Bowers Commits To Boston University
Yet another top prospect is joining the Boston University Terriers. Shane Bowers has announced that he will enroll at BU next season, joining a team that is already stacked with early draft picks and has received a commitment from promising defenseman Kasper Kotkansalo as well. Bowers is considered by many to be a first-round caliber talent and is expected to go in the first 31 picks in next June’s 2017 NHL Entry Draft.
In last year’s draft, BU was proud to see both current players and 2016-17 commits selected early in the NHL Draft. Freshman Clayton Keller went #7 overall to the Arizona Coyotes, sophomore defenseman Charlie McAvoy was taken by the Boston Bruins at #14, freshman defenseman Dante Fabbro went soon after at #17 to the Nashville Predators, and almost immediately following that, freshman forward Kieffer Bellows went #19 to the New York Islanders. Yet another freshman defenseman, Chad Krys, was selected by the Chicago Blackhawks in the second round.
The school continues to put together an incredible array of talent, as they bring in a hard-working player with a complete game in Bowers. The Halifax native began eyeing an NCAA future last year, when he joined the USHL’s Waterloo Black Hawks. In 56 games in 2015-16, Bowers scored 33 points, and is off to a point-per-game start to the 2016-17 season. Bowers has a complete, 200-foot game and will be able to further develop his skill at Boston University.
Although recent draft speculation questions whether or not Kotkansalo makes it into the firs round, there is a consensus that Bowers will. In a first round that looks to be heavy with Canadian junior players, Bowers is joined by only two other NCAA-bound USHLers as potential first rounders at this point. Eeli Tolvanen has committed to joining BU’s biggest rival, the Boston College Eagles, next year and Casey Mittelstadt has committed to the University of Minnesota. Both players have the makings of top ten picks next June, while Bowers is looking like a a mid to late-round pick.
Bruins Notes: Defense, Rask, Trade Targets
After spending much of the first part of the 2016-17 season shuffling defensive pairs in an effort to protect four different goalies, the return of Adam McQuaid to the Boston Bruins’ lineup has seemingly stabilized their blue line. In their last eight games, the Bruins are 6-2 and have only allowed more than three goals in a game once, a 5-2 loss to the juggernaut New York Rangers. In total, the defense has held opponents to 15 goals total in their past eight games after giving up 14 goals total in just three games prior to that.
The top pair of Zdeno Chara and Brandon Carlo has remained intact all season, with the 6’9″ veteran mentoring the 6’5″ rookie. The duo has worked together perfectly, with each playing major ice time and posting a +11 thus far. With the 19-year-old Carlo presumably looking like the heir apparent to the 39-year-old Chara, the Bruins are unlikely to change up that pair any time soon. The bottom pair of the experienced John-Michael Liles and young Colin Miller has also mostly stayed together and worked well.
It’s McQuaid’s presence on the second pair with Torey Krug that has finally brought the blue line together. A speedy, offensive defenseman, Krug has always meshed well with more solid, defensive defenseman and McQuaid has fit the bill so far this year. Although he has only played for the Bruins in his career and was a member of the 2011 Stanley Cup championship team, he has received much criticism over the past couple years for being injury prone and often a liability. When Kevan Miller established himself as a reliable top-six defenseman last season, many questioned McQuaid’s role on the team. However, a resurgence this season has shown that, at the very least, McQuaid is an upgrade over Joe Morrow or rookie Rob O’Gara and has made everyone forget about the injured Miller.
- Both a beneficiary of the defensive improvement by the Bruins this season and also a main reason for their early success is Tuukka Rask. In ten games thus far, Rask is 9-1 with a .941 save percentage and 1.69 GAA (both top five in the NHL). When Rask has been healthy, and not necessarily even starting, the Bruins have not lost consecutive games. Three of Boston’s six losses came consecutively when Rask was sidelined with a lower body injury and Anton Khudobin, Malcolm Subban, and Zane McIntyre got the call. Rask is obviously superior to that trio, but his performance in 2016-17 has also been much better than those of a dismal 2015-16 season, showing the impact of Carlo, Colin Miller, and a cohesive Bruins defense.
- Even with the defense playing the best they have in perhaps three years, the Bruins have still been rumored to be on the lookout for a top pairing defenseman. With Jacob Trouba signed and off the market and Cam Fowler reportedly no longer on the block either, those options are dwindling. Boston will undoubtedly stay in contact with the St. Louis Blues about impending free agent and former local college star Kevin Shattenkirk, but the Bruins may now be content to stick with their current defensive group, especially with Kevan Miller soon to be healthy and options like O’Gara, Morrow, Matt Grzelcyk, and Linus Arnesson waiting in the wings this season. One thing is for sure: if the asking price for a top defenseman includes Carlo, you can forget about it.
Dennis Seidenberg Suffers Broken Jaw
The injury bug continues to hit the struggling New York Islanders. An already-battered blue line just lost another member, as Dennis Seidenberg took a Michael Matheson shot up high in the Islanders loss to the Florida Panthers yesterday, and early reports are that it resulted in a broken jaw. As Islanders’ bear writer Andy Graziano notes, the Isles are already without Travis Hamonic and Ryan Pulock, and neither one is expected back for weeks. Seidenberg’s injury will likely keep him sidelined just as long.
Seidenberg signed with New York on September 28th, after the World Cup of Hockey and right before the start of the season. After spending the past seven seasons with the Boston Bruins, the more recent of which were injury-riddled and ineffective, many speculated that Seidenberg’s playing days were over. However, he has seen somewhat of a career revival thus far in his 14th NHL season, as he has four goals (his last two seasons in Boston combined) and four assists to begin the 2016-17 campaign. Luckily for the Islanders, a jaw injury should not have any lasting effect on Seidenberg’s game play once he returns, unlike the knee issues that plagued him in Boston. Hopefully he is able to return promptly to an Islanders team that is 15th in the Eastern Conference and in desperate need of assistance.
In the meantime, expect Scott Mayfield to be the next man up. The Islanders had just six healthy defenseman on the roster before Seidenberg went down last night, and with Adam Pelech pressed into action already, big man Mayfield is likely the next call-up. Now down to just four defenseman with considerable NHL experience – Johnny Boychuk, Nick Leddy, Thomas Hickey, Calvin de Haan – it also seems like a strong possibility that the Islanders will explore trades, closely monitor the waiver wire, and potentially even look to sign someone in the coming weeks.
Sabres Send Down Three
Buffalo began a two-day break this morning by demoting three players to their AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans. The Sabres announced that they have returned forwards Nicholas Baptiste and Cole Schneider and defenseman Justin Falk to the minors. The trio will get some play time right away, as the Americans head to Springfield this afternoon to take on the Springfield Thunderbirds, the Florida Panthers new AHL affiliate.
Baptiste is a somewhat surprising move, as the rookie right winger has played in ten games with Buffalo thus far in 2016-17. Although he averages less than nine minutes of ice time per game, Baptiste has contributed two goals and has looked like a naturals fit on the Sabres’ fourth line with his physical play. A third-round pick in 2013, Baptiste put up strong offensive numbers in the OHL, so if he can re-discover more of an all-around game in Rochester, expect Baptiste to be back in Buffalo shortly.
The demotion of Schneider is more understandable, as the 26-year-old has simply not been able to stick at the NHL level. The UConn product joined the AHL’s Binghamton Senators in 2012 and has been a consistent minor league producer ever since. Schneider excels playing in the crease, using his physical presence to clean up rebounds and put up big points. However, that skill set never earned him a call-up to Ottawa in parts of five seasons, and was traded to Buffalo as part of a seven-player depth swap last February. Schneider finally got the long-awaited promotion late last season, but went scoreless in his two-game tryout. He got another chance this season, but in just two more games had an assist and played in less than 16 minutes total. Schneider is a proven commodity in the AHL, but it remains to be seen whether or not he can put it all together at the highest level.
Journeyman blue liner Falk signed on with Buffalo this summer knowing that his role was that of a #8 NHL defenseman or top pair AHL defenseman. When everyone is healthy, the Sabres have a solid top six and Falk was just brought in to compete for play time should injuries occur. With Dmitry Kulikov and Zach Bogosian having missed time, Falk was able to get into two games in Buffalo thus far, but has yet to record a point or make much of a difference in his own end. Now in his eighth NHL season, the 28-year-old has bounced around the league, spending most of his years (121 games) with the team that drafted him, the Minnesota Wild, who also traded him two separate times. Falk has moved on to Buffalo, but without much of a physical game or offensive ability, it seems likely that he will remain in Rochester unless called upon again due to multiple injuries. Just one year removed from playing 24 games with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Falk’s NHL opportunities are beginning to run out.
With Evander Kane activated from the injured reserve and Kulikov and Bogosian on the mend, the Sabres felt that using their off days to give some fringe players a game or two in the AHL was the right move. Buffalo has made several call-ups so far in 2016-17, so don’t be surprised to see one or more of these players or other “Amerks” brought back up prior to Buffalo’s road trip on Tuesday.
Red Wings Notes: Mantha, Power Play Struggles
Prior to the Red Wings matchup tonight against the Canadiens, the Detroit Free Press’ Helene St. James reports that the young goal scorer will have to be a net front presence in order to stay in Detroit. Head coach Jeff Blashill said that Mantha will need to be a big body in front of the net, and he continues on:
“His talent will take him lots of places. I see a real mature and confident guy. He seems to be real confident, real comfortable in his own skin, and those things are going to help him take on the mental challenge that you face as a guy trying to make his way into the NHL.”
Red Wings fans have been waiting for the former first round pick in the 2013 NHL draft to find regular time with the big club. Mantha contributed last season, but was given the opportunity in limited shifts. This season with Grand Rapids, he scored eight goals and had 10 points in as many games. Regardless, the Wings called up Tyler Bertuzzi earlier in the week, and finally brought Mantha up after Andreas Athanasiou suffered a knee injury, expected to sideline him for 1-2 weeks. Thomas Vanek is expected to be back sometime this week so Mantha’s impact needs to be felt. Though it seems unfair, the Red Wings have made younger players “earn” their ice time dating back to the days of Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov and Nick Lidstrom.
In other Red Wings news:
- Vanek coming back this week should help a power play that has struggled in his absence. St. James writes that the Wings are making a more concerted effort to put pucks on net, and while Blashill saw some hope in the work done on Thursday against Vancouver, Detroit still failed to register a goal in three solid chances. Frans Nielsen‘s power play unit has been strong, with speedsters Dylan Larkin and Athanasiou flanking him. Once again, Blashill wants more of a net front presence but the Red Wings have struggled to shoot through traffic and at times, have been indecisive when it comes to passing or shooting. Better faceoff wins and strong entries into the zone are also points of emphasis St. James reports.
Devils Acquire Petr Straka From Flyers
The New Jersey Devils have announced that they have made a trade to acquire forward prospect Petr Straka from the Philadelphia Flyers. In return, the Flyers will receive a conditional seventh-round pick in either 2017 or 2018. Straka played in three NHL games in 2014-15, recording two assists and four hits.
A second-round pick of the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2010, Straka has failed to live up to expectations thus far in his young career. The Czech winger put up strong numbers in his junior career in the QMJHL, beginning with a better than point-per-game first season with Rimouski Oceanic in his draft year and ending with 82 points in 55 games in his fourth and final season in 2012-13 after a trade to the Baie-Comeau Drakkar. Having outlasted his entry-level contract and earned free agent status, Straka chose to sign in Philadelphia. However, the transition to the pro game has not gone smoothly. In his first AHL season, with the now-defunct Adirondack Phantoms, Straka had just 27 points in 60 games. Although his next season was even worse – 24 points and a -20 in 68 games with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms – Straka earned a call-up to Philadelphia in 2014-15 and showed off his both his speed and grit in an impressive three-game tryout. It wasn’t enough to earn him a full-time role with the Flyers though, as Straka did not see any NHL action in 2015-16. He did see an improvement in his game last season, scoring 37 points and finishing on the right side of +/- for the first time in his AHL career.
Whether due to an undisclosed injury or if he had simply fallen out of favor in the Flyers organization, Straka has yet to suit up for a game this season, a scratch for every single game. Following the trade, Straka has been assigned to the AHL’s Albany Devils where he will hopefully be able to get back out on the ice. While Straka’s skill has not yet fully shown up on the ice at the pro level, he does possess a lot of raw talent, a smooth game, and an invaluable intensity. A change of pace may be exactly what the former top prospect needs to finally get his career back on track. At the cost of a seventh-round pick, the Devils have made a low risk/high reward deal for a player that still has potential.
Snapshots: Gignac, Pitlick, Cammalleri, Stone
The New Jersey Devils announced (Twitter link) that they have signed 2016 third round pick (80th overall) Brandon Gignac to a three year, entry-level contract. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Gignac is off to a strong start this season with Shawinigan of the QMJHL, scoring five goals while adding 11 assists in 14 games. The 19 year old will remain with his junior team and since it’s highly unlikely that he will play in more than nine games with the Devils this season (the only way he can be brought up is via an emergency recall), his contract won’t officially kick in this season and will instead slide a year.
He’s also set to represent Team QMJHL next week in the Canada-Russia series, a primer for next month’s World Junior Hockey Championships.
Elsewhere around the league:
- In his sixth year at the professional level, Edmonton right winger Tyler Pitlick is making his case to stick around, writes Dan Barnes of the Edmonton Sun. Through 15 games this season, the 25 year old has five goals, more than he had in his previous NHL stints combined and has moved off of the fourth line. The team hasn’t given him the green light to move out of the hotel and look for a more permanent residence just yet though: “I think they just want to see if I can keep it up. A lot of guys come in here and have a good first 10 games and then it starts to drop off. I think they want to see if I can hold it consistently.”
- New Jersey left winger Mike Cammalleri will miss his second straight game tonight due to personal reasons, notes Andrew Gross of Fire and Ice. Head coach John Hynes told reporters that he’s not sure how long Cammalleri will be away from the team.
- Arizona defenseman Michael Stone is expected to return to the lineup tonight after missing the last six games with an upper body injury, writes Sarah McLellan of the Arizona Republic. This already marks the second time this year that Stone is coming back from an injury after he missed time early on as he finished recovering from knee surgery. Stone has three assists in four games this season but as a pending UFA, it’s safe to say that this hasn’t been the start to the season that he was hoping for so far.
Canadiens Notes: Price, Defense, Home Ice
While it’s still more than eight months before the Canadiens can sign franchise goaltender Carey Price to a contract extension, that hasn’t stopped the speculation on what it may take to get him signed from starting up already. Speaking with Sportsnet 590 in Toronto, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman suggested that it could potentially take $10MM to get their star netminder to return (transcription from FanRag’s Chris Nichols):
“You know what? It could be a 10. It could be. I don’t know if it’ll go that high. I’m sure they’ll try to convince him to say, ‘Don’t make it 10 because we can win if you take a little less.’ But look. Would anybody be surprised if it’s a 9 or a 10?”
Price is off to another stellar start this season with a 1.56 goals against average and a .953 save percentage through nine games. Two years ago, he won the NHL’s Hart (league MVP) and Vezina (top goalie) trophies and the team completely fell apart after he was injured last November going from first overall in the standings to a team that missed the playoffs and finished in the bottom ten. Suffice it to say, he has a strong case to set a new benchmark price wise for goaltenders on the open market. Friedman also suggests that knowing this may have also played a reason in the summer blockbuster trade of P.K. Subban to Nashville:
“And look, that’s another reason why Subban was traded, because they knew that they were going to have to sign Carey Price at one point, and the number was going to be big.”
While they wound up swapping the highest cap hit for a defenseman for the second highest in Shea Weber, they still saved over $1MM on the cap in that deal, money that could very well help them get Price re-signed down the road.
Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers currently holds the highest cap hit among goalies with a charge of $8.5MM but he signed that deal at age 32 with a lower cap than there currently is and with stats that weren’t quite as strong as Price’s have been. When the time does come for him to sign a new deal – be it in the 2017 offseason with an early extension or in the summer of 2018 as a UFA, it appears that the discussion won’t be if Price gets the highest cap hit of goalies but rather by how much he does.
Also out of Montreal:
- From the same interview, Friedman notes that GM Marc Bergevin is looking to acquire another defenseman. The Canadiens are currently allowing the second most shots per game in the league at 33.6 but adding another depth defender isn’t going to do much to fix that. It has been suggested in the past that the team would like a top four blueliner but at this stage of the season, those players aren’t typically available. The team currently has just under $1.4MM in cap space per Cap Friendly which doesn’t leave them a lot of wiggle room to work with at the moment.
- The Canadiens have yet to lose at home this season, going 9-0-0. If they defeat the Red Wings on Saturday night, they will set a new franchise record for the most consecutive home victories to start a season. Montreal has only ever won nine straight on home ice to start the season once, back in 1953-54.
Poll: 2005 NHL Draft Take Two: Nineteenth Overall Pick
Hindsight is an amazing thing, and allows us to look back and wonder “what could have been.” Though perfection is attempted, scouting and draft selection is far from an exact science and sometimes, it doesn’t work out the way teams – or players – intended. For every Patrick Kane, there is a Patrik Stefan.
We’re looking back at the 2005 NHL Draft, which kicked off the salary cap era and ushered in many of the current NHL superstars. The question we’re looking to answer is knowing now what we didn’t know then, how different would this draft look now with the benefit of hindsight?
Here are the results of our redraft so far:
1st Overall: Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins)
2nd Overall: Carey Price (Mighty Ducks of Anaheim)
3rd Overall: Anze Kopitar (Carolina Hurricanes)
4th Overall: Jonathan Quick (Minnesota Wild)
5th Overall: Kris Letang (Montreal Canadiens)
6th Overall: Tuukka Rask (Columbus Blue Jackets)
7th Overall: Bobby Ryan (Chicago Blackhawks)
8th Overall: Marc-Edouard Vlasic (San Jose Sharks)
9th Overall: Ben Bishop (Ottawa Senators)
10th Overall: James Neal (Vancouver Canucks)
11th Overall: T.J. Oshie (Los Angeles Kings)
12th Overall: Keith Yandle (New York Rangers)
13th Overall: Paul Stastny (Buffalo Sabres)
14th Overall: Marc Staal (Washington Capitals)
15th Overall: Patric Hornqvist (New York Islanders)
16th Overall: Niklas Hjalmarsson (Atlanta Thrashers)
17th Overall: Anton Stralman (Phoenix Coyotes)
18th Overall: Jack Johnson (Nashville Predators)
Now we move forward to the 19th pick, which was held by the Detroit Red Wings.
To recap how this works:
- We will go through the 2005 NHL Draft and have our readers select, through a voting process, who they think should have been taken with the selection.
- The entire first round will be redrafted, spanning picks one through thirty. The new selection is chosen by the majority of votes.
Back in 2005, the Red Wings selected defenseman Jakub Kindl out of Kitchener of the OHL. After being picked, Kindl’s offense took off at the junior level but that didn’t translate into much success in the NHL. After spending parts of seven seasons with Detroit (spanning 273 games), the team cut bait with him last season, flipping him to Florida for a sixth round pick in 2017 and are presently paying him $360K (of his $2.4MM cap hit) not to play for them this year. As for the Panthers, they waived Kindl last month and he is plying his trade in the AHL this season.
With the 19th pick of the 2005 NHL Redraft, who should the Red Wings select? Cast your vote below!
Mobile users, click here to vote.
Injury Updates: Oilers, Tkachuk, Hammond, Kings, Avalanche, Perreault
The Edmonton Oilers haven’t had much good news on the injury front. Although Zack Kassian may be ready to return on Sunday, they won’t be getting any more help from the infirmary for the next little while, reports Robert Tychkowski of the Edmonton Sun.
Defenseman Brandon Davidson and Matt Hendricks, who both have missed over a month with lower body injuries, skated yesterday but head coach Todd McLellan noted neither are close to returning.
As for Kris Russell, who was supposed to just miss a bit of time with a lower body injury, is now weeks away from returning, Tychkowski notes. The veteran has logged significant minutes for the Oilers so far this season (over 21 minutes per game) while blocking nearly three shots per night.
Center Drake Caggiula, who had a strong preseason and was making a push for a roster spot, suffered a setback during the recovery from his lower body issue. McLellan expects the 22 year old to casually start skating in the next 7-10 days.
[Related: Oilers Depth Chart]
Other injury notes from around the league:
- The Calgary Flames will be without left winger Matthew Tkachuk for tonight’s game against the Rangers due to a wrist injury, the team announced via Twitter. The sixth overall pick back in June has spent most of the season in a bottom six role but still has scored three goals and three assists in 12 games so far. In a related move, the team announced that they have recalled right winger Garnet Hathaway from their AHL affiliate in Stockton; Hathaway is not expected to play tonight, however.
- Senators goaltender Andrew Hammond is nearly 100% recovered from his lower body injury, Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun notes (Twitter link). When he returns, that would give Ottawa three goaltenders but based on Mike Condon’s start so far and Craig Anderson taking leaves of absence to be with his wife as she battles cancer, it would seem likely that the Sens will carry three netminders for the foreseeable future.
- Despite pulling himself after the second period of yesterday’s game with a lower body issue, Kings goaltender Jeff Zatkoff did travel with the team to Winnipeg, reports Lindsay Czarnecki of LA Kings Insider. Zatkoff was making his first appearance since October 18th after suffering a groin injury in practice but Fox Sports West’ Patrick O’Neal adds on Twitter that this was a groin spasm but the two injuries are not related. The team is likely to recall goaltender Jack Campbell from the minors. Still with Los Angeles, captain Anze Kopitar (upper body) also was injured on Friday night. O’Neal reports that Kopitar is day-to-day.
- On top of Avalanche forward Matt Duchene getting pulled from Friday’s game by a concussion spotter, defenseman Fedor Tyutin suffered an arm injury and is out day-to-day, the team reported on Twitter. Blake Comeau skated on Saturday and is nearly ready to return to the lineup, the team added in a separate tweet. Comeau has missed the last three games with a groin injury.
- The Jets announced that they have placed center Mathieu Perreault on injured reserve retroactive to November 4th with an upper body injury. The 28 year old has already missed enough time to be activated at any time moving forward but the placement allowed them to bring up a replacement player in Quinton Howden.