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Snapshots: Blues, Lightning, Coyotes

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Settling with Alexey Toropchenko today gave the St. Louis Blues come salary cap flexibility, says CapFriendly. Much like the Philadelphia Flyers did with Anthony DeAngelo, settling with Toropchenko, the Blues’ last remaining player who had filed for arbitration, opens a second buyout window for the team, which will open in three days and last for 48 hours. The rules for this unique buyout are limited, though – a player must have been on their reserve list at the trade deadline and must carry a cap hit of at least $4MM.

The Blues are cap-compliant but barely – CapFriendly projects them with roughly $290K in space with a full 23-player roster. They’ve expressed a clear desire to move out one of their aging top-four defensemen via trade, but nothing’s manifested yet, and it’s becoming less and less likely as the offseason trods on. It’s entirely possible general manager Doug Armstrong could choose to execute a buyout for someone like Nick Leddy, who’s struggled during his time in St. Louis and carries a $4MM cap hit through 2026. It would be a hefty buyout, running through 2028-29, but it wouldn’t carry a cap penalty of more than $2MM in any of the six seasons – it might be appealing.

More from around the NHL this weekend:

  • The Tampa Bay Lightning are also granted a second buyout window after settling with forward Tanner Jeannot before arbitration. The team has cut costs wherever possible, but they still have less than $1MM in cap space, even taking into account Brent Seabrook’s long-term injured reserve relief. Unfortunately for them, there are no possible candidates here – all of their players carrying a cap hit of $4MM are core parts of the team and won’t be considered for a buyout. General manager Julien BriseBois is prepping for another long season of cap management on a day-to-day basis.
  • PHNX Sports’ Craig Morgan today offered updates on a pair of Arizona Coyotes RFA forwards – Jan Jenik and Jack McBain. Morgan notes that Jenik’s deadline to accept his qualifying offer passed yesterday, meaning the team now has to negotiate a new deal with him to return to the desert. The 22-year-old was a 2018 third-round pick and notched 23 points in 30 games with the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners last season. Morgan also notes that there hasn’t been any progress between the Coyotes and McBain on a new contract with his arbitration hearing looming at the end of the month, although they still have about two weeks to come to a deal before the hearing.

Tampa Bay Lightning Sign Tanner Jeannot

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Back at the trade deadline, Tampa Bay paid a high price to land Tanner Jeannot from Nashville, sending five draft picks (one in each of the first five rounds over the next few years) along with defenseman Cal Foote to get him.  The team confirmed that it will be a two-year, $5.33MM contract for Jeannot, paying him an AAV of $2.665MM per season. After they put Brent Seabrook on LTIR at the beginning of the season, Tampa Bay will have just under $300K in salary cap space.

Financial terms are not yet known but it’s worth noting that Jeannot’s qualifying offer was for just under $900K.  He had filed for salary arbitration with a hearing scheduled for July 24th and it wouldn’t be surprising to see this deal check in for more than double that qualifier.  A two-year term would give Tampa Bay one extra year of team control.

The 26-year-old had a breakout campaign in 2021-22 with the Predators.  He put up 24 goals and 17 assists that year in 81 games while adding 130 penalty minutes and 318 hits.  That was enough to land him in seventh place in Calder Trophy voting for Rookie of the Year and it appeared as if the Preds had a core power forward on their hands.

That wasn’t the case in 2022-23, however.  Instead, Jeannot saw his production drop sharply with Nashville, down to five goals and nine helpers in 56 games along with 85 penalty minutes and 213 hits.  Despite that, Tampa Bay felt that he could be a difference-maker for him down the stretch and in the playoffs with the hopes that they could then make him part of their future core.

That didn’t exactly happen.  Playing through some injury woes, Jeannot was limited to just a goal and three assists in 20 games following the swap while he missed three of their six playoff games in their first-round loss to Toronto.  And with this contract more or less amounting to a second bridge deal, he isn’t exactly going to be viewed as a long-term core piece now.

Despite that, there is still some room for optimism for Jeannot with the Lightning.  He should slot in on their second or third line next season and with a full training camp under his belt in the fall along with a return to health, he should be in line for a stronger showing next season.  In an Atlantic Division that has added some toughness this summer (Ryan Reaves, Milan Lucic, and Zack MacEwen have all entered the division), Tampa Bay will be relying on Jeannot to help them on that side of the table as well.  His initial impression might not have been the most favorable but things should only be looking up from here for him.

Elliotte Friedman was the first to report the two sides agreed on a two-year deal. 

PuckPedia was the first to report the financial details of the contract. 

Filip Zadina Clears Waivers

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Chris Johnston of NorthStar Bets is reporting that Detroit Red Wings forward Filip Zadina has cleared waivers and will remain with the team. Detroit put the 2018 sixth overall pick on waivers yesterday and no team wanted to pick up the tab on his $1.825MM cap hit. Zadina has struggled to establish himself in the league putting up just 28 goals and 68 points in 190 career NHL games and while he does have the pedigree of being a recent top-10 pick in the entry draft, the on-ice results have been less than stellar.

The Athletic’s Max Bultman reported yesterday that the 23-year-old asked for a trade through his agent before the draft and Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman has been trying to accommodate Zadina’s request but has been unable to find a suitor and it’s easy to see why. Zadina had just three goals last season to go along with four assists in 30 games while averaging a tick over 13 minutes a game in ice time. By placing Zadina on waivers Detroit expanded the possibility of facilitating his move to a new team but were unable to find a taker for him and the remaining two years on his contract.

It’s a little bit surprising that none of the rebuilding teams in the league took a gamble on Zadina given his draft pedigree, but it goes to show just how little cap space there is around the league and how poor Zadina’s on-ice results have been. While his offensive play has left a lot to be desired, his analytics and fancy stats have been decent in what has been a fourth-line role for the most part. Given that he hasn’t been able to produce on the fourth line teams opted to let him pass through waivers.

It’s unclear what will happen with Zadina going forward. Detroit could welcome him back next season or may still try and facilitate a trade for another player on a bad contract. Either way, it’s become clear that both the team and the player view a fresh start as a best-case scenario.

Rudolfs Balcers Signs In Switzerland

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After a tumultuous 2022-23 season, Latvian winger Rudolfs Balcers is taking his services overseas. The 26-year-old has signed a one-year contract with ZSC Lions of the NL, Switzerland’s top men’s league.

Balcers was somewhat of a surprise entry to the unrestricted free-agent market in 2022. After scoring 11 goals and 23 points in 61 games for the San Jose Sharks, the team opted not to issue him a qualifying offer after acquiring him twice – once at the 2015 NHL Draft and again six years later on the waiver wire after trading him to the Ottawa Senators in the Erik Karlsson deal.

Balcers then signed with the Florida Panthers last summer, where he posted four points in 14 games before again being placed on waivers. The Tampa Bay Lightning took a chance on him, bringing him across the state, but he played in just three games before sustaining an upper-body injury that kept him out for more than six weeks. When he was healthy, he was waived again, cleared, and scored 15 points in 36 games down the stretch with the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch.

It was obviously a trying season for Balcers, even in the minors, where he’d broken the point-per-game threshold while a member of the Senators organization in 2019-20. An NHL return doesn’t seem out of the question down the line, but he’ll try and get his production back on track in Europe.

He joins a strong Zurich squad that includes former NHLers Sven Andrighetto, Jesper Froden, Juho Lammikko, Dean Kukan, Mikko Lehtonen, and Yannick Weber.

Wild Acquire Pat Maroon And Max Cajkovic

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The Wild have added a veteran to their forward mix as they have acquired winger Pat Maroon from Tampa Bay along with Max Cajkovic in exchange for a 2024 seventh-round pick.  Both teams have announced the swap.

Maroon spent the last four years with the Lightning, winning a pair of Stanley Cups along the way.  However, his production dropped considerably last season, going from 27 points to just 14.  Of course, Maroon is more known for his physical play and he still provides that in spades, chipping in with 172 hits and recording a league-high 150 penalty minutes.  He has one year left on his contract with a $1MM AAV.  As part of the trade, Tampa Bay is paying 20% of that money.

The 35-year-old has played in 729 career NHL contests over parts of a dozen NHL seasons, recording 117 goals, 171 assists, and 930 playoff minutes.  Maroon also has plenty of playoff experience, suiting up in 150 postseason contests where he has 51 points and 197 penalty minutes along with three Cup titles from 2019 through 2021.  He’ll take the place of Ryan Reaves on Minnesota’s fourth line after Reaves inked a three-year contract with Toronto on Saturday.

As for Cajkovic, the 22-year-old spent most of last season at the ECHL level, recording 10 goals and 17 assists in 41 games with Orlando; he suited up in just two contests with AHL Syracuse.  His placement in the trade appears to be more for opening up a contract slot for the Lightning rather than being a key component for Minnesota.  Cajkovic has one year remaining on his entry-level deal and is almost certain to be back in the minors again next season.

With the swap, Tampa Bay frees up $800K in cap flexibility.  It’s likely that they’ll put that money toward a new deal for RFA winger Tanner Jeannot.  Per PuckPedia, they have a little under $3MM in cap room (including Brent Seabrook’s LTIR savings) with the bulk of that likely being needed to lock up their key trade deadline acquisition from last season.

Tampa Bay Lightning Sign Calvin de Haan

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The Tampa Bay Lightning have signed defenseman Calvin de Haan, as first reported by Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman adds that the deal is a one-year, $775k contract. The signing has also been officially announced.

It’s a slight pay cut for de Haan, 32, who played last season on an $850k cap hit with the Carolina Hurricanes. A defenseman with nearly 600 games of NHL experience, de Haan is a former top-four rearguard who a minutes-eating defenseman for playoff teams on both the Hurricanes and New York Islanders.

Some significant injury issues sapped away much of de Haan’s foot speed, and left him a less effective two-way defenseman compared to his prime. Last season he played in 53 games and averaged a career-low 13:32 time on ice per game, though just a year before he was averaging nearly 19 minutes per night.

For a cap-strapped team like the Lightning, there are far worse options a team could have for its seventh defenseman role than de Haan. He brings experience, stability, and reliability to the role, and despite no longer being the player he once was it’s not as though he’s in his late thirties. The Lightning clearly believe he still has something to give to an NHL team, and now this one-year deal will allow de Haan to do so.

He’s got no chance of displacing Victor Hedman or Mikhail Sergachev on one of Tampa’s top two pairings, but seeing as the Lightning got hit hard by blueline injuries later in the season he’s a valuable depth player to keep around and potentially have compete with Haydn Fleury for the number-six role on head coach Jon Cooper’s defense.

Tampa Bay Lightning Sign Conor Sheary, Four Others

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The Tampa Bay Lightning are signing forwards Conor Sheary and Luke Glendening to bolster their bottom six, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports. The team announced a three-year, $2MM per season contract for Sheary. Glendening’s contract is two years at $800K per season, according to the Tampa Bay Times’ Eduardo A. Encina. They’ve also added netminder Jonas Johansson on a one-year, league-minimum deal.

They’ve also signed 2016 first-round pick Logan Brown to a one-year, two-way $775k contract, as well as forward Mitchell Chaffee to the same deal.

Heading into today’s free agency, and with the cap space situation at hand for the team, these are exactly the type of moves that Tampa was expected to make. Sheary and Glendening ultimately improve the bottom six lines, while Johansson gives the team a quality third-string backup option.

With Sheary, the Lightning should get tremendous value out of this signing. Over the last two seasons playing for the Washington Capitals, Sheary has scored 34 goals and 46 assists in just under 160 games. He became an exceptional middle-six option for the Capitals and should do the exact same in Tampa Bay.

In Glendening, the Lightning had a player that will undoubtedly help with the team’s possession numbers. Over the course of his 10-year career, Glendening has averaged a 55.7% faceoff percentage, while averaging a whopping 58.9% with the Dallas Stars alone. Already garnering a defensive unit that is one of the league’s best at moving the puck, the team will benefit greatly from having Glendening take important faceoffs.

Next, Johansson gives the team insurance if one of their regular goaltenders goes down with an injury. Spending last season primarily playing for the Colorado Avalanche’s AHL affiliate, the Colorado Eagles, Johansson sported a .920 SV% and a 2.33 GAA, helping lead his team to the 2023 Calder Cup playoffs. The Lightning are still expected to sign a more stable backup behind Andrei Vasilevskiy for the 2023-24 NHL season.

Finally, Brown adds an intriguing former top prospect for the Lightning’s development team to get their hands on. Injuries have laid waste to Brown’s development path so far but he’s been a difference-maker at the AHL level and perhaps Tampa Bay thinks they can unlock some of his upside at the NHL level.

Chicago Blackhawks Acquire, Extend Corey Perry

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06/30/23, 9:30 AM: Chicago has now officially announced that they’ve signed Perry to a one-year, $4MM deal.

06/30/23, 7:30 AM: Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that the Blackhawks have reached an agreement on a one-year contract extension with the Blackhawks. The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun confirmed that the deal is a one-year, $4MM pact, an identical deal to what Nick Foligno received from Chicago just a few days ago.

While $4MM is likely quite a bit more than what most teams would bid on Perry’s services, the Blackhawks aren’t in a similar financial position to most teams. With Perry signed to this deal they’re still projected to have over $20MM in cap space by CapFriendly, meaning they’re in a perfect position to pay veteran players high sums of money in order to convince them to play for a team barely anyone expects to make the playoffs.

More than anything else, this type of cap space allows the Blackhawks to pay higher prices for free agents in order to secure them on one-year deals, thereby saving their financial flexibility in future years where the team might have plan on making a playoff run.

06/29/23: The Chicago Blackhawks have acquired the rights to pending UFA forward Corey Perry from the Tampa Bay Lightning, sending a 2024 seventh-round pick in return.

This deal seems to fit the Blackhawks’ recent strategy of targeting respected veterans to support their growing crop of impressive prospects. Perry, 38, is a veteran of nearly 1,300 NHL games and numerous long playoff runs. While his skating ability has largely evaporated, he still has soft hands and some offensive skill, along with the edge he plays with that has become his trademark. He can still provide some value as a net-front player on a power play, and just a year ago he scored 19 goals and 40 points.

Even if Chicago gets production more in line with what Perry did this past season (12 goals, 25 points) that’s still a decent player to have on any team. The Blackhawks still need to sign Perry, of course, and Perry could always prefer to sign with a contender.

But the Blackhawks have a stockpile of cap space and the ability to offer Perry a deal he can’t refuse, meaning he’s likely to end up in Chicago, one would assume. For Tampa Bay, getting a pick (even a very late one) for a player they were not planning on extending is impossible to argue with.

Lightning Focus On Re-Signing Alex Killorn After Ross Colton Trade

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Following yesterday’s trade of forward Ross Colton, the Tampa Bay Lightning have again turned their attention towards securing a contract extension for pending unrestricted free agent winger Alex Killorn, Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic said last night. Things will likely go down to the wire, but this will be one of the tougher negotiations in recent Lightning history. Killorn has reportedly turned down a longer-term extension offer at a low average annual value.

Colorado Avalanche Acquire Ross Colton

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The Colorado Avalanche are making another significant addition to their forward group. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports that Ross Colton will be moved from the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Avalanche. The Lightning will receive the 37th overall pick in the draft in return.

Colton, 26, is a pending RFA that will be eligible for arbitration and is just one year away from potential unrestricted free agency. The fourth-round pick from 2016 is another shining success story from the Tampa Bay development pipeline, arriving late but making an immediate impact at the NHL level.

In his rookie season, Colton scored nine goals in 30 regular season games before a playoff performance to remember. He was a downright nuisance in the 2021 postseason and eventually scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal. In 2021-22, his first full season in the NHL, Colton scored 22 goals and once again was a significant contributor in the playoffs, scoring five goals (including two game-winners) during the Lightning’s run to the Finals.

While his offensive performance took a slight step back this season, Colton still provided 16 goals and 32 points in 81 games, adding 188 hits and 50 penalty minutes. A versatile, in-your-face player that can fit on a powerplay or the fourth line, he’ll help replace some of the depth the Avalanche have lost over the last few season.

The fact that Colton has some experience at center (but is not always lined up in the middle) could suggest that J.T. Compher will be headed elsewhere in free agency. After the acquisition of Ryan Johansen, Colton fits the bottom six much better than Alex Newhook, which Colorado moved to the Montreal Canadiens recently.

For Tampa Bay, there is only so much money to go around, and Colton is the latest cap casualty. His arbitration number was likely going to be too high for them to accommodate, meaning general manager Julien BriseBois will have to find another way to replace his presence in the lineup. Tanner Jeannot, acquired from the Nashville Predators for a huge haul of assets this year, may be part of that solution, given he plays a similar mix of physical hockey with offensive upside.

Jeannot is also an arbitration-eligible RFA, but coming off a much worse offensive season that will keep his number lower.

Still, the depth that was so critical to Tampa Bay’s back-to-back Stanley Cup championships is starting to be chipped away, with key pieces moving out every year. Alex Killorn, who has spent his entire career with the Lightning, is set to be an unrestricted free agent this summer after an impressive 27-goal campaign.

With that in mind, getting a relatively high pick back is an interesting result. The Lightning could use the selection to add to their prospect pool or potentially turn it around and try to acquire another inexpensive player to help keep the window open. BriseBois and company have never been shy about trading draft selections.

Getting Colton without giving up one of their two first-round picks is an impressive play by Colorado and means they could still be involved in other trades ahead of tonight’s event.

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