likely backup Nikita Tolopilo in Tuesday’s game against the Vegas Golden Knights if Lankinen is not ready to return.
Lankinen has been Vancouver’s de facto starter since usual starter Thatcher Demko sustained a season-ending injury in January. Lankinen recorded just one win to go with a .885 save percentage in 11 games during the month of March. That performance brought his year-long totals up to nine wins and a .875 Sv% in 44 appearances. It is the second-most Lankinen has ever played in a single NHL season after he posted 25 wins and a .902 Sv% in 51 games last season. Tolopilo hasn’t yet topped Lankinen’s performance from the backup role, with only five wins and a .880 Sv% in 18 games this season.
Those performances will set a low bar for Patera if he needs to fill out Vancouver’s roster. The 27 year old has appeared in nine NHL games before, including one this season – his only appearance with Vancouver. He has three wins and a .892 Sv% in those appearances. Patera has also recorded 11 wins and a .907 Sv% in 29 AHL games this season. He has planted his feet as a career minor-league goalie after being drafted by the Vegas Golden Knights in the sixth-round of the 2017 NHL Draft. Patera’s stint on Vancouver’s roster will likely be limited to backup duties until Lankinen is back to full health.
Blues’ Doug Armstrong Won’t Be Available For Maple Leafs GM Search
The Toronto Maple Leafs are in the midst of a full-scale search for their next general manager after dismissing Brad Treliving last week. Their list of candidates is growing quickly, but isn’t expected to include current St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong. The Blues have no plans to allow Armstrong to interview for Toronto’s GM vacancy, per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period. Armstrong is set to become St. Louis’ President of Hockey Operations while Alexander Steen steps into the GM role on July 1st. Pagnotta’s report was echoed by Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic and Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman in the latest episode of the 32 Thoughts Podcast.
It seems St. Louis has no interest in letting Armstrong walk after 16 years in the Blues’ GM chair. That tenure has spanned some transformative years in Blues franchise history. Armstrong took over a squad with only one playoff appearance in their last five seasons. With quick and crafty moves, such as bringing in a new goalie tandem in Jaroslav Halak and Brian Elliott, Armstrong pushed St. Louis to the Central Division championship in just his second season. That postseason appearance kicked off six consecutive playoff berths for the Blues. They were briefly interrupted with a miss in 2018 but returned in full force with a Cinderella-story Stanley Cup win in 2019.
Along the way, Armstrong made clear his willingness to put the team’s overall performance above any one player. He parted ways with all four captains under his reign, including moving on from Alex Pietrangelo just one season after he became the first Blue to lift the Stanley Cup. The results of those changes have ebbed and flowed, with St. Louis now boasting a strong prospect pool and only one playoff berth in the last three seasons.
In the midst of a rebuild, St. Louis will also turn over their top management position. Steen joined the Blues’ management staff as a team consultant and development coach in 2023. He was promoted to a ‘Special Assistant to the GM’ role in 2024 and is now preparing to take one more step this summer. His path has been largely untraditional, but also well supported by his leadership role during 13 seasons as a Blues player and his close connection with Armstrong. Those factors have helped St. Louis hone Steen into a manager capable of filling their top chair, while Armstrong will still have a say in hockey ops decisions. The tandem between Armstrong and Steen has grown strong, and St. Louis will ensure it sticks even as their roles shift.
Not even a GM opening in Armstrong’s home province will be enough to knock the Blues’ plan off-course. Armstrong has held a management position in the Midwest since 1992 and has taken steps to reduce his workload since managing Team Canada to a Silver Medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Unless St. Louis changes its mind about supporting an upcoming rookie GM, Armstrong will continue with the city where he won his latest Stanley Cup. That will give him a chance to see out many top Blues prospects, including defenseman Adam Jiricek and whoever the club reels in with a top pick in 2026.
Maple Leafs’ Tyler Hopkins, Harry Nansi Sign AHL Tryouts
Maple Leafs forward prospects Tyler Hopkins and Harry Nansi signed amateur tryouts with AHL Toronto on Monday, the team announced. They can’t be directly “assigned” to the AHL after completing their junior seasons, as the Leafs haven’t yet signed them to their entry-level contracts, but this will still allow each of them to make their pro debuts this season after their Ontario Hockey League playoff runs both concluded in sweeps last week.
Hopkins, 19, was Toronto’s third-round pick in 2025 out of Kingston. He was dealt to Guelph midway through this season, with whom he tallied a 13-12–25 scoring line in 27 games down the stretch. He was their only player to score multiple goals in what ended up being an aggressive dispatching by Windsor, which outscored Guelph 21-5 in the four-game series.
The Leafs can wait until June 1, 2027, to sign Hopkins before losing his rights. No matter if they ink him now or this offseason, he’ll be heading back to Guelph in the fall. A 6’1″ pivot with good two-way instincts, he tallied 50 points in 56 games this year across his stints in Kingston and Guelph and grades out as the #11-ranked prospect in one of the weakest pools in the league, Scott Wheeler of The Athletic wrote last month. Some added muscle could allow him to develop into a potential fourth-line piece with good defensive numbers.
Nansi is arguably the more intriguing talent. He went two rounds after Hopkins last year, but the Quebec native was one of the youngest players in the class with a Sep. 10 birthday and took a giant leap forward this season. After the 6’3″ right winger was limited to seven goals and 23 points in 67 games as a second-year junior player in Owen Sound last season, he finished third on the Attack in scoring this year with a 13-43–56 line in 67 games. He ultimately went pointless in four postseason outings as Owen Sound was also stomped out of the playoffs by Flint, losing their four-game series by an aggregate score of 35-3.
Still, that offensive breakout means he’s climbed into being a top-10 prospect for the Leafs, with Wheeler tabbing him at #6. The question is whether he can develop enough physically – he currently checks in at only 179 lbs – while continuing to improve his skating in hopes of being able to hit as a lower-end top-nine piece someday.
East Notes: Crosby, Martinook, Staal, Texier
Penguins captain Sidney Crosby extended his NHL record for consecutive point-per-game seasons with a goal and a pair of assists in Sunday’s 5-2 win over Florida. He’s now at 72 points on the year; he can play a maximum of 70 games after missing 12 over the past several weeks with an MCL sprain and a subsequently unrelated lower-body issue. That gives him 21 seasons in a row above a point per game, two clear of Wayne Gretzky‘s previous record of 19. Crosby has never finished at or below a point per game in his career. The closest he ever got was a Cup-winning season for the Penguins in 2015-16, when his 36-49–85 scoring line in 80 games worked out to a career-low 1.06 mark. Among players with at least 750 career appearances, Crosby’s 1.24 points per game sits eighth all-time and third among active players behind Connor McDavid‘s 1.53 and Nikita Kucherov‘s 1.28.
More from around the Eastern Conference:
- The Hurricanes were without two-thirds of their main checking line in yesterday’s loss to the Senators, as Jordan Martinook and Jordan Staal were unable to go. Both were late scratches due to undisclosed injuries, the team announced. They each missed three-game stretches earlier in the year with a lower-body injury and an illness, respectively, but have otherwise been durable. With the Metropolitan Division title all but locked up with now just five games left in the season, it’s likely a case of extremely precautionary rest ahead of the playoffs. Martinook has 26 points and a +5 rating in his 73 appearances this year, while Staal has 33 points and a +3.
- After clinching a playoff berth earlier in the day thanks to some outside help, the Canadiens were quiet at home last night in a 3-0 loss to the Devils. They did so without the services of depth winter Alexandre Texier, who has now missed a seventh straight game with a lower-body injury, per Eric Engels of Sportsnet. He remains listed as day-to-day but has only played eight times since Jan. 29 due to injuries and a string of healthy scratches. He’s still been an efficiently productive find for Montreal this season after he opted to walk away from his contract with the Blues in November, recording an 8-11–19 scoring line in 38 games since his pickup.
Senators Reassign Jorian Donovan
April 6: The Senators loaned Donovan back to Belleville on Sunday night, per a team announcement. His services weren’t needed for this weekend’s back-to-back after Sanderson was indeed able to take warmups and dress against Minnesota on Saturday and again against the Hurricanes on Sunday, recording an assist and a +2 rating in a significant win in the latter outing.
April 4: The Senators are set to recall defenseman Jorian Donovan from AHL Belleville before Saturday’s game against the Wild, Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia reports.
This marks Donovan’s second recall in as many weeks. The 21-year-old lefty was brought up on March 24 to make his NHL debut amid injuries to Thomas Chabot and Lassi Thomson, the latter of whom has since returned.
Donovan suited up twice, averaging just 7:02 of ice time per game with a pair of shot attempts and hits each, before Thomson returned to the lineup. He was then assigned back to Belleville but comes back up now in the wake of yet another injury to Ottawa’s blue line in Tyler Kleven, who left Thursday’s win over the Sabres early with an upper-body injury.
The hope was that Jake Sanderson, who’s been out since March 9 with an upper-body injury, could slot back into the lineup to relieve Kleven. He’s been skating for several days now but has yet to shed his non-contact designation, so that’s looking unlikely. That leaves Donovan and his less than 15 minutes of NHL experience as the Sens’ only left-shot option on the blue line for this afternoon’s game.
Ottawa’s injury count on defense is now up to six. Outside of Chabot, Kleven, and Sanderson, Dennis Gilbert is out for another couple of weeks with an upper-body injury, Nick Jensen‘s regular season is over after meniscus surgery, and Carter Yakemchuk is in concussion protocol.
Despite such a crippling blow, the Sens are in pole position for the second wild-card spot in the East. They enter action today in a four-way tie with the Blue Jackets, Flyers, and Red Wings at 88 points, but Ottawa and Detroit have one fewer game played than the field, and the Sens have 33 regulation wins to the Wings’ 29. If their patchwork defense group can pull out a win today, that would boost their playoff odds from their current coin flip up to 65%, per MoneyPuck.
Donovan, son of former Sens winger Shean Donovan, checks in at 6’2″ and 201 lbs. A fifth-round pick in 2022, the two-way lefty is up to 17 assists, 21 points, and a -12 rating in 59 games in his second season for Belleville.
Brad Treliving Was Never A Good Fit With The Maple Leafs
Last week, news broke that the Maple Leafs had relieved general manager Brad Treliving of his duties, ending an underwhelming tenure with the team that never made sense from the day he was hired in late May 2023. Treliving had previously been with the Flames for nine seasons before he and the team mutually agreed to part ways just weeks before the Maple Leafs hired him.
At the time of his departure from Calgary, PHR’s Josh Erickson noted that Treliving was well respected in NHL front offices, and it was likely he would find a new role quickly, which proved to be a spot-on prediction. However, that likely won’t be the case this time, at least not for an NHL general manager role, as Treliving may need to step away from the game or rebuild his reputation before another team offers him a prominent position.
Treliving’s career in NHL management is similar to that of former Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Ron Hextall, who was let go by the team around the time Treliving left Calgary. Hextall has not held an NHL role since then, and it’s possible Treliving might also need to take some time away from the game or be forced to do so if he can’t find work as an NHL executive.
Some folks might find it unfair to compare Treliving to Hextall, but their two recent runs as GMs show many similarities, as does their history in previous organizations. And as unflattering as it may be, both Hextall and Treliving inherited teams capable of winning the Stanley Cup, with star players at the top, and both oversaw the dismantling of their contention windows.
Folks in Philadelphia would argue that Hextall did the same thing when he was with the Flyers, just as fans of the Flames might feel the same about Treliving’s tenure there. Hextall and Treliving both operated without much semblance of a plan, so many of their moves appeared to be reactions to a changing market, attempts to undo a previous mistake, or attempts to pick up what they could when they realized they had a glaring hole in their roster.
But were Treliving’s moves in Toronto really that bad? The short answer is yes, and the long answer is much more complicated.
It wasn’t all bad for Treliving in Toronto, as the team did win a division title and pushed the eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers to seven games in the second round last year. However, mistakes made early in Treliving’s tenure eventually compounded, leading to a year where almost nothing went right for him and the Maple Leafs.
In his first summer on the job in 2023, Treliving signed David Kämpf to a regrettable four-year contract worth $9.6MM before free agency. He then entered free agency and made a couple of solid short-term signings in Max Domi and Tyler Bertuzzi.
However, those deals were surrounded by a series of poor bets as Treliving signed Ryan Reaves to a multi-year deal, and agreed to one-year contracts with John Klingberg, Ilya Samsonov, and Martin Jones. Except for the Reaves deal, none of the other moves were particularly bad on their own, but they left the Maple Leafs in a similar spot come playoff time, as they bowed out in the first round to the Bruins. During that season, Treliving also extended Auston Matthews and William Nylander, essentially doubling down on a core four template that had yet to produce a deep playoff run.
Most of Treliving’s early mistakes during his tenure involved trades, where he often traded away depth players for very little and then spent a lot to acquire slightly better players. A clear example is a series of transactions late in the 2024-25 season, when he traded Connor Dewar and Conor Timmins to the Pittsburgh Penguins for a fifth-round pick, and then acquired Scott Laughton, along with a fourth- and sixth-round draft pick, for a conditional 2027 first-rounder and prospect Nikita Grebenkin.
Now, Timmins might not be an NHL defenseman at this point, but it’s hard to argue that Laughton is much of an upgrade on Dewar, especially after the season both players have had. In fact, it’s fair to say that Dewar would be an upgrade on Laughton at this stage of their careers, and he is five years younger than the 31-year-old Laughton. Essentially, those two trades marked a significant loss of talent for Toronto in just a few hours. It made their existing NHL roster worse and removed a key draft asset from their future. These two trades highlight a major issue for Treliving: he lost nearly every trade he made in Toronto, and this was nothing new.
The list of poor trades could fill an entire article on its own, with the most glaring example being the Brandon Carlo trade, which could haunt the Maple Leafs for years depending on how the first-round pick turns out.
But again, many of the moves weren’t necessarily bad; quite a few were unnecessary and revealed that Treliving didn’t have a clear sense of where his team was or what they needed to improve. A good example is the March 2024 trade when Treliving acquired Joel Edmundson from the Washington Capitals in exchange for a 2024 third-round pick and a 2025 fifth-round pick.
This move wasn’t terrible, but Edmundson was only a depth player at that point, and Treliving traded for him when the team desperately needed a top-four defenseman. It felt like a half measure, more like the Maple Leafs’ GM doing something just to say he did it. Critics will note that giving up two mid-round picks isn’t a big deal, but making three such trades a season quickly depletes your draft pool — which is exactly what has happened to Toronto. The prospect pipeline is now empty, and if the Maple Leafs are to have any hope for the future, the next GM will have to make the most of the few draft picks they do have.
Overall, Treliving’s tenure will be remembered as a period when he and the team never quite aligned, leading to a lot of movement but little results. The reality is that Maple Leafs fans and media may claim that Treliving didn’t do enough to push Toronto over the hump and to the next level in the playoffs, but the truth is that Treliving didn’t do enough right, and in fact, he barely got anything right for the Maple Leafs. That’s why they need to conduct another hockey management search at a time when their competitive window is closing quickly.
New York Islanders Fire Patrick Roy, Hire Peter DeBoer
The New York Islanders announced that head coach Patrick Roy has been relieved of his duties, and the team has hired former Dallas Stars head coach Peter DeBoer as his replacement. The move comes with four games remaining in the Islanders’ regular-season schedule.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that, unlike other recent mid-season coaching changes, such as the Columbus Blue Jackets’ hire of Rick Bowness and the Vegas Golden Knights’ hire of John Tortorella, this hire has not been made with just a one-year term. DeBoer’s contract to coach the Islanders includes multiple years. Specifically, DeBoer will reportedly be signed through the 2028-29 season per ESPN’s Emily Kaplan. This deal will align with Mathieu Darche’s GM contract. Roy had two years remaining on his deal as Islanders coach, per Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic.
Just one week ago, it looked as though the Islanders were on their way to the playoffs. New York won three games on its four-game homestand, and although a loss to the Chicago Blackhawks was deflating, a regulation win over the rival Blue Jackets gave the team a significant boost. New York sat second in the Metropolitan Division, three points clear of their closest out-of-the-playoffs division rival.
The Islanders have not won since that victory over the Panthers. They suffered an 8-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on March 30, paving the way for Pittsburgh to vault to the No. 2 spot in the division. They lost to the Buffalo Sabres the following day and have since dropped games to divisional rivals (Philadelphia and Carolina) on back-to-back days.
With playoff odds that once looked relatively certain, the Islanders have responded to a rapid, albeit relatively brief downturn in on-ice fortunes by making a coaching change. Their decision to swap coaches, likely in search of a spark to keep the team in a playoff position, is similar to the aforementioned decision by the Golden Knights to fire Bruce Cassidy in favor of John Tortorella.
Roy himself arrived in New York as part of an in-season coaching change. The 60-year-old, who was widely considered one of the greatest goalies of all time during his playing days, won the Jack Adams award as coach of the year in 2013-14. He went 20-12-5 in his first season with the Islanders, leading them to the playoffs, where they would fall in five games in the first round. The team took a step back last season, going 35-35-12, but appeared to have rebounded this season.
Fueled by star rookie Matthew Schaefer, the Islanders were one of the league’s resurgent organizations. Their prospect pool has significantly improved (rising from No. 25 in the NHL to No. 12 in just one year, according to The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler rankings), and, just a week ago, they looked poised to return to the playoffs after a one-year absence. But the last week has not been kind to the Islanders, as mentioned, and, with time running out to secure a playoff spot, they decided to swap coaches.
DeBoer comes in a little under a year after his tenure in Dallas came to a shocking end. The Stars reached the Western Conference Finals in all three seasons he was at the helm and compiled a 149-68-29 (.665) regular-season record, his best run with any of the five NHL teams he’s coached and the best regular-season record in the league from 2022 to 2025. Their inability to get past the third round, plus his decision to pull star goaltender Jake Oettinger after he allowed two goals on his first two shots faced in what became a season-ending Game 5 loss to the Oilers last year, ended up resulting in one of the more high-profile firings in recent memory. They waited to ultimately relieve him of his duties after all the other coaching vacancies last offseason had been filled, leading to him not being on an NHL bench for the first 95% of the season.
One could argue that DeBoer is the most accomplished active coach without a Stanley Cup ring. He has an exceptional record of deep playoff runs, particularly in his first couple of years with a club, and has reached a Conference Final in six of the last eight seasons. Despite the Isles now being his sixth team in the last 18 years, he’s been behind an NHL bench as head coach for at least one game every year since breaking into the league with the Panthers in 2008.
DeBoer’s 662 wins are 18th all-time, and he has a 662-447-152 (.525) lifetime record across 1,261 regular-season games with Florida, New Jersey, San Jose, Vegas, and Dallas. Only Barry Trotz had more experience as a new head coach hire in team history.
DeBoer now must correct a four-game losing streak in regulation to help the Isles recover. Their playoff odds had dropped to 31.4% ahead of today’s games, per MoneyPuck, with all the teams chasing them having one or multiple games in hand.
Image courtesy of James Carey Lauder-Imagn Images.
PHR’s Josh Erickson contributed significantly to this article.
Avalanche Still Big Winners In Martin Necas Acquisition
True NHL dynasties are often defined by more than their roster. It takes confident management decisions to stick at the top of the NHL year-over-year. The Colorado Avalanche proved their willingness to make a big swing in their handling of Mikko Rantanen‘s trade ahead of the 2025 Trade Deadline. Facing a costly contract extension, Colorado opted to trade Rantanen to the Carolina Hurricanes in late-January. The sudden deal wouldn’t stick for Carolina – who flipped Rantanen to Dallas. The fruits of the move were much more direct for Colorado, who took a homerun swing on Martin Necas‘ ability to replace Rantanen’s role. One season later, as Necas rivals the first 100-point season of his career, it seems the Avalanche hit it well out of the park.
Necas was an instant impact for the Avalanche in the second-half of last season. He scored 11 goals and 28 points in 30 games to close out the regular season, bringing his year-long totals up to 83 points in 79 games. Even through a cloud of trade drama, that performance was a career-year for Necas, whose previous career-high was 71 points. A full summer to adjust to Colorado’s system has quickly made both of his previous heights look slim.
Necas has racked up 36 goals, 94 points, and a plus-46 through 72 games this season. All three of those stats are new personal-bests – eight goals, 11 points, and plus-21 higher than his previous bests. That success comes alongside a league-best performance from the Avalanche roster, led by superstar Nathan MacKinnon, Necas’ new batterymate. MacKinnon’s all-out energy and control over play has allowed Necas to focus on his strengths – but his improvements stand out apart from the top-tier support. Necas has looked explosive off the rush and added a goal-scorer’s ability to bury chances through traffic. He has been there to finish the chances that MacKinnon creates, one of the roles that Rantanen filled in his back-to-back 100-point seasons in 2022-23 and 2023-24. With only four games left on Colorado’s schedule Necas likely won’t reach the 105 points that Rantanen scored in his best year – but he nonetheless brings century-scoring capability to the lineup.
The near-seamless replacement can make it easy to forget the rest of Colorado’s return. The Avalanche also brought in feisty, depth forward Jack Drury and draft capital from the Rantanen trade. They packaged one of those picks – a 2025 second-round pick – alongside William Zellers and Casey Mittelstadt to acquire Charlie Coyle and a pick from the Boston Bruins at the 2025 Trade Deadline. Colorado went one step further after the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, trading Coyle and Miles Wood to the Columbus Blue Jackets for prospect Gavin Brindley, a 2027 second-round pick, and a 2025 third-round pick used on defense prospect Francesco Dell’Elce. Drury and Brindley have already shored up Colorado’s depth chart, while the additional capital boosted a bare Avalanche prospect room.
Reliable depth and future upside are fantastic additions to the value that Necas has brought to the top-line. Colorado also signed Necas to a deal $500K cheaper, and one year longer, than Rantanen landed in Dallas. The Avalanche have won every bet they made in a confusing, and surprising, trade of a top-line star. Even if the 2025-26 season stands as Necas’ career-year, his impact next to MacKinnon could help Colorado stick in Stanley Cup contention through the end of the 2020’s. The Avalanche sit confidently on top of the league – six points ahead of the second-place Hurricanes – with the end of the season nearing. They will enter the Stanley Cup Playoffs as the favorite out of the Western Conference, offering a chance to build on their 2022 Cup win.
Flames Reassign Brennan Othmann
The Flames reassigned winger prospect Brennan Othmann to AHL Calgary on Sunday, per a team announcement.
Calgary acquired Othmann, the #16 overall pick in the 2021 draft, from the Rangers on deadline day in exchange for 2024 second-rounder Jacob Battaglia. The Blueshirts had been shopping Othmann, who was never able to push above a call-up/fourth-line slot on the depth chart, dating back to the beginning of the season, but ultimately didn’t find the fit to move him as part of a larger deal. Instead, the Flames took him on as a more traditional change-of-scenery candidate while the Rangers still managed to recoup an even younger winger still with middle-six upside.
Othmann’s early returns in the Flames organization haven’t been overwhelmingly positive. Through 10 AHL games after the trade, he’s still scoreless and has only managed five assists with a -7 rating. Calgary still decided to give him a shot late last month, playing him in back-to-back games against the Canucks and Avalanche to close their March schedule. He had a goal and an assist, averaging 11:04 per game, but he was used puzzlingly in a checking role (81.0 dZS% at 5-on-5), and his possession numbers suffered for it. The fact that Othmann managed seven shot attempts despite spending so much time in his own end is something to applaud, though.
The 23-year-old was scratched in back-to-back games last week, so it’s of little surprise that the Flames have opted to get him back playing in the AHL instead of having him sit around as a healthy extra. Calgary has shown they’re keen on rotating some of their younger bubble players into the lineup to close out another season without playoff action, recently recalling Aydar Suniev and getting 2024 first-rounder Matvei Gridin into a top-six role.
Othmann will require waivers to head to the minors beginning next season. Calgary will need to decide whether his AHL production – 41 goals and 90 points in 130 career games – is worth earmarking an NHL roster spot for him, regardless of his training camp performance, to avoid the risk of losing him for nothing in the fall.
Panthers Reassign Mikulas Hovorka
The Panthers reassigned defenseman Mikulas Hovorka to AHL Charlotte on Sunday, according to a team announcement. He had played in Florida’s last two games in place of Dmitry Kulikov, who suffered a broken nose last Tuesday against the Senators. With Kulikov back in the lineup today for the second half of the Cats’ back-to-back against the Penguins, Hovorka comes out of the lineup and will head straight back to Charlotte after the Checkers recently clinched a playoff berth.
Hovorka’s appearances last week were the second and third of his NHL career. The 24-year-old made his NHL debut in a one-game call-up back in February before returning to Charlotte. Across all three outings this season, the 6’6″ righty has a -3 rating with three hits while averaging 13:30 of ice time per game.
Florida signed Hovorka as an undrafted free agent out of Czechia’s HC Motor Ceske Budejovice in 2024. Over nearly two full seasons in Charlotte, the Prague native has a 7-19–26 scoring line with 77 penalty minutes and a +23 rating in 113 outings.
While the mammoth rearguard has shown good defensive instincts in the minors, he couldn’t carry those over into his brief NHL trials this season. The Panthers have been outshot 18-8 and outchanced 20-12 with Hovorka on the ice at 5-on-5, per Natural Stat Trick. He was also on the ice for a goal against in under two minutes of cumulative shorthanded ice time.
Florida may be eliminated from playoff contention, but they’ll still take any help they can get from their veteran players who can push through lingering injuries or make early returns. Even with Kulikov back in the fold, they’re without nine lineup regulars, including Uvis Balinskis, Aaron Ekblad, and Niko Mikkola on defense. None of them will play in the four games remaining on the Cats’ schedule after today.