No Recent Contract Talks Between Capitals And Chychrun
- While Capitals defenseman Jakob Chychrun made it known last month that he’s open to signing a contract extension with Washington, he told reporters including Sammi Silber of The Hockey News (Twitter link) that there haven’t been any extension discussions since before the break. The 26-year-old has been a great addition for Washington, already notching 14 goals and 21 assists through 50 games while logging 21 minutes a night. He’s well on his way to earning a sizable raise on his current $4.6MM price tag but it doesn’t appear a new deal is coming in the near future.
Milano Still Not Close To Returning
- Sammi Silber of The Hockey News relays that while Capitals winger Sonny Milano was skating in a non-contact jersey before the 4 Nations break, he’s still a ways away from returning to the lineup. The 28-year-old suffered an upper-body injury in his third game of the season and hasn’t played since. Assuming he’ll see some time with AHL Hershey on a conditioning assignment, it’s possible that Milano won’t be back until after the trade deadline when roster maximum sizes are no longer in effect.
Capitals To Release Hardy Haman Aktell After He Cleared Unconditional Waivers
Saturday: Haman Aktell passed through waivers unclaimed today, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports. That will pave the way for his contract to be terminated.
Friday: The Capitals placed defenseman Hardy Haman Aktell on unconditional waivers Friday as a precursor to a mutual contract termination, Stephen Whyno of the Associated Press reports. He will become an unrestricted free agent tomorrow if he clears and will likely return to his native Sweden.
Washington signed Haman Aktell, 26, to an entry-level contract out of the Swedish Hockey League’s Växjö Lakers in the 2023 offseason. The 6’4″ lefty was previously a fourth-round pick by the Predators in 2016 but never signed with the club, letting his signing rights lapse in 2020. He put himself on NHL teams’ radars with a breakout 27-assist, 36-point campaign in 51 games for Växjö in 2022-23, tying for second on the team in scoring en route to an SHL championship.
While a well-rounded player in Europe, his lanky 198-lb frame put him at a bit of a disadvantage in North America. He didn’t quite pop as the Capitals hoped in the AHL, posting just 11 points (2 G, 9 A) in 55 games for Hershey last year. But a rash of injuries to their NHL defense corps meant he was called upon to make his NHL debut early in the season, skating in six contests in October and November. He recorded an assist and a minus-two rating, recording five shots and 11 hits while averaging a minimal 10:38 per game. His possession numbers were promising – a 52.5 CF% and a +0.6 expected rating at even strength – but was never added back to the roster aside from a late-season emergency summons.
A restricted free agent last summer, the Capitals opted to keep Haman Aktell around on a two-way contract. He cleared waivers to begin the season and returned to Hershey, where he’s yet to score through 27 games and has seen a diminished role. He did have nine assists and a plus-three rating, but with a lack of NHL opportunity ahead of him, there understandably wasn’t any mutual interest in extending their relationship.
Ending Haman Aktell’s contract now allows him more time to pursue options overseas, potentially finishing the 2024-25 season with a European club. It doesn’t have any cap impact for Washington since he was a league-minimum player in the minors, but it does save a small amount of prorated actual cash. He was earning a $350K salary while in the AHL.
The Caps will have three open contract slots after he clears waivers tomorrow.
Capitals Working On Extension With Charlie Lindgren
After getting a six-year, $35.1MM contract done with pending UFA netminder Logan Thompson on Monday, the Capitals are looking to keep the other half of their goaltending tandem from reaching the open market. Washington is working on an extension with Charlie Lindgren with a cap hit between $3.5MM and $4MM, Kevin Weekes of ESPN said Thursday night.
If past reports indicate, we’ll likely see the official word on a Lindgren extension within the next week. Things moved quickly after Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reported last Friday that the Caps were increasing their efforts to reach a deal with Thompson. LeBrun said earlier in the month that the Capitals were wary of disrupting team chemistry by leaving one without an extension for too long, so it’s not surprising that Washington general manager Chris Patrick is quickly looking to get business wrapped up with Lindgren.
Lindgren is now set to earn more in a single season on his next deal than the total value of any of his previous NHL contracts, putting him in the same company as Thompson. Both began their professional careers as undrafted free-agent signings, but it took much longer for Lindgren to establish himself as an everyday NHL option. Now 31, Lindgren was a standout netminder at St. Cloud State University over a three-year run from 2013 to 2016 and landed an entry-level contract with the Canadiens as his junior year ended.
The Minnesota native made his NHL debut for the Habs to close out the year before spending most of the next five seasons as their No. 3 option, logging significant time in the AHL for their affiliates in St. John’s and Laval. His numbers started strong – he put up a .914 SV% in 48 games in his first AHL season and earned an All-Star Game appearance as a rookie. Things quickly went downhill from there, though. Lindgren failed to record a save percentage above .900 in each of the subsequent four campaigns, at least at the minor-league level. He’d gotten call-ups to Montreal every year and had a decent but unimpressive for the time .907 SV% and 3.00 GAA in 24 starts, paired with a 10-12-2 record over parts of five seasons.
Lindgren spent most of the shortened 2020-21 campaign on the Canadiens’ taxi squad, only making three AHL appearances for Laval. But after failing to land an everyday NHL role over the life of a three-year, $2.25MM extension he signed in 2018, he understandably opted not to return to Montreal upon reaching unrestricted free agency that summer. He headed west on his next deal, landing a two-way offer from the Blues on the open market.
St. Louis breathed new life into Lindgren’s game. It was more the organization at large – he spent most of his time on assignment to their AHL affiliate in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he exploded as one of the league’s top netminders with a 2.21 GAA, .925 SV%, three shutouts, and a 24-7-1 record in 34 games. He was also lights out in his few call-ups to the Blues, allowing just five goals on 118 shots (.958 SV%) in four starts and one relief appearance while compiling a spotless 5-0-0 record.
That led to renewed optimism that Lindgren could be an everyday NHL option, and the Capitals gave him a three-year, $3.3MM commitment to prove it in Washington. His first year was unimpressive, posting a .899 SV% and 3.05 GAA in 31 appearances as Darcy Kuemper‘s backup as the Caps missed the playoffs for the second time since 2007. However, the 2023-24 season amounted to Lindgren’s big break. He stole the starter’s crease from Kuemper midseason, tying for the league lead with six shutouts and complementing that with a .911 SV% and 2.67 GAA in 48 games. He finished eighth in Vezina Trophy voting and 12th in Hart Trophy voting as Washington snuck into the playoffs. Although they were quickly dispatched in four games by the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Rangers, he started all of them over Kuemper, who had won a Stanley Cup with the Avalanche two years prior.
While Lindgren won’t be in Vezina consideration this season after firmly slipping behind Thompson on the depth chart, he’s still been an above-average tandem option. His .904 SV% and 2.51 GAA through 23 games are the exact numbers you’d expect from the median netminder given the defense in front of him, per MoneyPuck. Last season’s numbers were more than likely a flash in the pan. Still, he’s given the Capitals enough sample to prove he can be a reliable 1B option with Thompson, who’s quietly put up numbers akin to some of the league’s most highly-touted netminders over the last three seasons.
The Caps will have their goalies locked in for the next few seasons at a combined cap hit in the $9MM range, less than what elite established starters are beginning to earn on their own per season. That’s good business from Patrick as he now turns his attention toward the team’s extensive slate of other pending UFAs, including defenseman Jakob Chychrun and reliable depth center Nic Dowd.
Shawn Simpson Passes Away At Age 56
Shawn Simpson, a long-time member of the Ottawa Senators radio broadcast booth with TSN, has tragically passed away at 56, as the team announced.
Simpson entered professional hockey in the 1986 NHL Draft when the Washington Capitals selected him with the 60th overall pick. Unfortunately, besides two playoff games as a backup netminder, Simpson never played in the NHL with the Capitals and retired relatively quickly after the 1990-91 season.
He remained with the Capitals organization as a color commentator for several years while pursuing his education at Georgetown University. It was not until the 1993-94 season that Simpson transitioned into Washington’s front office to become a professional scout.
The Capitals promoted Simpson to director of hockey operations ahead of the 1997-98 season. Alongside general manager George McPhee, Simpson helped steer Washington to their first Stanley Cup Final appearance in franchise history that spring.
Simpson continued as the Capitals’ director of hockey operations until the 2003-04 season when he decided to move closer to his hometown. He spent four years as a professional scout for the Toronto Maple Leafs before ending his tenure in the front office.
After spending many years away from his hometown of Gloucester, Ontario, Simpson joined TSN in 2012 as the co-host of “The Drive” radio show and as an on-air personality for Ottawa’s post-game broadcasts. In 2013, he transitioned to a new show called “Mornings” and continued to collaborate closely with the Senators organization.
In 2023, Bell Media, the controlling owner of TSN, ended its contract with Simpson. However, he remained a significant figure in Ottawa and with the Senators until the dreadful news broke this morning.
We at Pro Hockey Rumors send our condolences to Simpson’s family, friends, and peers.
Capitals Believed To Have Shown Interest In Jake Evans At The Draft
The Canadiens were believed to have been offered a mid-second-round pick back at the draft for center Jake Evans, reports Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli. He adds that the Capitals may have been the team making the offer. Evans is in the middle of what is likely to be a career year as he has 11 goals and 14 assists in 50 games while being the league leader for shorthanded ice time by a forward. A pending unrestricted free agent, Evans has a very affordable $1.7MM cap charge this season and could plausibly double that on the open market this summer. Montreal will have to decide if it’s worth accepting what’s likely to be a similar offer by the March 7th trade deadline or trying to sign him to a contract extension in the coming weeks.
Senators’ Nick Cousins To Miss 6-8 Weeks
Ottawa Senators forward Nick Cousins will be out through at least early March after suffering a knee injury in the team’s Saturday win over the Toronto Maple Leafs. Cousins suffered the injury on a knee-to-knee collision with Leafs rookie Jacob Quillan. Both players needed help off the ice after the hit, though Quillian ultimately avoided an injury. Senators head coach Travis Green shared that Cousins would miss significant time immediately after the game. Now the forward could be a candidate for long-term injured reserve, though Cousins is getting different opinions on the severity of his injury, per TSN’s Bruce Garrioch.
Cousins has been a reliable bottom-six forward for the Senators, appearing in 46 of the team’s 48 games and averaging just over 12 minutes of ice time prior to his injury. He has five goals and 13 points on the year, just shy of the 15 points he managed in 69 games with the Florida Panthers last season. Cousins continues to sit off of his team’s special teams units – which should make his role a bit less of a headache to replace.
Since Cousins’ injury, top forward Joshua Norris has made his return to the Senators lineup. That addition should fill their hole for the time being, with Adam Gaudette and Matthew Highmore securing routine roles on the fourth line. Ottawa also successfully passed winger Cole Reinhardt through waivers on Wednesday, which grants him a 30-day waiver exemption and gives Ottawa a movable extra forward. Reinhardt has two points, a goal and an assist through 12 games this season. They’re the first points of his career, in some of his first NHL games, though he made his NHL debut in the 2021-22 season. Reinhardt has since been a productive member of the AHL’s Belleville Senators. He leads that team in points-per-game this season, with 16 points in 13 games. Ottawa could also turn towards rookie Stephen Halliday – Belleville’s leading scorer with 27 points – should they need additional support over the next two months.
In other Senators news, defenseman Nick Jensen returned to the team’s practice in a full-contact jersey on Wednesday. Jensen has missed the team’s last two games with an undisclosed injury. His status for Ottawa’s Thursday matchup against the Washington Capitals is undetermined, but Jensen is expected to return soon, per Sportsnet’s Alex Adams. Jensen has 18 points in 48 games this season – the second-highest scoring pace of his 10-year career behind his 29 points in 77 games of the 2022-23 season.
Finally, star goaltender Linus Ullmark should return within the next few games, per Garrioch. Ullmark has missed the last 16 games with a back injury. He’s been an integral piece to the Senators’ lineup in his first year with the club, boasting a 12-7-2 record and .915 save percentage through 23 games this season. He’ll be a critical addition when he’s back to full health.
Capitals Sign Logan Thompson To Six-Year Extension
3:03 p.m: Washington has made the signing official per a team announcement.
1:30 p.m: The Capitals are close to a multi-year extension with pending UFA netminder Logan Thompson, Kevin Weekes of ESPN reports Monday. It’s a six-year commitment with a price tag of $5.85MM per season, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet adds, working out to a total value of $35.1MM.
PuckPedia provided the breakdown of the contract as follows:
- Year 1: $2MM salary + $5MM signing bonus – 15-team no-trade clause
- Year 2: $4.85MM salary + $2MM signing bonus – 15-team no-trade clause
- Year 3: $1.5MM salary + $5MM signing bonus – 15-team no-trade clause
- Year 4: $3.5MM salary + $2MM signing bonus – 10-team no-trade clause
- Year 5: $3MM salary + $2MM signing bonus – 10-team no-trade clause
- Year 6: $2.25MM salary + $2MM signing bonus – 10-team no-trade clause
It’s a sizable commitment to the breakout 27-year-old, who’s quickly ramping up his case for his first career Vezina Trophy nomination. He’s broken away from Washington’s plan to alternate him and Charlie Lindgren between the pipes nightly, erupting for a .925 SV% and 2.09 GAA in 27 appearances with a near-spotless 22-2-3 record. Thompson earned seven straight starts earlier this month, allowing just eight goals on 179 shots.
Despite the tandem workload, Thompson has been among the Capitals’ most valuable players and ranks second in the league in goals saved above expected with 26.8, only slightly trailing Vezina favorite Connor Hellebuyck‘s 27.5 mark, per MoneyPuck. It’s night and day compared to what Darcy Kuemper gave the Caps last year in a similar role, making the Washington front office’s decision to send him to Los Angeles for Pierre-Luc Dubois and give up a pair of third-rounders to snag Thompson from the Golden Knights one of the best of the summer.
As expected, the extension amounts to a stratospheric raise for Thompson, who will now earn more than twice per season than the entire value of his previous contract. He signed a team-friendly three-year, $2.3MM commitment with Vegas in January 2022 when he was beginning to emerge as an NHL option. During that time, he’s been arguably the most underpaid player in the league with a 68-29-11 record, .915 SV%, 2.53 GAA, and five shutouts in 110 games for the Knights and Caps over the life of the deal.
The raise is still jarring for a netminder who’s only started more than 40 games once in his career, but Thompson has already solidified his third consecutive 20-win season and will start north of 40 again this year, barring injury. Among the 29 goalies who have played more than 100 games since the beginning of the 2022-23 campaign, that .915 SV% ranks third – higher than clear-cut stars like Andrei Vasilevskiy, Ilya Sorokin, Igor Shesterkin, and Juuse Saros.
He’s now Washington’s present and future between the pipes as they look to end Alex Ovechkin‘s career on a high note and keep the momentum going after he inevitably breaks the league’s all-time goals record. If he stays healthy, he should get the chance to also head into the playoffs as his team’s undisputed starter for the first time in his career.
Thompson’s deal runs through the 2030-31 campaign, after which he’ll be a UFA at age 34. The Caps now have $69.375MM tied up in 15 players for next season, not including pending UFAs Lindgren and top-four defenseman Jakob Chychrun. His $5.85MM cap hit will rank 15th among netminders next season as things stand.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Capitals Ramping Up Efforts To Extend Logan Thompson
The Capitals have “engaged more meaningfully” in extension talks with pending unrestricted free agent goaltender Logan Thompson‘s camp recently, Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports Friday.
Washington is aiming to have the soon-to-be 28-year-old signed, and off the market by the time the 4 Nations Face-Off rolls around in a few weeks, LeBrun wrote. Recent extensions for similarly-aged breakout netminders like the Avalanche’s Mackenzie Blackwood and the Kraken’s Joey Daccord mean the Caps are likely looking at a four-to-five-year commitment with an average annual value between $5MM and $5.5MM to retain his services – potentially even $6MM, Jamie McLennan of TSN told LeBrun.
That would be an astronomical range over Thompson’s current $767K cap hit, which he locked in when he signed a three-year, $2.3MM extension with the Golden Knights midway through his rookie 2021-22 campaign. The Caps needed a goalie last summer after they dealt Darcy Kuemper to the Kings in exchange for Pierre-Luc Dubois, and Thompson desired more playing time in his contract year after posting a .908 SV% in a career-high 42 starts and four relief appearances in Vegas last year. Washington moved to acquire Thompson on the second day of the 2024 draft, sending a pair of third-round picks Vegas’ way to provide an economical tandem partner for last year’s breakout option, Charlie Lindgren.
While Lindgren and Thompson rotated starts through the beginning of the season, Thompson has emerged as the bona fide 1A option for the upstart Caps. His sparkling 22-2-3 record in 26 games is backed up by a .925 SV%, which ranks third in the league among netminders with double-digit starts. Those 22 wins are also third in the league and are the most among goalies with under 30 starts, ahead of former teammate Adin Hill, who has 18 wins through 29 starts for the Knights.
Advanced statistics are also quite kind to Thompson, positioning him as the clear-cut runner-up to the Jets’ Connor Hellebuyck for the Vezina Trophy. His 26.8 goals saved above expected are just 0.4 short of Hellebuyck in nine fewer games, per MoneyPuck, good for a league-leading 1.00 GSAx/60.
Expecting Thompson to maintain this level of play over the life of an extension is unreasonable. However, unlike a contract comparable in Blackwood, he’s established a high floor for his play at the NHL level. His SV% never dipped below .908 during his time in Vegas, and his GSAx has never finished in the red.
Since Thompson established himself as a full-time NHL option, concerns have revolved around his ability to handle a more significant workload, which he’s now quieting with the Capitals. He started a run of seven straight contests before Lindgren recorded a shutout last night against the Kraken, posting a .955 SV% in that span and a 6-0-1 record. Two of those wins were shutouts in back-to-back games against the Ducks and Senators, and he allowed just eight goals total during the seven-game stretch.
LeBrun reported earlier in January that the Caps had started preliminary extension discussions with Thompson and Lindgren, another pending UFA. They took both conversations slowly to avoid upset team chemistry by extending one before the other. While Lindgren has still been above average with a .904 SV% and 2.53 GAA, he’s three years older than Thompson and has a more inconsistent NHL track record. Thompson’s recent dominant stretch with an increased workload has proven he’s the more valuable option to Washington in the long term.
“I think Thompson has put himself into the conversation of being a top-tier Canadian goaltender, as well,” McLennan said. “Right now, you’ve got to see it for what it’s worth. The Caps traded for him. He’s delivered for them. They obviously like him. And he’s in [the] wheelhouse of his prime and getting better. Goalies from 27-32 continue to get better with age.”
As things stand, Thompson is the unquestionable No. 1 option on the UFA market among goaltenders this summer. Names like Hill, Lindgren, Kevin Lankinen, and Ilya Samsonov would move to center stage after a potential extension is announced.
Tom McVie Passes Away
Former NHL coach and longtime Bruins scout Tom McVie has passed away at age 89, the team announced Monday. McVie played 18 seasons with various minor league clubs from 1956 to 1974, then was the head coach of the Capitals, Jets, and Devils in parts of nine seasons from 1975 to 1992.
McVie began his NHL career behind the bench in a difficult situation, taking over Washington’s bench partway through their second season in the league. He was tasked with molding together one of the worst rosters in league history, one that had finished 8-67-5 in their expansion season and recorded only 11 wins in year two. While he understandably didn’t make the playoffs in any of his three seasons in Washington, he did get the team out of complete embarrassment territory and was behind the bench for a 24-win season in 1976-77.
After being let go by the Caps following the 1977-78 season, McVie headed to the World Hockey Association to take over Winnipeg’s bench midway through their final season before the NHL-WHA merger. He guided the Jets to an 11-8-0 record to end the season before upsetting both the Nordiques and Oilers to win the final Avco Cup championship, with a roster that included future NHL All-Stars Morris Lukowich and Kent Nilsson.
McVie stayed with Winnipeg post-merger but was fired 28 games into the 1980-81 campaign after the team compiled a 1-20-7 record. He then headed to the Devils organization, where he’d serve as an AHL coach for many years but got a few cracks at the NHL head coach gig in the 1983-84, 1990-91 and 1991-92 campaigns. Boston picked up McVie as an assistant coach the following season, and after transitioning through a few different roles, they made him a pro scout in 1998. He held that role until retiring following the 2019-20 season.
We at Pro Hockey Rumors send our condolences to McVie’s family, friends, and peers.