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Trevor Van Riemsdyk

Metropolitan Notes: Islanders, Backstrom, van Riemsdyk, Trade Interest

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Picking up eight points in their last five games, the New York Islanders were able to recorrect a tepid start to the season. Today, Stefen Rosner of The Hockey News issued some updates on several members of the Islanders team, including Bo Horvat, Scott Mayfield, and Adam Pelech.

Rosner reports that Horvat is day-to-day with an injury, it he is questionable to play in the team’s game tomorrow night against the Minnesota Wild. Being one of the most important parts of their offense, Horvat’s offensive presence will be greatly missed even for a game or two on a team that is still struggling to score goals at a high rate.

Pelech, on the other hand, already missed the team’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes two nights ago due to a lower-body injury, but Rosner indicates that he looked good at practice today, but still remains questionable for tomorrow night. Dissimilarly, Mayfield was notably absent from the team’s practice today, but Rosner confirmed it was merely a maintenance day and that Mayfield is not dealing with any sustaining injuries.

Other notes:

    • Nearly a week ago, it was reported that Washington Capitals forward, Nicklas Backstrom, would be stepping away from the team due to a lingering injury that does not appear to be going away. In an earlier report from today, Tarik El-Bashir of Monumental Sports Network relayed a message from the General Manager of the team, Brian MacLellan, who says that is ’unlikely’ that Backstrom will return to the team this year. After missing much of the season last year, it appears that Backstrom will miss nearly two full seasons of hockey due to his ongoing hip injury.
    • Sticking with the Capitals, it was apparent during their game on Saturday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets, that defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk had sustained some sort of injury. The team was hoping that it would not be a long-term injury, and after proper evaluations, Tom Gulitti of the NHL reports that van Riemsdyk is only considered day-to-day, but will not practice with the team today.
    • Only a few weeks ago, multiple reports indicated that the Capitals were very interested in the idea of acquiring forward Conor Garland from the Vancouver Canucks. Although not mentioning Garland specifically, and now factoring in the absence of Backstrom in the lineup, Ethan Cadeaux of Monumental Sports Network confirms that Washington is indeed still looking for an addition to the team’s top six forward unit, and their motivation has increased since the news from Backstrom.

Injury Notes: Vasilevskiy, Luff, Hunt, van Riemsdyk

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The Tampa Bay Lightning are without all-world netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy as the preseason schedule begins. Head coach Jon Cooper informed reporters today, including Diandra Loux of The Hockey News, that the 2021 Conn Smythe winner is day-to-day with an undisclosed injury.

“He’s wrestling with some things right now, physically,” Cooper said. “It’s early in training camp, so we don’t need to rush anything along with him. When he’s ready to go, he’ll be out there.” Vasilevskiy missing any time would certainly throw a wrench into Tampa Bay’s season, although it thankfully appears that won’t be the case. With salary cap constraints in full force, the team has quite thin goaltending depth and is opting to go with unproven Jonas Johansson as Vasilevskiy’s full-time backup, meaning his workload is in line to be as high as ever. Vasilevskiy didn’t miss any time last season due to injury, but he certainly didn’t look himself in the team’s first-round playoff loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was the worst playoff performance of his career save for 2019’s upset loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets, posting a .875 save percentage and conceding 5.4 goals above average over the course of six games.

Elsewhere in injury notes from around the league with preseason games underway this afternoon:

  • Detroit Red Wings depth forward Matt Luff left today’s intrasquad scrimmage with a right arm injury after crashing into the boards, reports The Detroit News’ Ted Kulfan. The 26-year-old right wing didn’t crack Detroit’s roster out of camp last season but was recalled after a few weeks, getting into a handful of games before sustaining a wrist injury that sidelined him for 32 games. The undrafted free agent has largely been a fringe player throughout the course of his career, often splitting time between the majors and the minors, and this season is expected to be no different. He was extremely productive in the AHL with Grand Rapids last season when healthy, recording eight goals, 17 assists and 25 points in 28 games. Set to be a restricted free agent this summer, Detroit did not issue him a qualifying offer but re-signed him before free agency opened on July 1 anyway to a league-minimum two-way deal carrying a $450K guarantee.
  • Minnesota Wild defense prospect Daemon Hunt left today’s clash against the Colorado Avalanche and has not returned with a prospective upper-body injury. As The Athletic’s Peter Baugh notes, Hunt hit the ice after an accidental collision behind the net with Avalanche forward Tanner Kero. The 65th overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, Hunt is a promising two-way defense prospect entering his second pro season with AHL Iowa. The 21-year-old recorded two goals, nine assists, 11 points, and a +2 rating in 59 contests with Iowa last season after captaining the WHL’s Moose Jaw Warriors from 2020 to 2022.
  • Washington Capitals head coach told reporters, including Monumental Sports Network’s Matt Weyrich, that he’s “concerned” about the status of defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk. The veteran right-shot defender left today’s preseason game against the Buffalo Sabres and did not return after a shot from Sabres forward Jordan Greenway struck him in the right wrist area. Van Riemsdyk will undergo further testing tomorrow to determine the severity of the injury and a potential recovery timeline. The 32-year-old is entering the first season of a three-year, $9MM extension he signed last March and is expected to start the season on the team’s third pairing alongside offseason trade acquisition Joel Edmundson.

Washington Capitals Reassign Henrik Borgstrom

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April 13: Borgstrom has been returned to the AHL after making his season debut and seeing just eight minutes of ice time.

April 11: The Washington Capitals have recalled forward Henrik Borgstrom from the AHL’s Hershey Bears, the team announced Tuesday.

Borgstrom joins the Capitals due to a rash of injuries as their season draws to a disappointing close. T.J. Oshie, Nic Dowd, Trevor van Riemsdyk, and Anthony Mantha will stay out of the lineup tonight against the Boston Bruins, per head coach Peter Laviolette. Alex Ovechkin will also sit out of the lineup, not traveling with the team due to an upper-body injury. He remains day-to-day.

With just a few days left on the 2022-23 regular season calendar, this is Borgstrom’s first recall since clearing waivers at the beginning of the year. The 25-year-old signed a one-year deal with Washington in free agency after the Chicago Blackhawks did not issue him a qualifying offer.

He’s recorded 21 points (eight goals, 13 assists) in 54 games with Hershey this season, disappointing production for the 2016 23rd overall pick. The 6-foot-3, 199-pound forward had seven points in 52 games as a full-time Blackhawk last year.

Borgstrom’s offensive production has trailed off since leaving the University of Denver in 2018, where he recorded 52 points in 40 games during his sophomore campaign. He’s managed just over 100 NHL games since then, failing to make any notable impact.

Injury Notes: Capitals, Blues, Tanev, Teravainen

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While the Washington Capitals are near the conclusion of a rare season that finds them outside the Eastern Conference’s playoff picture, the circumstances surrounding their franchise’s greatest player add more meaning to the remaining games on their schedule than those contests might have for other teams. Alex Ovechkin remains locked into his chase of Wayne Gretzky’s all-time scoring record, and until the day he passes The Great One, each Capitals game holds importance.

As a result, any injuries Capitals players suffer at this stage of the season are more meaningful than they might be for another franchise closing out a lost season. So, today’s reporting via the Washington Post’s Roman Stubbs that Capitals veterans T.J. Oshie and Trevor van Riemsdyk will not travel with the team and are each nursing upper-body injuries is notable. While the 36-year-old Oshie may not be the caliber of player he once was, he’s still a reliable contributor to the Capitals’ forward corps and his absence could make life for Ovechkin more difficult. Same for the loss of van Riemsdyk, who as a former undrafted player has carved himself a nice career as a penalty kill specialist at the age of 31.

Some other injury notes from across the NHL:

  • NHL.com’s Lou Korac relays updates from St. Louis Blues head coach Craig Berube on two of the team’s most important players. Per Berube, top center Robert Thomas is a game-time decision tonight against the Philadelphia Flyers, while the Blues’ leading scorer on a point-per-game basis, Pavel Buchnevich, remains out. Both Thomas and Buchnevich have not played since the Blues’ March 28th overtime victory over the Vancouver Canucks, and in their absence St. Louis has lost two of three games, with their sole victory coming over the last-place Chicago Blackhawks.
  • Calgary Flames head coach Darryl Sutter told the media today, including TSN Sports’ Salim Nadim Valji, that veteran defensive defenseman Chris Tanev is a game-time decision tonight against the Blackhawks. Tanev hasn’t played since March 20th, when the Flames suffered a miserable 8-2 loss in Los Angeles. With the Flames on a four-game winning streak and mounting a serious challenge to the Winnipeg Jets, getting Tanev back into the lineup would give his team a major boost. Tanev is the Flames’ leading penalty-killer by a wide margin and the experience, defensive prowess, and 20 rock-solid minutes a night he brings to the table could be just what the Calgary needs to push themselves past the Jets for the final Wild Card spot.
  • Carolina Hurricanes star forward Teuvo Teravainen remains out of the lineup for tonight’s matchup against the Ottawa Senators, marking the fourth straight game he has missed. The 28-year-old Finn has undoubtedly had a down season by his standards (just 12 goals and 36 points in 63 games played) but with both Max Pacioretty and Andrei Svechnikov out for the season, he’ll need to get back to full health and shoulder a greater offensive workload in order for the Hurricanes to stand the best chance of making a deep playoff run.

Eastern Notes: Marner, Abruzzese, Capitals

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As the Toronto Maple Leafs square off against their original six rival Detroit Red Wings, they will be without several familiar faces in the lineup. Mark Masters of TSN was the first to report that Mitch Marner would be sitting out of tonight’s game. Furthermore, Jonas Siegel of The Athletic reports that defensemen Jake McCabe and Mark Giordano will be sitting out tonight as well.

Most of this is load management as Toronto gears up for their quest for the Cup, as none of these players are expected to be out longer than a game or two. Although the Maple Leafs will not reach as many points as they did last season, they are still playing extremely good hockey. As the team looks to finally make it out of the first round, they are resting some of their top players in the stretch run. When the playoffs officially start on April 17th, the Maple Leafs will likely be facing off against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Filling in tonight for the Maple Leafs is defenseman Conor Timmins, and veteran forward Wayne Simmonds. Both Timmins and Simmonds have been used sparingly this season, as neither player has played over 30 games this season.

Other notes from the Eastern Conference:

  • Continuing with the Maple Leafs, the team announced that they have recalled forward Nicholas Abruzzese from their AHL affiliate Toronto Marlies. Abruzzese suited up in nine games for Toronto last year in the NHL, scoring a total of one goal. Playing the entirety of this season in the AHL, Abruzzesse has put up 44 points in 65 games for the Maple Leafs’ top minor league team.
  • Tom Gulitti from the NHL reports that Sonny Milano will return to the ice for the Washington Capitals in today’s game. Milano had been sidelined with an upper-body injury since the Capitals took on the Chicago Blackhawks on March 23rd. Unfortunately for Washington, forward T.J. Oshie and defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk are both sidelined with upper-body injuries. Both players have been out since the team’s March 30th game against the Lightning.

East Notes: Couturier, Van Riemsdyk, Milano, Canadiens

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Flyers center Sean Couturier had been skating for the last few weeks with the hopes of returning to the lineup before the end of the season.  Those plans have now changed as head coach John Tortorella told reporters, including Charlie O’Connor of The Athletic (Twitter link) that the 30-year-old has now been shut down for the season.  The good news for the Flyers is that Couturier hasn’t suffered a setback.  Instead, the team simply decided that there wasn’t much benefit to bringing him back for a few games and that it would be better for the veteran to simply focus on continuing to rehab the back injury that has sidelined him since training camp.  Suffice it to say, this was not the way anyone in the organization hoped that the first season of Couturier’s eight-year, $62MM contract was going to go.

Elsewhere in the Eastern Conference:

  • Capitals defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk will miss at least a week due to an upper-body injury, notes Roman Stubbs of The Washington Post (Twitter link). The 31-year-old suffered the injury late in Thursday’s game against Tampa Bay.  While Washington has struggled a bit this year, this season has been a good one individually for van Riemsdyk as he has set career highs offensively with seven goals and 23 points while averaging over 19 minutes a night for only the second time.  That helped him earn a three-year, $9MM extension last month.
  • Still with Washington, winger Sonny Milano was a full participant in practice today and is trending towards playing tomorrow, relays Matt Weyrich of NBC Sports Washington (Twitter link). The 26-year-old has been a nice bargain for the Capitals this season, collecting 32 points in 58 games, a nice return on a league minimum contract.  He, too, has a three-year extension in hand already, one that will carry a $1.9MM AAV starting next season.
  • The Canadiens announced that winger Rafael Harvey-Pinard won’t play tonight due to a minor injury. The rookie has impressed since being recalled in January, picking up 14 goals, 55 hits, and 55 blocks in 32 games.  Winger Joel Armia will return after missing more than a month with an upper respiratory infection.  Meanwhile, blueliner David Savard will miss his second straight game due to a lower-body injury.

Capitals Sign Trevor Van Riemsdyk To Three-Year Extension

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It was a bit surprising at first that the Capitals didn’t move defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk as a rental at the deadline.  However, GM Brian MacLellan said that he didn’t move him since he hoped to sign the blueliner to a new contract.  Mission accomplished on that front as the team announced they’ve signed van Riemsdyk to a three-year extension that carries an AAV of $3MM.  ESPN’s Kevin Weekes reports (Twitter link) that the deal breaks down as follows:

2023-24: $1MM signing bonus, $2.75MM salary
2024-25: $1MM signing bonus, $2MM salary
2025-26: $1.25MM signing bonus, $1MM salary

The 31-year-old is in his third season with Washington and has worked his way from being a depth defender to one that has become a quality every-game piece.  He has played in all 66 games this season – the only Capitals defender to do so – and has set new career highs in goals (seven) and points (19) while logging 19:00 per game, his highest ATOI since his first full NHL campaign back with Chicago in 2015-16.  Van Riemsdyk also leads the Caps with 146 blocked shots, good for seventh in that stat league-wide.

For those efforts, van Riemsdyk is landing a sizable raise.  The AAV on this new deal actually exceeds the total earnings that he received over his first three seasons combined; he’s wrapping up a two-year agreement that carried a cap hit of just $950K, a considerable bargain relative to his performance thus far.

Washington has been busy when it comes to the back end lately.  They moved out long-time veteran Dmitry Orlov at the trade deadline while bringing in Rasmus Sandin in a separate deal that also moved out pending UFA Erik Gustafsson.  Sandin joins Alexander Alexeyev and Martin Fehervary (both pending RFAs this summer) as 23-year-olds now playing regular roles in the lineup at the moment while they’ve now handed van Riemsdyk and Nick Jensen three-year extensions as bridge veterans that could see their playing time drop when the youngsters are ready to supplant them on the depth chart.  Those players will join John Carlson in what should be a fairly stable defense corps for 2023-24 and beyond as the Capitals look to retool fairly quickly over embarking on a longer-scale rebuild.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

East Notes: Capitals, Puljujarvi, Bertuzzi

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WonWhile the Capitals moved some of their pending unrestricted free agents and extended others, two players that are eligible to hit the open market didn’t move in winger Conor Sheary and defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk.  Speaking with reporters after yesterday’s deadline including NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti (Twitter link), GM Brian MacLellan indicated that they’d rather have the opportunity to try to re-sign the two moving forward compared to what they would have received for them in a trade.  Sheary has 30 points in 63 games this season while van Riemsdyk has a career-high 18 points while logging nearly 19 minutes a night on Washington’s back end.

Elsewhere in the East:

  • Hurricanes winger Jesse Puljujarvi will have to wait a little longer to make his Carolina debut. Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that the 24-year-old has an appointment for his work visa on Monday which means the earliest he’ll be able to suit up for his new team is Tuesday against Montreal.  Puljujarvi has 14 points in 58 games this season and the Hurricanes are hoping that a change of scenery will make him more of a consistent contributor for the stretch run.
  • Prior to moving him to Boston, the Red Wings touched base with Tyler Bertuzzi’s camp about a contract extension, GM Steve Yzerman told reporters including Kevin Allen of Detroit Hockey Now. However, those discussions didn’t go anywhere and with Detroit not wanting to run the risk of losing him in unrestricted free agency this summer, they turned around and dealt him, picking up a first-round pick in return.

Deadline Notes: Greenway, van Riemsdyk, Canucks

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The Minnesota Wild are still taking calls on Jordan Greenway, but the offers have not been enough to entice them to make a deal yet. Darren Dreger of TSN reported that the Wild are receiving interest in the young winger but are waiting for their asking price to be met.

Greenway has two more years remaining on his contract with a cap hit of $3MM. The 26-year-old forward brings plenty of size at 6’6″ but little scoring this season. He set a career-high with 32 points in just 56 games in 2020-21 but has just two goals and seven points in 45 games this season. The Wild would like to move out his contract but don’t want to give him away for nothing.

  • The Washington Capitals have been active leading up to the trade deadline. Dmitry Orlov, Garnet Hathaway, and Lars Eller have already been dealt with, but it sounds like pending unrestricted free agent Trevor van Riemsdyk is not going anywhere today. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet has reported the Capitals are keeping the right-shot defenseman due to their injury situation. He mentions the potential of a post-deadline contract extension but nothing is confirmed at this time.
  • The Vancouver Canucks may be working on something with the Florida Panthers. According to Rick Dhaliwal of the Donnie and Dhali radio show in Vancouver, the Canucks are working the phones and have been in talks with the Panthers. He also mentions it sounds like it is not a major deal, so don’t expect one of the Canucks big contracts to be heading to the Panthers.

Capitals Notes: Johansson, Stevenson, Van Riemsdyk, Defense Target

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The Capitals are among the teams that have shown interest in Kraken winger Marcus Johansson, reports TSN’s Chris Johnston (Twitter link).  The 31-year-old has had a bit of a quiet year in Seattle with six goals and 17 assists in 51 games but is someone that Washington is certainly familiar with as Johansson spent his first seven NHL seasons with the Caps.  Cap space is next to non-existent for them, however (just $63K per CapFriendly) so finding a way to fit in Johansson’s $1.5MM cap hit will be a bit tricky and Seattle has already used two of their three retention slots in the Calle Jarnkrok and Mark Giordano trades.

More from Washington:

  • The Capitals are among the teams interested in college free agent goaltender Clay Stevenson, relays Tarik El-Bashir of The Athletic (Twitter link). The 23-year-old technically just wrapped up his freshman year at Dartmouth and did well, posting a 2.70 GAA along with a .922 SV% in 23 games.  El-Bashir adds that several NHL teams are interested in the netminder.  Dartmouth isn’t among the teams in the NCAA tournament so Stevenson is someone that can sign at any time.
  • Washington has placed defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk on injured reserve, notes Roman Stubbs of the Washington Post. He suffered an upper-body injury on Friday against Carolina and will be eligible to return on Saturday against New Jersey.  The 30-year-old has played in 58 games this season, collecting 14 points while averaging nearly 18 minutes per game.
  • Stephen Whyno of the Associated Press suggests (Twitter link) that a low-cost left-shot defenseman is something Washington would like to add. Michal Kempny is up with the big club but carries a $2.5MM AAV; bringing in a lower-cost depth option could allow them to send Kempny back to the minors (pending waivers) which would help free up a little bit of cap space.

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