In a report today, Rick Dhaliwal of The Athletic mentions that the Vancouver Canucks are one of the teams checking in on the three-time Stanley Cup champion. If Kessel can regain form relatively quickly, the Canucks could field one of the deepest teams entering the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs, especially after having acquired Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov this year via trade. It is important to note that from 2015-17, Kessel played under the current Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet when Tocchet was an assistant coach for the Pittsburgh Penguins from 2014-2017.
Canucks Rumors
Linus Karlsson Returned To Abbotsford
- Linus Karlsson’s frequent roster shuffling continues as today, the Canucks announced (Twitter link) that the center has been returned to AHL Abbotsford. It’s the fourth re-assignment to the minors in a little over three weeks, even with the All-Star break. Karlsson has played in four games with Vancouver so far while often being recalled to serve as the emergency option should a forward become unavailable close to game time. Meanwhile, in the minors, the 24-year-old has 27 points in 30 games.
Canucks Recall Linus Karlsson
The Edmonton Oilers have announced the recall of forward Dylan Holloway from their AHL affiliate in Bakersfield. Holloway returned from a lower-body injury just before the NHL All-Star break and spent the break with the Condors where he tallied two goals and two assists in four games.
The former 14th overall pick had a poor start to the NHL season as he went pointless in his first dozen games and had just a single goal in his first 14 games. After his return from injury, he was much more effective with a goal and an assist in just four games before his AHL assignment.
With Holloway back, the Oilers will be looking to tie an NHL record with their 17th consecutive victory when they take on the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday night.
In other Western Conference notes:
- The Vancouver Canucks recalled forward Linus Karlsson from the Abbotsford Canucks of the AHL. Karlsson has been sent back and forth multiple times throughout the regular season and will have another NHL opportunity after having gone a month since last dressing for Vancouver. The 24-year-old had a solid January with three goals in five AHL games and is having a good season overall with 10 goals and 17 assists in 30 games. At the NHL level, Karlsson has dressed in four games but is still in search of his first career point.
- The Minnesota Wild placed forward Pat Maroon on the injured reserve today as he deals with an undisclosed injury he suffered back on January 27th. Maroon has had his name thrown around ib trade rumors as of late as he is in the last year of his two-year contract and could be a valuable depth addition to a team. Maroon has four goals and 12 assists in 49 games in his first season with the Wild and could add valuable experience to a team in need of leadership and toughness. Maroon won three Stanley Cups in a row from 2019-2022 with the St. Louis Blues and Tampa Bay Lightning.
Elias Pettersson Wins Passing Challenge Event At Skills Competition
The NHL’s All-Star Skills Competition was held on Friday night in a revamped format that saw a dozen players compete in a head-to-head format while taking part in at least four of the events. Oilers center Connor McDavid took home the title and $1MM while the rest of the results were as follows.
Fastest Skater: McDavid (Oilers, 13.408 seconds)
One-Timers: Nathan MacKinnon (Avalanche, 23 points)
Passing Challenge: Elias Pettersson (Canucks, 25 points)
Hardest Shot: Cale Makar (Avalanche, 102.56 mph)
Stick Handling: McDavid (Oilers, 25.755 seconds)
Accuracy Shooting: McDavid (Oilers, 9.158 seconds)
One-On-One: William Nylander (Maple Leafs, 9 points), Alexandar Georgiev (Avalanche, 9 saves)
Obstacle Course: McDavid (Oilers, 40.666 seconds)
Other early news from around the hockey world:
- Former Bruins goaltender Blaine Lacher passed away on Friday at the age of 53, the team announced (Twitter link). Lacher made an immediate impact in the NHL, coming up as Boston’s starter in the lockout-shortened 1994-95 campaign, putting up a 2.41 GAA in 35 games to earn him a top-five finish in Calder Trophy voting. However, Lacher only made seven appearances at the top level after that. No cause of death was revealed.
- On Friday, the NHLPA expressed its frustration with Arizona’s search for a new arena site, stating that they’ve missed two deadlines already while not engaging with the PA on numerous fronts. However, it appears the team remains on track to purchase a parcel of land as the team confirmed (Twitter link) a report from ABC15’s Taylor Rocha that they are moving forward with a plan to buy in North Phoenix. At this point, multiple arena sites are still being considered which means we’re still likely a little while away from having more clarity on that front.
Flames And Canucks Also Discussed Chris Tanev
The Flames and Canucks had discussions about including Chris Tanev in Wednesday’s Elias Lindholm trade, reports TSN’s Darren Dreger (Twitter link). However, in the end, he was pulled out of those discussions with Calgary deciding it was better to move him in a separate swap. Tanev, a top shutdown defenseman, is expected to be one of the most sought-after blueliners heading into next month’s trade deadline with as many as ten teams believed to be interested. He’s on an expiring contract with a $4.5MM AAV and while the Flames got away without retaining in the Lindholm trade (or the Nikita Zadorov one earlier this season), it feels like there’s a good chance they’ll need to pay this contract down up to the maximum of 50% if they’re going to maximize their return.
Afternoon Notes: Lindholm, Zellweger, Hertl
The Vancouver Canucks are hoping that Elias Lindholm can stick around, with the team’s President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford sharing that, “Lindholm could be a rental. He could be a long-term guy. In an ideal world, we’d like to keep him.” The Canucks acquired Lindholm on Wednesday, sending the Calgary Flames Andrei Kuzmenko, Hunter Brzustewicz, Joni Jurmo, and a first and fourth-round draft pick in return.
Lindholm’s contract extension has been heavily discussed throughout the season, with reports from the summer sharing that he could be asking for as much as $9MM per year on a new deal. That’s likely changed after what’s been a slow season for Lindholm, who has only managed nine goals and 32 points through 49 games – continuing his decline in scoring since scoring a career-high 42 goals and 82 points in 82 games during the 2021-22 season. The 29-year-old will look to regain his former scoring touch – and his value on an extension – now on a Vancouver Canucks team that ranks second in the league in scoring.
Other notes from around the league:
- The Anaheim Ducks have sent top defensive prospect Olen Zellweger to the minor leagues. This move is likely to get Zellweger ice time while the Ducks have an eight-day break for the All-Star Break. Zellweger has appeared in the first four NHL games of his career since getting the first recall of his career on January 23rd. He’s recorded one assist and a +2 in those outings, still looking for the first goal of his career. The 20-year-old is in his first pro season, after spending the last four seasons in the WHL. He’s had a hot start to his professional career, ranking third among rookie AHL defensemen in scoring with 25 points through 34 games.
- Top San Jose Sharks forward Tomas Hertl, who has been out for the team’s last two games, shared with media that he will play in Saturday’s NHL All-Star Game. This will be Hertl’s return from a lower-body injury that’s held him out since January 27th. The 30-year-old has scored 15 goals and 34 points through 48 games this season, leading the Sharks in both categories.
Vancouver Canucks Acquire Elias Lindholm
The Vancouver Canucks announced that the team has acquired forward Elias Lindholm from the Calgary Flames. In return, the Canucks will send Andrei Kuzmenko, Hunter Brzustewicz, and Joni Jurmo, a first-round pick in 2024, and a conditional fourth-round pick in 2024. The Flames have also confirmed the deal.
Being a part of the Flames organization for the better parts of six seasons, Lindholm has turned into an effective two-way threat across the league. During his time in Calgary, Lindholm played in a total of 418 regular season games, scoring 148 goals and 357 points in the process. His best offensive output came during the 2021-22 season, scoring 42 goals and 82 points in all 82 games, helping the Flames finish third place in the Western Conference.
With their eyes already set on the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs in this deal, Lindholm brings limited postseason experience. Over his five full seasons in Calgary, Lindholm managed to take part in the postseason in three of those seasons, going as far as the Western Conference semi-finals. In 27 postseason games, Lindholm has scored eight goals and 17 points as well as a 55.5% success rate on the faceoff date, a bit of an improvement over his 53.3% regular season average throughout his career.
It will be interesting to see how exactly the Canucks deploy Lindholm, as J.T. Miller has shown considerable effectiveness as the team’s second-line center. With Lindholm’s versatility up and down the lineup, the team may opt to move either player to the wing to keep them both in the top six. Nevertheless, now tied at the top of the league standings, it will be increasingly difficult for any opponent to match up against a combination of Lindholm, Miller, Elias Petterson, and Brock Boeser on any given night. 
After the deal was first reported, Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic reported that no extension talks have been discussed between Lindholm and the Canucks. If Vancouver is indeed viewing him as a rental, the Flames received quite a haul for an asset the Canucks may only have for a few months.
Originally, Calgary was reportedly on Kuzmenko’s 12-team no-trade list, but LeBrun later confirmed that Kuzmenko signed off on his inclusion in the deal. Not fitting into Rick Tocchet’s system in Vancouver, the Canucks have been looking to move on from Kuzmenko for nearly the whole season.
In the first season of a two-year, $11MM extension signed with Vancouver last season, Kuzmenko brings much-needed offensive prowess to the top of the Flames’ lineup. In a forgotten season last year for the organization, Kuzmenko finished fourth on the team in scoring, putting up 39 goals and 74 points in 81 games.
Setting aside some healthy scratches earlier in the year, Kuzmenko has still produced respectably this season, scoring eight goals and 21 points in 43 games. Furthermore, Kuzmenko’s powerplay abilities have led him to 17 goals already in his young career, which should help a Flames powerplay unit that currently sits 29th in the NHL.
As far as the prospects heading to Alberta, Brzustewicz was originally drafted 75th overall by the Canucks in last year’s draft. Suiting up for the Kitchener Rangers of the OHL this year, Brzustewicz appears to be somewhat of a diamond in the rough. In 47 games played for the Rangers, Brzustewicz has scored eight goals and a whopping 61 assists, which is an impressive 17 more than the next closest player. With the Flames set to miss several defensemen to either trade or free agency by next season, the right-handed shooting Brzustewicz could feature in the lineup as soon as next year.
Jurmo, another defenseman, was also a third-round selection of Vancouver going 82nd overall in the 2020 NHL Draft. Not having made his professional debut in North America yet, Jurmo does not bring a similar offensive pedigree to the table as Brzustewicz. Nevertheless, standing at 6’4″, Jarmo can cover large swaths of ice for the Flames defensive core. Still playing in his native Finland, Jurmo has scored a total of four points in 35 games split between Ilves and KooKoo of the Finnish Liiga this year.
In the draft picks, the first-round selection acquired in the deal will undoubtedly be at the bottom of the draft, given that Vancouver is on pace to win this year’s President’s Trophy. Owning both their own and the New Jersey Devils’ fourth-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, the Canucks will be able to choose which pick exactly ends up in Calgary.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was the first to report that talks were intensifying between Calgary and Vancouver.
Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff was the first to confirm that Lindholm was headed to the Canucks.
Friedman was the first to report that Brzustewicz would be headed to Calgary.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Canucks Sign Patrik Allvin To Multi-Year Extension
11:04 a.m.: It’s a three-year deal for Allvin, CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal reports. Allvin will be under contract through 2027, the same term as Rutherford.
10:02 a.m.: The Canucks have signed general manager Patrik Allvin to a multi-year extension, per a team announcement Wednesday.
Allvin, 49, celebrated his two-year anniversary in the GM role for Vancouver last Friday. He’d previously worked under Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford with the Penguins, first in scouting roles from 2012 to 2020 before being promoted to an assistant GM role ahead of the 2020-21 campaign.
Pittsburgh named Allvin their interim GM after Rutherford resigned in Jan. 2021, although that lasted for only 12 days until they brought in Ron Hextall for an ill-fated run in the manager’s chair. When Rutherford found a new home as president of hockey operations in Vancouver later that year, he appointed Allvin GM shortly thereafter.
In a short time, Allvin’s work has kicked the Canucks’ decade-long span of middling performances to the curb, seemingly ushering in an era of contention with an Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes-led core. The Canucks are 8-0-2 in their last ten games and would win the President’s Trophy if the season ended today, boasting a 33-11-5 record through 49 games at the All-Star break.
His two largest signings, a seven-year, $56MM deal for J.T. Miller and a three-year, $19.95MM deal for Brock Boeser, have paid off in spades this season. The deals faced a fair bit of criticism when they were signed in the summer of 2022, but Miller is tied for fourth in the NHL with 67 points, and Boeser is tied for sixth with 30 goals.
Allvin’s biggest free-agent splash, a four-year, $19MM deal for Ilya Mikheyev in 2022, has been a decent bit of business as well. Now healthy, the 29-year-old is on pace for 18 goals and 42 points this year.
He’s also made 19 trades during his tenure as GM, notably sending captain Bo Horvat to the Islanders in Jan. 2023 for depth winger Anthony Beauvillier, center prospect Aatu Räty, and a 2023 first-round pick. That first-round selection was later packaged with a second-round pick and sent to the Red Wings for Filip Hronek, who sits fifth on the team in scoring with 36 points in 49 games and has formed arguably the league’s best defense pairing alongside Hughes this season. Beauvillier was later flipped to the Blackhawks for a conditional fifth-round pick in 2024.
Allvin’s signature moment in Vancouver is still ahead of him, though. The 25-year-old Pettersson is still a pending RFA and needs a new deal to return to the Canucks next season. He’ll earn well north of his $8.82MM qualifying offer on a longer-term deal.
The team has not confirmed the length of Allvin’s extension, although they recently signed Rutherford to a three-year deal carrying him through the 2026-27 season.
Strong Trade Interest In Chris Tanev
Impact right-shot defensemen are typically in short supply and high demand and with the trade deadline now less than six weeks away, it appears this year will be no exception. Accordingly, those with one to move will have no shortage of suitors and that’s the case for the Flames with defenseman Chris Tanev as Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that as many as ten teams have already reached out to Calgary GM Craig Conroy to inquire about the blueliner.
The 34-year-old has never been a significant point producer and has just nine points in 46 games so far this season but Tanev has a well-earned reputation as one of the top shutdown defensemen in the league. He leads the Flames in shorthanded ice time while hanging around the 20-minute-per-game mark as he often does. On top of that, Tanev is among the league leaders in blocked shots, collecting 135 already, good for fifth-most in the NHL. Considering that teams are always looking to shore up their defensive reliability and penalty killing, it should come as no surprise that there are plenty of teams showing interest in Tanev.
Garrioch notes that the Maple Leafs, Canucks, and Kings are among those teams that have shown interest. Toronto GM Brad Treliving is quite familiar with Tanev from his days in charge in Calgary and Garrioch suggests that the blueliner is currently their top target. As for Vancouver, Tanev would be quite familiar with them having spent the first ten years of his career with them before joining Calgary as a free agent back in 2020. Los Angeles, meanwhile, has an established top four but they have two youngsters (Brandt Clarke and Jordan Spence) and journeyman Andreas Englund rounding out the rest of the group; Tanev would certainly give them some more stability.
Ottawa has also been speculated as a team that could be interested with GM Steve Staios looking for a quality veteran or two. However, with the Sens well out of playoff contention, it’s hard to see them coughing up the asking price and Tanev being open to going there over a postseason contender. Worth noting is that Tanev has a 10-team no-trade clause, giving him some control in where he might go. If an acquiring team wants to work out an extension at the same time, that also gives the veteran a bit more leverage to make sure he lands with a new organization of his choice.
With players of Tanev’s caliber hard to come by, it appears that Conroy has set a high asking price for his services. Garrioch relays that the ask is believed to be at least a first-round pick plus a prospect; if teams get into a bidding war, they could get more than that as well if they’re willing to retain the maximum 50%. Tanev has a $4.5MM AAV which is difficult for many contending teams to afford but if that is cut in half and perhaps Calgary takes a smaller contract back, most potential suitors should be able to make that work.
With more than a month until the trade deadline, there’s a good chance that Tanev won’t be leaving Calgary in the immediate future; the longer they wait, the easier it is for teams with regular cap space to afford the contract. But if his market is strong as Garrioch suggests, the Flames will be poised to land a quality future return for Tanev’s services by the time March 8th comes around.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Linus Karlsson Assigned Back To Abbotsford
- The Canucks announced (Twitter link) that Linus Karlsson has been returned to AHL Abbotsford. The 24-year-old has been shuffled back and forth frequently this month but it hasn’t resulted in much NHL playing time as he has suited up in just four games with Vancouver so far. Meanwhile, in the minors, Karlsson has produced close to a point-per-game, noting 25 points in 28 appearances so far.