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Capitals-Flyers Game Postponed

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One of the two games left this week has been postponed, as the Washington Capitals and Philadelphia Flyers will no longer play tonight. The decision was made after more COVID-related issues for the Capitals, who canceled today’s media availability. Daniel Sprong and Justin Schultz were pulled from the group this morning and are undergoing further testing. Tonight’s game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Vegas Golden Knights is now the last one before the holiday break, though Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff tweets that game also may be in danger of postponement.

The Capitals were already going to play the game without top options like T.J. Oshie, Nicklas Backstrom, and Evgeny Kuznetsov, while the Flyers lost Kevin Hayes to the protocol just yesterday. The fact that the game was still scheduled despite the extended holiday break was perhaps the most surprising thing, but both teams will now head into the break a little earlier than expected.

For Washington, the team is now set to resume on December 27 against the Ottawa Senators. Philadelphia meanwhile will be off until December 29, when they’ll travel to Seattle to take on the Kraken. That gives the Flyers even more time to recover from injury and try to reset their season.

The NHL has now postponed 50 games, 45 of those coming since December 13.

Skinner, Girgensons Added To COVID Protocol

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The Buffalo Sabres had their games postponed this week and yesterday added Vinnie Hinostroza to the COVID protocol. He wasn’t alone for very long, as both Jeff Skinner and Zemgus Girgensons were added today. The Sabres won’t play again until Monday but now could be without all three, should they have to face the full ten-day period that comes with a positive, symptomatic case.

Skinner has found part of himself again this season, getting back on the scoresheet fairly regularly and playing a big role on the powerplay. His nine goals and 17 points through 30 games have already eclipsed both marks he posted in 53 games last season, when he fell completely out of favor with the coaching staff and even found himself in the press box on occasion.

Now back in the mix as a top-six option (and at least not a total anchor contract-wise), losing Skinner would actually be a big blow for the Sabres. If he misses ten days, it would mean at least three games on the sideline.

Girgensons meanwhile is once again playing his role as a middle-six player for the Sabres, lining up at center or the wing and providing some reliability on defense. He has six goals and 11 points in 30 games as well, a pace that actually would have him close to matching previous career highs if he keeps it up. For now, that will have to wait as he’ll also miss the next few games if held out ten days.

AHL Shuffle: 12/21/21

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It’s the last day of the pre-Christmas schedule, as the rest of this week’s games have now been postponed. The Washington Capitals will visit the Philadelphia Flyers, while the Tampa Bay Lightning are off to see the Vegas Golden Knights. Those teams aren’t the only ones who will do a little roster shuffling today though, as teams had previously prepared for action tomorrow and Thursday. As always, we’ll keep track of all those minor moves right here.

Atlantic Division

  • The Tampa Bay Lightning have recalled Andrej Sustr from the AHL, giving them another defenseman for tonight’s match. Sustr has actually played eight games already for the Lightning this season, following his two-year stint in the KHL. The 31-year-old defenseman has one goal on the year.

Metropolitan Division

  • After sending him down just yesterday, the Washington Capitals have recalled Brett Leason once again. The young forward has been bouncing up and down rather frequently of late but has spent most of the year in the NHL. In 21 games with the Capitals, he has six points. (Update: After the Capitals’ game today was postponed, the team sent Leason and Joe Snively back to the minor leagues.)
  • The Philadelphia Flyers have recalled Gerry Mayhew from the minor leagues for tonight’s game, suggesting he’ll be in for Kevin Hayes, who was recently put on the COVID list. Mayhew, a prolific minor league scorer, has just 17 NHL games under his belt.

Central Division

  • The Minnesota Wild, following their game last night against Dallas, have returned Kevin Czuczman and Mason Shaw to the AHL. The Wild will play again on Monday when they travel to Winnipeg.
  • With the Stars not playing again until after Christmas, the team has sent Riley Tufte and Thomas Harley back to the minor leagues. Likely just a paper transaction, the two could be back up in a few days after Dallas saves a few dollars.
  • The Arizona Coyotes have sent Blake Speers and Jan Jenik back to AHL Tucson.  Speers played last Friday in his first NHL action since October 22, 2016 while Jenik last saw NHL action last month, being held off the scoresheet in two games. As is the case with pretty much everyone else on this list, the move was made to save Arizona some money with them being out of action until Monday.

Pacific Division

  • The Los Angeles Kings have reversed a few of their recent moves, sending Alex Turcotte and Samuel Fegemo back to the minor leagues while recalling Sean Durzi and Christian Wolanin. Those players had been involved in opposite moves just yesterday to maximize cap relief from putting Alexander Edler and Sean Walker on long-term injured reserve. Quinton Byfield, who was also called up, has been placed in the COVID protocol, meaning he won’t be going back down just yet.
  • The Vancouver Canucks have returned Madison Bowey and Noah Juulsen to Abbotsford of the AHL.  Both defensemen were brought up with Vancouver having several blueliners in COVID protocol but with them being off until December 27th, they’ll save a few dollars and delay the waiver clock for each veteran for a few days.

This page will be updated throughout the day

Eric Fehr Signs In KHL

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Just like Jason Demers yesterday, another Canadian Olympic hopeful has found a new job overseas. Canada withdrew from the Spengler Cup yesterday, forcing players that were preparing for it to find other work. Eric Fehr will join Demers with Ak Bars Kazan in the KHL through the end of the 2021-22 season after spending the last two seasons playing in Switzerland.

A veteran of more than 700 NHL games, Fehr was last active in North America during the 2018-19 season. He had seven goals and 15 points that year for the Minnesota Wild before taking his talents to Switzerland where he has become a star. In 94 regular season games with Geneve Servette, Fehr has scored 36 goals and 76 points, while racking up an incredible 199 penalty minutes.

A member of the last Spengler Cup-winning Canadian team, Fehr is a likely candidate to go to the Olympics should the NHL officially withdraw participation. In the meantime, he’ll hit the KHL for the first time in his career to continue his preparation. Fehr had previously played in Finland during the 2012-13 lockout, but this will be his first stint in Russia.

Carlo Added To COVID Protocol; Zboril Undergoes Surgery

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The Boston Bruins are already shut down for the holiday break, but today brought some bad news for two of their defensemen. Brandon Carlo has been added to the COVID protocol, the tenth player so far for Boston. He joins Brad Marchand, Craig Smith, Patrice Bergeron, Jeremy Swayman, Trent Frederic, Anton Blidh, Oskar Steen, Taylor Hall, and Curtis Lazar on the shelf, unavailable for the time being. The first few names should be eligible to return before the Bruins take the ice again on December 27, but if Carlo has tested positive and is experiencing any symptoms, he will not.

Beyond the COVID issues though is Jakub Zboril, who is out for the season after undergoing knee surgery to repair a torn ACL. The young defenseman underwent the procedure on December 16 at Mass General Brigham after suffering the injury on December 2.

Zboril, 24, seemed finally ready to contribute at the NHL level, six years after going 13th overall in the 2015 draft. It’s been a slow development path so far, but during last season and the early going this year, he had taken a big step to force his way into the lineup on a regular basis. In the nine games before exiting early against Nashville, he had averaged nearly 17 minutes a night while recording three points.

Importantly, this injury means that Zboril will not reach the 80-game threshold required to make him a restricted free agent. Instead, he will now qualify for Group VI unrestricted free agent status, given he has played just 54 NHL contests and turns 25 in February. There would have been an argument to be made over whether the Bruins should qualify him anyway, given he would have been arbitration-eligible, but with this, the decision is no longer in their hands. The defenseman will hit the open market, should the Bruins not reach an extension with him before free agency opens.

NHL To Shut Down From December 22-25

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The outbreak of COVID-19 cases across the NHL has finally come to a head. The league has announced they will postpone the five games remaining on December 23, essentially lengthening the holiday break from December 22-25. Teams will report back to their facilities on December 26 and games will resume the following day.

While many of the games originally scheduled for the rest of this week have already been postponed, the early shutdown will mean that the five games still on the docket for Thursday, December 23, will now be postponed as well. That includes Flyers-Penguins, Capitals-Islanders, Stars-Blackhawks, Lightning-Coyotes, and Kings-Knights. The two games scheduled for tomorrow, Capitals-Flyers and Lightning-Knights, will proceed as scheduled before operations are suspended on Wednesday.

Rather than hold to the initial holiday break of December 24-26, players and staff will return to action a day early to resume testing. In addition to games, practice, and all other team activities being suspended during the shutdown, testing will also not occur, but the league will be eager to check in on its players before returning to action. Friedman notes that all players and staff will require a negative COVID test before re-entering team facilities.

With even more games being postponed and the mounting pressure on the NHL and its players to pull out of the 2022 Winter Olympics, with rumors abound that this decision has already been made, Bally Sports’ Andy Strickland reports that the league will be forced to use the planned Olympic break to instead make up the numerous games they have lost over the past couple of weeks. The league could address this plan and Olympic intentions when announcing the shutdown.

Snapshots: Eichel, Ducks, Chychrun, Everberg

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Though complete or accurate information is not always available, one of the best things about major trades can be comparing the actual exchange to the alleged offers made by those teams who could not complete the deal. The Jack Eichel trade was one of the more prolonged negotiations in recent memory resulting in a sizeable return for the Buffalo Sabres: Alex Tuch, Peyton Krebs, a first-round pick, and a second-round pick. While it is safe to assume that nearly every team in the NHL kicked the tires on Eichel at some point in time, the combination of the Sabres’ asking price, Eichel’s contract, and the conversation surrounding his neck injury and preferred treatment thinned the list of suitors considerably toward the end of the saga. However, one of the other teams believed to be in the mix right until the end were the Anaheim Ducks. So why didn’t they best the Vegas Golden Knights’ offer?

On Sportsnet’s “32 Thoughts” podcast, Elliotte Friedman spoke about what he heard was the Sabres’ asking price from the Ducks, and it explains why Anaheim didn’t pull the trigger. Friedman reports that Buffalo requested Trevor Zegras, Jamie Drysdale, and two first-rounders to part with Eichel. Go back three years and that’s equivalent to asking for four first-round picks, including two top-ten picks. Zegras and Drysdale are already so much more than that, too. The super-skilled center, 20, and slick defenseman, 19, are already key pieces of a resurgent Ducks team, who hope to build around the duo and keep them in Southern California for years to come. Even for a player of Eichel’s caliber, giving up Zegras – who could end up being a younger version of Eichel – and Drysdale, not to mention two more first-round picks, is just too much and not nearly equal to what Buffalo eventually got from Vegas. Friedman also adds that the Ducks’ doctors were never quite comfortable with Eichel’s requested disc replacement surgery, which was of course a lynchpin in any potential trade. It just wasn’t a match for the star center and Anaheim, though they could both be better off for it.

  • Jakob Chychrun’s trade availability still exists, for whatever reason, and Friedman reports that a number of teams are interested in the talented, young Coyotes defenseman, as they should be. He notes that teams are starting to get serious as Arizona has not backed off of their willingness to move the 2016 first-round pick. However, one team that has fallen out of the running are the Edmonton Oilers, even though Friedman and colleague Jeff Marek both feel that he would be a great fit. Defense is a long-term need for the Oilers, but Friedman went so far as to say that Chychrun definitively will not end up in Edmonton. It is unclear if the asking price or cap complications forced the team’s hand or if they merely soured on him amidst a down year. Other teams continue to circle as the ’Yotes dismal season wears on and Chychrun, forced into the No. 1 role on a blue line that was completely dismantled in the off-season, unsurprisingly struggles. Yet, the 23-year-old is just one season removed from recording 41 points in 56 games and is averaging almost 25 minutes per night, which are impressive enough to overcome his ugly -29 mark so far this year.
  • Dennis Everberg burned bright but fast in the NHL. The Swedish forward was just an undrafted kid when he joined the Colorado Avalanche in 2014-15, quickly earned a roster spot, and recorded 12 points in 55 games as an unheralded rookie. Yet, as loudly as he made his entrance, Everberg quietly made his exit. He was held scoreless in 15 games with the Avs in his sophomore campaign and, though he was stellar in the AHL, opted to return overseas following the season. Everberg made a short-lived comeback attempt in 2018-19 with the AHL’s Manitoba Moose, but left the team after just 11 games. Now back in Sweden, the 29-year-old Everberg is one of the more consistent scorers in the SHL. With back-to-back 32-point seasons, Everberg is playing at the same pace this year with 19 points in 26 games. The two-way forward also carries a +36 rating in his SHL career. Rather than try again in North America or elsewhere in Europe, Everberg has realized that he has a good thing going with the league leaders, Rogle BK. The team has announced a five-year extension for Everberg, keeping him under contract through the 2026-27 season and into his mid thirties. This likely means that the capable forward will play out his days at home in Sweden.

Seattle’s Adam Larsson Enters COVID Protocol

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The names continue to pile up in Seattle. The latest addition to the COVID Protocol is defenseman Adam Larsson, the team announced. The Kraken have already seen their next two games postponed, with Tuesday’s match-up with the Arizona Coyotes delayed by an announcement earlier today based on the already existing cases in the Seattle locker room.

Larsson becomes the fourth player and third defenseman in three days to enter the protocol for Seattle. Since they played last on Saturday against the Edmonton Oilers – who are dealing with considerable COVID issues of their own – the Kraken have lost Jamie Oleksiak, Carson Soucy, and now Larsson from the blue line, as well as Yanni Gourde and Riley Sheahan up front. With this many COVID placements over so short a time, the outbreak likely isn’t over in Seattle either.

The Kraken play next in one week, on Monday the 27th, on the road against the nearby Vancouver Canucks. If Larsson has tested positive he will miss a minimum of ten days and will still be out of the lineup by that point. The team would be missing their overall and shorthanded ice time leader. It would be a difficult loss for a club that is still looking to find their stride.

Vinnie Hinostroza Placed In COVID Protocol

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The Buffalo Sabres already had their games this week postponed, but that was supposed to be due to a COVID outbreak with their opponent, the Columbus Blue Jackets. Perhaps it wasn’t only that, however, as the Sabres have now also added Vinnie Hinostroza to the protocol. With the games postponed, they’ve returned Casey Fitzgerald to the AHL.

Hinostroza, 27, has found something of a home in Buffalo after a tumultuous career and has 14 points in 30 games so far this season. A stint on the COVID list, assuming he tested positive for coronavirus and is experiencing symptoms, would keep him out a minimum of ten days. That would mean missing at least two games.

After playing on three teams over the last two seasons, Hinostroza looks a lot more like the player who scored 16 goals and 39 points for the Arizona Coyotes in 2018-19. He’ll have to hope he can get back on track after this time out of the lineup.

Coyotes-Kraken Game Postponed

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And then there were eight. The NHL has announced another postponement, this time between the Seattle Kraken and Arizona Coyotes. The game tomorrow night will be rescheduled for later this season, after another Seattle player tested positive for coronavirus. As Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times writes, the team abruptly canceled practice today–Yanni Gourde had already taken the ice–as they waited for confirmation on the positive result.

The Kraken canceled practice yesterday as well after Carson Soucy entered the protocol. They will now be silent through the holiday break after their Thursday game against the Calgary Flames was already postponed. Seattle is set to resume in a game against the Vancouver Canucks on December 27.

The Coyotes meanwhile can stay home to welcome in the Tampa Bay Lightning for Thursday night, their last game before the holiday break.

Forty-four games have been postponed this season. Eight remain on the NHL schedule this week.

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