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Magnus Hellberg

Penguins Make Multiple Roster Moves, Place Alex Nedeljkovic On LTIR

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5:14 p.m.: The Penguins have confirmed the moves and officially recalled Hellberg from the AHL.

4:16 p.m.: Per CapFriendly, the Penguins have immediately transferred Nedeljkovic to LTIR after swapping Zohorna for Andonovski on the NHL roster.

4:15 p.m.: The Pittsburgh Penguins made a trio of roster moves Wednesday, per Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic was placed on injured reserve after sustaining an undisclosed injury in last night’s loss to Dallas, while forward Corey Andonovski was recalled from AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Forward Radim Zohorna was also sent down to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.

As CapFriendly notes, the Andonovski/Zohorna swap is likely a precursor to placing Nedeljkovic on long-term injured reserve. Andonovski’s cap hit is slightly higher than Zohorna’s, which gets the Penguins closer to the $83.5MM Upper Limit before placing Nedeljkovic on LTIR and increases their accruable cap space limit. The cap space freed up by Nedeljkovic’s LTIR placement will then be used to recall a goalie from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, likely veteran farmhand Magnus Hellberg. Andonovski is unlikely to remain on the NHL roster, nor is Zohorna’s demotion expected to be permanent.

It’s unclear when exactly Nedeljkovic sustained the injury, which did not warrant him exiting the game. Last night was the goalie’s second appearance of the season and second appearance as a Penguin after joining the team in free agency last summer. He’ll go on the shelf after posting a 1-1-0 record, .914 SV% and 3.01 GAA in the two appearances.

The Penguins have three goalies under NHL contract stashed in the minors, so their recall options are plentiful. Hellberg, 32, carries the most NHL experience with 23 games, 18 of which came last season with the Detroit Red Wings and Ottawa Senators. He did struggle, however, posting a 5-8-1 record and a poor .888 SV% overall, conceding more than seven goals above average. He’s made two appearances thus far with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, splitting them with a 1-1-0 record and a .917 SV%. Their top goalie prospect, 21-year-old Joel Blomqvist, is also a potential recall option with a .929 SV% through two games for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton this season, but the Penguins would likely prefer to give Blomqvist the starter’s net in the minors and more playing time and have Hellberg sit behind starter Tristan Jarry on the NHL roster.

Waivers: 10/08/23

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Oct. 9: Four players on this list were claimed today: A.J. Greer (Calgary), John Ludvig (Pittsburgh), Ivan Prosvetov (Colorado), and Lassi Thomson (Ottawa). All others have cleared and are expected to be assigned to their team’s respective AHL affiliates, aside from Boyd, who PHNX Sports’ Craig Morgan reports remains on the Coyotes’ active roster for now.

Oct. 8: It’s expected to be a busy day on the waiver wire, as NHL teams are making their final adjustments to the roster they’ll bring into the start of the 2023-24 season. There have already been numerous notable names exposed to the waiver wire thus far this preseason, and that list could only expand today. All players from yesterday’s waiver wire have cleared.

Anaheim Ducks

D Lassi Thomson
G Alex Stalock
F Andrew Agozzino

Boston Bruins

F Patrick Brown
F A.J. Greer

Arizona Coyotes

F Travis Boyd
F Zach Sanford
G Ivan Prosvetov

Carolina Hurricanes

D Dylan Coghlan

Chicago Blackhawks

F Joey Anderson

Colorado Avalanche

F Riley Tufte

Dallas Stars

F Riley Damiani

Detroit Red Wings

F Zach Aston-Reese

Edmonton Oilers

F Raphael Lavoie
F Lane Pederson
D Ben Gleason

Florida Panthers

F Zac Dalpe
D John Ludvig
D Casey Fitzgerald

Los Angeles Kings

F Jaret Anderson-Dolan

Montreal Canadiens

F Joel Armia
D Gustav Lindström

Ottawa Senators

F Bokondji Imama

Pittsburgh Penguins

G Magnus Hellberg
F Colin White
D Mark Friedman
F Vinnie Hinostroza
F Radim Zohorna

St. Louis Blues
F Mackenzie MacEachern
D Calle Rosen
G Malcolm Subban
F Nathan Walker

Tampa Bay Lightning

D Zach Bogosian
F Gabriel Fortier

Toronto Maple Leafs

G Martin Jones
F Kyle Clifford
F Dylan Gambrell
D William Lagesson
D Maxime Lajoie

Vancouver Canucks

F Jack Studnicka
D Christian Wolanin

Vegas Golden Knights

F Grigori Denisenko

Winnipeg Jets

D Kyle Capobianco
G Collin Delia
F Axel Jonsson-Fjallby

The big surprise here out of Arizona regards Boyd. The versatile 30-year-old veteran doesn’t have an exorbitant contract (just $1.75MM through the end of the season) and has scored 69 points across the last two seasons.

He’s been something of a breakout player for the Coyotes as his 17-goal, 35-point 2022-23 was far and away his best season in his career, so it’s definitely a surprise to see him exposed on waivers.

For Anaheim, the move to waive Stalock likely means that Lukáš Dostál has won the Ducks’ backup goalie job behind John Gibson, as should Stalock clear the Ducks will have the option to send him down to the AHL’s San Diego Gulls.

In Edmonton, it comes as a little bit of a surprise to see Lavioe waived. The 23-year-old power forward was drafted just outside of the 2019 first round, and took a real step forward in his development last season. He became a genuinely impactful AHLer, scoring 25 goals and 45 points. He’s a name to watch in terms of players with the potential to be claimed out of this group.

Anderson-Dolan finally made the NHL on an extended basis last season, and scored 12 points in 46 games. He even got some playoff action under his belt, but seeing as he was a near-point-per-game scorer in his last season in the AHL, it seems the Kings could prefer to have him start the season with the AHL’s Ontario Reign.

Rosen appears the likeliest candidate from the Blues’ group of waived players to be of interest to other teams, as he’s owed just a $762.5k cap hit this season and impressed in 49 games of NHL action last season. He scored 18 points in that span and could interest teams in need of some additional defensive help.

Out of Tampa is Bogosian, and it’s reported that the Lightning are hoping to put the veteran blueliner in a position to land on another team where he can play a bigger role than he’d be offered in Tampa. The 33-year-old won a Stanley Cup for the Lightning and it seems that the organization is looking to do right by the player while also turning to other options to staff their defense.

One of the biggest names on waivers comes out of Toronto, as Jones played in 48 games last season but now finds himself exposed to 31 other clubs. With an $875k cap hit, the veteran netminder could end up claimed by teams in need of instant goaltending support, such as the Lightning who don’t have much depth after the injury to superstar Andrei Vasilevskiy.

This page will be updated throughout the day.

Pittsburgh Penguins Sign Three Players

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As the Pittsburgh Penguins continue to build up their organizational depth, the team has announced three signings, bringing in forwards Marc Johnstone and Radim Zohorna, as well as goaltender Magnus Hellberg. Johstone’s contract will be a two-year, $1.55MM contract, while Zohorna will earn a one-year, $785K deal, both contracts being two-way deals. Shortly thereafter, the team announced that Hellberg would also be making $785K over a one-year deal.

Hellberg becomes the second goalie the Penguins have poached from the Detroit Red Wings, after having also signed goalie Alex Nedeljkovic yesterday. Starting last season with the Ottawa Senators, Hellberg was acquired by Seattle Kraken via waivers on November 22nd, and then subsequently claimed on waivers by the Red Wings the next day. Serving as the primary backup for Detroit last year after Nedeljkovic was sent down to the minors, Hellberg posted a 4-8-1 record, managing a .885 SV% and a 3.29 GAA.

Zohorna is back to the Penguins for his second stint with the organization, after a brief stint split between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Calgary Flames organizations during the 2022-23 season. Zohorna spent much of the year playing for the Flames AHL affiliate, the Calgary Wranglers, but would then finish the year with the Toronto Marlies after a midseason trade between the two teams. At the AHL level last year, Zohorna played in 51 games, scoring 12 goals and 22 assists.

Lastly, Johnstone has the least amount of experience in the group, having only spent the last two years playing for the Toronto Marlies. A Sacred Heart University product, Johnstone has a total of 73 games played in the AHL, scoring nine goals and 13 assists throughout his short career.

 

East Notes: Capitals, Krejci, Voronkov, Hellberg

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The Capitals got some good news and bad news on their back end for tonight’s contest against Winnipeg.  The good news is that after missing 16 games, defenseman Dmitry Orlov was activated off IR, relays Tarik El-Bashir of The Athletic (Twitter link).  However, they also lost blueliner Erik Gustafsson to an upper-body injury, notes Samantha Pell of the Washington Post (Twitter link).  The net trade-off is certainly a positive as Orlov, a long-term top-four player for them, is jumping right back onto their top pairing although Gustafsson is tied for the team lead in assists by a defender with ten.

More from the Eastern Conference:

  • Prior to their game tonight against Vegas, the Bruins announced (Twitter link) that center David Krejci is out due to a lower-body injury sustained on Friday against Arizona. Fortunately for Boston, the absence is likely to be short-lived as the team hopes he’ll be ready to play in their next game on Tuesday.  Krejci’s return to the NHL has been a very good one so far as the 36-year-old has 21 points in 23 games so far, the highest point-per-game average of his 16-year NHL career.
  • Blue Jackets prospect Dmitry Voronkov is expected to sign with Columbus once his KHL season comes to an end, reports Aaron Portzline of The Athletic (subscription link). The 22-year-old center was a fourth-round pick by Columbus back in 2019 (114th overall) and has been a regular in the KHL since then.  This season, he has 13 points in 28 games and is on pace for his best year offensively at that level.  The Blue Jackets certainly could use some help down the middle and it appears they’ll get someone else to try at that position for next season in Voronkov.
  • The Red Wings announced that they have recalled goaltender Magnus Hellberg from his conditioning stint with AHL Grand Rapids. The 31-year-old had a 2.50 GAA and a .932 SV% in four starts with the Griffins.  He’ll be Detroit’s third-stringer so this might be the last game action he sees for a little while.

Magnus Hellberg Sent On AHL Conditioning Assignment

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It’s been a whirlwind season for Magnus Hellberg, who started the year with the Seattle Kraken, was claimed by the Ottawa Senators, reclaimed by the Kraken, and then nabbed by the Detroit Red Wings a little over a week ago. At the time, it was something of a curious move, given the Red Wings already had two goaltenders – Ville Husso and Alex Nedeljkovic – at the NHL level, but Detroit had shown interest in Hellberg since bringing him back to North America last season.

A few days ago, Sean Shapiro of EP Rinkside posited a theory about what the Red Wings could do with their three-headed goaltending monster. It included conditioning stints in the minor leagues for Hellberg and Nedeljkovic, which has now partly come true. The former has been sent to the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins for conditioning, allowing him to be assigned to the AHL without clearing waivers.

This doesn’t completely solve the issue, as a conditioning stint can only be two weeks in length. The idea, perhaps, is to basically swap the two by sending Nedeljkovic for a stint when that two weeks is up. The trick is that a conditioning stint does not remove a player from the NHL roster, meaning the Red Wings would be dedicating three spots to goaltenders either way.

At the very least, this should allow Hellberg to actually see some game action. The 31-year-old has played only once all season, a start for the Senators in which he stopped 29 of 31 shots.

Goalie Notes: Forsberg, Andersen, Hellberg

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When Ottawa was forced to recall Kevin Mandolese yesterday in the wake of Anton Forsberg’s injury, there were concerns about whether this was the next of a long list of significant injuries the Senators have dealt with this season.  Fortunately for them, it doesn’t appear that this is the case.  Head coach D.J. Smith told reporters, including Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch, that while Forsberg won’t play tomorrow in Los Angeles, he isn’t expected to be out much longer with the team classifying him as out day-to-day.  It has been a bit of a tough start to the season for Forsberg as he has a 3.43 GAA and a .904 SV% in his first 13 games which is part of the reason that the Sens enter play today at the bottom of the Atlantic Division.

Other goalie news from around the NHL:

  • Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen has yet to start skating as he continues to work his way back from an undisclosed injury that has kept him out for the last couple of weeks, relays Cory Lavalette of the North State Journal. However, head coach Rod Brind’Amour indicated that while Andersen has been out longer than expected, he’s at least improving a little bit.  It’s hardly the start to the season that the pending UFA was looking for as he has a save percentage of just .891 through his first eight games and for a goalie that has often been injured throughout his career, recovering from this issue slower than expected doesn’t help.
  • When the Red Wings claimed Magnus Hellberg off waivers from Seattle earlier this week, the move raised some eyebrows considering that both Ville Husso and Alex Nedeljkovic are healthy. Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press indicates that GM Steve Yzerman’s idea for the claim was to simply give them some insurance knowing that their schedule starts to get a bit more compressed in the coming weeks (they have 28 games over the next two months even with the holiday break).  If something happens, they’re more comfortable with Hellberg over pulling someone up from AHL Grand Rapids.  While Hellberg will get to stick on an NHL roster for a little longer now, it appears as if he’ll still be waiting a while to have a shot at making his second appearance of the season.

Wayne Simmonds, Zach Sanford Clear Waivers

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Nov 23: While Hellberg was claimed yet again, both Simmonds and Sanford have cleared and can be sent to the minor leagues.

Nov 22: The NHL waiver wire is busy today, with three names available for claim. Chris Johnston of NorthStar Bets reports that Wayne Simmonds of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Zach Sanford of the Nashville Predators, and Magnus Hellberg of the Seattle Kraken have all been placed on waivers.

For Simmonds, this isn’t much of a surprise. The 34-year-old has already passed through waivers once this season in early October. No longer a regular in the Toronto lineup, he has bounced up and down between the NHL and AHL whenever necessary, playing in just four games to this point. He’ll likely continue to do the same thing, but needed to have his waiver clock reset after 30 days on the active roster had passed.

Hellberg, meanwhile, will just have to hope he doesn’t have to move again. The veteran netminder signed with the Seattle Kraken but when the team tried to waive him early in the year, the Ottawa Senators grabbed him while they dealt with goaltending issues. While he was taken back by the Kraken, he hasn’t actually played for them yet and is now at risk of another claim. Given his success in the KHL and .935 save percentage in one game with Ottawa, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise to see Hellberg on his way to a new team tomorrow.

It’s Sanford that is somewhat surprising among the three players, as this will be his first time on waivers. The 28-year-old signed a one-year, $850K contract with the Predators in the offseason after splitting last year between the Senators and Winnipeg Jets. In eight games so far he has just two points, and saw fewer than 13 minutes in last night’s game against the Arizona Coyotes. Notably, he took an interference penalty in a tie game with only 2:52 remaining that could have easily cost the Predators the game, though they would eventually kill it off and win in a shootout.

Because of his size, inexpensive contract, and history of success in the league – Sanford scored 16 goals and 30 points in 58 games during the 2019-20 season – there’s a reasonable argument to be made for a team to claim him. If he isn’t taken, though, clearing waivers will give the Predators a bit more roster flexibility.

Detroit Red Wings Claim Magnus Hellberg

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For the third time this season, Magnus Hellberg has been claimed on waivers. The veteran netminder is off to the Detroit Red Wings this time, according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet.

It was Detroit that signed Hellberg out of the KHL last season, and where he made his NHL return for one game. Their interest in him is obvious and yet, this is still something of a curious move.

Ville Husso and Alex Nedeljkovic are in place as the current duo, though the latter has experienced serious struggles this year. With an .873 save percentage, the 26-year-old has been one of the weakest netminders in the NHL and looks quite different from the goalie that was so good down the stretch for Carolina in 2021.

With Hellberg now in the mix, it’s unclear where Nedeljkovic’s future stands. He carries a $3MM cap hit this season and is scheduled for unrestricted free agency at the end of the year.

Nikita Zaitsev Assigned To AHL, Two Placed On Waivers

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November 18: After clearing waivers last week. the Senators have now officially sent Zaitsev to the AHL’s Belleville Senators.

November 9: Three players have hit waivers today, including some rather expensive defensemen. Mike Reilly has been waived by the Boston Bruins for the second time this season, now that his clock needed to be reset. If a player suits up for 10 NHL games or spends 30 days on the active roster after clearing waivers, they must clear again before being sent down.

With Charlie McAvoy expected to be activated in the coming days, the Bruins needed to open a roster spot and some cap space. Reilly’s $3MM won’t come off the books entirely if sent down to the minor leagues, however, meaning the team may need to make another transaction like moving Derek Forbort to long-term injured reserve to make the financials work.

The Ottawa Senators have also placed Nikita Zaitsev and Magnus Hellberg on waivers, a disappointing outcome for the former who signed a seven-year, $31.5MM contract in 2017 only to see his play deteriorate substantially in the seasons since. Zaitsev has played in seven of the Senators games this season and saw fewer than 12 minutes of ice time last night against the Vancouver Canucks. He was on the ice for two goals against despite those limited minutes and has been unable to provide consistent defensive effort for the team.

If he clears, the veteran defenseman can be sent to the minor leagues, giving the Senators a bit of cap relief. He will still make his entire salary in the AHL, however, not something that Ottawa likes to do with high-priced talent.

Hellberg, meanwhile, seems like the most reasonable target of the three for any team that is looking for some goaltending help. Nabbed from the Seattle Kraken before the season began, he stopped 29 of 30 shots in his only appearance with the Senators and recently had a long run of success in the KHL. The 6’6″ netminder wasn’t needed anymore with Cam Talbot and Anton Forsberg healthy, but could be an asset for other teams.

Seattle Kraken Claim Magnus Hellberg

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After a short vacation in Ottawa, Magnus Hellberg is a Seattle Kraken once more. The veteran goaltender has been reclaimed by Seattle off waivers today. Mike Reilly and Nikita Zaitsev, who were on waivers with him, both cleared.

Hellberg, 31, returned from five years in the KHL last season to play one game for the Detroit Red Wings and show he was ready for an NHL job. After signing a one-way contract with Seattle in early July, he ended up on waivers as the season began. With the Senators dealing with an injury to Cam Talbot, they snagged the 6’6″ netminder but gave him just a single start. Hellberg posted a .935 save percentage in his one game, winning it.

Given the injuries to Philipp Grubauer and Chris Driedger, it always made a lot of sense for the Kraken to bring Hellberg back. The team has been relying heavily on Martin Jones through the first part of the year, who, to his credit, has posted a 7-3-1 record and .907 save percentage. Joey Daccord, the backup by default, has seen just a single appearance since Grubauer went down.

The Kraken have actually been excellent of late, winning their last five to take second place in the Pacific Division. That is despite the below-average goaltending they’ve received, a similar story to a year ago. Grubauer was brutal again to start the year and even with Jones’ better performance, they could still use a few more saves to really put them over the top. If Hellberg can show a consistent presence in the net, there is a real opportunity for him to see NHL minutes.

The team has not yet announced what their plan is for the big netminder, but if they were the only club to submit a claim, he could be assigned directly to the minor leagues without clearing again.

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