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Ross Colton Enters COVID Protocol

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The Tampa Bay Lightning can’t escape the protocol, it seems. Just as they had Cal Foote and Taylor Raddysh re-join the team, another young player has been ruled out. Ahead of tonight’s game, Ross Colton has been placed in the COVID protocol according to team reporter Bryan Burns.

Colton, 25, has played in all 34 games for the Lightning this season, registering four goals and 14 points while averaging just under 14 minutes a night. The fourth-round pick is another example of Tampa Bay’s strong development system, which turned a depth prospect into a full-time NHL contributor–one with a Stanley Cup-winning goal to boot.

The Lightning actually sent Gabriel Fortier back to the AHL earlier today, likely not something they would have done had they expected Colton to be unavailable. Raddysh could enter the lineup after clearing the protocol and is once again listed on the active roster.

NHL Makes Several Schedule Adjustments

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The NHL has announced five schedule changes as it continues to try and work through dozens of postponements and attendance restrictions in Canadian markets. The following changes have been made:

  • Game #693, Columbus @ NY Islanders on January 18 – to be postponed with a rescheduled date announced at a later time
  • Game #694, Detroit @ Philadelphia on January 18 – to be postponed with a rescheduled date announced at a later time
  • Game #340, NY Islanders @ Philadelphia previously scheduled for November 30 will now be rescheduled for January 18 @ 7:00 p.m. ET
  • Game #723, NY Islanders @ Toronto currently scheduled for January 22 will be rescheduled for April 17 @ 7:30 p.m. ET
  • Game #1211, Toronto @ NY Islanders currently scheduled for April 17 will be rescheduled for January 22 @ 7:00 p.m. ET

These are just the latest in what will be an ongoing stream of changes for the rest of the season as the league tries to squeeze in games whenever possible. There will be many more of these announcements to come.

Snapshots: Rask, Matthews, Team Canada

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Unrestricted free agent goaltender Tuukka Rask still needs to be medically cleared to return to action, but that could come as early as this weekend according to Amalie Benjamin of NHL.com. The return would likely come at the AHL level for the Providence Bruins, who play against the Lehigh Valley Phantoms on Friday and Sunday.

Rask, 34, hasn’t played a game in the AHL since the 2008-09 season when he went 33-20-4 for Providence and led them to the Eastern Conference Finals. He would likely sign a professional tryout contract in order to suit up at that level, as an NHL contract would require him to pass through waivers before being assigned to Providence. A conditioning loan, which would be another potential way of getting him time in the AHL while under an NHL contract, would not remove Rask from the 23-man roster, meaning Boston would be at a disadvantage while the veteran goaltender got up to speed. A PTO for Providence doesn’t have these restrictions, meaning there could be one coming down the pipe in the next few days if he’s cleared.

  • Auston Matthews’ positive COVID result from a rapid test yesterday was not confirmed today, as his PCR result returned negative. While he was still held out from practice, there is still a chance he avoids the protocol and can play for the team tomorrow night. Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe told reporters including Luke Fox of Sportsnet that they are awaiting the results of another test that should be known tomorrow morning.
  • The Canadian women’s hockey team will not play again before the Olympics as they try to avoid any further COVID-19 cases. According to the Canadian Press, the group will enter a bubble for the next few weeks in order to ensure they can all travel to Beijing in time for the tournament, which kicks off on February 2–actually a few days ahead of the opening ceremonies. The team must make three cuts from the 26 players they currently have, but will no longer play the tune-up matches against the United States or the AJHL.

Claude Giroux, Ivan Provorov Enter COVID Protocol

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The Philadelphia Flyers announced Tuesday that captain Claude Giroux, defenseman Ivan Provorov, and a staff member were placed in the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol.

Giroux and Provorov make it five Flyers currently in COVID protocol. Forwards Derick Brassard and Jackson Cates as well as defenseman Nick Seeler are on the list at the moment.

Unfortunately for Philadelphia, this now means that the two cornerstones of their offense are both out of the lineup. Sean Couturier is also unavailable as he’s listed as week-to-week with an upper-body injury.

Giroux had shifted back to center at times this season with Couturier and Kevin Hayes missing time, but his offensive production is still the best on the team. Through 32 games, the 33-year-old captain has 11 goals and 18 assists for 29 points.

Provorov is also an extremely tough loss for the time being. He logs big minutes for this Flyers team, averaging 24:25 per game. He’s got 13 points through 32 games this year.

Devils Issue Injury Updates On Hamilton, Hischier, Others

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After the New Jersey Devils completed their morning skate Tuesday, the team had quite a few injury updates to share.

Defenseman Dougie Hamilton will have surgery tomorrow to repair a broken jaw suffered on January 2, and he’s been moved to injured reserve. Goalie Jonathan Bernier had hip surgery yesterday and is out for the remainder of the season. Team captain Nico Hischier is out for tonight’s game against Boston with a lower-body injury, and forwards Yegor Sharangovich and Pavel Zacha entered the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol today.

Hamilton’s certainly been decent this season, his first with the Devils. Through 30 games, the free-agent acquisition has seven goals and 13 assists while logging 21:24 per game, the second-highest mark on the team behind Damon Severson.

The long-term absence of Bernier is organizationally tough to swallow, too. Bernier had been solid through 10 games with a .902 save percentage, but the injury had been bothering him intermittently throughout the season and it’s the right move to shut him down to hopefully avoid career-ending complications.

Right now, the backup role will be competed for by Akira Schmid, Jon Gillies, and Nico Daws, all of whom have played NHL games this season. Gillies will likely win the role to allow more development time for Schmid and Daws, who are both just 21 and haven’t blown the doors off in NHL action. More time in the AHL will serve them best.

Both Sharangovich and Zacha have been valuable depth pieces for New Jersey, and they’ll hopefully only be subject to the five-day quarantine and will only miss the team’s next three games. Sharangovich has seven goals and 14 points through 30 games this year, while Zacha has nine goals and 16 points through 33.

It’s hard to remember the last time that a team issued injury updates simultaneously about this many players, and it forces the Devils to make serious adjustments to their roster and their lineups. It’s a seriously tough break for a team that’s barely hanging on to their chances to make the playoffs.

Latest On Anaheim Ducks GM Search

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The Anaheim Ducks are one of several teams around the league currently searching for a new general manager after Bob Murray resigned from the position in early November. In his place, vice president of hockey operations Jeff Solomon was named interim GM and ownership indicated that a “methodical, extensive search” would begin to fill the position.

Now, Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic reports that a search committee has been formed, which includes a few familiar names for Ducks’ fans. CEO Michael Schulman and president of business operations Aaron Teats will be joined by Scott Niedermayer and Paul Kariya on the committee, which will also include owners Susan Samueli and Henry Samueli.

It’s difficult to find two more beloved figures in franchise history than Niedermayer and Kariya. The pair of Hall of Fame players had huge impacts on the success of Anaheim, with the former leading them to the organization’s only Stanley Cup. Niedermayer won the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2007 and raised the Cup for the fourth time in his career after averaging just shy of 30 minutes per game on the Ducks’ championship run.

Kariya meanwhile was the franchise’s first superstar, entering the league in 1994 after his stint with the Canadian national team. He scored 39 points in 47 games as a rookie but would find a running mate in Teemu Selanne the following year and never look back. In 606 games for Anaheim, Kariya would score 300 goals and 669 points.

Yesterday, when discussing the multiple GM vacancies around the league on The Jeff Marek Show, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet noted that unlike some of the other spots, Anaheim has some big roster decisions to make in the coming months. Rickard Rakell, Hampus Lindholm, and Josh Manson are all unrestricted free agents at the end of the season and could bring back big returns should the Ducks decide to trade them at the deadline, while captain Ryan Getzlaf is also on just a one-year deal with the team. Anaheim has been good enough to perhaps consider adding, not subtracting at the deadline, but that kind of a decision would certainly be one that–in an ideal world at least–should be made by the team’s next GM.

Krebs, Tuch, Bjork Enter COVID Protocol

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So much for the Jack Eichel trade already paying off for the Buffalo Sabres. Just a few days after making their Buffalo debuts, Peyton Krebs and Alex Tuch have both been placed in the COVID protocol. Anders Bjork has entered with them.

Krebs and Tuch managed just three games with the Sabres since their recent activation with the two connecting on a powerplay marker in Saturday’s game against the Boston Bruins. They represent the biggest parts of the Eichel trade that went down earlier this season and a huge chunk of the team’s future moving forward.

Bjork too is a regular with the Sabres, though his five points in 29 games are certainly not what the team was hoping for this season. The 25-year-old forward had six in 13 games down the stretch for Buffalo last season but has seen his minutes slashed dramatically and his role on the team diminished.

With Kyle Okposo and Casey Fitzgerald already on the protocol, the Sabres are now severely shorthanded as they wait for the San Jose Sharks to come to town on Thursday. Luckily, the team isn’t scheduled to play again after that game until January 11, meaning several of these players could exit the protocol if they are experiencing no symptoms.

Minnesota Wild Recall Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi

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It’s time for the kids to have an impact in Minnesota. The Wild have recalled both Matt Boldy and Marco Rossi to the taxi squad, with both expected to make their NHL debuts against the Boston Bruins this Thursday.

The Wild are currently in free fall from the top of the Central Division, losing their last five games and dropping to third place behind the St. Louis Blues and Nashville Predators. They’re also without Joel Eriksson Ek and Jordan Greenway for the time being, opening room for the top prospects to step in and contribute.

Boldy, selected 12th overall in 2019, is the only top-20 player from his draft that has yet to make an appearance at the NHL level. The 20-year-old forward has 28 points in 24 games for the Iowa Wild since signing out of Boston College last year, though only ten of those appearances have come this season. Boldy suffered a broken ankle in October as he was trying to crack the Minnesota roster out of training camp.

Rossi meanwhile was picked even higher, ninth overall in 2020. The 20-year-old center was start the 2020-21 campaign in Switzerland, but a bout with COVID revealed a myocarditis diagnosis that kept him out the entire season. It wasn’t at all clear whether Rossi’s career would continue, with the young forward telling Michael Russo of The Athletic how frightening the diagnosis was:

Every time before I went to sleep, I was so scared that I won’t wake up anymore. Every night, before sleep, I was really sad and always crying because I was scared of that. I told my parents, ’Could you sleep right next to my bed and be here ’til I fall asleep?’ And every day I woke up in the morning, I was so glad that I woke up. It was really hard.

Now healthy and playing every day in the AHL, Rossi has picked up right where he left off in 2020. Through 21 games with Iowa, he has 23 points, routinely controlling the game with his strong two-way play.

The two youngsters may not be up for the rest of the season, but it will be exciting for Wild fans to see them take the ice in a Minnesota sweater for the first time.

Taxi Squad Shuffle: 01/04/22

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Eight games grace the NHL schedule this evening, as things start to get back to normal across the league. The Calgary Flames will face a shorthanded Florida Panthers team, while the defending champions try to get back in the win column against a Zach Werenski-less Blue Jackets’ squad. As those teams and others prepare for action, we’ll keep track of all the minor league and taxi squad shuffling.

Atlantic Division

Metropolitan Division

Central Division

  • Arizona Coyotes forward Matias Maccelli is back with the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners, per the team. He didn’t get into a game during his call-up, and he’s still looking for his first NHL action, but he’s impressed with 21 points through 21 games in Tucson this year.
  • The Dallas Stars have reassigned Ty Dellandrea, Rhett Gardner, Riley Tufte, and Adam Scheel from the taxi squad to the Texas Stars, giving them some extra bodies for their games this weekend.

Pacific Division

  • The Los Angeles Kings have reassigned Martin Frk and Jacob Moverare from the AHL to the taxi squad. Moverare, despite still waiting for his first NHL opportunity, has been involved in ten transactions since the middle of December, bouncing up and down on a near-daily basis.
  • The Seattle Kraken reassigned forward Kole Lind and goalie Joey Daccord to the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers today, according to a team tweet. The two have combined to play seven games at the NHL level this season.

This page will be updated throughout the day

Why The 2022 Trade Deadline Could Be A Seller’s Market

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The 2022 NHL Trade Deadline is not exactly imminent. The delayed March 21 date this season is 11 weeks away and a lot can change in that amount of time. However, the end of the holiday trade freeze is the unofficial start to trade season leading up to the deadline. In the first few months of the season there have been ten trades completed, but outside of the Jack Eichel deal there have been very few moves of any substance. That may not change any time soon either.

An active trade deadline requires there to be identifiable buyers and sellers and they must be willing and able to deal. Buyers should not be an issue this season; the eight teams currently in a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference may be locked in, as nearly 100 percentage points separate the eighth and ninth team in the conference standings, while the Western Conference includes 13 teams with .500+ records. Therein begins the sellers problem though. Only three teams out west look like potential sellers right now, while there could be more teams willing to sell in the east but many are in a rebuild and don’t have much to offer, while others are merely lacking impact rentals. There are also a number of fringe teams that probably should be sellers, but are close enough to a playoff berth that would mean so much to their players and fan base that they may hold out.

The Athletic’s Eric Duhatschek notes another wrinkle that could limit sellers: five teams are currently operating with an interim GM. The Montreal Canadiens and Vancouver Canucks have hired new heads of their respective front offices in Jeff Gorton and Jim Rutherford, but neither has in turn hired his GM yet and seem unlikely to make major moves independently. This could take Gorton’s Canadiens, one of the most obvious sellers on paper, off the market. Rutherford’s Canucks hope to be in the playoff race, but he has already vowed that the team will either sell or stand pat this season and the longer it takes to hire a GM, the more likely it will be the latter. The Chicago Blackhawks, Anaheim Ducks, and San Jose Sharks are all operating with temporary GMs, all of whom have limited experience. Chicago and Anaheim fired their most recent GMs and have internal replacements for the time being, while San Jose GM Doug Wilson is currently away from the team for medical reasons. As Duhatschek points out, the likes of Kyle Davidson, Jeff Solomon, and Joe Will are not only new to the GM position, but lack the relationships around the league to make impact moves. So while the Blackhawks look like bona fide sellers and the Sharks and possibly the Ducks could get to that point, will they actually be willing to make trades?

The Seattle Kraken also fall into a category all their own. The NHL’s newest team was just put together in its entirety this off-season. Although they struggled mightily all season and do possess a number of expiring contracts, it remains to be seen if GM Ron Francis is ready to blow it up.

On top of all of this, the rental market among potential sellers is not strong. Of the top 20 impending UFA’s in per-game scoring this season, zero are on teams with sub-.500 records and just three are on teams not currently in a playoff spot. Expand that to the top 50, and only ten players are on sub-.500 teams: Phil Kessel, Travis Boyd, and Johan Larsson for Arizona, Vinnie Hinostroza for Buffalo, Chris Wideman for Montreal, P.K. Subban for New Jersey, Tyler Ennis for Ottawa, and Calle Jarnkrok, Colin Blackwell, and Mark Giordano for Seattle. Even if valuable defensemen like Ben Chiarot and Colin Miller or even a future Hall of Fame goaltender like Marc-Andre Fleury are considered, it’s not exactly an inspiring list for teams adding at the deadline. More importantly, it’s a short list for a potentially large group of buyers.

For those teams looking to make a meaningful trade this season, the conundrum is when to make a move. On one hand, with a small group of exciting targets it may be beneficial to make a trade early and possibly avoid the high prices of deadline bidding wars. On the other hand, the pool of sellers could also expand closer to the deadline and prices could drop if there is a flood of supply to meet the demand. Until that happens though – if it even does – there will be few moves to make early on and quite possibly right up to the deadline. Serious contenders should be prepared to pay up or sit tight this season.

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