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Morelli, Burke, And Hagg Recalled After Being Demoted Sunday

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  • After being papered down on Sunday, the Golden Knights have recalled wingers Mason Morelli and Callahan Burke, who scored his first NHL goal on Saturday in a win over Montreal. They also brought back blueliner Robert Hagg who was both recalled (on an emergency basis) and sent down on Saturday.  Hagg’s recall moves Vegas back into using LTIR for now.

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  • After being papered down on Sunday, the Golden Knights have recalled wingers Mason Morelli and Callahan Burke, who scored his first NHL goal on Saturday in a win over Montreal. They also brought back blueliner Robert Hagg who was both recalled (on an emergency basis) and sent down on Saturday.  Hagg’s recall moves Vegas back into using LTIR for now.

Whitecloud Out With Upper-Body Injury; Karlsson Out For Personal Reasons

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  • There will be a few missing players for the Vegas Golden Knights this evening. The organization announced that defenseman Zach Whitecloud is out with an upper-body injury and is considered day-to-day. Vegas also added that forward William Karlsson won’t participate in tonight’s contest against the Philadelphia Flyers due to personal reasons. The injury to Whitecloud will strain the Golden Knights’ blue line with defenseman Alex Pietrangelo set to miss his third consecutive game.

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  • There will be a few missing players for the Vegas Golden Knights this evening. The organization announced that defenseman Zach Whitecloud is out with an upper-body injury and is considered day-to-day. Vegas also added that forward William Karlsson won’t participate in tonight’s contest against the Philadelphia Flyers due to personal reasons. The injury to Whitecloud will strain the Golden Knights’ blue line with defenseman Alex Pietrangelo set to miss his third consecutive game.

Golden Knights Activate Nicolas Hague, Pietrangelo Still Day-To-Day

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The Vegas Golden Knights will see the return of defenseman Nicolas Hague this evening as the organization announced they activated him off the injured reserve shortly before their contest against the Montreal Canadiens. Hague has been on the shelf for three weeks with an undisclosed injury and will play in his first contest tonight since November 2nd.

Hague has been an ultra-consistent defenseman for the Golden Knights since the team selected him with the 34th overall selection of the 2017 NHL Draft. He’s coming off an impressive stretch from 2022 to 2024 which saw him post some of the best defensive metrics of his career.

His 154-game stretch over the last two years only yielded five goals and 29 points on offense. On the defensive side of the puck, Hague racked up 244 blocks, 27o hits, a 91.3% on-ice save percentage in all situations, and an Expected +/- of 2.8. He became a focal piece of the Golden Knights defensive core leading the organization to its first Stanley Cup championship in 2023.

It unfortunately won’t be a completely healthy defensive core for Vegas tonight against Montreal. Danny Webster of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported earlier that defenseman Alex Pietrangelo is still considered day-to-day with an undisclosed injury. Webster confirmed that Pietrangelo is progressing well through his injury but he will still miss his second straight game due to the ailment.

Geertsen Now Cancer-Free

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  • Golden Knights winger Mason Geertsen released a statement through AHL Henderson’s Twitter account announcing that he is now cancer-free after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma last November. The 29-year-old missed a month last season following the diagnosis but has been able to play regularly since then.  Geertsen has three assists and 19 penalty minutes in eight games so far with the Silver Knights this season and is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer.

Golden Knights Sign Brett Howden To Five-Year Extension

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The Golden Knights announced Friday that they’ve signed forward Brett Howden to a five-year extension, keeping him in Vegas through the 2029-30 season. The deal is worth $2.5MM per season and will pay him $12.5MM in total.

Howden, 26, was set to become an unrestricted free agent next summer. He was in the final season of a two-year, $3.8MM pact he inked with the Knights as a restricted free agent in 2023.

The Alberta native has never scored more than 10 goals in a season, but he’ll do so in 2024-25, barring anything unforeseen. He’s gotten more consistent top-nine usage in the early going this season with injuries to Victor Olofsson and Mark Stone, responding with eight goals in 20 games to tie with Ivan Barbashev for second on the team.

It’s a significant breakout for the 6’2″ center, who was on the road to becoming a bust a couple of years ago. Drafted 27th overall by the Lightning in 2016, he was traded to the Rangers in the 2018 blockbuster involving Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller heading south before he made his NHL debut.

Howden jumped directly from major junior to the NHL the following season, recording a career-best 23 points in 66 games for the Blueshirts during his rookie season. He spent two more seasons in New York as a bottom-six pivot but saw his point totals and ice time steadily decline, culminating in a brutal 2020-21 campaign that saw him score just once on 33 shots in 42 games. He also struggled on draws, winning 46.6% of his faceoffs, and continued a run of poor possession impacts that had plagued him since entering the league.

The Rangers cut bait with Howden the following offseason, dealing him to Vegas for a fourth-round pick and depth defenseman Nick DeSimone. It’s turned out to be a frugal move for the Knights, who’ve slowly shifted him over to the wing and turned him into a slightly more dependable offensive presence.

Howden was quite valuable in Vegas’ run to the 2023 Stanley Cup, posting five goals and five assists for 10 points in 22 playoff games while finishing third on the team with 63 hits. His possession numbers remain a concern, with just a 44.8% shot attempt share at even strength since joining Vegas, but he’s totaled 31 goals and 61 points in 190 appearances as a Knight. He’s responded to increasing usage with correspondingly increasing point totals.

His extension is the third that general manager Kelly McCrimmon has gotten over the finish line for a pending UFA in the last month. Day-one defensemen Shea Theodore (seven years, $51.975MM) and Brayden McNabb (three years, $10.95MM) have each inked multi-year deals to keep them in Nevada past this season in the past few weeks.

The Golden Knights have now committed just north of $76.25MM in projected cap hits to 15 players for the 2025-26 campaign, per PuckPedia. That leaves roughly $16.25MM in space for eight roster spots, assuming a conservative upper limit increase to $92.5MM next season, with Nicolas Hague, Keegan Kolesar and Victor Olofsson among their other notable pending free agents.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Alex Pietrangelo Out Day-To-Day

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The Vancouver Canucks made a couple of roster moves today, assigning forward Jonathan Lekkerimäki to the Abbotsford Canucks of the American Hockey League while recalling forward Max Sasson. Lekkerimäki was called up to Vancouver on November 10th after Brock Boeser was injured during a game against the Los Angeles Kings on November 7th. His demotion could signal that Boeser is ready to return to the lineup, but Sasson’s call-up indicates that he might not be quite ready to play yet.

Lekkerimäki initially filled in for Boeser alongside J.T. Miller and did get some extended looks on the Canucks power play. However, he struggled at even strength as the Canucks were dominated on the possession front (CF% of 45.5% as per Hockey Reference) whenever Lekkerimäki’s line was on the ice. The 20-year-old has a single goal in five NHL games this season and averaged just under 15 minutes of ice time per game.

In other Pacific Division notes:

  • The Vegas Golden Knights have announced that defenseman Alex Pietrangelo is out day-to-day with an upper-body injury. The news gives the recent Robert Hagg recall some context as Vegas will need another body on the backup, particularly now that they are missing three NHL regulars from their defensive core. Pietrangelo joins Nic Hague and Ben Hutton who are both out of the lineup due to injury. Pietrangelo has had a strong start to the season posting two goals and 12 assists with a +5 plus/minus in 19 games.
  • San Jose Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky tells the media that he isn’t aware of any discussions to send Sharks forward Will Smith to the World Juniors to play for Team USA (as per Max Miller of The Hockey News). Smith has struggled considerably in his first NHL season, registering just two goals and two assists in 17 games to go along with an abysmal -12 plus/minus rating. Given his play, it’s fair to wonder if the 2023 fourth-overall pick is NHL-ready, but it doesn’t appear the Sharks have any plans to have Smith play in the Juniors tournament this season.

Golden Knights Recall Robert Hägg

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The Golden Knights announced Thursday that they’ve recalled defenseman Robert Hägg from AHL Henderson. They returned winger Jonas Røndbjerg to Henderson after a brief recall to create a spot on the active roster, per the NHL’s media site.

Vegas was carrying 15 forwards and six defensemen, so the swap gives them an extra defenseman for the four remaining games on their road trip. Nicolas Hague is dealing with an undisclosed injury and has been on injured reserve for nearly two weeks, while the team placed Ben Hutton on LTIR on Tuesday after he sustained an upper-body injury against the Capitals over the weekend.

It’s Hägg’s first time being recalled since clearing waivers and heading to the AHL during preseason. The 29-year-old lefty signed a one-way, league-minimum deal on the second day of free agency to give Vegas some reinforcements on the back end, although it was clear he was low enough on their depth chart heading into camp that he would end up on waivers despite the one-way structure indicating otherwise.

Hägg has nearly 350 games of NHL experience, although his five appearances with the Ducks last year were his fewest since 2016-17, indicative of his decline into a minor-league fixture. He’s one of just four players to play in all 14 games for Henderson so far this season, ranking second among their defensemen in scoring with eight points (1 G, 7 A) and a -1 rating.

Meanwhile, Røndbjerg’s second recall of the young season ends without an appearance. The 25-year-old Dane appeared twice for Vegas earlier this month, posting a -1 rating in under 15 minutes of total ice time. The 2017 third-round pick has six points in 10 games for Henderson.

Ilya Samsonov Easing Back After Undisclosed Injury

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  • Ilya Samsonov won’t get the chance for a revenge start when his Golden Knights face the Maple Leafs tonight, in part due to the undisclosed injury that kept him out for much of November, head coach Bruce Cassidy told reporters including Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun. Samsonov returned to action Sunday against the Capitals after two weeks out of the lineup, allowing four goals on 24 shots in his second regulation loss of the season. After spending the last two seasons in Toronto, the 27-year-old Russian landed a one-year, $1.8MM contract with Vegas in free agency to platoon with Adin Hill. He has a 3-2-1 record, .897 SV%, and 3.15 GAA in his first six games for the Knights, who have gotten subpar goaltending overall but are still 11-5-2.

Golden Knights Make Multiple Roster Moves

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The Golden Knights announced Tuesday that they placed defenseman Ben Hutton on long-term injured reserve with an upper-body injury and moved captain Mark Stone, who hasn’t played since Nov. 6 with a lower-body injury and remains day-to-day, to standard IR. Those roster spots were filled by the recalls of forwards Callahan Burke, Mason Morelli and Jonas Røndbjerg from AHL Henderson, per the NHL’s media site.

Per PuckPedia, the order of transactions here is especially relevant. Vegas assigned winger Victor Olofsson, who had been on LTIR since last month, to AHL Henderson on a conditioning loan yesterday but activated him before doing so, keeping them briefly cap-compliant without using LTIR.

This resets their capture, allowing them to re-optimize how much temporary flexibility they could achieve from Hutton’s LTIR placement. They moved Stone to IR and recalled Morelli and Røndbjerg all before placing Hutton on LTIR, then recalled Burke as the final transaction. After the moves, the Knights have a full active roster with 15 forwards, six defensemen and two goaltenders with $200K left in their LTIR pool.

For Stone, the IR placement is purely for roster management purposes and doesn’t affect his return timeline. He can be activated at any time since he’s already missed more than seven days, and since he’s on IR and not LTIR, his $9.5MM cap hit still effectively counts against Vegas’ books. The captain shouldn’t be too far off from a return after starting the season on a tear with six goals and 15 assists for 21 points in 13 games.

Hutton, 31, sustained the injury early in Sunday’s game against the Capitals and left after just four shifts and 2:40 of ice time. Vegas’ seventh defender for the past four years was a healthy scratch for 12 games in a row to begin the season but had played in five of their last six games, posting no points, five hits and three blocks while averaging 11:40 per contest and occasionally suiting up at right wing while Vegas dressed only 11 forwards.

He’s listed as week-to-week and won’t be eligible to return until Dec. 12 at the earliest now that he’s on LTIR. It’s far from a monumental loss, given how little he’d played, but it still stretches their defensive depth thin with Nicolas Hague already on IR with an undisclosed injury.

The moves mean that the Golden Knights’ recent stretch of running 11 forwards and seven defensemen is over, with only six blue-liners available on the roster. That means that one of Burke, Morelli or Røndbjerg will enter the lineup Wednesday against the Maple Leafs, likely the latter.

The 25-year-old Røndbjerg has played in a pair of games already for Vegas this season amid some short-term call-ups, posting a -1 rating and averaging just 7:33 per night. The Danish winger was a third-round pick in the Knights’ inaugural 2017 draft class and has three goals and seven assists for 10 points in 65 career NHL games dating back to his debut in 2021-22.

Burke, 27, is in his first season in the Vegas organization after signing a two-way contract as a UFA over the summer. The 5’10” forward has two goals and four assists for six points in 11 appearances with Henderson this season. The undrafted Notre Dame product is still looking for his first NHL point despite playing in a trio of games with the Avalanche and Hurricanes in spot duty over the past two years.

Morelli, 28, made his NHL debut for the Golden Knights last season amid a rash of forward injuries, scoring three times in nine games while adding an assist. The North Dakota native spent the first four seasons of his professional career on AHL contracts before earning an NHL deal with Vegas last year. He now serves as an alternate captain for Henderson and is tied for the team lead with five goals in 13 games, adding four assists for nine points.

Golden Knights Assign Victor Olofsson On Conditioning Loan

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The Vegas Golden Knights should only be a few days away from the return of an injured forward. The organization announced they assigned forward Victor Olofsson to their AHL affiliate, the Henderson Silver Knights, for a conditioning loan. This confirms the Golden Knights are quickly expected to activate Olofsson from the long-term injured reserve.

It’ll be interesting to see how much playing time Olofsson can manage once he returns from injury despite the strong scoring pace to begin the season. The Golden Knights will have a clearer picture of their roster construction once Mark Stone returns to the lineup but Olofsson may become a healthy scratch upon activation. He projects as an upgrade on the right wing as the lineup is currently constructed but the team might prefer continuity as they’ve risen to the top of the Pacific Division standings.

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