Blackhawks Notes: Toews, Season Expectations, Depth
The Chicago Sun-Times’ Mark Lazerus answers a number of fan questions and starts with potential linemates for Jonathan Toews. Lazerus opines that Richard Panik will most likely start on the right wing while youngsters Nick Schmaltz, Vinnie Hinostroza, or Tyler Motte could end up on the top line as well. Lazerus reports that the Hawks will most likely put Marian Hossa with Marcus Kruger on the third line. Breaking up the dominant Artemi Panarin–Artem Anisimov–Patrick Kane line would be senseless.
Lazerus’ early season prediction about the Blackhawks 2016-17 season isn’t exactly what Hawks fans are used to. While he doesn’t dog the organization, he is extremely realistic in his assessment. He answered two questions regarding expectations, and with both, Lazerus preached caution. Though he indicates their championship window is still very wide open, he also points out what many others have: the Central Division has a number of very good teams and the Blackhawks’ forward depth is suspect. Lazerus calls the team “very good, albeit flawed.” Lazerus encourages fans to “temper their expectations,” while also stating that they should not “write off the season just yet.” Lazerus adds that the Blackhawks forward depth is a result of the salary cap, and a situation that many Hawk fans should be used to for seasons to come. Then again, Blackhawk fans have been watching their team mitigate through cap issues since 2010.
In other Hawks notes:
- The Hockey Writers’ David Tews writes that the Blackhawks’ attempts at replenishing depth have resulted in missed opportunities. Much like Lazerus wrote, Tews believes the Hawks’ roster holes–specifically left wing–could come back to hurt the Hawks as the season progresses. Tews is also high on Motte and Schmaltz, similar to Lazerus, but feels opportunities were missed if Chicago didn’t try to grab Brandon Pirri or Jiri Hudler at discounts.
Snapshots: Player Agent, Marlies, Kings Goaltending
News and notes from around the NHL:
- NHL Player Agent Steve Bartlett spoke to WGR 550 in Buffalo today on how the NHL is now a buyer’s market when it comes to free agents. Bartlett points out that the GMs hold all the cards and predicts that more players will be forced to sign professional tryouts instead of deals between now and the start of training camp. Bartlett has represented Ryan Callahan and Thomas Vanek, and nearly became the NHLPA head in the 1990s.
- The Toronto Marlies, AHL affiliate for the Toronto Maple Leafs, bolstered its defensive corps by signing NCAA grad Jonathan Jutzi. The Tavistock, ON native put up 5G and 10A in 41 games with the Minnesota State University—Mantako last year. The Maple Leafs’ defense is anybody’s game this year, and Jutzi has a chance to log key minutes in the AHL as players get called up.
- Kings goaltending development coach Dusty Imoo spoke to Sheng Peng of Today’s Slapshot on recent Kings’ goalie acquisitions Jack Campbell and Tom McCollum. Both goalies were highly-touted prospects who failed to live up to expectation, but Imoo is confident that he can work with the goalies to rediscover their talent. Imoo is credited with turning aroud Peter Budaj’s season last year in the AHL. The veteran Slovak goalie struggled early before winning the AHL’s top goaltender award.
‘Yotes Notes: Front Office, Prospects, Braid
The Arizona Coyotes have had a busy offseason, between hiring the youngest GM in NHL history, the first full-time female coach and using their cap-space to build a great young pool of players. Today, they announced that they’d done some more hiring, this time to beef up their scouting staff. The team has brought on Jim Hammett, Rick Beckfeld and Sergei Kuznetsov as amateur scouts, Brett Stewart as a development coach, Brad Rossen as Director of Statistical Science and Al Ambrosia as the Hockey Operations Coordinator.
Other news from the desert:
- ESPN released their annual top 120 prospect rankings (subscription needed), and the Coyotes fared very well coming in with four players in the top 40 and nine players in total. Dylan Strome and Clayton Keller led the list at #4 and #6 respectively, while Jakob Chychrun and Lawson Crouse, both acquired through the use of cap space, came in at #32 and #37. Solid drafting, combined with a shrewd use of every advantage has led the Coyotes to have one of the best young crops in the league, and this list even excludes players like Max Domi and Anthony Duclair.
- After all the fanfare that has surrounded the hiring of Dawn Braid as the first full-time female coach in the NHL, she’s quick to heap praise on other people. In a piece by Alex Prewitt of Sports Illustrated today, Braid admits it’s “a little bit overwhelming”, and quickly lists other skating coaches Barbara Underhill (Toronto) and Tracy Tutton (Colorado) as deserved of the same praise. It was her father who had pushed her into helping hockey teams, and Braid continues to remember why she started: “It’s the opportunity to honor my father again. Every day I teach or I coach or I consult I think about him. It is part of what drives me on the ice to do what I do. He’s always in the back of my head.”
Injury Notes: Laine, Callahan, Tynan
As the season gets closer and closer, injuries and rehab from offseason surgery pepper the headlines. Here are a few updates on injured players around the league:
Patrik Laine underwent knee surgery back in June, but according to head coach Paul Maurice (via Mike G. Morreale of NHL.com) he’s been back at full strength for a while now, and has shown no ill-effects. Laine will take part in the upcoming World Cup of Hockey, and then compete for a spot at Jets camp. Maurice says that Laine is “certainly going to be given the opportunity to excel right out of the gate,” and goes on to speak about his experience with young players and high draft picks:
The hockey is going to come, the hockey is there, but all of these other things are also important. I’ve coached a lot of good young players, I’ve coached a player who won the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year (Jeff Skinner, Carolina, 2010-11) and I’ve seen the ups and downs of those seasons they’ve had. If he has a great two weeks, I’m not going to get too excited about it; if he doesn’t look right in the first two weeks, I’m not going to worry about it a bit.
A player that won’t be able to play in the World Cup is Ryan Callahan, who pulled out in June because of hip surgery. According to Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times Callahan is expected to be out until mid-November, but he’s trying to get back even sooner:
It’s such a long estimated timetable that there’s obviously variation in there. Some guys come back a little bit earlier than that, some guys it’s five months. If it’s before then, then great.
Callahan hasn’t even started skating yet, though he is on schedule to start on the ice next week. Smith reports that the injury had been bothering Callahan since January, and links it to the 18-goal drought the forward suffered during that time. Since Callhan thought he could rehab it instead of surgery originally, he’ll now miss about a month of the season.
Lastly, Aaron Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch mentions on twitter that Blue Jackets prospect T.J. Tynan has a possible fractured bone in his arm after being hit with the puck in practice a week ago. He’s still unsure whether the former third-round pick will miss any regular season time, even if it is in fact broken.
Tynan was an excellent playmaker last season, scoring just six goals but assisting on 40 for the Calder Cup winning Lake Erie Monsters. That made back to back 45+ point seasons in the AHL for diminutive forward; Tynan stands at just 5’9″, 165 lbs.
Boston Bruins Sign Dominic Moore, Three Others To One-Year Deals
According to a team release, the Boston Bruins have signed Dominic Moore, Chris Casto, Brian Ferlin and Alex Grant to one year deals. Moore will earn $900K on a one-way deal, while the other three will be on two-way deals earning $650K, $725K, and $600K respectively. Moore will also earn a $100K bonus if he plays in at least 42 games and the Bruins make the playoffs, reports Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports.
Moore, a veteran of 765 NHL games, played last season with the New York Rangers and provided another season of solid bottom-six play. While his offensive production dropped to a career low of 15 points, the 35-year old was still an excellent penalty killer and face-off man for the Rangers, winning a career high 55.3% of his draws.
A former Bill Masterson Trophy winner for perseverance and sportsmanship, Moore has always been regarded as a near-perfect teammate and will a big part of the leadership group on the team next year. He’s heading back to the area he played his college hockey in, graduating from Harvard in 2003.
Casto, 24, has been in the Bruins system since signing in 2013 out of the University of Minnesota. The defenseman had his best season as a professional last year, scoring seven goals and 23 points in 68 games for the Providence Bruins of the AHL. A right-handed shot, Casto will keep working towards a possible NHL debut in the near future, a long way from going undrafted out of the USHL.
[Related: Updated Boston Bruins Depth Chart]
Having already made his NHL debut in 2014-15, Ferlin re-signs with the team who drafted him in the fourth round in 2011 and will try to reestablish himself after missing most of last year to injury. The winger got into just 23 games in the AHL after suffering an injury opening night, but was able to put up 14 points in that short time. A former Big Red member at Cornell University, Ferlin now has 35 points in 83 games in his professional career.
Grant, 27, is another newcomer to the organization, having spent last year with the Arizona organization. A long-time point producer from the blueline in the AHL, Grant has seven games of experience in the NHL, with five of those coming last year with the Coyotes. His career total of 174 points in the AHL was helped by his best year in 2015-16, when he racked up 42 in just 69 games. Another right handed shot, he’ll try to prove that his puck moving ability can be effective at the next level.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Columbus Blue Jackets Sign Jarret Stoll To PTO
After the Calgary Flames added Chris Higgins and the Carolina Hurricanes added Raffi Torres on professional try-outs earlier today, the Columbus Blue Jackets have decided to get in on the action. The team has invited veteran Jarret Stoll to training camp on a PTO, as Aaron Portzline reports.
Stoll, 34, spent last season between the New York Rangers and Minnesota Wild contributing just nine points in 80 games. Once an effective scoring threat capable of putting up 40 points per season, Stoll hasn’t hit double digits in goals since 2010-11. Last season saw his minutes decreased to just over 12 a game, as he became a PK and faceoff specialist, hardly spending any time in the offensive zone.
Now, Stoll will try to hook on with a team in desperate need of cheap options to fill out their roster. The club is just $3.8MM under the cap, despite only having 18 players (twelve forwards and six defense) under NHL deals. While Zach Werenski, Pierre-Luc Dubois and Oliver Bjorkstrand all might make the team to provide some young inexpensive options, someone like Stoll could provide a cheap, veteran, bottom-six option for a team with so much tied up in terrible contracts.
Reduced Goalie Equipment Not Expected For 2016-17
After rumors circulated earlier this month about the problems the NHL has had in producing the smaller, form-fitting goalie equipment it promised for this season, Jonas Siegal of the Associated Press has a new article up in the Winnipeg Free Press confirming our suspicions. In it, Siegal goes in detail on the problems in manufacturing and testing the league has had since they announced in March that they would be reducing the size of the equipment to provide a more level playing field for goaltenders.
Mathieu Schneider, a special assistant for the NHLPA who is part of the team assigned to the project, spoke candidly in an interview with the Canadian Press:
I wish no one said that we were going to have this ready for this season because I think that was an aggressive timeline to say that we would have that done. Given where we are now and given some of the challenges we’ve had to face, I’m 100 per cent confident that we’re going to achieve our goal, but I’m not sure if and what parts we’re going to be able to try to implement this year.”
Schneider of course, is referring to the goal of forcing goaltenders to play with pads that are more form-fitting instead of making them as large as possible. Siegal notes Cory Schneider and Braden Holtby, both well over six foot, two-hundred pounds as proponents of the new equipment which would seemingly punish smaller goaltenders who bulk up as much as they can.
The NHL has tried for years to put limits on goaltender equipment, believing it is one of the biggest causes to the downturn in offense over the past few decades.
Always testing out new ways to make the game more exciting for fans around the world, goalies like Ryan Miller (168 lbs, pictured) and Marc-Andre Fleury (180 lbs) have often been used as examples for the need for new restrictions.
“You see guys look like absolute monsters on the ice. It’s nuts. You can have guys weigh 175 and they look like a 300-pound sumo wrestler out there.” said Sabres goalie Robin Lehner back in March, who claimed that the 223 lbs he was listed at last season was probably about twenty pounds light.
If the league and players union can eventually come to some sort of consensus on the design of the equipment, perhaps it will lead to increased offense, and perhaps not. One thing it’s sure to do, is make goaltending a more even battleground for players of all sizes – Miller and Fleury would still be wonderful goalies because of their quickness and agility, while bigger goaltenders would truly have the size advantage once again.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Calgary Flames Sign Chris Higgins To PTO
The Calgary Flames have announced the signing of Chris Higgins to a professional try-out. Higgins was bought out earlier this summer by the Vancouver Canucks after a dreadful 2015-16 season that saw him relegated to the AHL for the first time in over a decade.
Higgins, 33, has declined rapidly in recent years and put up only four points in 33 games last season at the NHL level. A former three-time twenty-goal scorer, he could once be counted on to provide 30-40 points while playing a solid two-way game. The Canucks decided he wasn’t going to be able to recapture that skill though, buying out the final year of his contract to save less than $2MM in cap space this season; Higgins will be paid $833K for the next two years, making any contract he earns in Flames camp a bonus.
This isn’t the first time Higgins will be in a Calgary sweater, as the team acquired him in 2010 from the Rangers in a four-player swap. Ironically, that was during his second worst season of his career, one that saw him score only 17 points in 72 games. Perhaps the Flames are convinced they can turn him around this time, and provide some veteran leadership to a group led by young forwards.
Minor Transactions: 08/30/16
Here is where we will keep track of the day’s minor transactions:
- The Carolina Hurricanes will sign notorious forward Raffi Torres to a professional tryout, according to Aaron Ward. Torres is coming off a season that saw him suspended for more games than he played at any level, after he was given a 41-game ban for his hit on Jakob Silfverberg in the preseason. He did get into six games for the San Jose Barracuda, but was held scoreless. Torres was recently quoted as saying “The show or no”, referring to a possible retirement if he doesn’t make the NHL this year.
- The Manitoba Moose have signed two players to one-year deals. Patrice Cormier and Kevin Czuczman will be suiting up for the Winnipeg Jets affiliate next season. Cormier played for the Moose last season and got into two games with the big club, not scoring a point. Czuczman is a defenseman who made his NHL debut in 2013-14 with the Islanders, but hasn’t made it back since. He scored 15 points in 74 games with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers last season.
- The New York Rangers’ AHL affiliate Hartford Wolfpack have signed Boston University defenseman Ahti Oksanen. Oksanen finished his BU career with 115 points in 150 games, including 35+ points in each of his junior and senior seasons. His 36 points last year ranked him second on BU, ahead of first-round pick Charles McAvoy and second-rounder Jakob Forsbacka-Karlsson.
- The Toronto Marlies have signed Jon Jutzi to an AHL contract, after inviting him to their rookie development camp in July. Jutzi, 25, played four seasons at Minnesota State University alongside Predators draft pick Zach Stepan, cousin of Derek Stepan. Jutzi got into six games with the Manitoba Moose this spring after graduating, where he was held pointless.
Latest On Rasmus Ristolainen
The Buffalo Sabres have had a roller coaster of an offseason. While the team successfully brought in Kyle Okposo and Dmitry Kulikov to shore up two weaknesses, they’ve also had the headaches caused by Evander Kane‘s continuing legal issues, and were spurned by Jimmy Vesey after trading a third-round pick to obtain his negotiating rights. Now, you’d think all their attention would be on re-signing their two remaining restricted free agents, starting with their stud defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen.
Not so fast, as according to Sami Hoffren of Urheilusanomat (a Finnish sports publication) Ristolainen told him he or his camp “haven’t heard anything in a while” from the Buffalo side regarding a new contract and doesn’t expect to sign anything during the World Cup; Ristolainen is competing for Finland in the upcoming tournament.
After being drafted eighth overall in 2013, Ristolainen has shown a steady progression into one of the better right-handed defensemen in the league. With 41 points last season, he led the Buffalo blueline and ranked 23rd in the league among defensemen. Going forward, the 21-year old will be looking for a substantial bump if he’s to sign long-term, as he’s proven his ability at this level over the past two seasons.
Buffalo also has Zemgus Girgensons, another former first round pick who took a step backwards last season left to sign. Girgensons only scored 18 points after two consecutive seasons with at least 22, including a 15 goal output in just 61 games in 2014-15. Both players should eventually re-sign, but it is getting later and later into the summer without any news. The Sabres have just over $8MM in cap space currently, more than enough to get both under contract.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.