- After missing Tuesday’s practice due to illness, Canucks center Elias Pettersson will play tonight in their series opener, mentions Thomas Drance of The Athletic (Twitter link). Head coach Rick Tocchet also ruled out any speculation that the illness designation was covering up an injury. Pettersson had a strong regular season with 89 points in 82 games but was quiet in the first round, being held to just three assists in six contests against Nashville.
Canucks Rumors
Snapshots: AHL, Bennett, Lekkerimaki
The AHL will remain under stable leadership for next season and beyond. Current league president and CEO Scott Howson was on an expiring contract entering next season, but the AHL’s Board of Governors announced today that he’s agreed to a multi-year extension.
Before assuming his current role in 2020, the 64-year-old Howson was a mainstay in NHL front offices. Nearly a decade after his brief playing career concluded in 1986, Howson was appointed as the general manager of the Oilers’ AHL affiliate, then in Cape Breton, in 1994. He continued in the role when Edmonton reached an affiliation agreement with the Hamilton Bulldogs in 1996, and he was eventually promoted to an AGM role with the Oilers’ NHL staff in 2000.
He got his first shot as an NHL GM after helping construct the Edmonton squad that reached the 2006 Stanley Cup Final, signing on as the Blue Jackets’ GM for 2007-08. He lasted there for more than five seasons until he was fired shortly into the lockout-constricted 2012-13 season. Howson then immediately returned to Edmonton as a pro scout and eventually became their director of player development in 2017 before leaving for his AHL president/CEO role during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other news and notes from around hockey:
- Panthers forward Sam Bennett remains out for Game 2 against the Bruins tonight as Florida looks to tie the series. But the top-six center may not miss much more time with his upper-body injury and could return when the series shifts to Boston for Games 3 and 4, per The Hockey News’ David Dwork. Bennett, 27, had a goal and assist against the Lightning in the first round before leaving with injury partway through Game 2. He’s now missed more than two weeks of action but has officially been upgraded to day-to-day.
- Canucks top forward prospect Jonathan Lekkerimäki is back with AHL Abbotsford for their playoff run, the team confirmed today. Lekkerimäki, 19, was assigned to Abbotsford in March to make his North American professional debut but was loaned to the Swedish national team in mid-April in advance of the 2024 World Championship. He didn’t make the cut for the final roster, though, and will suit up in a must-win Game 3 tonight against the Ontario Reign to keep their season alive. The 2022 first-round pick had a goal and an assist for Abbotsford during his earlier brief stint.
Pacific Notes: Demko, Karlsson, Kraken
Frank Seravalli of DailyFaceoff is reporting that Vancouver Canucks goaltender Thatcher Demko will be out of the lineup through at least game 4 of the Canucks second-round series against the Edmonton Oilers. The netminder is making progress and is back on the ice skating, but his earliest return would be for game 5.
The 28-year-old hasn’t played since suffering a lower-body injury in game 1 of the Canucks first-round series against the Nashville Predators. His work in practice thus far has consisted of skating sprints, working side-to-side, and some work on his butterfly. The Vezina Trophy finalist hasn’t taken part in any live drills as of yet, but if he continues to progress it could happen sooner than later.
In other Pacific Division notes:
- Vegas Golden Knights forward William Karlsson told reporters today that his hamstring bothered him through the first round of the playoffs and caused issues with his skating. The lower-body issue didn’t keep Karlsson out of the lineup, but it certainly limited the 31-year-old’s effectiveness as he posted just two assists in seven playoff games after registering 30 goals and 30 assists in 70 regular season games. Karlsson has three years remaining on his eight-year $47.2MM contract and will likely continue to be a middle-six option for Vegas next season.
- Geoff Baker of The Seattle Times writes that the Seattle Kraken ownership group continues to discuss a new umbrella company that would encompass the Kraken, major projects, as well as a potential NBA team in Seattle. The NBA is eyeing expansion in the near future and the city of Seattle as well as Las Vegas are reportedly among the frontrunners to land an expansion team. Seattle has been without an NBA team since the SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City back in 2008, but with the Kraken making moves to form an umbrella company it would put them in a good position to enter into NBA expansion.
Afternoon Notes: Faksa, Demko, Kampf
The Dallas Stars will be adding forward Radek Faksa back to the lineup ahead of Sunday’s Game 7, head coach Peter DeBoer confirms to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman (Twitter link). Faksa was injured late in Game 2, leaving with an injury that remains undisclosed. He’s been a game-time decision in all four games since – finally getting upgraded to game-ready this weekend. Faksa is coming off his second 19-point season in the last three years and hasn’t been able to change his stat line in two postseason appearances so far.
Faksa’s return will bump young winger Ty Dellandrea back out of the lineup. The 23-year-old has scored one goal in four appearances this series, adding to the three goals he managed in 15 playoff games last season. Interestingly, he’s still searching for his first postseason assist. He’ll now move to a skybox that will also feature Mason Marchment, who DeBoer confirmed remains out with an undisclosed injury. While Faksa’s return is timely ahead of a Game 7 that’s sure to be gritty, it’s the 20-goal-scoring Marchment that could bring substantial reinforcements in Round 2. He has one goal in two playoff games so far this Spring.
Other notes from around the league:
- To no surprise, Vancouver Canucks head coach has ruled Vezina-finalist Thatcher Demko out of the second round’s Game 1, per Sportsnet’s Brendan Batchelor (Twitter link). Demko is missing time with a knee injury suffered ahead of the first round’s Game 2. He carries a week-to-week designation and isn’t expected to return any time soon, although he is traveling with the team. Arturs Silovs has risen to notoriety in Demko’s place, posting his first career shutout in the series-clinching Game 6. Silovs should remain Vancouver’s starter until Demko is ready to suit up again. He’ll be backed up by Casey DeSmith and Nikita Tolopilo.
- Toronto Maple Leafs forward David Kampf has been added to Team Czechia’s roster ahead of the 2024 IIHF World Championship, shares the team (Twitter link). Kampf’s season just came to a close, as Toronto was bested by the Boston Bruins in Game 7. Kampf posted just one goal in seven playoff appearances – matching his measly 19 points in 78 games during the regular season. He’ll have to put that tough loss behind him, now headed towards his second appearance at Worlds. Kampf previously posted three points in six games during the 2022 World Championship.
NHL Announces Finalists For 2024 Lady Byng Trophy
The NHL continues to announce the finalists for their end-of-season awards. Today, they revealed the three contenders for the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, given annually to “the player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability”. The finalists are Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews, Canucks center Elias Pettersson, and Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin.
This is the third time that Matthews is up for the award, having finished second in voting in 2019-20 and third in 2020-21. The 26-year-old led the NHL in goals for the third time in four years this season, notching a career-best 69 along with 107 points, also a new personal best, helping lead Toronto to their eighth straight playoff appearance. He had 20 penalty minutes this season despite having the seventh-most ice time among all NHL forwards; that PIM total was the lowest among the NHL’s top-15 scorers.
Pettersson, meanwhile, is up for the award for the first time and is the first Canucks nominee in franchise history. While the 25-year-old saw his numbers dip this year compared to last season, he still managed to finish third on Vancouver in goals (34), assists (55), and points (89). Pettersson took just six minor penalties this season and finished 19th in total ice time for forwards.
As for Slavin, he’s a finalist for the Lady Byng for the third time. He won in 2020-21 and finished second in voting the following year. The 30-year-old has yet to reach the 20-PIM mark in a single season in his nine-year career and was assessed just four minors this season for the second straight year. Slavin logged just shy of 21 minutes a night on the back end for the Hurricanes, one of the top defensive units in the NHL this season. His penalty minute total is the lowest among players who logged at least 1,600 minutes of ice time this season.
The award was voted on by members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association at the end of the regular season. The winner will be revealed next month.
NHL Announces Finalists For 2024 Jack Adams Award
The Jets’ Rick Bowness, the Predators’ Andrew Brunette and the Canucks’ Rick Tocchet are this year’s finalists for the Jack Adams Award, the league announced Friday. The honor is given to the head coach who “contributed the most to his team’s success.”
We’ll have a first-time winner for the fifth year in a row. Last year’s recipient was Bruins bench boss Jim Montgomery, who led Boston to the best regular season in league history (.823 points percentage) since the Canadiens’ 60-8-12 (.825 points percentage) run in 1976-77.
Bowness, 69, is by far the most veteran option among the finalists. A good portion of his 30-plus years behind an NHL bench has been spent as an assistant, but he’s still managed 310 wins and 803 regular-season games coached as a head coach. After guiding Winnipeg to only its second 100-point season in franchise history with a 52-24-6 record, Bowness is the first Jets/Thrashers coach to be nominated for the Jack Adams in franchise history.
Brunette is also gunning for his first Coach of the Year honor despite holding less than two full seasons as a head coach. Both have yielded great results, though, guiding the Panthers to the 2022 Presidents’ Trophy after taking over for John Quenneville early in the season. He was back in a head coaching role this year, taking over behind the Predators’ bench and guiding what many viewed to be a fringe team to a 99-point season, including a franchise-record 18-game point streak from Feb. 17 to March 26. Nashville’s 47-30-5 record placed them in the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference, returning to postseason play after missing out in 2023.
The 60-year-old Tocchet rightfully gets a nod here in his first full season as head coach of the Canucks. Vancouver was arguably the league’s most surprising team this season, especially considering their level of dominance. They weren’t just a playoff team like some had hoped for at the beginning of the year – they were one of the best in the league for long stretches, finishing with a 50-23-9 record and their first division title in 11 years. The Canucks’ 109 points were their most since hitting 111 in the 2011-12 campaign.
Canucks Reassign Vasily Podkolzin
Right winger Vasily Podkolzin has been reassigned to AHL Abbotsford, the Canucks announced Wednesday. He’d been a healthy scratch for all five games of Vancouver’s first-round series against the Predators thus far, but he’ll now see postseason action in Abbotsford’s Pacific Division Semifinal series against the Ontario Reign, which begins tonight.
Podkolzin spent most of the season in the minors but was recalled shortly before the trade deadline, spending most of March and all of April on the major league roster. After accumulating two assists in 18 NHL regular-season games, the Canucks inked him to a two-year, $2MM extension on the morning of his 19th and final appearance this season.
The 22-year-old is two years removed from a solid rookie season, finishing ninth on the Canucks in scoring in 2022 with 14 goals and 26 points in 79 contests. He’s struggled to hold a full-time role since, however, playing only 58 NHL games over the past two seasons compared to 72 in the minors.
Vancouver’s 10th overall pick in 2019 was always projected as more of a power forward and wasn’t expected to log huge point totals, but he’s done very little over the past few years to challenge for even a consistent middle-six role. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been any promising signs, though. Despite his limited offense this season, he was more involved physically than he’s ever been, averaging 3.68 hits per game.
Hits aren’t always a good indication of defensive success, but it was in this case, as his checking ability helped limit opponents’ ability to generate shot attempts. His possession impacts were good as a result, posting a 52.7 CF% and 53.1 xGF% at even strength, per Hockey Reference. That should give Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet some confidence that he can be deployed effectively in a fourth-line role to begin next season as his seven-figure cap hit kicks in. For now, though, he joins Abbotsford for its playoff run after totaling 15 goals and 28 points in 44 regular-season games.
NHL Announces 2024 Norris Trophy Finalists
The Canucks’ Quinn Hughes, the Predators’ Roman Josi and the Avalanche’s Cale Makar are this year’s Norris Trophy finalists for the league’s top defenseman, as announced today. Technically awarded “to the defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position,” the Norris, like many others, is voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association after the regular season concludes.
Hughes, 24, isn’t just a finalist for the first time – he’s the first Canucks defenseman in franchise history to be named one. He has earned consideration in three of the past four seasons, placing 15th in voting in 2020, 13th in 2022, and ninth in 2023.
The 2018 seventh-overall pick is coming off a franchise-defining season, logging a Vancouver-record 75 assists and 92 points in 82 games that also led defenders league-wide. A first-year captain, Hughes averaged 24:41 per game, tying him for tenth in the league with Penguins blue-liner Kris Letang, and led all NHL defensemen with 54 even-strength points. He also had the most dominant possession season of his career, with Vancouver controlling 57.5% of shot attempts and 54.3% of expected goals with Hughes on the ice at even strength, per Hockey Reference.
Josi, 33, finished third among defensemen in points with 85 in 82 games but led outright in goals with 23. This is his third time being a finalist for the award, winning back in 2020 and finishing second to Makar in 2022. He’s now cracked the point-per-game plateau twice in the past three years and took the most shots of any blue-liner this season with 268, ahead of the Sabres’ Rasmus Dahlin by more than 30. Like Hughes, he’s coming off the best possession season of his career, posting a 54.5 CF%, 5.1 relative CF%, and a 53.8 xGF% at even strength.
Makar, 25, led defenders in points per game this season but missed five games due to injury, placing him second in points behind Hughes with 90 in 77 games. It’s his fourth straight season as a finalist for the award, but compared to his peers mentioned here, may have the worst case for satisfying the “all-around ability” stipulation this season.
He had a quietly average season at even strength by his standards, getting a higher share of his point production on the power play compared to Hughes and Josi. His possession numbers weren’t all that different from Colorado’s averages, either. His 53.0 CF% at even strength was his lowest since his rookie season, and his 0.3 relative CF% was a career-low outright. That led Colorado to reassign some of his 5-on-5 minutes elsewhere – his overall average ice time dropped from 26:23 in 2022-23 to 24:46 this season without any significant changes in his usage on special teams.
The league hasn’t yet announced the date when award winners will be revealed.
DeSmith Has Lower-Body Injury, Could Backup Tonight
Former Pittsburgh Penguins prospect Kasper Bjorkqvist has signed with Ilves in Finland’s Liiga (according to Seth Rorabaugh of Tribune-Review Sports). The 26-year-old has spent the past two seasons in Finland after spending parts of three years in the Penguins organization where he largely played in the AHL with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
Bjorkqvist was the Penguins’ second-round pick in 2016 (61st overall) but was never able to find his offensive game as a professional in North America tallying just 10 goals and four assists in 65 career AHL games. He was able to get into six NHL games during the 2021-22 season, posting a single goal. Since returning to Finland two years ago to play with Kärpät, Bjorkqvist has dressed in 82 games tallying nine goals and 14 assists.
While he will remain in Finland in the near future, Bjorkqvist’s NHL rights will remain with the Penguins.
In other evening notes:
- Vancouver Canucks play-by-play voice Brendan Batchelor tweeted that Canucks goaltender Casey DeSmith has a lower-body injury but should be good to backup for the Canucks tonight when they try to end their first-round series against the Nashville Predators. DeSmith practiced with the Canucks this morning, but it appeared in the game day skate that Artūrs Šilovs would be the starting goalie for Game 5. There is a possibility that DeSmith could start tonight, but Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet stopped short of announcing his starting goalie.
- Colorado Avalanche prospect Zakhar Bardakov has reportedly signed a one-year extension with SKA St. Petersburg of the KHL. The 23-year-old was drafted by the New Jersey Devils in the seventh round of the 2021 NHL entry draft (203rd overall) and has yet to sign an ELC with the Avalanche after he was traded on March 1st of this year along with a seventh-round pick in exchange for Kurtis MacDermid. While Bardakov has signed in the KHL for another season, he could come to North America in 2025. Bardakov posted six goals and six assists in 51 regular season games last season with SKA.
NHL Announces 2024 Vezina Trophy Finalists
The NHL has revealed the finalists for the 2024 Vezina Trophy, awarded each year to the top player at the goaltending position. Boston Bruins goaltender Linus Ullmark took home the award last year, after backing a historically-strong Bruins season.
This year’s finalists are the Winnipeg Jets’ Connor Hellebuyck, the Florida Panthers’ Sergei Bobrovsky, and Vancouver Canucks’ Thatcher Demko.
Hellebuyck likely leads the pack, after vindicating his six-year extension signed last summer by leading all goalies with 30 or more appearances in save percentage. Hellebuyck posted 37 wins and a .921 save percentage in 60 starts this season, already winning the William M. Jennings Trophy alongside batterymate Laurent Brossoit for the highest save percentage from a goaltending tandem. It was Hellebuyck’s highest save percentage since the 2017-18 season when he posted a .924 in 67 appearances. Hellebuyck finished second in Vezina voting that season, and went on to win the award following the 2019-20 season. He’d become the fifth netminder to win the award multiple times since 2000, should he take home hardware this summer.
Hellebuyck would join a list of repeat winners that already contains Sergei Bobrovsky, who won the award in the 2013 and 2017 season, both with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Bobrovsky could be on track to hear his name once again, following a smash year with the Florida Panthers that saw him post 36 wins and a .915 save percentage in 58 games. While Bobrovsky’s time in Florida hasn’t always gone smoothly, he seemed to rediscover his groove this season, looking dialed-in from the start to the end. He’s now poised to stamp his place in history, with the potential to become just the third goalie since 2000 to win the award three-or-more times. He’d join legendary goaltenders Dominik Hasek and Martin Brodeur in the accolade, should he win.
And while Hellebuyck and Bobrovsky have strong cases to return to the podium, Thatcher Demko could be poised to squash their reunion and becoming the 11th-different player to win the award in as many years. Demko was a cornerstone piece of Vancouver’s surprising run to the top of the standings, posting 37 wins and a .918 save percentage in 51 games. Demko missed 14 games with a knee injury near the end of the regular season, limiting his chance to put a bow on his standout season, but his performances aren’t going unrecognized, with this being his first time as a Vezina finalist.
The award will be announced at the NHL Awards this summer. That event is still pending a time and location.