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Alec Martinez Close To New Contract With Vegas Golden Knights

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Wednesday: The AAV will be $5.25MM, per Seravalli, who adds the deal will carry a partial no-trade clause each season with a varying number of teams.

Monday: The Vegas Golden Knights aren’t going to let Alec Martinez go that easily. Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports that the two sides are closing in on a deal to keep the veteran defenseman in Vegas. The contract is expected to be for three years and will carry a cap hit of around $5MM, according to Seravalli.

Vegas has two star defensemen in Alex Pietrangelo and Shea Theodore, but if you ask many of the people who are around the Golden Knights on a daily basis, it’s Martinez who was the most reliable defender on the team. Turning 34 today, the veteran will receive a slight raise on the $4MM cap hit he has carried over the past six seasons, but it keeps him off the market and away from any rival clubs.

After a few down seasons in Los Angeles, Martinez showed exactly what he can do with a strong team around him, racking up 32 points in 53 games. He averaged more than 22 minutes a night for the Golden Knights, more than doubling the next player with 168 blocked shots. His style of defense isn’t overly physical, but it is effective and obviously valuable to the Vegas front office and coaching staff.

Still, a deal of this magnitude brings up several other questions. The Golden Knights are dealing with a tight cap squeeze, and a $5MM hit for Martinez would basically take them right to the ceiling. That means other moves are coming to shed additional payroll, with the goaltending duo or forwards like Reilly Smith the most obvious options for change. There’s also the risk that Martinez’s age represents, as this contract will take him through his age-36 season. while he hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down yet, there could at any time be a precipitous drop in production.

Part of the value that Martinez brings isn’t his on-ice production though, but the experience he adds to the bench. This is a player that already has two Stanley Cup championships and more than 100 postseason games under his belt. Not many teams can ice a defensive pair that each have Cup-clinching goals, but in Martinez and Pietrangelo, that’s exactly what Vegas has secured.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Oilers Nearing New Contract With Tyson Barrie

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After Adam Larsson opted not to stay with Edmonton and instead signed with Seattle as their expansion pick, the Oilers quickly turned their focus towards retaining Tyson Barrie.  TSN’s Bob McKenzie reports (Twitter link) that the two sides are nearing an agreement on a new three-year contract.  TSN’s Ryan Rishaug adds (Twitter link) that the deal is expected to carry an AAV of $4.5MM.

The 30-year-old entered the free agent market a year ago coming off a disappointing season with Toronto and wasn’t able to get the money or term he was seeking.  Instead, he opted to take a one-year pillow contract in the hopes of rebuilding his value.  Barrie picked the Oilers as the team for that contract, a logical decision with the potential to pile up the assists setting up Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.  It was a wise choice.

Barrie led all NHL defensemen in scoring this season with 48 points in 56 games, helping earn him the fifth slot in our Top 50 UFA list.  It was the fifth time in the past seven years that he had at least that many points, making him one of the best and most consistent threats from the back end in the offensive zone in the league.  However, his defensive struggles have been well-documented as he basically gives back some of the goals he helps produce in the form of poor mistakes that land in the back of the net.

Nevertheless, having a prominent offensive weapon is never a bad thing to have and with the term being limited to three years, there shouldn’t be a considerable drop in effectiveness over the life of the contract.  Edmonton’s power play should continue to be lethal for the foreseeable future as a result of this contract.

Meanwhile, assuming this deal gets finalized along with the long-expected signing of Zach Hyman, the bulk of the heavy lifting will be done for GM Ken Holland as those two contracts will take up most of the rest of their projected $13.7MM in cap space, per CapFriendly.  However, with Oscar Klefbom’s playing future remaining in doubt, he looks like a candidate for LTIR once again which would give Edmonton a bit more flexibility to try to add another piece in the coming days.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

USA Hockey Names Mike Sullivan Head Coach For The 2022 Olympics

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In a move that has been expected for several weeks, USA Hockey has made it official, announcing that Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan will be the head coach for the USA’s entry into next year’s Winter Olympics.  This is assuming that an agreement is reached for NHL players to participate in the event.

Sullivan is no stranger to coaching at the international level as has served on the staff for multiple other national teams over the years.  In 2006, he was an assistant for their Olympic team, he was the bench boss at the 2007 Worlds, and served as an assistant in that tournament the following year as well.  There haven’t been many opportunities for him to coach internationally since then as his teams have spent a lot of time in the playoffs.

Sullivan has been behind the bench for Pittsburgh since December 12, 2015 with the Penguins winning 251 regular season games during that stretch, the third-most in the NHL.  They’ve made the playoffs in each of his six seasons behind the bench, winning two Stanley Cups along the way in 2016 and 2017.  He’ll now have a shot at adding an Olympic medal to that collection.

Meanwhile, USA Hockey also announced that Joel Johnson (who will be the head coach at next month’s World Championships) has been named head coach for the women’s entry into the Olympics while David Hoff will be heading up the sled hockey team at the Paralympics.

Gabriel Landeskog Signs Eight-Year Extension

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Just before the deadline for eight-year contracts, the Colorado Avalanche and Gabriel Landeskog have reached a deal for the max term. The captain will be staying with the only organization he’s ever known. The two sides have agreed to an eight-year contract worth a total of $56MM. Bob McKenzie of TSN tweets that the first four years come with a full no-movement clause, while the final four will be a modified no-trade clause.

At times over the past few weeks, it seemed like Landeskog might actually reach the free agent market. The Avalanche were in a tight salary cap situation with a superstar defenseman to sign and a Vezina finalist on an expiring deal. Once the team worked out a massive RFA contract with Cale Makar though, things could progress with their captain.

In the end, it will be less than a $1.5MM per year raise for the 28-year old forward. Landeskog was coming off a seven-year, $39MM deal signed in 2013, which carried a $5.57MM cap hit. On this new deal, he eclipses Nathan MacKinnon’s $6.3MM cap hit but still comes far short of Mikko Rantanen’s $9.25MM as the team’s highest-paid forward. It’s much less than he likely could have received on the open market on a per-year basis, but the eighth season was something that only Colorado could offer. Landeskog now has contract security through his age-36 season and could very well play his entire career for the Avalanche.

On September 4, 2012, nearly a decade ago, Landeskog was named captain of the Avalanche. At the time, he was the youngest player ever to be given that honor in the NHL. He had just finished a Calder Trophy-winning rookie campaign, which included 22 goals and 52 points, and was given the “C” by veteran Milan Hejduk. Years later, Landeskog has been one of the most consistent players in team history and sits eighth all-time in points–including the days when the franchise was in Quebec. With this new deal, he’ll surely pass another few names on that list.

Landeskog is now tied for the 57th highest cap hit in the NHL, alongside young stars and veterans alike. The reasonable $7MM cap hit—especially when combined with the money that Makar left on the table—leaves room for the Avalanche to potentially bring back starting goaltender Philipp Grubauer in free agency as well. Colorado now sits with just over $12.3MM in cap space, though that includes a roster of just 16 players.

With less than 24 hours before free agency begins, any teams preparing an offer for Landeskog will have to turn their attention elsewhere. He ranked first on our Top 50 UFA list, but we predicted he would return to the Colorado Avalanche even if a deal wasn’t done before tonight’s eight-year threshold. Dougie Hamilton now assumes that top spot, while other forwards could draw a little more interest from teams looking to make a splash.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Chicago Blackhawks Acquire Tyler Johnson

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The Chicago Blackhawks have made another trade, acquiring Tyler Johnson from the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning will also be sending a 2023 second-round pick, while Chicago will send Brent Seabrook’s contract back to Tampa Bay. Seabrook is not expected to play again, meaning his contract can be moved to long-term injured reserve. Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic reports that there was no salary retained in the deal. Tampa Bay GM Julien BriseBois released a short statement about the move:

I’d like to personally thank Tyler for what he has meant to this organization over the past nine years since he joined the Lightning as an undrafted free agent. He played a pivotal role in the success the team has enjoyed and will forever be remembered as two-time Stanley Cup Champion with the Bolts. We wish him all the best in Chicago.

Not only does moving Johnson’s contract open up $5MM in cap space for the Lightning, but acquiring Seabrook’s doesn’t really cause them much issue. It will be tricky, managing the cap without accruing any space during the regular season while in LTIR, but the Lightning have shown they are more than willing to operate in that manner, acquiring dead contracts like Anders Nilsson and Marian Gaborik in the past. The team now essentially has cleared Johnson’s entire $5MM in cap space, though the machinations of LTIR will force them into very specific moves as the season approaches.

Still, ridding themselves of Yanni Gourde through the expansion draft and Johnson through this trade has basically fixed the Lightning’s cap issues, giving them some wiggle room to fill out the depth chart.

So quickly things change in Chicago though, as now Seabrook and fellow franchise icon Duncan Keith are both gone from the organization. Just a year ago Seabrook’s contract looked like one of the worst in the league, but now that he’s not expected to play again, it actually became an asset for the Blackhawks. They added a second-round pick while also landing a player who can help them next season without giving up anything of real value.

Johnson, 30, has three years left on his contract and should actually see an offensive uptick with increased usage in Chicago. Buried behind a long list of offensive talents in Tampa Bay, he’s not so far removed from the 29-goal season he had in 2018-19. In fact, there was a time when Johnson was among the Lightning’s best players, even leading the team in scoring with 72 points in 2014-15. While that might be a lofty goal to return to, he’s still an effective player that should help the Blackhawks compete for the playoffs next season. Add in that he’s now coming off back-to-back Stanley Cup championships and his $5MM cap hit starts to look awfully reasonable.

Jets Re-Sign Eric Comrie

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The Jets have agreed to terms with one of their pending unrestricted free agents as they announced that they’ve re-signed goaltender Eric Comrie to a one-year contract.  The one-way deal will pay him the league minimum of $750K.

The 26-year-old has certainly bounced around over the past two seasons.  Between October of 2019 and mid-February of this year, he was claimed off waivers four times and traded once.  Despite that, he played all of four NHL games in that stretch.  While several teams wanted him, they preferred him solely as an insurance policy over someone that could be a regular backup goaltender.

Two of those waiver claims came this year and between that and the taxi squad, Comrie was limited to just five total appearances – one with New Jersey and four with AHL Manitoba where he posted a 1.23 GAA and a .947 SV%, numbers that were much better than his AHL career averages of 2.82 and .911, respectively.

Comrie has just five career NHL games under his belt but could very well be slotted in as Winnipeg’s backup goaltender behind Connor Hellebuyck next season.  Laurent Brossoit is set to test the open market tomorrow while the recent acquisitions of Nate Schmidt and Brenden Dillon have cut into their cap space while they still have several restricted free agents to re-sign headed up by Neal Pionk.  One way to save money is to have a cheap backup goalie which could work in Comrie’s favor.  Otherwise, Comrie will at least have a one-way deal under his belt before seeing if he’ll bounce around the league again or make it back to the minors with the Moose.

TSN’s Darren Dreger was the first to report that Comrie had re-signed.

Offseason Checklist: Montreal Canadiens

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The offseason is in full flight with free agency almost here.  We continue our series which examines what each team needs to accomplish over the coming weeks and months.  Next up is a look at Montreal.

The 2020-21 season was a strange one for the Canadiens.  They were one of the top teams early on before things started to go off the rails.  The end result was head coach Claude Julien, associate coach Kirk Muller, and goalie coach Stephane Waite being let go with Dominique Ducharme taking over on an interim basis.  They continued to struggle in the second half but once the playoffs came, they were much better, making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final despite only winning 24 of 56 games during the regular season.  Ducharme had his interim tag quickly removed but GM Marc Bergevin has plenty of other work to do this summer.

Add Scoring Help

Last fall, the Canadiens added Tyler Toffoli in free agency and he responded with the best season of his career with 28 goals in 52 games.  They added Josh Anderson in a trade with Columbus and he was second on the team in goals.  They signed Cole Caufield late in the season and he gave their attack a boost down the stretch.

And yet, even with those moves, Montreal is still not a particularly strong offensive team.  They were hovering near four goals a game early on but by the end of the year, they were in the bottom half of the league and were struggling to score more than two per night late in the season.  A lack of reliable scoring also hurt them in the Final against Tampa Bay.  They’re about to lose one of their better regular season offensive players in Tomas Tatar to free agency and Shea Weber, one of the bigger offensive threats from the back end, is done for at least the year and his career may very well be over.

Even with a full season of Caufield who is an early Calder Trophy candidate, this is an attack that remains decidedly mediocre.  While they hope the return of Jonathan Drouin will help, he only scored twice in 44 games so they can’t count on him to be a difference-maker at this point.  While there are other holes to fill, Bergevin will be looking for a top-six piece to deepen his attack.

Replace Weber

This is one of those tasks that sounds simple enough on paper but is going to be quite difficult to accomplish.  While Montreal’s captain was undoubtedly starting to decline compared to his level of play in his prime, he was still a key cog on their back end last season.  Weber logged nearly 23 minutes per game and was only two seconds behind Jeff Petry for the team lead in ATOI, finished tied for third in power play goals, played more than anyone shorthanded, and was his usual physical presence.  Finding a player that can check off all of those boxes is a nearly impossible task for Bergevin; even if he was to sign the top UFA defenseman in Dougie Hamilton, there are elements that Weber provides that he can’t (and vice-versa).

It appears that the Canadiens will instead have to try to fill that void by committee.  They’ve been linked to David Savard and Chris Wideman as potential free agent signings and each of them could replace a part of what Weber has given them – Savard can play a physical shutdown role while Wideman is coming off a strong season offensively in the KHL and it appears their hope is that he could help on the offensive side of things.

Is there room for another impact addition?  Montreal’s back end wasn’t the most mobile to begin with and bringing Savard or a similar player in for Weber doesn’t really change that.  How much can Wideman be relied on considering he has been out of the NHL the last two years?  If the Canadiens are opting to replace Weber with a by-committee approach, the committee coming in to replace him is going to need to be a big one.  Weber will be eligible for LTIR, giving them up to $7.857MM in space to work with to replace him.

Center Decisions

This one is three-fold.  First, Jesperi Kotkaniemi is a restricted free agent this summer and will need a new contract.  The third-overall pick in 2018 has shown flashes of top-six upside but has been inconsistent as well to the point where he was a healthy scratch at both the start and the end of their playoff run.  While they’re still hoping that he can be a core player for them down the road, he isn’t quite there yet and accordingly, a short-term bridge contract makes sense for both sides.

The second pertains to their other young center in Nick Suzuki.  He is eligible to sign a contract extension as of Wednesday and while Kotkaniemi’s development has been spotty, that isn’t the case for Suzuki.  He played well during the regular season and stepped up in the playoffs for the second straight year while showing some chemistry with their top prospect in Caufield.  If Bergevin believes the best is yet to come from the 21-year-old, working to get a contract extension done now before it gets more expensive would be a wise course of action.

The final element pertains to Phillip Danault.  He has been a fixture down the middle for them for the past five seasons and has become one of the stronger defensive forwards in the league along the way.  He’s coming off a strong playoff showing in terms of shutting down top opponents (though he only scored once in 22 games) and between that and his age (28), he’s likely to be the most sought-after center on the open market.  A long-term extension was rejected last offseason and there have been no contract talks since.  Assuming he’s leaving, how will they replace him?  Jake Evans and Ryan Poehling are both young pivots but are they ready to step into a bigger role?  If not, Bergevin will have to add a veteran center to his shopping list as well.

The Canadiens are coming off an improbable playoff run but as it stands, the roster will look quite a bit different next season.  Finding the right mix of returnees and newcomers will be the key task for Bergevin this summer as Montreal moves back into the Atlantic Division.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.

Jets Acquire Nate Schmidt

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While it was believed that Nate Schmidt wasn’t keen on being traded to the Jets, he had a change of heart as on Tuesday, he waived his no-trade clause to be traded to Winnipeg with the Canucks receiving the Jets’ third-round pick in 2022 in return.  Both teams have announced the trade.

Schmidt was acquired from Vegas last fall early in free agency with the Golden Knights needing to free up cap space to facilitate the signing of Alex Pietrangelo.  The return in that deal was a 2022 third-round selection which means Vancouver was basically able to get a free year out of Schmidt when the two moves are combined.

Unfortunately, that free season wasn’t a great one for the 30-year-old.  While he fit in quite well in Vegas, that wasn’t the case in Vancouver as Schmidt struggled for most of the year.  His offensive production was cut in half from the previous year from 31 to 15 points despite playing in nearly the same number of games and that was hardly the return they were expecting from someone that carries a $5.95MM cap hit.  Those struggles likely played a role in Vancouver swinging a deal for Oliver Ekman-Larsson over the weekend, a move that sealed Schmidt’s fate as being someone that was about to be on the move again.

Meanwhile, Winnipeg makes their second notable defensive addition in as many days after acquiring Brenden Dillon from Washington on Monday.  The Jets were hit hard two years ago with several blueliners leaving for no return in Ben Chiarot and Tyler Myers (free agency), the injury and subsequent retirement of Dustin Byfuglien, while Jacob Trouba was traded to the Rangers in a deal that netted Neal Pionk, a move that has worked out well for them thus far.  Even so, the only defensive addition of note prior to these two moves was Dylan DeMelo so there was work that needed to be done.

This addition, coupled with Dillon’s pickup, gives Winnipeg much more depth on the back end as the two could possibly form their second pairing behind Pionk and Josh Morrissey for next season while pushing DeMelo down to the third pairing.  All of a sudden, a position that was their biggest weakness looks a lot stronger.

With these moves – Winnipeg is picking up the full contract for Schmidt per Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic (Twitter link) – that should be it for additions on their back end.  GM Kevin Cheveldayoff will have a little over $7MM in cap room remaining (excluding Bryan Little’s LTIR-bound contract which carries a $5.291MM AAV) with Pionk, Logan Stanley, and Andrew Copp needing new contracts.  They’ll need to dip into that LTIR pool to get those deals done.

Meanwhile, Vancouver has freed up $9.75MM in cap room today with this swap and the Braden Holtby buyout.  The Canucks still have Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes among those in need of new contracts but they’ll have roughly $25MM in cap room, giving them enough flexibility to try to make another big splash over the coming days.

TSN’s Darren Dreger was the first to report that Schmidt had agreed to the trade. PuckPedia was the first to report that Winnipeg’s pick, not their other selection from Columbus (previously acquired) was going to Vancouver.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Cap and contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.

Bruins Agree To Terms With Mike Reilly

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The Bruins added Mike Reilly at the trade deadline to try to shore up their back end and evidently, they liked what they saw from him.  Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that the defenseman has agreed to a three-year contract with a $3MM AAV.

The 28-year-old has bounced around in the early going of his career, spending his first few years with Minnesota, Montreal, and Ottawa.  However, after having a limited role for most of that time, everything seemed to click for Reilly last season.  He picked up 19 assists in 40 games with the Sens which bolstered his trade market and Ottawa was able to flip him to Boston at the deadline for a third-rounder, a two-round upgrade on the pick they sent to the Canadiens to acquire him the year before.

With the Bruins, Reilly was asked to take on a bigger role than he was accustomed to with Boston’s back end being banged up.  He responded quite well, picking up eight more assists in 15 games while logging over 21 minutes a night.  That continued in the playoffs as he chipped in with four assists in 11 postseason contests while again averaging more than 21 minutes per game.

That had Reilly well-positioned for a strong market in free agency but instead, he’ll stick around with the Bruins, doubling his previous contract in the process.  Meanwhile, Boston now has at least one more veteran in place on the left side of their defense corps but it wouldn’t be surprising to see GM Don Sweeney try to add another one over the coming days to help make up for last summer’s departures of Torey Krug and Zdeno Chara.

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