On top of still missing winger Marcus Johansson (who was transferred to injured reserve today) and winger Kyle Palmieri who isn’t ready to return just yet, the Devils will also be without the services of Taylor Hall for their next game on Thursday night, reports Andrew Gross of The Record. Hall has been diagnosed with a right knee contusion after a collision with Kings defenseman Kurtis MacDermid on Tuesday and while tests revealed no structural damage, he did not travel with the team to Montreal for Thursday’s contest. He has been listed as day-to-day.
As for Palmieri, Gross reports that the winger expects to be in a walking boot for at least another week. While he has started skating with the Devils recently (and did make the trip to skate with the team again tomorrow), it appears he’ll be out for several more games at the very least.
More from the Metropolitan:
- On the heels of Tuesday’s report that Capitals GM Brian MacLellan was in Moscow to speak to top goalie prospect Ilya Samsonov about signing for next season, TSN’s Bob McKenzie reports (Twitter link) that it’s reasonably safe to believe that Samsonov will be on an NHL contract for 2018-19. The 20-year-old, Washington’s first-round pick in 2015, is off to a slower start to his season with a .909 SV% in 17 KHL games but is still viewed as one of the top goalie prospects in the league, if not the best. If management shares the same belief that Samsonov will be able to sign, it will be interesting to see if they make current backup Philipp Grubauer available between now and the trade deadline or if they wait until Samsonov officially signs before doing so.
- Although Islanders center John Tavares is expected to vastly surpass his $5.5MM cap hit on his next contract, Rob Vollman of ESPN argues that in terms of what he’s expected to provide moving forward, his next deal should be close to $8MM per season despite some of the bigger deals handed out to other top pivots. However, with front-line centers in short supply and extremely high demand, many teams won’t hesitate to go higher than that and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him hit the $10MM mark on his next deal. Tavares is slated to become a UFA on July 1st and projects to be the top player available in that free agent class.