News and notes from around the NHL this evening:
- Goaltender Jeff Glass signed an AHL contract with the Rockford IceHogs today, reports Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston. Glass was released from a PTO from the AHL Toronto Marlies yesterday as the Toronto Maple Leafs prepared to claim Curtis McElhinney off of waivers. Glass has spent the last seven years on various KHL teams after failing to make the NHL with the Ottawa Senators. He had a stellar World Junior Championship in 2005, going 5-0 with a 1.40 GAA en route to Canada’s first gold medal since 1997.
- The Carolina Hurricanes activated forward Elias Lindholm off of IR today. Lindholm suffered an upper body injury on December 30th against the Chicago Blackhawks, ending a three-game scoring streak. In 30 games this season Lindholm has 4G and 9A. The Hurricanes also assigned Andrej Nestrasil to the AHL Charlotte Checkers after clearing waivers today.
- Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports that the Jan 15th deadline to decide whether NHL players would go to the Olympics has moved to the end of January. This date coincides with another Board of Governors meeting. Friedman speculates that both the NHL and NHLPA are waiting to see exactly what the IIHF will contribute financially. There’s been little update since the NHLPA rejected the NHL’s offer to attend the Olympics in exchange for agreeing to a slate of NHL-hosted international events.
If the NHL doesn’t go to the Olympics, I wonder what they will do with players who elect to go anyway. I can see a lot of Russian players making the decision to play. How does that affect a team’s salary cap? How does that affect a team’s ability to call up players? If the NHL decides not to go, the league needs to put in contingency plans to handle the players who go anyway. They can’t go into the situation without preparing ahead of time