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Atlantic Notes: Johnson, Guhle, Van Pottelberghe

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Sabres defenseman Erik Johnson told Peter Baugh of The Athletic (subscription link) that there were three or four other teams that had “intense talks” about a contract for him this summer with his former team in Colorado not being among those once the bidding started to go up.  The 35-year-old inked a one-year, $3.25MM deal of the opening day of free agency, a surprising price tag for someone who had just eight assists in 63 games last season.  Johnson already has a goal with his new team but is logging a career-low 15:13 per night this season.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic Division:

  • Canadiens defenseman Kaiden Guhle will return to the lineup tonight after missing the past four games with an upper-body injury, the team announced (Twitter link). The 21-year-old is in his second NHL season and logged more than 20 minutes a night in his rookie campaign.  With David Savard out of the lineup for at least the next six weeks, Guhle is likely to play a big role once again for a while.  Gustav Lindstrom will be a healthy scratch to make room for Guhle’s return.
  • Red Wings prospect Joren van Pottelberghe is expected to sign a three-year deal beginning next season with HC Lugano in the Swiss League, reports Watson’s Klaus Zaugg. The 26-year-old was a fourth-round pick back in 2015 (110th overall) but has yet to sign with Detroit.  As the NHL doesn’t have a direct player transfer agreement with Switzerland, the Red Wings will continue to hold his rights indefinitely.  He has a 2.49 GAA and a .914 SV% over parts of eight seasons in Switzerland’s top division so it’s possible Detroit will want to bring him over one day but that might be a little further down the road now.

Connor Clifton Receives Two-Game Suspension

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12:30 PM: The verdict is in for Clifton and the Department of Player Safety announced (video link) that Clifton has received a two-game suspension.  He’ll be eligible to return on Friday in the back half of a home-and-home set against Philadelphia.  From the video:

Clifton finishes a high, hard check that cuts in front of Hischier’s core making his head the main point of contact on a hit when head contact was avoidable…  If Clifton wants to deliver this hit, Clifton must stay low and choose an angle that hits through Hischier’s shoulder and core, rather than one that makes the head the main point of contact.

9:20 AM: Following a hit that saw him ejected from last night’s game in New Jersey, the league announced that defenseman Connor Clifton will have a disciplinary hearing today.

With just over four minutes remaining in the first period, Clifton hit Devils center Nico Hischier up high near the boards and, after video review, was assessed a match penalty for an illegal check to the head.  That carries an automatic league review and upon that review, they’ve determined to proceed with a hearing.

Hischier missed the rest of the period, came back for the second, but did not return.  Following the game, head coach Lindy Ruff told reporters including Ryan Novozinsky of the Newark Star-Ledger that they decided to hold out the captain for precautionary reasons and will re-evaluate him today.

The Sabres are back in action on Sunday against Colorado so any suspension, if one is coming, will need to be announced by then.  Clifton has not been suspended previously in his NHL career.

Sabres Recall Devin Cooley; Eric Comrie Out Week-To-Week

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The Sabres have been carrying three goalies on their roster all season long but injuries have struck, resulting in them needing to bring up another one as the team announced that they’ve recalled Devin Cooley from AHL Rochester.

The recall was needed with Eric Comrie exiting yesterday’s game against New Jersey in the second period with a lower-body injury. GM Kevyn Adams told reporters including Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News (Twitter link) that Comrie will be out on a week-to-week basis.

Meanwhile, opening night starter Devon Levi has only skated once in the last nine days as he’s dealing with a lower-body issue of his own; Adams indicated that they’re hopeful that he can return to practice on Tuesday.  Buffalo also has veteran third-stringer Dustin Tokarski under contract but he suffered an upper-body injury during training camp that he hasn’t recovered from so Cooley is the next player up.

The 26-year-old is in his first season with the Sabres organization after spending the last three seasons in Nashville’s system.  He has played in four games with the Americans this year, posting a 3.46 GAA with a .903 SV%.  Cooley is set to serve as the backup to Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen for Buffalo’s next game on Sunday against Colorado.

Hurricanes Assign Dylan Coghlan To The AHL

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The Hurricanes have made a roster move, announcing that they’ve assigned defenseman Dylan Coghlan to Springfield of the AHL.  As Carolina doesn’t have its own affiliate, they’ve loaned him back to St. Louis’.

The 25-year-old showed some upside a couple of years ago with Vegas, eventually making him the incentive that Carolina received for taking on the final year of Max Pacioretty’s contract back in July 2022.  However, Coghlan didn’t play much last season, suiting up just 17 times while being a healthy scratch the rest of the way.  That likely played a role in him clearing waivers earlier this month.

Coghlan had been recalled earlier in the week when Brett Pesce went down but he still didn’t see any action with the Hurricanes.  He has suited up five times for the Thunderbirds so far, picking up a goal and an assist, and will now have a chance to add to those numbers.

For the time being, Carolina has just six healthy defensemen on the roster which is unlikely to be the case for too long.  However, they’re now off until Monday night so they can wait until then to announce a recall whether it’s Coghlan or someone else.  In the meantime, clearing Coghlan’s $850K off the books – even if it’s just for a couple of days – will give Carolina a little bit of extra cap flexibility to work with.

Bruins Place Milan Lucic On LTIR, Recall Oskar Steen

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The purpose for Boston’s paper transactions that were made last night (the recalls of Jakub Zboril and Mason Lohrei) has now been revealed.  The Bruins announced that winger Milan Lucic was placed on LTIR, meaning he’ll miss at least 10 games and 24 days.  Taking his place on the roster is center Oskar Steen.

Yesterday’s recalls (which have since been reversed) got the Bruins within roughly $82K of the cap ceiling; the gap between that and Lucic’s $1MM cap hit is how much LTIR room they created.  That wasn’t enough space for them to bring up two players but it gave them more flexibility in who they could afford to recall.

Lucic is dealing with a lower-body injury that was originally expected to keep him out for a couple of weeks.  This timeline is a bit further out but is arguably more beneficial for Boston as it allows them to get Steen onto the roster as a replacement player.  The 35-year-old is in his first season back with the Bruins after signing with them in the summer and he was off to a decent start with two assists and eight hits in his first four games before the injury.  He’ll be eligible to return on November 18th against Montreal, relays Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic (Twitter link).

As for Steen, the 25-year-old has made 26 appearances at the top level over the past three seasons, notching three goals and four assists along the way.  He cleared waivers earlier this month and has averaged a point per game in his first five appearances with AHL Providence this season.

Tomáš Plekanec Announces Retirement

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1001-game NHL veteran Tomáš Plekanec has announced his retirement from the game, via Czech journalist Matěj Hejda. Citing health issues as the reason for his decision, Plekanec ends his playing career several years removed from his last NHL game, after three full, highly productive seasons playing in the Czech Extraliga.

A third-round pick of the Canadiens at the 2001 NHL draft, the versatile center would become one of the faces of the Canadiens franchise in the team’s post-lockout era. After back-to-back AHL All-Star campaigns, Plekanec broke into the league at the age of 23, scoring 29 points in 67 games.

Early in his career, Plekanec was defined by how quickly he climbed the Canadiens’ depth chart.

In his age-24 season, Plekanec scored 20 goals and 47 points, beginning to establish himself as a true top-six center in the NHL.

In his age-25 season, Plekanec had soared to 29 goals and 69 points, a performance that helped the Canadiens to the second round of the playoffs and earned him a third-place Selke Trophy vote.

In 2009-10, Plekanec had the best season of his career, scoring 25 goals and 70 points. He was the top scorer on an underdog Canadiens team that took out two heavyweight Eastern Conference contenders en route to the Conference Finals, helping the Canadiens on their deepest playoff run since their 1993 Stanley Cup championship.

That playoff run marked the beginning of a competitive era for the Canadiens that included three division titles and another run to the Eastern Conference Finals.

By 2017-18, the Canadiens’ decline had mirrored Plekanec’s fading on-ice value, and near the end of that season the Canadiens made the shocking move of trading their beloved two-way center to their arch-nemesis Toronto Maple Leafs.

Plekanec spent a short period of the following campaign with the Canadiens, a move that allowed him to play his 1,000th NHL game with the team before departing for Czechia. This season has been Plekanec’s third as captain of Rytíři Kladno, a team he has also led in scoring during that span.

Beyond just his consistently strong NHL career as a member of the Canadiens, Plekanec also had a highly respectable international career.

He represented Czechia at two World Junior Championships, eleven IIHF Men’s World Championships, and two Winter Olympics.

A valuable leader, Plekanec had the honor of captaining Czechia on multiple occasions, including at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Although a gold medal eluded him as team captain, he won the gold at the 2001 World Juniors and also took home two bronze medals and a silver at the World Championships.

Although it’s unfortunate that health issues have ended Plekanec’s career before he might have wanted to hang up his skates, he nonetheless ends his professional career with so much to be proud of.

He wasn’t the flashiest player, but he was a consistent two-way force. Sporting his signature turtleneck, Plekanec was one of the faces of the most competitive era of hockey in recent Montreal Canadiens history. We at PHR would like to extend our best wishes to Plekanec and his family as he begins his retirement.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. 

Ottawa Senators Recall Tyler Kleven, Nikolas Matinpalo

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The Ottawa Senators have announced that defensemen Tyler Kleven and Nikolas Matinpalo have been recalled from the club’s AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators.

These moves have been made in the aftermath of two significant injuries that have hit the Senators’ blueline. Yesterday, it was announced that Thomas Chabot would miss significant time with a fractured hand, while defenseman Erik Brännström also suffered an injury as well.

In a corresponding move to create the necessary cap space for these recalls, CapFriendly reports that Chabot has been placed on long-term injured reserve, creating $8MM in LTIR relief for Ottawa.

The result of this absence: the Senators have a massive number of minutes that need to be filled on their blueline.

Chabot is the club’s most highly-utilized defenseman, soaking up time at both even strength and on the power play. There’s no way what he offers the Senators can be truly replaced by any call-ups, although that’s not to say the Senators’ call-up options aren’t quality players in their own right.

Kleven, 21, is an expected call-up as he’s widely viewed as the top Senators defenseman in Belleville. The 21-year-old 2020 second-round pick got a small taste of life in the NHL at the end of last season, skating in eight games for the Senators after the conclusion of his three-year NCAA career at the University of North Dakota.

The six-foot-four, 200-pound stay-at-home blueliner excels in his own end and will be able to offer size, physicality, and shutdown ability to head coach D.J. Smith.

As for Matinpalo, he’s a player with a very different background and someone who has taken a very different path to receiving this call-up. Like Kleven, Matinpalo also offers above-average size (he’s six-foot-three, 207 pounds) as well as defensive responsibility.

But unlike Kleven, Matinpalo’s standing in the Senators organization isn’t backed by a valuable draft pick they invested in him.

The 25-year-old wasn’t a high draft pick like Kleven, instead he’s an undrafted player who only joined the organization this past summer, signing his one-year entry-level deal after establishing himself in his home country’s Finnish Liiga for three seasons with Ässät Pori.

As a result, this recall represents a massive opportunity for Matinpalo. With Chabot injured, the right side of the Senators’ defense is relatively wide open. Artem Zub is still dealing with an upper-body injury and did not travel with the Senators for their two-game road trip.

As a result, Matinpalo is positioned to make his NHL debut against the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight, and he has just two healthy players ahead of him on the team’s right-shot depth chart: Travis Hamonic and Jacob Bernard-Docker.

With some strong play as well as some luck, Matinpalo stands a chance of playing a bigger role in the NHL than anyone could have anticipated, at least for one game, which would be a major opportunity for him to showcase his skills.

While these Senators’ injuries are hardly ideal, they do offer opportunities for two less-experienced Senators defensemen to get into NHL contests.

Ottawa’s competitive chances have undoubtedly been reduced by these injuries, but the silver lining of this situation is that the Senators now has the chance to evaluate the progress of two younger blueliners at the NHL level.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Evening Snapshots: Athanasiou, Bruins, Comrie

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One of the most notable missing pieces in the team’s win tonight against the Vegas Golden Knights was Chicago Blackhawks’ forward, Andreas Athanasiou, who was a healthy scratch. Signed to a two-year, $8.5 MM extension after last year’s season, Athanasiou has not gotten off to a strong start this year with Chicago (Tweet Link).

Last season, as the team’s regular season schedule came to a close, Athanasiou was tied for the team lead in goal-scoring with Taylor Raddysh, earning him an extension over the offseason. In seven games so far this year, Athanasiou only has three assists, which is still good for sixth on the team in point production but has not incorporated the goal-scoring production the team is accustomed to.

There is no doubt that the relatively high salary the Blackhawks gave him over the summer had to do with the team reaching the salary cap floor for the season, but the team should still be seeking more production out of his play. In any case, even on a rebuilding team in Chicago, Athanasiou will need to raise his level of play to earn a full-time spot in the Blackhawks lineup.

Other snapshots:

  • To comply with the salary cap, Mark Divver of the New England Hockey Journal reported that all the transactions made today by the Boston Bruins were ’paper’ transactions. For those that don’t know, ’paper’ transactions are simply callups and reassignments that qualify for salary cap compliance, but the players included likely will not see any minutes with their respective teams.
  • In tonight’s game against the New Jersey Devils, the Buffalo Sabres announced that goaltender, Eric Comrie, will not return to the game after suffering a lower-body injury. It is unfortunate news for the Sabres after Comrie has had to start three of the last four games due to an injury from regular starting netminder, Devon Levi. If Comrie is expected to miss a significant amount of time, Buffalo’s third-string goaltender, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen will likely see the majority of starts for the foreseeable future.

Poll: Did The League Make The Right Choice On The Draft?

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A few days ago, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reported that a majority of the teams that make up the National Hockey League had voted to decentralize the NHL draft, making it so teams would no longer appear on the floor of the draft venue. Players would no longer get to put on their team jerseys, as well as meet team staff immediately on the podium.

Originally, the current draft format began in 1963, beginning at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal for 10 years, until it began moving around to various locations (still inside Montreal) until its first visit to Toronto in 1985. In 1986, and for the next 37 years, the NHL Draft would be located at a specific team’s home arena, still carrying the original draft etiquette and procedures.

Although the 2024 NHL Draft in Las Vegas still does not have a designated location up to this point, it will likely be the last draft for the foreseeable future that fans are accustomed to. Unlike the NBA, MLB, and NFL drafts, the NHL has had a long history of teams making their draft selections in person, and the players trying on their new jerseys for the first time in their pro careers.

Aside from the game itself, it was one important and notable difference that the NHL had to differentiate itself from the other professional sports leagues in North America, making the draft a more entertaining event overall. The league has not announced any specifics on the upcoming change, meaning the fans are still in the dark about how much similarity it will have to the other professional leagues.

Nevertheless, from a fan perspective, we at PHR would like to know how the actual consumers of the game perceive the change. Vote below!

Atlantic Notes: Petry, Bennett, Samoskevich

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Detroit Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde told the media, including MLive’s Ansar Khan, that veteran defenseman Jeff Petry is healthy and will play in tomorrow’s game in Boston. Petry has been out with a lower-body injury and has not played since October 21st.

Petry’s return to the Red Wings lineup again puts into focus the logjam of quality defensemen the team is currently dealing with. With Petry healthy, a veteran such as Justin Holl or Olli Määtta would need to exit the lineup in order for Petry to play. Petry himself has been a healthy scratch at times this season, and it’s possible this impressive blueline depth and the ability for Lalonde to rotate his defensive lineup has helped contribute to Detroit’s stellar start to the season.

Some other notes from the Atlantic Division:

  • Florida Panthers team reporter Katie Engleson relays word from head coach Paul Maurice who says forward Sam Bennett and defenseman Dmitry Kulikov are game-time decisions for the team’s Saturday game against the Seattle Kraken. Yesterday, we covered Bennett nearing a return to play and now Maurice has clarified his status, saying he’s not guaranteed to be in the lineup on Saturday. As for Kulikov, he’s occupied an important second-pairing role next to Niko Mikkola and any injury-related absence from him would represent a significant blow to a Panthers blueline already lacking in depth.
  • Florida Hockey Now’s George Richards reports that the Panthers have returned forward Mackie Samoskevich to the team’s AHL affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers. Samoskevich, the team’s 2021 first-round pick, broke camp with the Panthers but was sent down for the Checkers’ road trip to Toronto. He was recalled on the 25th and played 8:16 in the Panthers’ last game. Now he returns to the AHL for what will be his rookie AHL campaign.

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