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Taxi Squad Shuffle: 01/29/22

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Even with today’s game between the Kraken and Islanders being postponed, it’s still a busy day on the schedule with 20 teams in action so there should be plenty of roster movement throughout the league.  We’ll keep track of those moves here.

Atlantic Division

  • The Senators announced (Twitter links) that they have recalled defenseman Lassi Thomson and forward Mark Kastelic from the taxi squad. Thomson has played in 14 games with Ottawa this season, picking up four points while Kastelic – who will make his NHL debut today against Anaheim – has 11 points in 31 games with AHL Belleville.

Metropolitan Division

 

Central Division

  • The Jets announced (Twitter link) the recalls of defensemen Declan Chisholm, Johnathan Kovacevic, and Leon Gawanke from the taxi squad.  To make room for them on the roster, Nathan Beaulieu was placed on injured reserve.
  • The Coyotes assigned defenseman Cam Dineen from the taxi squad to AHL Tucson, per the AHL’s transactions log.  The 23-year-old cleared waivers last week but has only made one minor league appearance since then so he’ll get another shot at getting into a game when they play Bakersfield tonight.
  • The Blackhawks have sent defenseman Wyatt Kalynuk to Rockford of the AHL, notes Charlie Roumeliotis of NBC Sports Chicago (Twitter link).  The 24-year-old was up with Chicago for the past week but didn’t play and has made just four NHL appearances this season.
  • After a brief recall, veteran defenseman Matt Tennyson will head back to the minors. Nashville has announced that Tennyson has been returned to the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals, where he has played 30 of his 34 games this season.

Pacific Division

  • The Canucks announced (Twitter link) that they’ve brought up defenseman Noah Juulsen to the taxi squad from AHL Abbotsford. The 24-year-old has suited up twice for Vancouver this season but has spent the bulk of the year in the minors, collecting 10 points in 25 games.
  • The Kings have made their usual roster shuffle, announcing (Twitter link) the recall of defenseman Austin Strand from the taxi squad while sending blueliner Jacob Moverare back to the taxi squad.  Both players have been shuffled back and forth frequently since the taxi squads were re-established, a trend that should continue for a few more days until after the All-Star break.

Senators Receiving Interest In Anton Forsberg

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What a difference a good year can make.  Last season, Senators goaltender Anton Forsberg was claimed on waivers three different times, bouncing around while hardly playing.  He did get an opportunity with Ottawa and did well enough to get a low-cost one-year extension worth $900K, a reasonable move for both sides in terms of getting them some goalie insurance and Forsberg a bit of stability.

Fast forward to this season and the 29-year-old has had a nice year so far, posting a .912 SV% in 16 games for the lottery-bound Sens.  Not surprisingly, with goalie depth being an issue for some teams and cap space an issue for many, Ottawa has been receiving trade interest in Forsberg, reports Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli.

However, while Ottawa is well out of playoff contention, it’s far from a guarantee that they’ll want to move Forsberg.  With Matt Murray struggling again this season and Filip Gustavsson still unproven in the NHL, Forsberg could still be viewed as an insurance policy for the Senators for next season.  While Gustavsson will be waiver-eligible at that time, Ottawa was able to get Murray through waivers earlier this season and with two years left on his contract after this one, they’ll likely be able to get him through next year without any issues so Forsberg’s return wouldn’t necessarily create an unwanted logjam between the pipes.

The in-season goaltending trade market usually isn’t particularly robust and there’s little reason to think it will be this season either.  Nevertheless, Forsberg’s cheap cap hit will make him more desirable than some of the other rentals making two or three times more than what he’s making and a mid-round pick could definitely be attainable for GM Pierre Dorion which would represent a nice return on a waiver claim from less than a year ago.

Meanwhile, with teams having interest in trading for him and the fact he’s having a good season, Forsberg himself appears to be well-positioned to land a sizable raise on the open market this summer.  Not bad for someone who was bouncing around the league as a third-stringer for the better part of last season.

Central Notes: Brodin, Jets, Johnson, Stillman, Husso

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The Wild announced (Twitter link) that they activated defenseman Jonas Brodin off injured reserve prior to their game tonight against the Rangers.  The 28-year-old has had a bit of trouble staying in the lineup as he had also missed time due to COVID protocol and an upper-body injury before sustaining this lower-body injury three weeks ago.  In between all of that, Brodin has put together a strong season, notching 16 points in 29 games while averaging 23:35 per night and blocking nearly two shots per contest.  With Brodin’s activation, Minnesota now has its top seven fully healthy.

Elsewhere in the Central Division:

  • Jets defenseman Nathan Beaulieu has been ruled out for their two-game road trip due to a lower-body injury, reports Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun (Twitter link). Meanwhile, they’ll have to wait for at least one more game to get blueliner Josh Morrissey back from his stint in COVID protocol while defenseman Dylan DeMelo has resumed skating but also won’t be ready to suit up on Saturday in St. Louis.
  • Blackhawks center Tyler Johnson is still a month away from returning to the lineup, relays Scott Powers of The Athletic (Twitter link). The veteran is working his way back from artificial disk replacement surgery, the same procedure that Jack Eichel had after being traded to Vegas.  Meanwhile, Powers adds that blueliner Riley Stillman will be out for two to three weeks due to a shoulder injury sustained last week.
  • Although Blues goaltender Ville Husso has fared much better in his second NHL season and could be an intriguing trade option at the trade deadline, Benjamin Hochman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch feels that St. Louis would be better served by holding onto the pending UFA. Even though they may be hard-pressed to re-sign him for next season, Jordan Binnington’s recent struggles would make it advisable for them to hold onto the 26-year-old as an insurance policy even if it means they lose him for nothing this summer.  Husso has a 1.81 GAA with a .945 SV% in 14 games so far this season.

NHL Postpones Saturday’s Kraken-Islanders Game

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There have been plenty of postponements throughout the NHL this season due to COVID.  However, Friday’s announcement that Saturday’s contest between the Kraken and the Islanders will not be played as scheduled is not the next on that list.  Instead, a weather-related state of emergency in New York is the reason why this game won’t be played.

The Isles were set to begin the first half of a back-to-back set with both games at home.  Sunday’s contest against Minnesota hasn’t been affected at this time.  As for Seattle, they were set to play both New York teams in matinees this weekend and are next set to play against the Rangers, barring a weather-related postponement for that one as well.

Both teams will have a slightly shorter All-Star break as a result of Saturday’s postponement.  The game has been rescheduled for February 2nd, meaning both teams will be playing on the back half of a back-to-back at that time while they won’t resume play after that contest until one week later.

More On J.T. Miller Trade Speculation

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The Vancouver Canucks now have a brand new front office leadership group, with president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford, general manager Patrik Allvin, and assistant general manager Emilie Castonguay. Quite the trio in terms of varied experience and expertise to take over a floundering franchise.

Allvin, introduced just this week, now has plenty of work to do in order to get up to speed before the March 21 trade deadline. When asked about whether he’ll be taking the lead on some of those decisions while his new general manager gets comfortable with the organization, Rutherford explained that he hired Allvin to make those calls but he could still be involved:

No, no. Patrik is going to do that work. It’ll be involving everyone in the organization, everyone’s going to have their input. But Patrik has to gather all of that information and make his decision. He certainly doesn’t have to come to me every time he’s making a decision, but when we get into some of the bigger decisions, I’ll be a little bit more involved, but it’s Patrik’s job. He’s the general manager, he has to work hard and make those decisions. 

One of those big decisions that Rutherford could potentially be involved in is the future of J.T. Miller, since what the Canucks do with their leading scorer could point to what direction the franchise will take in the near future. Miller is having an outstanding offensive campaign with 44 points in 41 games and is signed through next season at a very reasonable $5.25MM cap hit. The Canucks are certainly not in a desperate position to cash in with a deadline trade, and could even decide to hold onto Miller longer than his current deal if an extension could be worked out down the road.

That might be why twice in the past 24 hours Pierre LeBrun has referenced a potential asking price on Miller and suggested that the Canucks may be letting teams know that they better get in their best offer well ahead of the trade deadline. On TSN’s Insider Trading and in his latest column for The Athletic, LeBrun notes that to start a serious conversation about Miller, a team would have to be willing to part with three or four assets. The fact that he’s signed for another year allows the Canucks to be “picky,” as LeBrun puts it.

Recently, Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reported that the New York Rangers were the team that was showing the most interest in Miller, with the Boston Bruins, Calgary Flames, and Minnesota Wild also all linked to the Canucks forward.

Jakob Chychrun, one of the other big names being tossed around in relation to the trade deadline, has also drawn speculation about a three-asset asking price. Jeff Marek of Sportsnet has reported several times that the Arizona Coyotes have already been offered a first-round pick, and two players selected in the first round. Chychrun has three more years on his current contract after 2021-22 but is also at the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to performance this year, as he’s mired in a brutal campaign amid the tanking Coyotes.

If the Canucks decide they want to go through a bit of a rebuild, trading Miller would certainly help. Vancouver’s prospect pipeline is rather bare, with Scott Wheeler of The Athletic recently ranking them 28th in the league and listing Jack Rathbone, a 22-year-old fourth-round pick with 35 games of professional experience as their top name. The team is already without their second and third-round picks for the upcoming draft (though they have Winnipeg’s third from the Nate Schmidt deal), and desperately needs to inject the system with some talent even if it’s not a full tear down.

All of that said, there’s no guarantee that the best offer for Miller comes at this deadline. Perhaps an even better deal could be worked out by Allvin and the Canucks in the offseason when every team is still theoretically a contender. The 28-year-old does not hold any trade protection in his deal–the Canucks voided that clause when he was acquired from the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2019–meaning he could be a draft day prize for a team on the upswing.

Submit Your Questions For The #PHRMailbag

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We’re coming up on the NHL All-Star break and a few days past the halfway point of the schedule. Jakob Chychrun and John Klingberg are squarely in the rumor mill, as the Coyotes and Stars try to squeeze the most value out of their departing defensemen. Evander Kane’s situation is still up in the air, and players from around the world are departing for the Olympics.

With all that in mind, it’s time to run another edition of the PHR Mailbag. If you missed the last one, it was broken into two parts. In the first, our Brian La Rose examined the Philadelphia Flyers situation right as they fired Alain Vigneault, wrote about the Kane situation before his minor league incident, and took a look at the disappointing Winnipeg Jets campaign. In the second, he projected out future point totals for players like Matty Beniers and Cole Perfetti, looked at J.T. Miller as a trade candidate, and discussed the struggles for many of the Canadian teams this year.

You can submit a question by using #PHRMailbag on Twitter or by leaving a comment down below. The mailbag will run on the weekend and answer as many questions as possible.

Adam Fox Placed On Injured Reserve

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It hasn’t been a great few days for All-Star representatives, as Drake Batherson suffered a high-ankle sprain, Nathan MacKinnon suffered a facial fracture and now Adam Fox has been moved to injured reserve with an upper-body injury.

Fox left last night’s game and was considered day-to-day, but will miss at least the last three New York Rangers games before the All-Star break with his IR designation. Whether he can take part in the festivities is unclear, though it seems unlikely he’ll be on the ice for the game itself given this new injury.

The Rangers, meanwhile, have recalled both Tim Gettinger and Nils Lundkvist to the active roster, sending Morgan Barron to the taxi squad to make room. Lundkvist would potentially represent a replacement for Fox in the lineup, though it is hard to fill the skates of the reigning Norris Trophy winner.

In 44 games this season, Fox has already matched his previous career-high of 47 points including 16 in his last 12 matches. He averages more than 24 minutes a night, plays both the powerplay and penalty kill, and is overall one of the most impactful players in the entire NHL. Without him, the Rangers will have to rely more on some of their other young defensemen including K’Andre Miller, who broke the 22-minute mark last night for the fourth straight game.

Michael Houser Placed In COVID Protocol

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The Buffalo Sabres may not have a healthy goaltender to dress tomorrow night. Michael Houser has been added to the COVID protocol, the latest in a series of unfortunate events to the organization’s netminders.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Malcolm Subban are dealing with long-term injuries. Aaron Dell is suspended and won’t be available until after the All-Star break. Houser is now in the protocol and will be unavailable, meaning the team only has Craig Anderson and Dustin Tokarski, both coming off injuries themselves, as options this weekend. Anderson hasn’t played in a game since the beginning of November, while Tokarski’s last appearance was November 29. Both are practicing at the moment but it is unclear if they will be cleared to play.

If one of those two is able to play, they will likely have to be the starter against the Arizona Coyotes tomorrow night. Otherwise, the team would have to use an emergency backup as–well, not the backup–or sign someone like Mat Robson to an NHL contract. Robson has played in just seven games for the Rochester Americans, spending most of his season in the ECHL. His current minor league backup, Charles Williams, was signed to a professional tryout just two weeks ago and has hardly any experience at the AHL level.

Even accepting that the team didn’t build a lot of NHL-quality depth at the position before the season began, it’s hard to fathom how so many netminders could be unavailable all at once. Even worse, the team isn’t even at home for the next three games, meaning whoever they bring as an emergency backup will have to travel with them to Arizona, Colorado, and Vegas.

Montreal Canadiens Provide Injury Updates

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The Montreal Canadiens must have broken a mirror somewhere because they have had nothing but bad luck this season. The team offered a few more injury updates today, none of the positive variety.

Things start with Jonathan Drouin, who has suffered a wrist injury and is out indefinitely. Drouin was placed on injured reserve last week and hasn’t played since January 20 against the Vegas Golden Knights. The team notes that though Drouin did have surgery on his left wrist previously, this injury is to the right. The 26-year-old had 20 points in 32 games this season while seeing a little over 17 minutes of ice time a night.

Next is Joel Edmundson, whose recovery from a lower-back injury is coming along slowly. Edmundson remains out indefinitely, having not even played a single game yet this season. The veteran defenseman has been through a tough year, initially leaving the Canadiens at the beginning of the season to be with his ailing father, who died from lung cancer earlier this month.

Mathieu Perreault has a lower-body injury and will be out three to four weeks. The 34-year-old hasn’t played a game since December 14 and has suited up just 14 times for the Canadiens this season. Signed to a one-year, $950K contract in the offseason, he appeared to be a potential trade deadline chip for the Canadiens if he can get healthy. With the deadline still about seven weeks away, there is time for his return if this recovery period is accurate.

Christian Dvorak is still out with an upper-body injury, but the team confirmed that it is not a concussion. He’s still on injured reserve, however, and will be out at least through the upcoming All-Star break. Dvorak, one of the team’s marquee offseason acquisitions, has seven goals and 16 points in 34 games so far.

Latest On Anaheim GM Search

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The Anaheim Ducks are one of the teams that still need to make a decision on who will be their next general manager, and initial interviews have been completed according to Pierre LeBrun on last night’s Insider Trading segment.

What we’re being told is that the Ducks have wrapped up the first round of interviews. They’ve interviewed ten candidates, three in house that we’ve discussed before. Two of the external candidates are Pat Verbeek, assistant GM from Detroit and Ryan Martin, assistant GM from the New York Rangers. The Ducks plan to start second interviews shortly here, they should have a GM in place over the next month. 

Jeff Solomon, who currently serves as the interim GM of the team is one of the internal candidates for the full-time job and certainly has his plate full at the moment. Not only is the team searching for a new leader, but preparation will need to begin for the March trade deadline. The Ducks are one of the most interesting teams in the league to watch as that deadline approaches, given their mix of high-end players on expiring contracts and surprising early-season success.

Once again last night Trevor Zegras wowed the world with an impressive show of skill, scoring a lacrosse-style goal with ease partway through the second period. It was the first of two goals he would tally last night, enough to lead the Ducks to victory over the Montreal Canadiens despite a third-period push.

It’s that success that will complicate things for Solomon and whoever takes over as the new GM. Hampus Lindholm, Rickard Rakell, and Josh Manson all present opportunities to secure shiny new draft picks and prospects, but are also part of the backbone of a team that is currently in second place in the Pacific Division. With that in mind, getting a general manager in place sooner rather than later seems prudent.

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