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Ryan Reaves To Have Hearing With Department Of Player Safety

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With the match penalty that was given to Vegas Golden Knights forward Ryan Reaves in last night’s game for kneeling on the head of Colorado Avalanche defenseman Ryan Graves comes an automatic review from the Department of Player Safety. The incident has risen to the level of supplementary discipline and Reaves will have a hearing with the league today. Of note, it does not appear to be an in-person hearing, meaning Reaves will not face a suspension greater than five games.

The incident occurred in a game that was already basically over, with Colorado holding a 6-1 lead in game one of the second-round matchup. Reaves first contacted Avalanche goaltender Philipp Grubauer, which drew a scrum, with Graves falling to the ice. Reaves appeared to force his knee down onto Graves’ head and was given a match penalty for intent to injure and two roughing penalties. The result of the incident, which included several other penalized players, was a nine-minute powerplay for the Avalanche in the third period.

Notably, Graves did not suffer a serious injury on the play. Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog believes that wasn’t for a lack of trying, telling the media including Peter Baugh of The Athletic that Reaves is “on a mission to go out there and hurt someone in the third. That’s what he does.” Colorado head coach Jared Bednar wasn’t quite as convinced, telling Baugh “I don’t think he’s out there trying to injure people on purpose” but suggested that the incident was “out of the context of the game” at that point.

Reaves was suspended in September of last year for a check to the head of Vancouver Canucks forward Tyler Motte. He was also suspended three games in 2016 for boarding Matt Tennyson, then of the San Jose Sharks.

Vegas Reassigns Cody Glass To AHL

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The Vegas Golden Knights were without Max Pacioretty, Tomas Nosek, and Ryan Reaves for their Game Six loss to the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday and will likely be without at least Reaves for a crucial Game Seven on Friday after he and rookie Peyton Krebs landed on the league’s COVID Protocol list. Pacioretty and Nosek currently remain “game-time decisions”. Vegas called upon young Cody Glass to help fill the void on Wednesday and it was expected that he would remain in the lineup for as long as necessary.

Well, that might not be the case after all. Vegas has announced this evening that Glass has been demoted to the AHL’s Henderson Silver Knights in order to take part in their Pacific Division Final match-up. While this is a pivotal game for Henderson, down 1-0 in a best-of-three series, the Knights would not be prioritizing their farm team’s success over their own. The move indicates that Glass will not be in the lineup for Vegas on Friday, as the team would not put him on short rest if they had another choice.

How will Vegas fill the gap up front then if Reaves, Pacioretty, and Nosek are unable to go? Barring a recall of offset Glass’ reassignment, the team is actually without a healthy extra forward on the roster. This could imply that the Knights expect at least one of the injured trio to be available. The team could also employ a seven-defenseman lineup or could play defender Dylan Coghlan up front, as they have previously experimented with. Whatever the decision, the pressure is on head coach Peter DeBoer to field the right lineup to get a win or else risk another first-round upset this season. The first call that he has made is that he feels his options are all better than the 2017 No. 6 overall pick. Will it pay off?

Snapshots: Ullmark, Beaulieu, Reaves, DeAngelo

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While the Sabres aren’t expected to get a contract extension in place with Linus Ullmark today, they don’t intend to move him by today’s trade deadline, reports John Wawrow of the Associated Press (Twitter link).  Instead, the team remains hopeful that they’ll be able to work out a new deal with the netminder before free agency opens up this summer.  Ullmark has had a pretty successful year with Buffalo despite all of their struggles, posting a 2.64 GAA along with a .917 SV% in 19 starts this season.  That has him positioned to land a nice increase on his current $2.6MM salary either from the Sabres or elsewhere this summer.

Elsewhere around the league:

  • The Jets have transferred Nathan Beaulieu to LTIR, CapFriendly reports (Twitter link). The defenseman had been ruled out for the season after undergoing shoulder surgery earlier this month so it was a move that could have been done at any time.  The placement adds another $1.15MM to Winnipeg’s LTIR pool, giving them just under $4.8MM in full-season cap hit that can be brought in.  That said, that number could drop a bit if they recall Kristian Vesalainen back up from the taxi squad later today; that would push Winnipeg’s spending room to a little under $4MM.
  • Golden Knights winger Ryan Reaves won’t face any supplementary discipline for his hit on Coyotes defenseman Jordan Gross yesterday, reports David Schoen of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The ruling appears to be that while there was definitely contact to the head, it was not the principal point of contact.
  • The Rangers aren’t expected to find a late trade partner for defenseman Anthony DeAngelo, tweets Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports. The blueliner hasn’t played since clearing waivers and being dismissed from the team in early February.  With another year left on his deal with a $4.8MM AAV (and a $5.3MM salary), he’s pretty much a lock to be bought out this summer.

Ryan Reaves Receives One-Game Suspension

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The Golden Knights will indeed be without winger Ryan Reaves for their series-opening game against Dallas on Sunday as the league announced that he has received a one-game suspension for an illegal check to the head of Canucks forward Tyler Motte on Friday night.  The video from the Department of Player Safety explaining their decision can be found here.

The hit occurred late in the second period and Reaves received a major and a match penalty for the hit which was reviewed and upheld by officials.  Vancouver was unable to score with the critical man advantage and ultimately fell 3-0.

With Reaves out of the lineup, Nick Cousins will likely take his place for Game One against the Stars.  He had been scratched when Tomas Nosek returned on Friday night.  He has five assists in 14 games so far this postseason while Reaves has four helpers in 15 contests.

Ryan Reaves To Have Hearing With Department Of Player Safety

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While the Golden Knights will be kicking off their Western Conference Final series against Dallas on Sunday night, they may be doing so without one of their wingers as the Department of Player Safety announced that Ryan Reaves will have a hearing today following an illegal check to the head of Vancouver’s Tyler Motte on Friday night.

The incident, which can be seen here, occurred late in the second period and Reaves received a major and a match penalty for the hit and officials upheld the call following video replay.  The match penalty triggered the automatic hearing from the league as it carries an automatic suspension pending review.

While Reaves has been a physical player throughout his 10-year NHL career, he has only been suspended once before in 2016 when he received a three-game ban for boarding in 2016 while with St. Louis.  David Schoen of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the early expectation is that Reaves will receive at least a one-game suspension for this incident.

Pacific Notes: Eriksson, Reaves, Richardson

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Near the trade deadline, the Sabres waived and sent Zach Bogosian to the AHL.  However, instead of reporting, Bogosian opted for a contract termination with an eye on resuming his NHL career and wound up in Tampa Bay shortly thereafter.  Sportsnet’s Iain MacIntyre posits that the Canucks may attempt to go down a similar path with winger Loui Eriksson.  Part of that ill-fated group of big free agent signings in 2016, Eriksson’s numbers went down as soon as he signed with Vancouver and had 72 points in his first three years combined after putting up 63 in Boston in his final year with them.  His output dipped even further this year to just six goals and seven assists in 49 games, hardly a good return on his $6MM price tag.  Once his upcoming $3MM signing bonus is paid, Eriksson will be owed just $5MM in salary over the final two years of the deal which might be enough to walk away from if he thinks he can land an opportunity with a bigger role elsewhere.

More from the Pacific Division:

  • While the Golden Knights managed to get Ryan Reaves to take a pay cut with his two-year extension earlier this week, SinBin.vegas’ Ken Boehlke argues that the team didn’t do enough to take advantage of their leverage. The winger has grown to enjoy playing in Vegas and didn’t seem to have much interest in looking elsewhere while his on-ice production isn’t the strongest either with most of his contributions coming on the physical side.  With the team being right up against the Upper Limit of the salary cap and the belief that the cap won’t be going much if at all for a few years, he suggests that they may have been better off dragging this out in the hopes of saving a bit more money in the end.
  • Coyotes center Brad Richardson told Richard Morin of the Arizona Republic that he underwent a procedure to fix a nagging injury that bothered him down the stretch. The veteran estimated that the issue prevented him from practicing over the final two months of the regular season.  While he didn’t suggest that it affected his offensive numbers, it likely was a detriment to his production as well as he dipped from 27 points in 66 games in 2018-19 to just 11 points in 59 contests this season.

Ryan Reaves Signs Two-Year Extension With Golden Knights

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Ryan Reaves has some unfinished business with the Vegas Golden Knights. Reaves has appeared with the Golden Knights for each of their three seasons, and he’ll be back for the next two, the right-winger announced himself via Twitter. The terms of the deal were revealed in the team announcement. Reaves will make $1.75MM per season.

The native Canadian entered the league in 2005 as a fifth-round draft choice of the St. Louis Blues. He made his debut with the Blues as a 24-year-0ld during the 2010-2011 season, ultimately spending seven seasons in St. Louis. The Blues traded Reaves and a 2nd round pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins in June of 2017 for a 1st rounder and Oskar Sundqvist. Reaves didn’t last a full season with the Penguins, while Sundqvist has turned himself into a rotation piece for the Blues.

The Penguins shipped Reaves to Vegas with a 4th rounder for Tobias Lindberg (who has since been traded twice more). This season, Reaves registered 15 points with 10:09 ATOI. As noted by the team in their press release, Reaves led the league in hits this season with 316 across 71 games. The 33-year-old should continue to be an active presence if/when the Golden Knights return to action.

Pacific Notes: Hall, Reaves, Edler

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It’s been three weeks since Arizona Coyotes general manager John Chayka told The Athletic that while no specifics on a contract with Taylor Hall had been discussed during the NHL suspension break, he and Hall’s agent, Darren Ferris, had been in discussion about a potential deal. The Coyotes traded for Hall in December with the hope that they would become the favorite to convince the star forward to sign with the team when he hit unrestricted free agency this offseason.

However, The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta reports that Ferris says that he has not been approached by Chayka regarding contract talks during the break, putting even more confusion on whether Hall will choose Arizona as his long-term home. Hall has fared well with 10 goals and 27 points in 35 games with the Coyotes, but those are hardly numbers of a star player, although there is some transition time expected of any player when traded to a new team. However, the team also didn’t show much improvement with Hall in the lineup with the team going 14-17-4 during that time, although the team did have some goaltending issues during that time.

Hall is looking for a long-term deal in the range of seven or eight years, potentially around $10MM per season. The Coyotes are already right up against the cap and have little coming off their books next season, which might require Chayka to shake up their roster a bit if they want to retain Hall.

  • The Athletic’s Jesse Granger (subscription required) analyzes some the chances that the Vegas Golden Knights will bring back each of their pending unrestricted free agents, noting that there is a strong likelihood that the team will retain forward Ryan Reaves, who was heavily recruited two years ago when he was a free agent. Reaves signed a two-year, $5.5MM deal to return to Vegas, but now at age 33, is likely going to be willing to take less to stay with the Golden Knights. He is rooted in Vegas as a fan favorite, who has his own beer company in the city and he holds more endorsements than any other Vegas player. He tallied eight goals and 15 points in 71 games this year to go with a league-leading 316 hits.
  • The Athletic’s Harman Dayal (subscription required) looks at the Vancouver Canucks’ possession statistics and how the play of rookie defenseman Quinn Hughes has made quite the difference. However, Dayal does note that one player who has seen a significant decline in play last year was Alexander Edler, who had the lowest possession exit percentage among team defensemen with just 25.8 percent (compared to Hughes’ 48.1 percent). With the league average at 34.6 percent, Edler’s numbers have been in decline for a couple of years now. He is currently in the middle of a two-year, $12MM contract.

Morning Notes: Gillis, Vlasic, Reaves

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Former Canucks GM Mike Gillis would like to return to the NHL but in a different capacity.  He told Sportsnet’s Luke Fox that he’d like to be involved in more of a bigger picture type of role, ranging from general organizational development to analytics and much more.  Those types of positions don’t tend to come available all that often but now that Gillis has made it known that he’s looking to return, perhaps an opportunity will arise.

Gillis also addressed the report from last offseason that suggested he could be in line to replace former Vancouver president Trevor Linden.  He denied the idea that he had been approached about taking that job; in the end, GM Jim Benning ultimately assumed Linden’s old responsibilities.

More news from around the hockey world:

  • While some college players have been looking to jump to the pro level quickly, don’t expect that to be the case for Blackhawks prospect Alex Vlasic. He told Charlie Roumeliotis of NBC Sports Chicago that he expects to spend at least two years and maybe three with Boston University before looking to sign his entry-level deal.  Vlasic was Chicago’s second-round pick last month and as a tall defenseman, the slower development path certainly makes some sense for him.  OHL London has his junior rights but at this point, it doesn’t appear as if he’s interested in going that route.
  • The Flames added some grit in yesterday’s acquisition of winger Milan Lucic but they’ve been on the lookout for a physical presence for a while now. Sportsnet’s Eric Francis reports that Calgary believed they had a deal in place with winger Ryan Reaves last summer before he changed his mind and opted to re-sign with Vegas instead.  Considering the Golden Knights still need to shed some salary, it’s likely that they would have spoken with the Flames about Reaves although with Lucic now in the fold, that’s probably doubtful to happen at this point.

Snapshots: Lehner, No. 31 Pick, Bruins

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By all accounts, Robin Lehner is the second-best goalie on the free agent market behind Sergei Bobrovsky. His most recent team, the New York Islanders, need a starting goalie and if it’s not Bobrovsky, they can’t do any better on the open market than re-signing Lehner. So why hasn’t a deal come together yet? Well, it’s not Lehner who’s to blame. Speaking at the NHL Awards media availability today, Lehner spoke honestly about wanting to return to New York, as relayed by NHL.com’s Dan Rosen. Lehner said that he does not want to be a UFA and hopes to re-sign with the Islanders before July 1st. He even went so far as to say that the term of the extension does not matter; he would be willing to sign a short-term or long-term deal to remain in New York. If Lehner wants to return and term doesn’t matter, that would seemingly imply that either GM Lou Lamoriello and the Isles want to explore other options or they aren’t satisfied with Lehner’s salary demands. Regardless, it seems unlikely that they will find a better and easier fit than simply re-signing the 27-year-old. In his own words, Lehner expressed his hope that he will don an Islanders jersey again next season and beyond:

I know the team knows where I stand and I just hope something works out… I like the people there. I love my teammates. I love the organization. So obviously I want to be back.

  • The Athletic’s John Vogl writes that the Buffalo Sabres will be tempted to trade away the final pick of the first round of the NHL Draft on Friday night. In such a deep draft class, the No. 31 represents the last opportunity for a team to trade back into the first round before more than 12 hours pass before the start of Day Two, during which time teams will be able to talk more in-depth about trades to move up in the second round for the top available prospects. Seeing as the Sabres will have already picked in the first round – their own selection coming at No. 7 – the team may be willing to move back and recoup more picks if they aren’t in love with any player available at the end of the first. There has been speculation that teams may try to trade back in to get in front of the start of the next tier of centers that could open the second round. Vogl writes that previous deals where a team has dealt away the final first-rounder have been a toss-up and the Sabres return will largely dictate whether it’s a smart move. In a deep draft in which the Sabres are without a second-round pick, potentially picking up multiple mid-round picks could be a smart move. So long as Buffalo is able to do better than the last team to deal away the final pick – the Pittsburgh Penguins sent theirs and Oskar Sundqvist to the St. Louis Blues for Ryan Reaves and a second-rounder in 2017 – they should consider a move.
  • As if the Boston Bruins’ first list of post-playoff injuries wasn’t bad enough, the team has since updated even more injuries. In addition to a fractured jaw and lower-body injury, captain Zdeno Chara will also require surgery on his elbow to clean up loose fragments. The 42-year-old was miraculously playing through several injuries in the postseason, but fortunately none are expected to impact the start of next season. Joakim Nordstrom, another key playoff contributor, was playing through a foot fracture in the Stanley Cup Final, but it will merely require rest to heal. Finally, the team announced that Anders Bjork, who missed the second half of the season following shoulder surgery, is recovering well and should be ready for the start of the season. If Bjork can get up to speed, he should challenge for a roster spot in Boston next season. Chris Wagner also stated that he had surgery to repair a broken arm suffered in the Eastern Conference Final, but was shockingly able to rehab in a few weeks time and was actually cleared to play in Game Seven of the Stanley Cup, but it was a coach’s decision that he sit. In one final update, the team revealed that John Moore has been scheduled for surgery next week to repair a broken humerus. Moore suffered the injury in the regular season finale, but somehow played ten playoff games nevertheless. Of all of the Bruins’ reported injuries, including Kevan Miller’s twice-broken knee cap and Brad Marchand’s barrage of muscle damage, Moore’s has to be considered the worst. It will require four to six months of rehab, meaning Moore is very doubtful for the start of the season and may need some luck to play again before the end of the calendar year.

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