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Anatolii Golyshev, Jayson Megna Clear Waivers

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Dec 9: Both players have cleared waivers. Golyshev will have his contract terminated, while Megna has been loaned (along with Jacob MacDonald) to the Colorado Eagles of the AHL.

Dec 8: The New York Islanders have placed Anatolii Golyshev on waivers today, and he’ll be joined by Jayson Megna of the Colorado Avalanche, according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. Given Golyshev was already in the minor leagues and is waiver-exempt still, his placement is on unconditional waivers for the purpose of a contract termination.

It was easy to spot a termination coming for Golyshev, given he hasn’t yet received a single game at the NHL level. The 26-year-old was a fourth-round pick by the Islanders back in 2016, signed his one-year entry-level deal at the end of last season to get it out of the way, and then inked a one-year, $750K one-way deal with the Islanders in October. After a long, successful career in the KHL, it never seemed likely that Golyshev would sit in the minors all season.

The undersized forward has eight full seasons under his belt with Yekaterinburg in the KHL, hitting career-highs of 25 goals and 44 points in 2015-16. In 15 games with the Bridgeport Islanders, he had five goals and seven points, but will likely be heading back overseas. Technically, Golyshev will be a free agent able to sign with another NHL team, but that is unlikely in this case.

Megna meanwhile actually received a great opportunity with the Avalanche this season, continually filling in for whoever was injured at the time. With Nathan MacKinnon back and J.T. Compher closing in on a return, his spot is needed. In 20 games this season, the 31-year-old undrafted forward has registered three assists but hasn’t scored yet. In fact, he hasn’t tallied an NHL goal since the 2016-17 season with the Vancouver Canucks.

While there is a chance he is claimed because of his experience this season, there have been other forwards with higher upside clear recently. Megna will likely goto the minor leagues where he will remain a strong injury replacement for Colorado.

St. Louis Blues To Play Short For Salary Cap Exemption

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Dec 9: A worst-case scenario has happened for St. Louis, as both Husso and Jake Walman are now out with injuries. The team will play short again tonight as eight players with the Springfield Thunderbirds are also dealing with COVID-19. The team doesn’t have cap space, doesn’t have recall options, and now will have just 11 forwards and six defensemen tonight. Jon Gillies, who was signed yesterday, will presumably backup Lindgren, though it’s not actually even clear how he can be added to the roster given the cap situation, unless they use their other emergency goaltender exemption (Lindgren is already up on one of them).

Dec 7: The St. Louis Blues head into tonight’s game at a serious disadvantage. Not only has the team lost two in a row and now has to play a second consecutive match against the league’s best team (by points percentage) in the Florida Panthers, but they’ll have to do it shorthanded. The Blues will dress just ten forwards tonight along with seven defensemen, because of the precarious cap situation they find themselves in.

Already using almost all of the long-term injured reserve relief from Klim Kostin and James Neal, the Blues have just over $113K in available cap space according to CapFriendly. That’s not enough to make a recall, and with Robert Thomas missing the game due to injury, they don’t have enough healthy, active players to suit up tonight. Already the team is using an emergency goaltending exemption for Charlie Lindgren–who was called up instead of Joel Hofer because of the difference in salary between the two–after Jordan Binnington joined Tyler Bozak in the COVID protocol.

To secure that cap-free exemption they had to have Kyle Konin, a 23-year-old netminder who last played competitive hockey at Grand Valley State University in 2020, serve as Ville Husso’s backup against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Now they’ll have to play a man short once again, in order to secure a second recall exemption to bring up an additional forward for Thursday’s game against Detroit.

This new exemption will allow them to recall a player without incurring a cap hit, but there are restrictions on it too. Only players with a cap hit of $850K or less can be brought up, meaning someone like Mackenzie MacEachern is out of the question. The risky part isn’t necessarily playing a man down, it’s that things could get even more complicated for St. Louis if another player suffers a minor injury. Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic ponders on Twitter about Thomas’ injury and whether he has been forcing himself to play through it because of his team’s cap situation.

Kostin did skate today, according to Rutherford, but he won’t be eligible to play for another five games because of his LTIR designation. There’s not a quick fix coming for the Blues and things could get worse if anyone else goes down, or is forced to enter the COVID protocol.

Morning Notes: Coyotes, Penguins, Marek

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The Arizona Coyotes released a statement in response to the story of outstanding and delinquent bills, including more than $1.3MM in state and municipal taxes:

We have already launched an investigation to determine how this could have happened and initial indications are that it appears to be the result of an unfortunate human error. Regardless, we deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused. We will make sure that by tomorrow morrning, the Arizona Coyotes are current on all of our bills and owe no state or local taxes whatsoever. And we will take immediate steps to ensure that nothing like this can ever possibly happen again. 

Katie Strang of The Athletic comments on the statement, explaining that the outstanding tax bill dates back to June 2020, suggesting this is not a few isolated payments that were missed. Chris Johnston of TSN notes that though there is not much concern over whether the Coyotes can pay that $1.3MM debt, the negotiation between Arizona ownership and the city of Glendale over Gila River Arena continues. The city has told the management company to not allow Coyotes workers inside if the bill isn’t paid by December 20, but long before that had also moved to terminate the lease agreement following this season. (Update: John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports radio reports that the Coyotes just wired $1.4MM to the Arizona Department of Revenue for back taxes. The team has announced that they are up to date on all bills and tax liabilities.)

  • Pierre LeBrun of TSN meanwhile reports from the NHL Board of Governors meetings, noting that Fenway Sports Group is at the event to meet the rest of the executive committee. The vote on the ownership change of the Pittsburgh Penguins is expected to take place, and LeBrun notes that it is expected to be a “rubber stamp” process with no complications. Ryan Kennedy of The Hockey News tweeted recently that the value of the Penguins will be set at $915MM for the sale and current owners Mario Lemieux and Ron Burkle will retain just a combined five percent of the franchise.
  • There’s a new player in the trade bait world, as Jeff Marek debuts his new Rink Fries column for Sportsnet by breaking down what he calls the “players of interest” as the deadline approaches. That list starts with Seattle Kraken captain Mark Giordano, who could potentially represent a huge chip for the expansion club to play at some point this season. Giordano is on an expiring contract and is now 38, but would be highly coveted at a deadline that could very well have a lack of impact defensemen available.

Joel Farabee Out Week-To-Week With Upper-Body Injury

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Dec 4: Farabee has been moved to injured reserve, giving the team room to recall Jackson Cates from the AHL. Cates, 24, made his NHL debut last season after signing out of the University of Minnesota-Duluth and has been playing for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms this year.

Dec 3: The Philadelphia Flyers’ nightmare season rolls on, this time with another injury to a key player. Joel Farabee suffered an upper-body injury against the New York Rangers on Wednesday night and will be out on a week-to-week basis. Farabee was not at practice today and the team has recalled Max Willman and Connor Bunnaman under emergency conditions.

Farabee left in the first period of the game after falling awkwardly into the boards, holding his left arm gingerly at his side. To that point, he was tied for the team lead in goals with seven, though his overall impact has been stifled like many of the Flyers forwards this season. With 10 points in 21 games, he was on pace to just barely crack his previous career-high, set at 38 points last season in just 55 games. That doesn’t mean the team won’t miss him though, as he’s still one of the few bright spots in the lineup as they navigate a brutal seven-game losing streak.

The Flyers will likely be going through drastic changes to the core if this season continues the way it has gone so far, but Farabee isn’t going anywhere. The 21-year-old signed a six-year extension in September that will carry a cap hit of $5MM through the 2027-28 season. His continued development is key for the organization and long-term injury would only hinder that. Hopefully, he can get back on the ice in the coming weeks without needing surgery or missing a huge chunk of the season.

AHL Shuffle: 12/09/21

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It’s a busy Thursday around the NHL, with ten games on the schedule including the red hot Minnesota Wild looking to extend their lead in the Central Division with a win over the San Jose Sharks. Minnesota is already seven points ahead of second-place Colorado and have won their last seven games in a row. The Kirill Kaprizov-led Wild are threatening to run away with the top seed in the Central by Christmas. As they and others prepare for action, we’ll keep track of all the minor league shuffling.

Atlantic Division

  • The Ottawa Senators have recalled Jacob Bernard-Docker from the AHL, after sending Lassi Thomson down yesterday. Bernard-Docker is another top prospect who will receive a chance to show what he can do at the NHL level as the Senators look to the future.
  • The Detroit Red Wings have recalled Brian Lashoff from the AHL, as they move Gustav Lindstrom to injured reserve. Lashoff, 31, has 136 games of NHL experience, all of them coming with Detroit. An undrafted free agent signing a decade ago, he’s spent his entire professional career with the Red Wings organization, playing for Detroit or Grand Rapids.

Metropolitan Division

  • The New York Rangers have sent Morgan Barron and Adam Huska back to the AHL, while recalling Keith Kinkaid. Kinkaid had been in COVID protocol, but will assume the backup duties in the NHL now that he’s out. The team announced that Greg McKegg is also out of the protocol, meaning an extra roster spot was needed.

Central Division

  • Hudson Fasching has been returned to the Tucson Roadrunners again, as Arizona does frequently on off-days. The Coyotes don’t play until tomorrow and can save some money by keeping Fasching in between games. He’s already been involved in three transactions just this month.

Pacific Division

  • The Seattle Kraken have officially moved Kole Lind to the minor leagues, a move they announced yesterday when Colin Blackwell entered the COVID protocol. Lind, 23, has played just three games for Seattle this season, spending most of the year with the Charlotte Checkers.
  • The Calgary Flames have recalled Byron Froese from the minor league club, sending Juuso Valimaki down to make room. The team obviously felt they needed the extra forward over an extra defenseman, and Froese has more than 100 games of NHL experience.
  • Alexei Melnichuk is headed back to the AHL locker room after the San Jose Sharks reassigned the young goaltender to the San Jose Barracuda. Melnichuk is still struggling to hit his stride in North America, now in his second season, but the Sharks’ lacking depth in net makes him the next man up.

This page will be updated throughout the day

East Notes: Flyers, Mittelstadt, Spezza

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Following the coaching change in Philadelphia on Monday, the Flyers find themselves down a couple of assistant coaches; Michel Therrien was let go while Mike Yeo moved from assistant to interim head coach.  The team is looking to hire an assistant soon, notes Sam Carchidi of the Philadelphia Inquirer (Twitter link) with player development coach Nick Schultz helping out in the interim.

One candidate for a spot on Philadelphia’s bench is Adam Foote, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports in his latest 32 Thoughts column.  The 19-year NHL veteran isn’t currently coaching anywhere and last worked during the 2019-20 season when he was the head coach at WHL Kelowna.  The Flyers’ back end has struggled this season and adding someone who was a strong NHL defender in Foote could certainly help, especially with youngsters Ivan Provorov and Travis Sanheim.

Elsewhere in the East:

  • The Sabres may be without center Casey Mittelstadt for a while again, relays Mike Harrington of The Buffalo News. The 23-year-old was injured in Tuesday’s contest versus Anaheim and head coach Don Granato revealed that it’s in the same area as the upper-body injury that took him out in the season opener that kept him out for six weeks.  Mittelstadt is undergoing testing to determine the extent of the injury but Granato acknowledged that it could be another long-term issue.
  • The NHLPA announced (Twitter link) that, as expected, they have indeed filed an appeal on the six-game suspension for Maple Leafs center Jason Spezza for his kneeing incident on Winnipeg blueliner Neal Pionk. Commissioner Gary Bettman will hear the appeal first and has the authority to reduce the suspension.  If he elects not to do so, it can then go to a neutral arbitrator although, by the time that would likely be scheduled and a ruling rendered, the suspension will have been fully served.

Blues Sign Jon Gillies

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The Blues have brought back a familiar face between the pipes, announcing the signing of goaltender Jon Gillies to a one-year, two-way contract.  Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The 27-year-old spent last season with St. Louis but didn’t see any action with them.  Instead, he was their taxi squad netminder for a good portion of the year while also getting into five games with AHL Utica.  Gillies has remained at the AHL level this season, getting into three games with Boston’s affiliate and one with Philadelphia’s.

Gillies won’t be going back to the minors though, at least not yet.  Instead, his presence is needed with backup goaltender Ville Husso out with a lower-body injury and Jordan Binnington still in COVID protocol.  They’re using an emergency roster exception to have Charlie Lindgren up and that carries a maximum allowable cap hit of $850K; anyone making more can’t be recalled.  That takes their other AHL netminder Joel Hofer off the table which means they needed to sign Gillies to have a second goalie available for tomorrow’s game against Detroit.

Speaking of that roster exception, they were able to bring up Nathan Walker earlier today after playing short a forward.  However, defenseman Jake Walman sustained an upper-body injury on Tuesday night and the team will once again have to play short a player on Thursday before being able to recall a replacement for him.

West Notes: Oilers, Coyotes, Wroblewski

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The Oilers are on the lookout to add some defensive help and would like to add another goaltender, reports ESPN’s Emily Kaplan.  Edmonton is a bit shorthanded on the back end at the moment with both Duncan Keith and Slater Koekkoek injured and Cody Ceci currently in COVID protocol.  That has resulted in Philip Broberg and Marcus Niemelainen both being recalled from AHL Bakersfield and while that works as a short-term solution, getting another proven piece into the mix would certainly help their fortunes.

As for their goaltending, Mike Smith is currently injured and while Mikko Koskinen has done well this season, his track record over his tenure with the team is much spottier so adding some insurance would help.  Of course, with minimal cap space and the fact they’re well into LTIR already, GM Ken Holland will have to get creative if he wants to try to add those players now.  Otherwise, they may have to wait until closer to the March 21 deadline to make the money work.

More from the Western Conference:

  • The City of Glendale is threatening to lock the Coyotes out of Gila River Arena if their unpaid invoices and tax bills tallying more than $1.3MM aren’t paid by December 20th, reports Katie Strang of The Athletic. This is the latest chapter of an ongoing battle between the city and the team with the Coyotes being told to look for other places to play with their lease agreement not being renewed.  Craig Morgan of PHNX Sports suggests (subscription link) that Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, a facility that was built in 1965 and was home to Phoenix’s WHA team in the 1970s, could be a landing spot for the team while they wait for their desired Tempe home to be built.
  • The Kings’ AHL affiliate in Ontario announced that head coach John Wroblewski has taken a personal leave of absence for an indefinite period of time. Assistant coaches Chris Hajt and Craig Johnson will split the coaching duties in Wroblewski’s absence.

Snapshots: Guentzel, Trade Bait, DeBrusk

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The Pittsburgh Penguins will be without Jake Guentzel for the next little while, as head coach Mike Sullivan told reporters that the sniper will be out week-to-week with an upper-body injury. Guentzel is having another outstanding season with 15 goals and 27 points in just 24 games.

The 27-year-old forward now sits at 136 goals and 284 points through his first 323 career games, even closer to point-per-game production if you include his playoff performances. On a team that has some of the most recognizable players in the league, Guentzel sometimes doesn’t get the credit he deserves as one of the league’s premier offensive players. Losing him, especially just as things are starting to roll for the Penguins, will be a difficult thing to deal with.

  • TSN revealed its first Trade Bait board for this season compiled this time by new insider Chris Johnston. Ben Chiarot of the Montreal Canadiens tops the board, as one of the few impact defensemen that will be available at the deadline this year. As Johnston notes, players like Hampus Lindholm and Josh Manson were once expected to hit the market this year, but the Anaheim Ducks are playing well enough now that that may not be the case.
  • One of the other players on that list is Boston Bruins forward Jake DeBrusk, who was the focus of one of Elliotte Friedman’s latest 32 Thoughts. The Bruins are “definitely willing” to trade DeBrusk according to Friedman and are “unafraid to take a chance” on a younger player in return. They won’t just sell off DeBrusk because of his public trade request.

What Your Team Is Thankful For: Dallas Stars

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As the holiday season approaches, PHR will take a look at what teams are thankful for as the season passes the one-quarter mark. There also might be a few things your team would like down the road. We’ll examine what’s gone well in the early going and what could improve as the season rolls on for the Dallas Stars.

What are the Stars thankful for?

The 2017 Anaheim Ducks.

Hear this one out. At the 2017 deadline, the Stars traded Patrick Eaves, then on a one-year, $1MM deal, to the Ducks in exchange for a conditional draft pick. Eaves was in the midst of a career year, scoring 21 goals in his first 59 games with the Stars and making him a prime deadline target. He’d go on to rack up another 11 goals in 20 regular season games for Anaheim, but it was the postseason performance that the Stars were interested in. If the Ducks made it to the third round and Eaves played in at least 50% of the games to that point the Stars would receive Anaheim’s first-round pick in 2017. Otherwise, it would be a second-rounder.

The Ducks ended up making it to the Conference Finals, but it wasn’t because of Eaves. He ended up playing in just seven games through the first two rounds, still enough to cover that 50% threshold. The team had needed 11 games to get through those series against the Flames and Oilers, squeaking out a 2-1 win in game seven to ensure the Stars would have an extra first-round pick.

That pick, which ended up being 26th overall, was used on Jake Oettinger. He joins Miro Heiskanen and Jason Robertson as the team’s first three selections that year and arguably the three most important pieces of Dallas’ future at this point. The 22-year-old Oettinger currently has a .951 save percentage at the NHL level this year and a perfect 5-0 record.

Who are the Stars thankful for?

Miro Heiskanen.

It’s not very often that a team could consider a player like John Klingberg a bit redundant, but that’s exactly the situation in Dallas as Heiskanen has completely taken over control of the Stars’ blueline. The third-overall pick from that 2017 draft, Heiskanen averages close to 25 minutes a night, has 16 points in 22 games, and makes the whole machine turn. While some may overlook him because of the market he plays in or the style in which he effortlessly floats around the ice, Heiskanen is a legitimate star in the league and will be a leader in Dallas for a long time.

Need even more reason for thanks? The Philadelphia Flyers could have had Heiskanen (or Cale Makar, which is another story) at the draft, but selected Nolan Patrick second overall instead, leaving the smooth-skating Finn for the Stars to snap up.

What would the Stars be even more thankful for?

Denis Gurianov’s consistency to come back.

In 2019-20, the Stars gave Gurianov his first full-time shot in the NHL and he rewarded them with strong, powerful play. Even though he wasn’t seeing a ton of ice time, he was always a threat to score, tallying 20 goals in 64 games. Perhaps the fact that he had just nine assists during that stretch should have been a warning sign, but the 12th overall pick from 2015 has been frustratingly inconsistent–at least in terms of goal scoring–since.

He posted just 12 tallies last season and there were stretches of up to 15 games where he failed to put one in the back of the net. This year he has just four goals and eight points in 21 games, not exactly what they were expecting from that impressive rookie. Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson are the present and future of the Stars offense, but it sure would be helpful to have Gurianov living up to his draft pedigree. He’d benefit from it too, given he’s going to be an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent this summer.

What should be on the Stars’ Holiday Wish List?

A “hockey trade” for one of their goaltenders.

The Stars have too many goalies. Oettinger can’t even get playing time because of the red hot Braden Holtby who has become the starter, while Anton Khudobin has struggled in his part-time role. That’s not even mentioning Ben Bishop, who is on a conditioning stint and will be ready to return to action in a few days.

The Stars need more offense and several teams around the league need goaltending, but the crunch is coming for Dallas. If they can work out a way to leverage one of these talented netminders into another forward (especially one that can play center when needed), this hot streak they’re on may not end anytime soon.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

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