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Wild Could Approach Marc-André Fleury About Waiving No-Movement Clause

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The Wild have been one of the league’s most disappointing teams this season. While their latest 5-0 win over the Islanders kept their record from slipping further, they remain two games below .500 and sit eight points out of a wild-card spot in the Western Conference. In the likely event that general manager Bill Guerin’s prediction of a roaring turnaround doesn’t come to fruition, the Wild could approach goaltender Marc-André Fleury about waiving his no-movement clause for a deadline trade, TSN’s Pierre LeBrun confirms in a piece for The Athletic.

Fleury, 39, signed a two-year, $7MM extension with the Wild in July 2022. He chose to remain in the State of Hockey after they brought him in from the struggling Blackhawks near the 2022 trade deadline, splitting duties down the stretch with then-tandem partner Cam Talbot before assuming the starting role in their first-round loss to the Blues.

In his 79 regular-season appearances with the Wild, Fleury has provided numbers expected from a decent veteran backup with a .905 SV%, 2.87 GAA, three shutouts, and 0.1 goals saved above average with a 41-27-7 record. However, after posting above-average numbers last season, this one has been a struggle: his SV% is down to .897, and he’s conceded 4.2 goals above average in 22 appearances (19 starts).

He isn’t the only Minnesota netminder having a tough season. After last season’s breakout campaign that earned him some season-ending All-Star votes, 25-year-old Filip Gustavsson’s stat line is in the same mediocre territory as Fleury’s. Things looked to be trending upward during a December hot streak, but he’s come crashing down to Earth during the Wild’s recent run of poor results. In his last five starts, Gustavsson has a 2-3-0 record and .854 SV%, although he’s only played once since missing seven games with a lower-body injury.

However, only Fleury is a pending UFA, while Gustavsson is beginning a three-year, $11.25MM deal signed following an arbitration filing last summer. As such, the veteran is on the trade block over the youngster, and, as LeBrun reports, “a couple of teams” will reach out to Guerin soon to gauge his availability and cost. What’s not sure is if Fleury, who just moved into second place on the NHL’s all-time wins list, will consent to a deal.

LeBrun expects playing time to be Fleury’s primary factor in considering a move. With three Stanley Cups under his belt, he’s not ring-chasing in what could be his final season. However, he may be interested in closing out his career by playing a starting or 1A role on a contender with significant issues in the crease.

In any event, this would likely be a money-in, money-out trade. Any contender pressing to acquire Fleury will be in the same tight salary cap situation as the Wild, albeit for different reasons. No other team has more money allocated toward dead cap than Minnesota, whose buyouts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter still total a $14.74MM penalty through next season.

Two bona fide contenders with undefined netminding situations come to mind: the Oilers and Hurricanes. The goaltending looks to be figuring itself out in Edmonton without outside help, though – Stuart Skinner has a .930 SV% in his last 17 games and is now up to a .903 SV% on the season after a horrid start.

Things haven’t improved much for Carolina, however. 24-year-old Pyotr Kochetkov’s .900 SV% in 23 games is serviceable, but he’s now out of the lineup after sustaining a concussion last Thursday against the Ducks. Veteran Antti Raanta’s cringeworthy .868 SV% is enough to sink the team’s chances of winning just one round, no matter how well they play in front of him, and he carries a documented injury risk of his own.

Given the parameters outlined by LeBrun, it’s hard to find a more evident fit for Fleury than in Raleigh. The team is skilled enough in the shot-suppression department that average play from the veteran should be enough to get them over the hump, especially at the rate that offensive stars Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov are producing this season.

LeBrun bandies a trio of other potentially playoff-bound teams that could have an interest – the Maple Leafs, Devils, and Avalanche. The Devils are no playoff lock at this stage, though, and Fleury would have a more difficult path to playing time in Colorado and Toronto.

Senators Have Offered Several Contract Terms To RFA Shane Pinto

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Senators center Shane Pinto is skating with the team and is expected to make his season debut on Sunday versus Philadelphia after serving his 41-game gambling suspension but before he can do so, he needs to sign a contract first.  As Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reported in an intermission feature on TSN (video link), the team has presented several different contracts to the restricted free agent.

Many expect that the 23-year-old would sign a contract at or around his previous qualifying offer which checked in at just over $874K over the summer.  That would give him time to rebuild his value while giving the Senators, who have been up against the cap ceiling throughout the season when they haven’t been in LTIR, as much flexibility as possible.

But Garrioch notes that Ottawa has proposed a two-year term along with four-, five-, and six-year offers.  A two-year bridge agreement was believed to be discussed over the offseason before the suspension was announced; at the time, the price tag for that agreement was believed to be in the low $ 2MM range.  Such a move could still be palatable while allowing Ottawa to shift more of the salary into the second season, maximizing Pinto’s compensation while keeping the AAV of the deal lower.  While it was under vastly different circumstances, Washington recently took that approach when they signed UFA defenseman Ethan Bear last month.

The longer-term agreements would obviously cost more and in some cases, walk Pinto right to free agency; he is under team control through restricted free agency through the 2027-28 campaign.  Speculatively, the price tag for those agreements would push more toward the $5MM range which certainly wouldn’t fit in Ottawa’s salary cap structure.  If Pinto is amenable to one of those agreements, there would need to be a cap-clearing move before the contract could be registered.

Despite the various offers on the table, the one-year agreement still seems like the most plausible scenario for both sides.  Pinto is coming off a 20-goal campaign but only has 99 career games under his belt so committing to a long-term agreement would come with some risk.  A one-year deal still wouldn’t make Pinto arbitration-eligible (he’s two years away as he didn’t accrue a season in 2021-22 due to injuries) but it would allow both sides more time to assess his fit on this roster.  They only have a few more days to figure out which route they’ll go if they’re going to get Pinto in the lineup on Sunday.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Snapshots: Flyers, Grubauer, Pearson, Engvall, ECHL, Dionicio

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Flyers defensemen Sean Walker and Nick Seeler have been speculative trade candidates for most of the season as pending unrestricted free agents but with Philadelphia finding itself in a top-three spot in the Metropolitan Division, there’s a chance they may not move after all.  As Kevin Kurz of The Athletic notes (subscription link), that would be an outcome both blueliners would be quite pleased with as both have expressed an interest in remaining with the Flyers beyond this season.  Walker carries a $2.65MM cap hit and has 15 points in 44 games while logging over 20 minutes a night on the back end while Seeler makes the league minimum and is averaging more than 17 minutes a night.  Both players appear to be heading for raises on the open market next summer.

Elsewhere around the hockey world:

  • The Kraken moved goaltender Philipp Grubauer to LTIR before last night’s late recall of John Hayden, PuckPedia reports (Twitter link). Grubauer has been out for more than a month already so he’s eligible to be activated as soon as he’s cleared to return from his lower-body injury.  The 32-year-old has a 3.25 GAA and a .884 SV% in 17 starts so far this season.
  • Canadiens winger Tanner Pearson will accompany the team on its upcoming road trip as he works his way back from a hand injury, relays Sportsnet’s Eric Engels (Twitter link). The 31-year-old has missed more than a month with this latest hand issue after undergoing several surgeries last season.  Pearson has four goals and four assists in 27 games so far and is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer.
  • The Islanders announced (Twitter link) that winger Pierre Engvall is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury. His first full season in New York hasn’t quite gone to plan as the 27-year-old has just five goals and nine assists in 41 games so far, hardly the type of performance they were expecting after giving him a seven-year, $21MM contract last summer.
  • The ECHL announced that it has approved the expansion application from Bloomington, Illinois to begin play in the 2024-25 season. The yet-to-be-named team will be the 30th squad at that level.  The ECHL has affiliation agreements with 28 of 32 NHL teams this season, a number that could very well go up as a result of this news.
  • Ducks prospect Rodwin Dionicio is having a breakout year in the OHL and had a strong showing at the World Juniors but it appears an entry-level deal won’t be coming his way anytime soon. Instead, EHC Biel-Bienne in Switzerland announced that they’ve inked the blueliner to a three-year contract which will begin next season.  Anaheim has until June 1, 2025 to sign the 19-year-old who has 31 points in as many games at the junior level this season but will they want to commit two seasons of that contract to someone who will be playing overseas?  That’s a decision GM Pat Verbeek will have to ponder down the road.

Hurricanes Prospect Noah Gunler Linked To SHL

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The Hurricanes have several prospects playing on loans overseas this season, a by-product of them not having their own AHL affiliate.  One of those is winger Noah Gunler who is currently playing in Finland.  However, it appears he’s close to heading back home as Henrik Sjoberg of HockeyNews SE reports that Gunler is close to signing with SHL Lulea for the remainder of the season.

The 22-year-old was regarded by some as a first-round pick back in 2020 but ultimately slid to the second round, going 41st overall.  Since then, Gunler has bounced around a bit, spending time in Sweden, the AHL, and Finland.

This season, Gunler has posted five goals and three assists with Karpat while averaging 15 minutes a night.  But a move to Lulea would allow him to rejoin his hometown team, one he spent time with as recently as the 2020-21 campaign.

Gunler is signed with Carolina through the 2024-25 season and assuming the Hurricanes are able to find a more stable AHL situation, he should be back in North America to play the final year of his entry-level contract.

Mutual Interest Between Blackhawks And Petr Mrazek In A Contract Extension

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The Blackhawks have been busy in recent days with the two-year extensions that they’ve handed out to winger Nick Foligno and center Jason Dickinson.  It appears as if they may not be done on that front as ESPN’s Kevin Weekes reports (Twitter link) that there is mutual interest in exploring a possible extension with goaltender Petr Mrazek; Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli suggests the netminder is likely to be the next one to ink a new deal to stay in Chicago.

The 31-year-old came to the Blackhawks back in 2022 in a salary-dumping move by Toronto.  Mrazek struggled in his first season with the team but has fared much better this season, posting a .913 SV% through his first 29 games.  That puts him in the top 20 league-wide among goalies with at least 10 appearances so far while doing so on an injury-ravaged rebuilding team that’s in a battle for the basement.

Mrazek is currently making $3.8MM and while that amount might seem high for a netminder who has been more of a platoon player throughout his career, the market rate for those types of goalies has gone up in recent years.  A year ago, it looked as if he was heading for a considerable cut in pay but now, something around this price point, if not a small raise, is within the realm of possibility on a short-term agreement.

The Blackhawks have 24-year-old Arvid Soderblom as their other goaltender and he has struggled considerably this season, posting a save percentage of just .875.  Meanwhile, Drew Commesso is one of their better prospects but the 21-year-old has struggled a bit with the IceHogs, posting a .894 SV% through his first 17 appearances.  Jaxson Stauber, who made six appearances with Chicago last season, hasn’t fared any better with Rockford either.

Accordingly, having a veteran netminder around for another year or two makes some sense for GM Kyle Davidson.  It seems that his preference for now is that Mrazek continues to be that veteran option, a desire that appears to be mutual.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Kings Recall Samuel Fagemo

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With center Blake Lizotte listed as doubtful for tonight’s game against Dallas, the Kings opted to make a roster move to add some extra forward depth.  The team announced that they’ve recalled winger Samuel Fagemo from AHL Ontario, filling their one vacant roster spot.

It has been an interesting start to the season for the 23-year-old.  A late cut in training camp, Fagemo was claimed off waivers by Nashville and spent nearly six weeks on their roster.  However, playing time was hard to come by as he played in just four games, scoring once.  That landed him back on waivers in November where Fagemo was scooped up once more by Los Angeles.  As no other team put in a claim at that time, they were able to send him down to the Reign.

Since then, Fagemo has been a high-end scorer, notching 20 goals in just 24 games, ranking second in the AHL in that department despite the fact he missed the first 11 games of their season.  It’s the third straight year that he has reached the 20-goal mark although he needed 46 games to get there last season.  Now, he’s being rewarded for his efforts with a recall where he’ll look to have more success than his first couple of stints with the Kings which saw him collect two goals and an assist in 13 games over two seasons.

As for Lizotte, he left last night’s game against Carolina early with a lower-body injury and did not return.  The 26-year-old has struggled a bit offensively this year compared to 2022-23 when he had a career-high 11 goals and 23 assists in 81 games.  This season, he checks in at five goals and four helpers in 34 contests with his playing time dipping to just above 11 minutes a night, the lowest ATOI mark of his career.

Central Notes: Wild, Murphy, Wedgewood

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On November 28th, the Minnesota Wild became one of a handful of teams to change behind the bench, firing former head coach Dean Evason after a disastrous 6-10-4 start to the season. After John Hynes took over as the new head coach of the team, the Wild appeared to be turning a corner, producing a 10-3-0 record in the next 13 games, re-entering the wild card conversation in the Western Conference. Unfortunately, since that hot stretch in December, Minnesota is 2-7-1, falling to 27th in the league standings and now sits six points behind the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference with four more games played.

With a decent majority of the team playing on contracts with term, it would be difficult for the Wild to sell at this year’s deadline, although it would be reasonable for them to do so in hopes of resetting for the 2024-25 season. However, in an article by Michael Russo in The Athletic, the General Manager of the Wild, Bill Guerin, has no plans to wave the white flag on the season and is still holding out on this team to make the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs.

Although the faith coming from Guerin is appreciated by the players, the pathway for Minnesota to make the playoffs is dwindling if it hasn’t already dissipated completely. The top three in the Central Division are some of the best teams in the league, and the Wild are failing to maintain pace with the Seattle Kraken, Nashville Predators, and the red-hot Edmonton Oilers. Even though Guerin is relying heavily on the team rebounding as they become healthier, his mindset may change in the next several weeks leading up to the trade deadline.

Other notes:

  • Joining the growing list of injured members of the Chicago Blackhawks, defenseman Connor Murphy is out with a lower-body injury according to Mark Lazerus of The Athletic. He will not play in the team’s game tonight against the San Jose Sharks, but the team is hoping Murphy can draw back in tomorrow against the Buffalo Sabres. Now one of the longest-tenured Blackhawks on the team, Murphy has scored two goals and eight points in 43 games, averaging nearly 20 minutes of ice time per game.
  • Radio host of the Dallas Stars, Owen Newkirk, reports that the injury to goaltender Scott Wedgewood is not serious, and he is only considered to be day-to-day. Before the return of Jake Oettinger on January 13th, Wedgewood was the de facto starter in Dallas for nearly a month, producing a 6-3-2 record in 12 games played.

Pacific Notes: Eichel, Canucks, Kokko

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After placing forward Jack Eichel on injured reserve only two days ago, the thought was that the injury was not serious, and Eichel would only be missing a maximum of three games with the Vegas Golden Knights. However, the organization announced today that Eichel underwent successful lower-body surgery, and would be out on a week-to-week basis.

This injury news will certainly change the trajectory of the Golden Knights’ season for some time, as it would for any team operating without their top option at the center position. Moving forward, with Eichel for at least the next week or two, Vegas will continue to operate with Chandler Stephenson and Nicolas Roy centering the top two offensive lines.

Scoring at a point-per-game pace for the second straight year with the Golden Knights, Eichel joins a growing list of injured players in Vegas, a reality that has led to a rough patch in the season for the organization. As the injuries continue to pile up, after starting the year as the top team in the NHL, the Golden Knights are 6-9-0 in their last 15 games, being outscored by a margin of 11 goals over that stretch.

Other notes:

  • Having already been one of the most aggressive teams on the trade market this season, the Vancouver Canucks are still looking to add at this year’s trade deadline. In a quote reported by Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet, the General Manager of the Canucks, Patrik Allvin, stated, “I think I owe it to the players. We know that they are capable of playing at this high level. And if they continue to do that, it’s on me to support them and give them opportunities to be successful”. Even though another trade could put Vancouver over the top in the Western Conference playoff race, Allvin will have to get creative in any move, as the team only has a projected $1.22MM available in deadline cap space.
  • In a confirmed transaction according to EliteProspects, the Seattle Kraken have loaned goaltender Niklas Kokko to the Lahti Pelicans of the Finnish Liiga. Kokko was originally a second-round selection of the Kraken in the 2022 NHL Draft and suited up for Team Finland U20 in the 2023-24 World Junior Championships only a few weeks ago.

Atlantic Notes: Stamkos, Monahan, Kane

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Before the start of the 2023-24 regular season, captain of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Steven Stamkos, rather publicly voiced his frustration with the Lightning organization, primarily over the fact that the team had not yet approached him about a contract extension beyond this season. Although Stamkos had not found his name in any trade speculation up to this point, if Tampa Bay were to fall out of playoff contention by the trade deadline, it would be a reasonable conclusion given the events that took place over training camp.

However, even after succinctly explaining that the Lightning organization would wait until after this season to address the future of Stamkos with the organization, the General Manager of Tampa Bay, Julien BriseBois, states that the team has no interest in moving Stamkos in a trade. This morning, Joe Smith of The Athletic reported that the Lightning would not be moving Stamkos for any reason and that the team envisions Stamkos in Tampa Bay beyond this season.

It shouldn’t be too difficult for the Lightning to retain Stamkos, as it is more than likely he will earn a decrease to his current $8.5MM salary. However, if Tampa Bay believes they are due for a transitionary period as an organization, they may view the available cap space as more prudent than bringing back their long-time captain on another contract.

Other notes:

  • One player who has found himself in trade speculation for yet another season is a veteran forward for the Montreal Canadiens, Sean Monahan. However, the General Manager of the Canadiens, Kent Hughes, still believes everything is on the table in regards to Monahan’s future with the club, and the team may even opt to extend him rather than trade him (X Link). Playing on a one-year, $1.985MM contract for Montreal, Monahan has returned nicely from an injury-riddled 2022-23 season, scoring 11 goals and 25 points in 43 games for the Canadiens this year.
  • After leaving the team’s game on Sunday night, Helene St.James of the Detroit Free Press reports that forward Patrick Kane will miss the next two games for the Detroit Red Wings with a lower-body injury. Although the head coach of the team, Derek Lalonde, has assured the media that the organization is not concerned with it being related to Kane’s previous hip issues, there still will be some caution from Detroit moving forward.

Winnipeg Jets Activate Kyle Connor, Place Mark Scheifele On IR

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Before their game tonight against the New York Islanders, the Winnipeg Jets are trading in one star forward for another. Per a team announcement, the team has activated forward Kyle Connor off of injured reserve, and subsequently placed Mark Scheifele on the injured reserve, retroactive to January 12th.

Connor’s return will come after missing just over a month of action for the Jets, after suffering a knee injury in the team’s December 10th game against the Anaheim Ducks. However, even without their top scorer in the lineup, Winnipeg has amassed an impressive 12-2-2 record since Connor’s original injury took place and have vaulted themselves into first place in the hotly contested Central Division.

Before Connor’s placement on the injured reserve, he was on pace for a personal best in goal-scoring to date, putting up 17 goals in 26 games. Incredibly, with only three of those goals coming on the Jets’ powerplay, Connor still sits tied for 16th in the NHL in even-strength goals, which puts him on par with the likes of Travis Konecny, Connor Bedard, and Robert Thomas with about half as many games played.

Nevertheless, the news of Connor’s return also bears some negative aspects, as Scheifele will now find himself on the injured reserve. Thankfully, since the placement is retroactive to January 12th, Scheifele may only miss one game for Winnipeg, and be eligible to return against the Ottawa Senators this Saturday.

By all accounts, it does not appear that Scheifele’s injury is serious, as it’s only been reported he is dealing with a lower-body injury from the team’s game last week against the Chicago Blackhawks. In the last 15 games that Connor has missed, Scheifele has picked up a lot of the offensive slack, scoring five goals and 13 points in that stretch of games.

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