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Archives for June 2018

Sergey Zborovskiy Clears Unconditional Waivers

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Wednesday: Zborovskiy has cleared waivers and will likely see his contract terminated.

Tuesday: The New York Rangers have placed Sergey Zborovskiy on unconditional waivers for the purpose of mutually terminating his contract. Zborovskiy, a third-round pick by the Rangers in 2015, signed his entry-level contract in the summer of 2016 but spent most of this season in the ECHL. After clearing waivers he will now be able to return to Russia and join the KHL, though he would also technically become an unrestricted free agent eligible to sign with any NHL club.

Zborovskiy, 21, is a big, physical defenseman who put up some fine point totals while in the WHL playing for the Regina Pats, but was always a long shot for the NHL. His skating stride needed work when the Rangers selected him, and apparently hasn’t come far enough for the team to fight to keep him in the organization. This doesn’t necessarily preclude a reunion at some point down the road, but allowing him to go home to compete for minutes in the KHL could be best for his development.

This isn’t the first Russian defenseman the Rangers have lost in this way, after allowing Alexei Bereglazov out of his contract earlier this spring. It’s a tough result for a third-round pick, especially one that was made just two years ago. We’ll see if this affects the way New York targets Russian players in the draft moving forward.

Vancouver Canucks Sign Richard Bachman To Two-Year Deal

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The Vancouver Canucks have brought back a veteran minor league goaltender, signing Richard Bachman to a two-year, two-way contract. Sportsnet’s Rick Dhaliwal reports (Twitter link) that the deal pays $675K at the AHL level and $275K in the minors while containing an annual guarantee of $300K per season.  Bachman was scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent this summer after spending the year with the Utica Comets of the AHL.

Bachman, 30, has played mentor to top Vancouver prospect Thatcher Demko the last few seasons, and helped the Comets to an impressive 38-26-12 record this year despite their obvious shortcomings on offense. He and Demko will probably return as the AHL tandem next season, unless Vancouver decides to move out one of their NHL goaltenders.

In that role, Bachman is perfect for the Canucks going forward. The team isn’t sure when exactly they’ll be contending for the Stanley Cup, and need every positive influence they can on their next wave of talent. Demko especially looks like he’s destined for great things in the NHL, and will hopefully take another step forward in his development next year. Though Bachman does have 47 NHL games under his belt, he won’t be asked very often to fill that role for the next couple of years.

Tom Kostopoulos, Andy Chiodo Join Penguins Coaching Staff

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The Pittsburgh Penguins are bringing back some familiar faces. The team announced today that Tom Kostopoulos, recently retired from his playing career with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, has been hired as a player development coach, while Andy Chiodo has been hired as a goaltending development coach.

Kostopoulos, 39, was a full-time NHL player for many years earlier in his career, but found a home in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton over the last few seasons. He served as captain for two different stints, first in 2002-04 and then again from 2013-18. Even as his career came to a close he was an effective player, recording 19 points in 31 games for the Penguins this season. He’ll go down as one of, if not the, greatest players in club history.

Chiodo, 35, had a shorter time with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton but is a beloved character in their history. The goaltender spent most of his professional career touring the European professional leagues, but helped the Penguins to a Calder Cup appearance early on and even made eight appearances for Pittsburgh during the 2003-04 season. Both will be widely accepted into the Penguins organization as some of the most popular minor league players in franchise history. Their next test will be to help the next wave of players reach their full potential.

Salary Cap Ceiling Will Fall Between $79.5-80MM

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The NHL salary cap ceiling has been expected to fall somewhere between $78-82MM for some time, and though we got a more accurate estimate yesterday league commissioner Gary Bettman gives us an even closer guess. Bettman today said that though nothing has been finalized, the cap ceiling should land between $79.5-80MM for the 2018-19 season. That’s an extremely substantial raise from the $75MM mark used last season, giving teams plenty of money to play with this summer. The cap floor is expected to be just over $59MM.

With an extra $5MM in their pockets, teams should have ample budget to go after the top names in free agency. Even past John Tavares and John Carlson, there are plenty of names set to hit the open market that could command big dollars. James van Riemsdyk and James Neal are legitimate goal scoring threats that could get long-term contracts, while players like David Perron, Rick Nash and Paul Stastny will still have plenty of money flashed in front of them. The extra cap room will be exceptionally helpful to certain teams, while being used foolishly by others.

Teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers and Montreal Canadiens already had huge amounts of cap room and bottomless pockets, and another $5MM should make them even more dangerous on the open market. Though each have concerns going forward, they are in a position to spend if they so choose.

Other clubs, like the Carolina Hurricanes, may have trouble even reaching the cap floor. The Hurricanes are currently sitting at just over $47MM in player commitments for 2018-19, meaning they’ll have to spend quite a bit to even reach the league minimum. Luckily they have some good young restricted free agents to lock up, and there are always several dead contracts able to be passed around to help out the league’s most frugal clubs.

Toronto Maple Leafs Sign Calvin Pickard

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The Toronto Maple Leafs already signed restricted free agent defenseman Connor Carrick to a one-year deal today, and they’ve done the same with goaltender Calvin Pickard. The team announced a one-year one-way contract for Pickard worth $800K. That’s actually a pay cut from the last two years, in which Pickard averaged $1MM on a deal signed by the Colorado Avalanche.

It wasn’t the Avalanche who traded Pickard to the Maple Leafs though, that honor fell to the Vegas Golden Knights after selecting him in the recent expansion draft. Pickard was waived by the team after they acquired Malcolm Subban from the Boston Bruins, but went unclaimed before Toronto sent a sixth-round pick and Tobias Lindberg over to the Golden Knights. That allowed the Maple Leafs to immediately send Pickard to the minor leagues, where he would form the best tandem in the AHL alongside Garret Sparks and take the Toronto Marlies all the way to a Calder Cup championship.

Interestingly though, it’s Sparks existence in the Toronto organization that complicates Pickard’s NHL future. The Maple Leafs have their starting goaltender locked up in Frederik Andersen, but the backup position is still undecided with Curtis McElhinney, Sparks and Pickard all vying for the role. Seeing as the team also recently signed minor league goaltender Kasimir Kaskisuo to a two-year contract, one would have to think the team will move one of their goaltenders out before the next season begins. This contract doesn’t preclude them from trading Pickard, and since he’ll need waivers to be sent down that could be the eventual decision.

In 87 career NHL games, the 26-year old Pickard has a .913 save percentage and could easily be relied upon as a backup in the league. If he’s Toronto’s third—or even fourth—option next season, they should be happy with their depth at the position.

Connor Carrick Signs One-Year Deal With Toronto Maple Leafs

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The Toronto Maple Leafs have finalized a deal with one of their restricted free agents, signing defenseman Connor Carrick to a one-year contract. The deal will carry a $1.3MM salary according to Chris Johnston of Sportsnet. Carrick will still be an RFA at the deal’s conclusion, meaning the Maple Leafs have plenty of time to decide whether or not he’s a long-term option on the blue line.

Earning an average of just $750K the last two years, Carrick has been moved in and out of the lineup by head coach Mike Babcock. In 47 games last season he registered 12 points, but couldn’t beat out Roman Polak and others for a full-time role on the third defense pairing. Despite his positive possession statistics and above average puck-moving ability, Babcock didn’t trust him on the penalty kill and seemed to prefer more defensive-minded players in that roster spot. Still, with Polak scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent this summer Carrick represented one of the few right-handed options in the organization, with just Nikita Zaitsev, Justin Holl and prospect Timothy Liljegren representing the other legitimate NHL options. Though Ron Hainsey, Morgan Rielly and Travis Dermott have all spent time on the right side, many coaches prefer to keep defensemen on their strong side more often than not.

Carrick came over to the Maple Leafs from the Washington Capitals organization where he was a fifth-round pick in 2012. After putting up huge offensive numbers in the minor leagues, many hoped that he could bring some of that scoring flair to the NHL. That hasn’t been the case with just 30 points in 167 NHL games, but at just 24 years of age there still could be more potential waiting to be unlocked with more regular playing time.

The Maple Leafs figure to have an incredible amount of cap space to spend this summer, though they have to worry about contracts for some of their best players before long. Carrick’s contract doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be getting much more playing time than the past few seasons, as the team could bring in another more established option on a short-term deal in free agency, or acquire a more long-term solution through trade.

Carolina Hurricanes Put Jeff Skinner’s Name “Out There”

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The Carolina Hurricanes are a very interesting team to watch as we approach the draft on Friday night, armed with the second-overall pick and looking to make a splash in the trade market. Today, GM Don Waddell was on Sportsnet radio and spoke about scoring winger Jeff Skinner and where his future may take him:

Jeff Skinner has been with this franchise, he’s a 30 goal scorer, proven 30 goal scorer. We don’t score a lot of goals. Saying that we did, you know it’s no secret we put his name out there and we’ve gotten a lot of interest. Again though, when you’re trading that type of player you have to be careful because if you just want to move a player along, certainly there is lots of teams that would love to have that player. But he’s a big asset for us, and we’ve got to make sure that we get some kind of assets that we feel are gonna help us either today or in the future for a guy like Jeff.

Waddell goes on to downplay the idea that Noah Hanifin is available, but his comments about Skinner will do nothing to cool the hot stove over the coming weeks. Obviously there’s no guarantee that Skinner will get moved before next season, but there is an appetite there from the Hurricanes especially given that he’ll be an unrestricted free agent next offseason. Skinner is coming off a 24-goal campaign in 2017-18, but has proven that he can register even more than that in a good season, racking up 30 or more goals three times. The 26-year old is still in the prime of his career and would be a lethal offensive mercenary for a team to plug into their attack, if even only for a single season.

The Hurricanes have built an intriguing group of young players through the draft and trade, but still haven’t been able to put it all together. Much of that is due to poor goaltending, something that Waddell has promised to resolve this summer. If Skinner is moved out, there could be even more opportunity for their younger players to step into prominent roles, with names like Martin Necas and Janne Kuokkanen just waiting for an opportunity to prove themselves.

Ottawa Senators Still Expected To Use Fourth-Overall Pick

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Since trading Mike Hoffman earlier this week and reportedly re-entering talks on captain Erik Karlsson, speculation has swirled up again around the Ottawa Senators and the fourth-overall pick. The Senators of course owe either this year or next year’s first-round pick to the Colorado Avalanche for their acquisition of Matt Duchene earlier this year, and without Hoffman and Karlsson in the lineup many believe they’d be better to try for the first-overall selection a year from now. That pick could potentially be Jack Hughes, who is being regarded as a potential franchise-changing player at center, something the team may not be able to get at #4 this season.

That’s not to say they can’t get an excellent player where they sit this year, with more reports coming out that Filip Zadina may drop past the Montreal Canadiens and fall into Ottawa’s lap. Zadina is an excellent offensive prospect, capable of scoring from nearly anywhere on the ice. The team is also not guaranteed to finish anywhere near the bottom of the league next season, and even if they do could drop out of the top-3 with three bad results in the draft lottery. With that knowledge, the team is still planning on using the pick this season according to Chris Johnston of Sportsnet, meaning Colorado will acquire their 2019 first-round pick. Things can change right up until the moment they make the selection, meaning the Avalanche need to be ready, but all signs are pointing to GM Pierre Dorion selecting a player this Friday.

The Senators are in rough shape at the moment, dealing with off-ice incidents revolving around players and management, all while trying to prepare for an upcoming contract negotiation with Karlsson. The superstar defenseman has just one year left on his current contract, and is eligible for an extension on July 1st. While Dorion has been clear with the fact that he will make Karlsson’s camp an offer, there is growing speculation around whether the captain will even want to stay with the team long-term. If they can’t come to an agreement quickly, the Senators will have to see what the market is for him in trade, or risk losing him for nothing at the end of what could be another season outside of the playoff picture.

Zadina, Brady Tkachuk or whoever the team selects at fourth-overall will surely be an excellent player in the league and that isn’t something to throw away so easily. Even though Hughes is an attractive idea, the fact is that even the last place team has a relatively low chance of selecting first-overall. There’s also still a core of players like Mark Stone, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Thomas Chabot that will do everything they can to keep Ottawa out of the basement of the league, which could result in a much later draft pick in 2019. It’s not an easy situation for the Senators, but Dorion clearly believed that Duchene would help the team reach the playoffs again and the whole argument would be moot. Now he’s got an extremely difficult decision on his hands, one that could play out poorly no matter what he does.

2018-19 Home Openers Announced

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The NHL has announced the dates for each team’s 2018-19 home opener, with the full schedule set to release tomorrow. Below are all the dates, which start on October 3rd with the Stanley Cup banner being raised in Washington.

October 3rd: 

Anaheim @ San Jose
Boston @ Washington
Montreal @ Toronto
Calgary @ Vancouver

October 4th: 

Arizona @ Dallas
Chicago @ Ottawa
Winnipeg @ St. Louis
Columbus @ Detroit
Boston @ Buffalo
Washington @ Pittsburgh
New York Islanders @ Carolina
Philadelphia @ Vegas
Minnesota @ Colorado
Nashville @ New York Rangers

October 5th:

Carolina @ Columbus
San Jose @ Los Angeles

October 6th:

Vegas @ Minnesota
Anaheim @ Arizona
Vancouver @ Calgary
Nashville @ New York Islanders
Florida @ Tampa Bay

October 7th:

Toronto @ Chicago

October 8th:

Detroit @ Anaheim
Ottawa @ Boston

October 9th:

Calgary @ Nashville
San Jose @ Philadelphia
Los Angeles @ Winnipeg

October 11th:

Los Angeles @ Montreal
Columbus @ Florida
Washington @ New Jersey

October 18th:

Boston @ Edmonton – *The Oilers begin their season in Sweden, facing off against the New Jersey Devils on October 6th.

Darryl Sutter Announces Retirement From Coaching

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He hasn’t been behind the bench for an NHL game in over a year, and now Darryl Sutter has decided he won’t be coming back. The Stanley Cup champion from a legendary hockey family has hung up his clipboard, and exchanged his suit and tie for a more comfortable life on his Alberta farm. According to Eric Francis of Sportsnet, Sutter won’t be considered for the new vacancy in Washington, and has decided to spend his days with his family instead of the grind of an NHL schedule.

Sutter, 59, won two Stanley Cups as the head coach of the Los Angeles Kings, a role he was relieved of last summer when the organization brought in new management. Many have speculated about his return, and his name has been linked to almost every coaching vacancy in the last year. His physical, defensive teams set a model in the Western Conference that has been replicated—to varying degrees of success—by almost the entire league at one point or another, and his hilariously low-key and tight lipped media appearances were always entertaining regardless of how the team was doing on the ice.

It’s important to note that he’s taken several years away from hockey in between jobs before, and with coaching nothing ever seems final. As the years go on there will likely be rumors about him coming out of retirement, but for now the plan seems to be set for Sutter. He’ll end his NHL coaching career with a 634-467-83 record with 101 ties, putting him 14th on the all-time list for coaching wins.

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