Minor Transactions: 09/08/16
A number of minor moves were made across the NHL today:
- The San Diego Gulls announced they’ve signed seven players to AHL deals. Stu Bickel, Brian Cooper, Antoine Laganiere, Zac Larraza, Tyler Morley, Scott Sabourin, and Nick Tarnasky will all be suiting up for the Ducks’ affiliate this season.
- Ryan Haggerty has signed an AHL deal with the Wilks-Barre/Scranton Penguins. The 23-year old wasn’t given a qualifying offer by Chicago earlier this summer and became a free agent.
- The Providence Bruins have signed Adam Roach and Matt Ginn to AHL deals. Roach spent last year with the Manchester Monarchs of the ECHL, while Ginn was with the Atlanta Gladiators for all but one game – which he spent with these Bruins of the AHL.
- Paul Gaustad has announced his retirement after 12 years in the NHL. The veteran of 727 games only played for two teams in his entire career, Nashville and Buffalo. Well respected for his leadership and work ethic, Gaustad was once even traded for a first-round pick despite only scoring 21 points that season. Although he says he’s looking forward to spending more time with his family, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Gaustad join a coaching staff in the next few years.
Martin Reway Hospitalized With Virus, Will Not Attend Camp
According to Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports, Montreal Canadiens’ prospect Martin Reway will not participate in training camp this year, as he’s currently hospitalized in Slovakia due to a virus.
Reway, 21, is a former fourth-round pick who was drafted out of the QMJHL in 2013. After heading back to Europe in 2014, he split last season between the Czech and Swiss leagues, scoring 36 points in 33 games.
An undersized (5’9″, 173lbs) but skilled forward, Reway would have had a chance to make his North American professional debut this season with the new Laval team, should the organization choose to bring him over. Now, we’ll hope for his health and wait on word regarding his future in hockey.
“Laval Rocket” Chosen As New Name For Montreal Affiliate
Earlier this summer it was announced that Montreal would be moving their AHL affiliate from St. John’s to Laval after the upcoming year, to bring the team closer to home. Today, it was announced that the team will be nicknamed the Rocket (Rocket de Laval in the native French), according to Dave Stubbs of NHL.com.
Starting in 2017, the team will play its games at the new 10,000-seat Bell Place, an arena just 25 minutes from downtown Montreal. By bringing the team to Quebec, they’ll be able to keep a closer eye on their prospects while also providing less expensive professional hockey to the residents of Montreal.
The team is currently the St. John’s Icecaps, which will the third franchise to leave the eastern Canadian city over the past ten years. They’ll look for another franchise to try and entice east, and would be a strong candidate should Quebec City ever regain their team.
Flyers Notes: Dutch Gretzky, Bardreau, Gudas
When Dale Weise entered the league in 2010-11, he wasn’t seen as much more than an enforcer, meant to play less than ten minutes a night and protect his teammates. As we wrote earlier today, it’s a role he felt he was pushed back into after last year’s mid-season trade to the Blackhawks. But after posting back to back double-digit goal seasons, Weise feels like he has more to offer. In a new piece by Dave Isaac of the Courier-Post, Weise credits that to the time he spent in the Netherlands during the last lockout.
“Dutch Gretzky” as he was named during his European stint, Weise scored 22 goals in 19 games and rediscovered his offensive game. When the NHL resumed, it took a trade to the Canadiens before he was really given a similar chance, finally playing over 12 minutes a night and being an excellent contributor from the bottom-six.
Now the Flyers will try to coax some of that Gretzky talent out of the 28-year old. Paul Holmgren said as much last week “He’s kind of a third-, fourth-line guy but he can also play higher up in the lineup with some of your skill players if you get into a jam.” Flyers fans probably shouldn’t hope he gets a chance up the lineup, but rest easy that he’s at least capable of a bit more if he does.
- Also from Isaac, GM Ron Hextall announced today that prospect Cole Bardreau will miss all of training camp after undergoing abdominal surgery a week ago. Tim Panaccio of CSN adds that it’s a 4-6 week timeline and is expected back in mid-October. Bardreau was signed out of Cornell university in 2015, and played last season for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the AHL, scoring 30 points in 54 games. While he’s not young for a prospect after spending four years in college, the 23-year old will try to compete for minutes in the top-six on the minor league squad and continue his quest for the NHL.
- Hextall also said that he had been given some different information on Radko Gudas, and that the reported hairline fracture in his wrist was incorrect. While he still suffered an “upper-body injury”, it’s not as bad as initially reported, but Hextall wouldn’t go into further detail. Gudas dropped out of the World Cup last week after suffering the injury. He was set to suit up for the Czech Republic in the upcoming tournament but instead will focus on the start of the regular season.
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Montreal Canadiens Hire Sean Burke As Pro Scout
The Montreal Canadiens announced today that they’ve hired former Coyotes’ assistant general manager and director of player development Sean Burke as a professional scout. Burke will cover the western region for the Canadiens, presumably focused on goaltending talent.
Burke, 49, backstopped 820 games in the NHL with a 2.96 GAA and .902 sv% and was named to three all-star games. He ranks 13th on the all-time games played list among goaltenders, and 41st for career shutouts. He represented Canada twice at the Olympic Games, suiting up in 1988 and 1992.
Joining the Coyotes in 2009 as a goalie coach, Burke was eventually promoted to assistant general manager in 2012, though he kept some of his duties helping the goaltenders. Now, he’ll enter into a pure scouting role for the first time in his career, and work with the Canadiens on bringing in the next wave of Montreal talent.
Carlo Colaiacovo Has Received Two Offers From KHL
According to Igor Eronko of Sport-Express, long-time NHL defender Carlo Colaiacovo has received at least two offers from KHL squads, Ak Bars Kazan and Sibir Novosibirsk. No word has come on whether Colaiacovo would welcome a move to the Russian league, though with his injury plagued career and dwindling effectiveness, perhaps they would represent his best option.
Despite making his NHL debut in 2002-03 and being regarded as a effective second or third pairing defenseman, Colaiacovo has only played in 470 games in his career. He’s only played in 70 games in a single season once, dressing for 73 contests in 2008-09.
Once a promising prospect in the Toronto system after being drafted 17th overall, Colaiacovo was part of the deal that swapped Alex Steen for Lee Stempniak during that season. In St. Louis, he showed that he could be effective, posting 26 or more points in three consecutive seasons. Should he join the KHL, perhaps his body can hold up more easily to the rigors of their shorter 60 game season.
Snapshots: Duchene, Weise, Hronek
When the Colorado Avalanche were stunned by head coach Patrick Roy walking away from the organization on August 11th, many pointed to a perceived rift between Roy and superstar forward Matt Duchene over some of the exuberant celebrations he performed after scoring goals. One goal in particular, scored in a 5-1 loss to St. Louis on April 4th, prompted much scrutiny from the media after Roy said “Are you kidding me? What is that? It’s not the (reaction) that we want from our guys. Not at all.”
In Mike Zeisberger’s new column in the Toronto Sun, he gets Duchene to set the record straight about their feud:
At the end of the day it wasn’t anything against me. He was just trying to set a precedent for the team and make an example of me. He expected me to be a leader and at that moment I let him down. We had a great chat the next day and right then everything was fine. It was blown out of proportion in the media. It was really nothing after that.
Zeisberger reiterates that Duchene’s main message is that there was no feud between the two, and that Roy called him just hours after he had made his decision to leave. It’s not, then, a problem with the 25-year old sniper that made the hall of fame goaltender leave the team.
- In a piece by Sam Carchidi of The Inquirer, Dale Weise opens up about the mid-season trade to the Chicago Blackhawks and how excited he is about his new deal with the Philadelphia Flyers. “Going to Chicago was a disaster because I played like five minutes a night.It’s pretty tough to do anything when you play so little. It was a new experience for me.” says Weise, who had no goals in fifteen games with the Hawks down the stretch. He signed a four-year, $9.4 million deal with the Flyers this offseason, and thinks he “can play on any line and any role” with them this year.
- Dan Wakiji for the Detroit Red Wings team site writes about Filip Hronek (the Wings’ second-round pick this year) and his journey in hockey thus far. Taken 53rd overall, Hronek has very little experience on the North American ice, but will get some this season; he’s heading to Saginaw to join the OHL. Only weighing 163 pounds currently, Hronek’s biggest challenge will be getting stronger and tougher in his own end.
Florida Panthers Invite Adam Pardy On PTO
According to Harvey Fialkov of the Sun Sentinal, Adam Pardy will be attending Florida Panthers camp on a professional tryout. The team of course will be without top blueliner Aaron Ekblad for part of camp as he plays for team North America at the World Cup of Hockey.
While it would be pretty surprising to see Pardy crack the roster following training camp, he will provide veteran competition for the younger players, as well as a toughness and edge lacking on the Panthers back end since their trade of Erik Gudbranson to the Vancouver Canucks. Pardy has 52 points across an NHL career that has seen him hit the ice 338 times for five different teams. Last year he got into just 23 games, split between the Oilers and Jets.
For the Panthers, they’ve already done their offseason shopping and indeed Fialkov reports that Pardy’s addition is probably the last before camp opens. By locking up their young core and signing some key free agents, Florida has positioned themselves well to compete for the Stanley Cup for the foreseeable future.
Captaincy Notes: Fisher, Pavelski, Vacancies
Mike Fisher is set to become the next captain of the Nashville Predators, according to recent reports. The team has scheduled an afternoon press conference on Thursday, and Adam Vignan of The Tennessean says he has been told that the “major announcement” is that of the 2016-17 captains, with Fisher atop the list. An alternate with the Ottawa Senators and then immediately with the Predators following his trade, Fisher was always the most likely candidate. Vignan points out that Fisher is one of just four players on the current roster over the age of 30, and as a veteran presence on a young team, it is a natural fit for his locker room presence to translate to his captaincy. A veteran of over 1,000 NHL game and a complete two-way player, Fisher is the perfect example for Nashville’s young, impressionable players to work toward. Shea Weber himself said that he “knew” who his replacement would be at captain, so it seems as though Fisher will be universally accepted in his new role. Although no news has leaked as to who Fisher’s alternates will be, many have suspected that Weber’s true replacement, P.K. Subban, may be a top candidate.
In other captain news:
- John Tortorella has named Joe Pavelski the captain of Team USA for the upcoming World Cup of Hockey. The San Jose Sharks forward will be assisted by alternates Patrick Kane of the Chicago Blackhawks and Ryan Suter of the Minnesota Wild. Pavelski has been on a leadership role of late, taking over as the captain of San Jose last season after a captain-less 2014-15 campaign featured a locker room power struggle between a young core and older veterans, including former Sharks captains Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau. For the same reason coach Peter DeBoer named Pavelski captain, Tortorella did as well, and that is his impeccable locker room presence and chemistry with his teammates. Kane will be somewhat new to captaincy, even as an alternate, as Jonathan Toews (a Team Canada alternate), Duncan Keith, and Brent Seabrook have the official leadership roles locked up in Chicago. Suter meanwhile, has been an alternate captain on Team USA before, at the 2010 Winter Olympics, and serves in the same role with the Wild under Mikko Koivu (the captain of Team Finland).
- With the captain vacancy filled in Nashville, there are now just four openings remaining across the NHL. There has been much speculation that Connor McDavid will take over in Edmonton, but what of Carolina, Florida, and Toronto? It seems likely that alternate Jordan Staal will follow in his brother’s footsteps and take over the leadership role for the Hurricanes, though the dark horse candidate may just be the rare goalie captain in Cam Ward, who has spent his entire career in Carolina. If you don’t think that matters, look around the league. 20 captains and at least 32 alternates are lifelong members of their respective teams. By that logic, young Florida stars Aaron Ekblad and Jonathan Huberdeau, both recently extended long-term, look to be prime candidates. However, Jussi Jokinen and Derek MacKenzie served as alternates last season and may need to make up for the lost leadership of the departed Willie Mitchell, Brian Campbell, and Dave Bolland. Up in Toronto, well, your guess is as good as any. Veterans Brooks Laich and Joffrey Lupul are good veteran leaders, but neither is guaranteed ice time. Auston Matthews is the future, but it’s hard to see anyone being named captain without playing a single game. It could be that the Leafs wait to name a captain, but if they do want one in place prior to puck drop on the 2016-17, James van Riemsdyk seems like the best choice as of now.