Brandon Prust Signs In Germany
TSN’s Darren Dreger reported this morning that the rumors of NHL veteran Brandon Prust accepting a deal overseas are indeed true. The veteran agitator is heading to Germany to pursue an opportunity to extend his playing career. While it is currently unknown exactly which team he will sign with, it will more than likely be a team in the country’s premiere league, the DEL. Prust will leave for Germany tomorrow and an announcement is expected in the coming days.
Right up until this decision was made, many expected that Prust could sign with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The 32-year-old forward accepted a PTO deal with the Leafs, but was unable to secure a roster spot in training camp. However, he has continued to practice with the team over the past few months. When Auston Matthews and Tyler Bozak missed time with the flu a few weeks back, Prust went as far as to join line rushes and many speculated that a contract offer was imminent. Just a couple of days ago, Prust’s agent, and a former gritty NHLer himself, Claude Lemieux was reportedly waiting to accept any offer from outside of North America while anticipating a deal with Toronto. However, that opportunity did not arise and Prust has moved on to a new adventure overseas.
A journeyman enforcer, Prust’s days in the NHL appeared numbered when he was demoted to the AHL by the Vancouver Canucks last season. Although never an offensive force, Prust showed an ability to chip in an occasional goal throughout his career. After being traded from the Montreal Canadiens to Vancouver for Zack Kassian last summer, that ability seemingly evaporated and led to Prust playing in just 35 games last season and was part of the reason he was unable to find a guaranteed contract in the off-season. In nine seasons split between the Calgary Flames, Phoenix Coyotes, New York Rangers, Canadiens, and Canucks, Prust recorded 40 goals and 75 assists for 115 points in 486 games. More memorable will be the 1036 penalty minutes he sat for in his career as well. With the league trending away from enforcers, especially those who are on the wrong side of 30, Prust has likely played his last NHL game, but will continue his career by bringing his tough, physical brand of hockey to Germany.
Pacific Notes: McDavid, Marleau, Jankowski
This season, Edmonton’s Connor McDavid has been the dominant force that many predicted when he was taken first overall by the Oilers in 2015. The National Post put the results of a reader’s poll together that overwhelmingly selected McDavid to continue his torrid scoring performance and finish the season as the league’s Art Ross Trophy recipient. Through Thursday, McDavid had 27 points, (9-18), good for a three point lead over Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov who has 24 points. McDavid is averaging 1.29 points-per-game, and has been a major factor in Edmonton’s rise this season.
- San Jose’s Patrick Marleau notched a game winning goal to power his Sharks past the New York Islanders Friday night. The goal was his 94th career game winner, which moved him past Joe Nieuwendyk and tied him with Red Wings legend Steve Yzerman, who sits ninth all time. Marleau is now just 13 goals from registering 500 in his career, placing him in elite company.
- The Calgary Herald’s Wes Gilbertson reports on 2012 first round pick Mark Jankowski, who finally got the call to the big club Thursday evening. Gilbertson quotes head coach Glen Gulutzan on what the youngster brings to the Flames:
“He’s a great kid. He’s not a good kid, he’s a great kid,” said Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan of the latest arrival. “He didn’t know where to sit in the room (Friday), when the video was on. He was like, ‘Is there assigned seating?’
“The first thing I said to him is, ‘You can sit wherever you want, Janks. You don’t have to wait for everybody to sit down.’ I think he ended up sitting close to the front. It’s like going to high school, right? Nobody wants the front seat in a video session, they might have to answer a question.”
Allen’s Latest: Hamilton, Kane, Shattenkirk, Hanzal, Murphy
The USA Today’s Kevin Allen is more than happy to suggest a holiday wish list for a handful of NHL teams. Allen offers advice to the follow clubs:
- New York Rangers: Allen suggests that the Rangers could snap up Dougie Hamilton from the Calgary Flames should they be willing to give up J.T. Miller. But just as quickly as he suggests it, he provides rationale as to why it might be far fetched. First, the financials wouldn’t work with Hamilton’s $5.75MM cap hit. Second, Miller is playing well with 18 points in 21 games while Hamilton has been struggling. For the deal to work, Allen believes the Rangers would have to shed another contract to either Calgary or another team in need of a defenseman (Allen suggests Kevin Klein).
- New York Islanders: The team in Brooklyn is Allen’s next focus and he suggests Evander Kane to the Isles. The losses of Kyle Okposo, Matt Martin, and Frans Nielsen coupled with the poor production from pricey free agent pickup Andrew Ladd makes Kane a reasonable target. However, Allen points out that the Isles do not have the cap room to add Kane’s bulky contract and would have to do some “juggling” in order to make it work. Allen adds that a defenseman would help out Buffalo’s cause if they were willing to talk about Kane.
- Boston Bruins: How many people have suggested Kevin Shattenkirk to Boston? Allen chimes in here as well, believing that the right handed defenseman would be the perfect addition to the blue line. Further, Allen writes that if Boston can convince Shattenkirk to re-sign with them, overpaying a bit would be well worth it.
- Montreal Canadiens: Arizona’s Martin Hanzal would be a great target for the Habs, who Allen feels could use another scorer to make a Stanley Cup run. What would it take? Allen believes a young player and a draft pick.
- Detroit Red Wings: It hasn’t been easy to fill the enormous hole that Nicklas Lidstrom left four seasons ago, and the Wings have struggled to find any solutions. Allen believes the Carolina Hurricanes could provide some help in the way of defenseman Ryan Murphy. Allen predicts that the Red Wings could trade a young forward to land him, but also sees a number of potential suitors for Murphy, namely the Colorado Avalanche, Arizona Coyotes and Vancouver Canucks.
West Notes: Little, Avalanche, Domingue, Kopitar
Winnipeg center Bryan Little is making progress as he continues to recover from his lower body injury sustained in the first period of the season opener. He told Mike Sawatzky of the Winnipeg Free Press that he’s hoping to get back into the lineup soon, potentially some time next week:
“I feel good. It’s gotten a lot better in the last couple weeks. A lot stronger. There’s not much more that I can do besides getting into a full-contact practice and then I think I’m ready to come back. It’s just a matter of the doc taking a look at it in Winnipeg and trying to get through a practice with some bumps… hopefully not much longer.”
Dating back to last year, Little hasn’t had much luck with injuries recently. Last season, he missed the final 25 games due to a neck injury so in the last nine months, he has played just 2:48 of regular season action.
Little’s eventual return will give the Jets some much-needed good news from the infirmary as they have been hit hard with injuries this season. Winnipeg is currently without centers Mathieu Perreault and Shawn Matthias, right winger Joel Armia, plus defenseman Tyler Myers while fellow blueliner Toby Enstrom is currently on a personal leave of absence.
[Related: Jets Depth Chart]
More news and notes from the West:
- Colorado goaltender Semyon Varlamov is dealing with an upper body and won’t play on Saturday, writes Terry Frei of The Denver Post. He adds that the team is likely to recall prospect Spencer Martin to serve as the backup goalie against Vancouver. Frei also reports that left winger Gabriel Landeskog skated in a non-contact sweater but isn’t expected to play tomorrow night.
- Arizona has recalled goaltender Justin Peters on an emergency basis, notes Sarah McLellan of The Arizona Republic. Backup netminder Louis Domingue is dealing with a lower body injury so Peters will back up Mike Smith tonight against the Oilers. Head coach Dave Tippett doesn’t believe the injury is serious but they will re-evaluate Domingue on Saturday.
- The Kings are experimenting with playing center Anze Kopitar on the left wing, Jon Rosen of LA Kings Insider writes. The captain will be playing in his second game since coming back from an upper body injury tomorrow and was only able to take faceoffs on one side on Wednesday. By placing him on the wing, they can ease him back in and make sure the upper body issue is completely healed before asking him to shoulder the extra load down the middle.
Matt Carle Retires
Defenseman Matt Carle has announced his retirement, the Predators revealed in a press release. The decision comes after he cleared regular waivers yesterday. Nashville also placed him on unconditional release waivers earlier this afternoon, reports Adam Vingan of The Tennessean (Twitter link). That would have permitted the team to terminate his contract to get him off of the cap and their 50-contract limit but this announcement makes that procedural move a moot one.
Carle was bought out by the Lightning in the offseason and signed a one year, $700K deal with the Predators to give them some more blueline depth. However, he has played in just six games this season and has been a healthy scratch for nearly an entire month.
The 32 year old finishes his career having played parts of 12 NHL seasons with the Sharks, Flyers, Lightning, and Predators. In 730 games, he had 45 goals and 238 assists while averaging 20:43 of ice time per game. His 283 points rank third all-time among Alaskan-born NHL players. Carle was also a frequent visitor to the postseason having played in ten different playoffs; he put up 44 points (6-38-44) in 127 games.
Although he never won a Stanley Cup (he reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2009 with Philadelphia and in 2015 with Tampa Bay), Carle was a two-time NCAA champion and also won the Hobey Baker Award for the best defenseman in college hockey back in 2006 while playing at the University of Denver.
Despite retiring, he’ll still be collecting an NHL paycheck for a little while yet as he’ll receive slightly more than $1.8MM per year from Tampa Bay every year through 2019-20.
Thanksgiving Trade Market: Defensemen
Many teams view US Thanksgiving – typically around the one-quarter mark of the season – as the benchmark for evaluating their teams and determining what areas need to be addressed. One area that most teams are always looking to shore up is their defense corps. Some teams will be after top four blueliners while others will be after depth options. There isn’t a big list of players available at this time but here’s a closer look at those that have had their names out there in trade talks so far.
Calvin de Haan (NY Islanders) – On top of shopping goalie Jaroslav Halak, the 25 year old blueliner is also believed to be available. He is a solid stay-at-home second pairing option although he doesn’t bring much offensively to the table. He has a manageable cap hit of a little under $2MM this season but his qualifying offer in the summer jumps to $2.9MM due to the back-loaded nature of his contract.
Deryk Engelland (Calgary) – The Flames made him available earlier this month but there hasn’t been much interest in the 34 year old. He’s off to a decent start with Calgary this year, picking up four points in 22 games but he has seen his average ice time jump up over 18 minutes a night, a career high for him. He has one year left on his contract with a cap hit of $2.9MM. For teams that are looking for more of a physical presence on their third line, he will be an option although his cap hit is high for his role.
Jack Johnson (Columbus) – The Blue Jackets are believed to be looking to clear some salary and Johnson, who has a cap hit of $4.35MM this season and next, is one of the players GM Jarmo Kekalainen is willing to move. He hasn’t turned in to the top pairing offensive threat that earned saw him drafted third overall by Carolina in 2005 but he has averaged more than 24 minutes per night the last four years. His minutes are down a bit this year (just under 22 per game) but he is still a top four option in a market largely devoid of them.
Ryan Murphy (Carolina) – The former first round pick (12th overall in 2011) has failed to lock down a full-time role in this, his fourth NHL season. In an effort to get him some game action, the Hurricanes recently sent Murphy to the AHL on a conditioning stint. He has had considerable offensive success at the AHL level (66 points in 86 games) but that has yet to translate to much NHL success (36 points in 128 contests). He has another year past this one remaining on his deal with a cap hit just under $800K and could be a fit for a team looking for some mobility and offense from their back end. However, it’s believed that GM Ron Francis is looking to package him with other pieces for a defensive upgrade.
Kevin Shattenkirk (St. Louis) – Back at the draft, it was widely expected that the Blues would deal Shattenkirk but no deal came to fruition. With the team already having Alex Pietrangelo and Jay Bouwmeester on big money, long-term deals beyond this season, the expectation is that he will be moved at some point during the season. He’s off to a strong start this year (14 points in 21 games) and will almost assuredly be the most expensive to acquire among potentially available defenders.
Michael Stone (Arizona) – Last week, Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal noted (via Twitter) that the pending UFA is on the market. The Coyotes sit last in the league in the standings so it’s not surprising that they’d be looking to move any pending free agents. Stone has dealt with two separate injuries this season and has played in just nine games as a result but had 36 points last season while playing over 22 minutes per game. With a cap hit and salary of $4MM, there should be a lot of suitors for his services.
Golden Knights Notes: Expansion, Coaches, AHL Affiliate
In advance of June’s expansion draft, several teams have approached the league to see if they would be able to voluntarily expose exempt (first and second year) players in an effort to allow them to protect more expansion-eligible skaters. However, as TSN’s Frank Seravalli reports, the league has told them that this will not be an option; exempt players are exempt.
Of course, that isn’t to say that exempt players can’t be made available to the Golden Knights via the trade market in terms of side agreements where GM George McPhee receives an exempt player as part of a trade agreement where he agrees to avoid picking a particular player left exposed.
Speaking with Stephen Whyno of the Associated Press, McPhee expects a robust trade market leading up to the expansion draft as teams try to shuffle their rosters around before setting their protection lists:
“There’s going to be a massive player redistribution before the expansion draft in the weeks leading up to it. We understand teams are going to try to not give us anything, and that’s the way expansion goes. There are a few teams that have expansion stress and we might be able to get a good player from them, and there’ll be some teams that don’t have anything and rather than take a bad contract we’ll take a throwaway pick.”
This week, we’ve been taking a closer look at the expansion draft, including the list of mandatory-protected players, potential goaltending options to choose from, and the impact of this draft on the Canadian teams.
More from Las Vegas:
- Also from Seravalli, McPhee is in the process of vetting a list of potential head coaching candidates although the team is in no rush to hire one. In all likelihood, many of the potential options wouldn’t be available to hire at this time anyways. He did note that his preference would be to not hire a first time NHL head coach but that he is open to any possibilities.
- Seravalli also adds that the next item on the agenda for McPhee is to secure their AHL affiliation for next season. While they could conceivably start up their own minor league franchise, another option would be to share an affiliation for a year or two since they may not have enough players to fill their own team right away. No team currently shares an AHL affiliate but there is a long history of NHL teams sharing a minor league team. McPhee hopes to have that decision made by mid-December.
Penguins Notes: Crosby, Kessel, Faceoffs, Recchi
Penguins center Sidney Crosby is thought of as one of the elite playmakers in the NHL while Phil Kessel is of the league’s better goal scorers. Interestingly enough, at the one-quarter mark of the season, Crosby finds himself leading the league in goals with 14 (despite missing six games due to injury) while Kessel sits behind only Edmonton’s Connor McDavid in the assist department with 15. Speaking with Jonathan Bombulie of the Pittsburgh Tribune, Crosby tried to explain his sudden jump in goal production:
“Typically, I think you probably look to pass. I think it’s always going to be like that. But when they’re going in for you, without even thinking about it, you probably tend to put it at the net a little bit more.”
Crosby’s shot per game average is up slightly compared to his career numbers but not by any significant amount. The same can’t be said with regards to Kessel’s shooting numbers as he’s down more than a full shot per game this season. Despite his passing prowess so far, head coach Mike Sullivan is encouraging him to start shooting more:
“When Phil’s at his best, he’s a shoot-first guy. He’s a primary threat. When you watch him shoot the puck, it’s hard as his coach not to encourage him to shoot the puck. He scores as well as anybody in the league.”
While it’s likely that both players will revert back to their past form, their changes in roles certainly haven’t affected the Penguins in the standings as they sit tied for fourth in the league heading into Friday’s action.
More from Pittsburgh:
- One area where the team has struggled so far this season is at the faceoff dot, notes Bill West of the Pittsburgh Tribune. The Penguins as a whole have won just 47.8% of their draws, placing them in a tie for 28th league-wide. Crosby in particular is off to a rough start here as he is at 45.8%, nearly 7% off of his career rate and he takes more faceoffs than anyone on the team at a little over 23 per game. Matt Cullen is the only full-time Pittsburgh center on the happy side of 50% at 53.6% but that’s his lowest success rate since 2011-12.
- Mark Recchi, Pittsburgh’s player development coach, will be divesting his tiny share of the Vegas Golden Knights franchise, reports Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Recchi is one of many people who are believed to have a small stake – around 0.01% – in the franchise but since he is an active employee of the Penguins, it represents a conflict. Recchi isn’t the only member of Pittsburgh’s front office that has had to sell his stake in another team as GM Jim Rutherford had a small ownership stake in Carolina that he had to sell in order to take the helm for the Pens.
Carlo Colaiacovo Signs in Germany
Veteran NHL defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo has signed with Adler Mannheim of the German DEL (Deutsche Eishockey Liga), reports Fox Sports’ Andy Strickland. Colaiacovo failed to find a satisfiable NHL contract—or even a PTO—this offseason.
The rugged defenseman has had stops in Toronto, St. Louis, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Buffalo, earning 34G and 123A in 470 NHL games. Last season with Buffalo Colaiacovo scored 1G and 4A in 36 games. Toronto drafted Colaiacovo 17th overall in 2001, and while the defenseman never lived up to his hype, he established a solid career in those fourteen NHL seasons.
Colaiacovo was rumored to have two KHL offers this offseason, reported Rsports. Moving to Russia never came to fruition, however, and Colaicovo continued to look elsewhere. He will join former NHLers Marcel Goc and Luke Adam with Mannheim as the team tries to improve upon its current third-place standing.
Injury Update: Palmieri, Eichel, Oshie, Dzingel
Injury updates from around the NHL this morning:
- Kyle Palmieri will return to the New Jersey Devils tonight against the Detroit Red Wings, notes Andrew Gross of the New Jersey Record. Devils Coach John Hynes has not yet decided who will sit to make room for Palmieri. The speedy forward has missed the past two games with an upper-body injury, and his return should boost New Jersey’s anemic offense. The team currently sits 26th in scoring, and while Palmieri only has 3G and 4A in 17 games, he scored 30 goals last season.
- The Buffalo Sabres may get forward Jack Eichel back soon. The former 2nd overall pick participated in contact drills for the second straight practice. Eichel, however, did not join the team in Washington to face the Capitals tonight. Coach Dan Bylsma said that Eichel would get a harder skate staying home in Buffalo, reports the Buffalo News’ John Vogl.
- T.J. Oshie skated with the Washington Capitals this morning, but is still week-to-week with an upper body injury, reports Isabelle Khurshudyan of the Washington Post. Oshie missed the last three games after being hit by the Detroit Red Wings’ Riley Sheahan. The Capitals miss Oshie and his scoring touch. Oshie had 8G and 4A in 17 games before the injury, and the Capitals need all the scoring they can get in the tight Metropolitan Division.
- The Ottawa Senators forward Ryan Dzingel received over thirty stitches last night after taking a puck to the side of the head, reports Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun. Dzingel required ear reconstruction but managed to return to the game in the third period. Given his return, he is in no danger of missing any time. Scoring-wise, however, Dzingel has cooled off significantly since his hot start. He only has 1G and 2A in the past ten games.