Headlines

Go To MLB Trade Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Archives for June 2022

Dan Bylsma Named Head Coach Of Coachella Valley Firebirds

at CDT | by 2 Comments

The first head coach in the history of the Coachella Valley Firebirds has been announced, and he comes with quite a bit of NHL experience. Dan Bylsma— Stanley Cup and Jack Adams Award winner Dan Bylsma–will take over the new AHL franchise, which will serve as the Seattle Kraken AHL affiliate next season.

Firebirds president Steve Fraser released a short statement:

We are thrilled to welcome Dan Bylsma to the Firebirds family and look forward to his leadership in building a unified roster of players as well as creating a championship product on the ice. 

Bylsma had already been working with the Kraken organization as part of their player development staff and as an assistant with the Charlotte Checkers, already working with a number of prospects that will be with the Firebirds next season. The 2009 cup-winning coach has been behind the bench for 565 NHL games, posting an outstanding 320-190-55 record. Unfortunately, those numbers saw a significant downturn at his last stop, where he was put in charge of the struggling Buffalo Sabres and was unable to get them into the playoffs.

Since his time in Buffalo ended, he has been an assistant with the Detroit Red Wings and at the World Championships with Team USA. As far as minor league coaches go, his resume is exquisite, even if his last go-round in the NHL didn’t go so well.

For Coachella Valley, hiring an experienced coach will help them immediately get started as they try to build a new fanbase and support the Kraken’s NHL exploits. Seattle shared Charlotte this season as they didn’t have enough players to fill out their own AHL affiliate but now will be on their own to provide Bylsma with a competitive group.

Sweden Announces Preliminary Roster For 2022 WJC

at CDT | by 1 Comment

While the focus is on the Stanley Cup Final right now, fans will have some more hockey to watch later this summer, when the rescheduled World Junior Championship takes place in August. The event, which was postponed from its normal late-December timeslot because of a COVID-19 outbreak, will kick off on August 9 in Edmonton, Alberta.

All of the same players are eligible for the event, even if they have since turned 20, but with the tournament coming so close to the start of the NHL season, there will be quite a different look for many countries. That’s true for Sweden, who released their preliminary roster today:

G Jesper Wallstedt
G Calle Clang
G Carl Lindbom

D Helge Grans
D Emil Andrae
D Mattias Havelid
D Mans Forsfjall
D Simon Edvinsson
D Leo Loof
D William Wallinder
D Joel Nystrom

F Daniel Ljungman
F Fabian Lysell
F Ake Stakkestad
F William Eklund
F Linus Sjodin
F Victor Stjernborg
F Albert Sjoberg
F Isak Rosen
F Jonathan Lekkerimaki
F Theodore Niederbach
F Oskar Magnusson
F Daniel Torgersson

This is a great opportunity for someone like Lekkerimaki, the top Swede in this year’s draft. He will have already been selected by the time the tournament gets off but it likely means he’ll have a chance to take part in two of these events over just a few months.

If you think you see a number of Detroit Red Wings prospects, you aren’t wrong. Edvinsson’s inclusion is especially interesting as many believe he will challenge for a full-time roster spot next season. Eklund is in the same boat, after already playing nine games for the San Jose Sharks and recording four points.

Latest On Ethan Bear

at CDT | by 3 Comments

When the Carolina Hurricanes traded promising young forward Warren Foegele to the Edmonton Oilers, they had hoped the return, defenseman Ethan Bear, could turn into a key piece of what is and has been one of the NHL’s best defense cores. Though Bear has not been bad, the relationship has not worked out as hoped, Bear suiting up for just 58 regular season games in 2021-22, finding himself a healthy scratch on many occasions. When Bear did play, he performed well enough, recording 14 points in those 58 games, but was ultimately limited to just 16:05 in average time-on-ice. The situation seemed to hit a boiling point however, when Bear wound up not playing a single game in Carolina’s 14-game playoff run.

About to become a RFA for the second time at the conclusion of a two-year, $4MM contract, rumors about Bear’s future had begun to swirl with some clarity being brought to the situation this evening. As Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports, Carolina has given Bear permission to talk to other teams. This news may not come as much of a shock, but could seem peculiar for a team who still has control over the pending RFA. In fact, Friedman added that the Hurricanes do still wish to re-sign Bear and have him back next season, but he notes that the two sides are not close to an agreement.

In regards to why Carolina would be willing to let Bear talk with other teams, in one instance, Carolina may seek to move Bear, but with a contract in place, they may find greater value on the trade market. Alternatively, it could give Bear a sense of what his market is like. For one, that would allow Bear to see how other teams value his services and what kind of contract he would be able to find on the open market, helping make the negotiations with Carolina more about dollars and cents than anything that happened this year. For another, it can show how other organizations view his talents and what role they see him occupying. This clarity could help Bear and the Hurricanes salvage their relationship and shed some light on what Bear would need to do in order to play a full slate of games for Carolina. Either way, as Friedman notes, nothing can happen with Bear before July 13th without approval from the Hurricanes.

Evening Notes: Game Three Scratches, O’Brien, Boucher

at CDT | by 6 Comments

A storyline of these playoffs has been the last-minute availability and absence of key players, and tonight’s Game Three of the Stanley Cup Finals doesn’t appear to be any different. The most notable absence is that of Tampa Bay Lightning forward Brayden Point, who did not take the ice for warmups. Point had missed the entirety of the second and third rounds for Tampa after suffering a a lowery-body injury against the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game Seven of their first round series. Point had been listed as a game-time decision heading into tonight, but that decision appears to be made. With the Lightning down 2-0 in the series, they will need a stepped-up team effort at home to not only make up for Point’s absence, but to get back in the series as a whole. Forward Riley Nash will take Point’s place.

Just across the ice, the Colorado Avalanche are going to be without forwards Nazem Kadri and Andre Burakovsky for Game Three. Both players were also listed as day-to-day, Kadri still recovering from a hand injury, and subsequent surgery, suffered in Game Four of the Western Conference Finals when he was boarded by the Edmonton Oilers’ Evander Kane. Burakovsky, who sustained an upper-body injury at the start of the second period of Game Two against Tampa Bay, did not travel with the team to Florida, but has since joined the rest of the group, so his status for Game Four is still up in the air it would appear. Forward Nicolas Aube-Kubel will take Burakovsky’s place in the lineup.

  • Boston University forward and 2018 Philadelphia Flyers first-round pick Jay O’Brien recently underwent surgery on his hip, reports Mark Divver of NHL.com, but is expected to be ready for the start of the 2022-23 season. O’Brien’s case is an interesting one, yet to sign a professional contract, he has struggled at times since being drafted. As a freshman at Providence College, he recorded just five points in 25 games before leaving. He spent 2019-20 in the BCHL with the Penticton Vees where he was expectedly good, tallying 66 points in 46 games before a transfer to Boston University for the 2020-21 season. Over the past two seasons at Boston University, O’Brien has impressed with 38 points in 40 games. Although his future professional career still has promise, it will be up to O’Brien to recover strong from injury and impress once again in the NCAA in order to prove he belongs as one of the Flyers’ top prospects.
  • According to Thomas Hall of Yahoo Sports, former NHLer Reid Boucher has signed a one-year deal to return to Omsk in the KHL. Boucher left North America and signed with Omsk ahead of the 2020-21 season, putting up solid numbers before moving onto Yaroslavl, and now returning to Omsk. In that time, Boucher has dealt with legal trouble back in North America, his contract with Yaroslavl terminated in February after he pled guilty to sexual assault of a minor.

Free Agent Focus: New Jersey Devils

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

Free agency is now less than a month away and many teams are already looking ahead to when it opens up.  There will be several prominent players set to hit the open market in mid-July while many teams have key restricted free agents to re-sign as well.  Next up is a look at the Devils.

Key Restricted Free Agents:

F Jesper Bratt – The rumors surrounding Bratt have already started swirling even during the Stanley Cup Finals, with conflicting reports on the forward coming from ESPN’s Kevin Weekes, who says the two sides haven’t begun talking and other teams are interested, and Ryan Novozinsky of the Star-Ledger, who confirmed with both Bratt’s agent, Joakim Persson and with the Devils, that the two sides had been talking. Whether Bratt stays in New Jersey, is traded, or even encounters an offer-sheet scenario, one thing is for sure: he’s going to get a hefty raise. A sixth-round pick in 2016, Bratt went from an unheralded prospect, to an NHLer, to a player who proved he could carry a line, to this year, where he proved he could carry an offense. The 23-year-old set career-highs with 26 goals, 47 assists, 73 points, in 76 games, those 73 points good enough to lead a Devils team that only had 49 games of Jack Hughes this season. Now at the conclusion of a two-year contract that carried an AAV of $2.75MM, Bratt could very likely see his salary double, if not more. New Jersey finds itself with an impeccable amount of salary cap space moving forward, so meeting Bratt’s asking price shouldn’t be an issue, but negotiating term and finding the proper overall value could hold the negotiation up.

F Miles Wood – The speedy winger missed the majority of this past season following a hip injury and surgery in the preseason. He would return to the lineup in late March, getting into three games before ultimately being shutdown for the remainder of the season. Wood has been a steady presence in the Devils lineup for the past few years, acting as the team’s primary agitator while also using his speed to create some offense too. With the Devils roster turnover as they try to put a close to their rebuild, it’s possible they could let the forward walk, but given their desire to add some “sandpaper” in to the lineup, simply keeping a familiar face in Wood who has the ability to play up and down the lineup would make sense without breaking the bank. New Jersey would also likely have control in the negotiations, considering Wood’s injury history and his status as a soon-to-be 27-year-old RFA, but it is worth noting that Wood is arbitration eligible this summer. Wood recently concluded a four-year, $11MM deal.

F Pavel Zacha – The first major piece of the Devils rebuild, it’s safe to say Zacha has not lived up to the expectations set for him when New Jersey drafted him sixth-overall in 2015. Zacha appeared to turn a corner in what could be described as a breakout 2020-21 season, where he totaled 35 points in 50 games, then a career-high. The forward would eclipse that career-high with 36 this year, but that was seen as a setback, considering he played in 70 games. On the heels of a three-year, $6.75MM contract and arbitration eligible, New Jersey could move on from Zacha, opting to give some of their prospects a chance at more regular ice-time, but given the flashes of talent he’s shown over the past two seasons along with a predictably reasonable price, it’s also quite likely the Devils will give Zacha another year in the Garden State.

F Jesper Boqvist, F Tyce Thompson, F Fabian Zetterlund

Key Unrestricted Free Agents

D P.K. Subban – The former Norris Trophy winner is coming off an eight-year, $72MM contract which saw him traded not once, but twice, finally landing in New Jersey. Although not the same player he once was, Subban’s name still holds weight as an exciting player on the ice with big hits and shots, and off the ice as a charismatic and community-driven player, evidenced by his 2022 King Clancy Award. Subban’s next contract won’t see him come too close to his previous $9MM AAV, however the 33-year-old should be able to find himself a role well-suited for him at a reasonable rate. Even with his recent regression, the ball may be largely in Subban’s court with contenders close to the salary cap looking to give him a tailored role as a powerplay specialist at a lesser rate or a team with more payroll flexibility and more minutes to offer looking for an exciting name and a dynamic leader. A return to New Jersey isn’t out of the picture, but the Devils do have a bevy of young talent on defense they will try to work into regular roles at the NHL level in the near future.

F Chase De Leo, F Brian Flynn, F Frederik Gauthier, F Mason Geertsen, F A.J. Greer, F Jimmy Vesey, D Colton White, G Jon Gillies, G Andrew Hammond

Projected Cap Space:

At a time when many NHL teams are struggling to stay cap-compliant, the Devils are able to breathe easy, with just over $25.3MM in available cap space this offseason. That number actually feels a bit restrictive when you consider the $56.1MM the team is currently projected to have after the 2022-23 season. Perhaps the best part of all of this for New Jersey, is this factors in Dougie Hamilton’s $9MM cap hit, Hughes’ $8MM cap hit, and Nico Hischier’s $7.25MM cap hit.

The main financial commitment the Devils have to make this offseason is Bratt, who could approach the $7MM AAV threshold. After Bratt, the team could bring back Zacha, Wood, and Subban, and still have plenty of room with which to work. The organization will likely use that remaining cap to address their goaltending issues, the team currently expected to ice Mackenzie Blackwood and Jonathan Bernier next season, both of whom dealt with significant injury issues in 2021-22, and perhaps one of the several dynamic forwards available on this year’s trade and free agency markets. Even with their cap freedom, the Devils will need to take care, with a significant number of players hitting free agency next summer, including RFAs Yegor Sharangovich, Ty Smith, Jonas Siegenthaler and UFAs Tomas Tatar, Andreas Johnsson, Ryan Graves, and Damon Severson, amongst others.

Tampa Bay Lightning Extend Simon Ryfors

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

While the roster gets ready to try and climb back into the Stanley Cup Final, the Tampa Bay Lightning front office is still hard at work for the future. The team has signed Simon Ryfors to a one-year, two-way contract for next season.

Ryfors, 24, is coming off his entry-level contract and would have been an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent at the end of the year. Undrafted, he was signed after exploding onto the SHL scene with a 25-goal season in 2020-21. That kind of offensive production came out of nowhere for the young forward, and this season saw another nice step forward in his development.

In 72 games for the Syracuse Crunch, Ryfors ended up with 11 goals and 35 points, working his way through several different lineup roles in the process. Whether he’ll be able to make it to the NHL at some point is still unclear but the Lightning obviously saw enough in him this year to add him to Syracuse’s lineup for another season.

Snapshots: Kadri, Jalonen, Hockeyville

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

The Colorado Avalanche had Nazem Kadri back on the ice today, doing some light stickhandling and shooting following his thumb surgery earlier in the playoffs. The pending free agent center has been out since game three against the Edmonton Oilers and is now listed as day-to-day by head coach Jared Bednar.

Kristen Shilton of ESPN also relays that Andre Burakovsky had not yet arrived in Tampa Bay when the team took the ice, and though he hasn’t been officially ruled out, it “doesn’t look great” at this point.

  • The Florida Panthers are considering Jukka Jalonen in their coaching search, according to Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff. The Finnish national team coach was also mentioned as a possible NHL candidate earlier this month by Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic. Jalonen has won at basically every level in Finland including Olympic, World Championship, and World Junior gold medals.
  • The Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators will head east for some preseason games this year, as the NHLPA announced matches in Gander, Newfoundland, and Bouctouche, New Brunswick as part of the Kraft Hockeyville campaign. The fundraiser also presents each community with $250K in arena upgrades and $10K in youth hockey equipment. The games will take place on October 6 and 8 respectively.

Johannes Kinnvall Signs In SHL

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

Another European free agent has decided to take his talents back home, as Johannes Kinnvall has signed a new two-year deal with Brynas in the SHL.

Kinnvall, 24, is coming off a two-year entry-level contract that he signed with the Calgary Flames in 2020, and was scheduled to become a restricted free agent this summer. The depth defenseman never did see the NHL, spending the first year of the contract back in Sweden on loan and this year with the Stockton Heat of the AHL.

With just 19 games under his belt for the Heat, Kinnvall will return to the SHL without much to show for his North American sojourn. He now heads back to a league he has dominated in recent years, recording 62 points over 83 games in his last two seasons as one of the most reliable puck-moving defensemen in the league.

Calgary will be able to retain his RFA rights by issuing him a qualifying offer, though at this point that isn’t a guarantee, given how little action he saw for their organization.

Washington Capitals Extend Beck Malenstyn

at CDT | by 2 Comments

A few minutes after announcing a contract for Brett Leason, the Washington Capitals have wrapped up another negotiation. This time it’s Beck Malenstyn signing a two-year extension. His deal will come in at a slightly lower average annual value of $762.5K, as Malenstyn will receive $750K in 2022-23 and $775K in 2023-24 at the NHL level. The other difference is that the first year of this contract is a two-way deal, which carries an AHL salary of $110K.

Malenstyn, 24, played 12 games for the Capitals this season, scoring his first NHL goal in the process. The 2016 fifth-round pick has 15 games total at that level and has spent the majority of his pro career to this point with the Hershey Bears. In 65 games there this season, he had ten goals and 16 points.

With a new contract in hand, Malenstyn will be another young forward fighting for minutes at training camp, while the Capitals try to sort out their lineup without Tom Wilson and Nicklas Backstrom. The 6’3″ winger represents a big, physical presence for the bottom six but lacks much offensive upside, meaning his role with Washington will likely remain as a depth option.

Still, Capitals’ general manager Brian MacLellan is getting some offseason work done ahead of time and now has just five pending restricted free agents in the whole organization. Malenstyn would not have been eligible for arbitration and had basically no leverage, though landing some security in a two-year deal is a nice reward for the Hershey favorite.

Washington Capitals Extend Brett Leason

at CDT | by 1 Comment

The Washington Capitals have taken care of a pending free agent negotiation, signing Brett Leason to a two-year extension. The contract will carry a cap hit of $775K, paying him $750K in 2022-23 and $800K in 2023-24. Notably, the deal is a one-way contract, meaning Leason will make that much no matter which level he plays.

Leason, 23, made his NHL debut this season and ended up playing in 36 games for the Capitals, scoring three goals and six points along the way. The 6’5″ forward adds an interesting dynamic to the lineup, representing a size and skill blend that is hard to find around the NHL.

While he isn’t overly physical, his long reach and ability to protect the puck have made scouts and prospect prognosticators excited for years. In his final year of junior, that size advantage led to an incredible 46 goals and 114 points in 77 games, though that kind of production has been hard to come by in the minor leagues.

Still, with Nicklas Backstrom and Tom Wilson both out following major surgery, there will be available opportunities in the Washington lineup to start the year. A player like Leason could take advantage of that and potentially even see time in the top six or on the powerplay, depending on how the lines shake out by the end of free agency.

The one-way nature of the contract suggests that he’ll be in the NHL at least, along with the fact that Leason is no longer waiver-exempt. If the Capitals wanted to send him to the minor leagues, he would need to clear waivers first.

Pro Hockey Rumors is not affiliated with National Hockey League, NHL or NHL.com

scroll to top