Top Dallas Stars forward Tyler Seguin will be held out of the team’s Tuesday night game, per an interview between NHL.com’s Mike Heika and head coach Pete DeBoer (Twitter link). DeBoer added that Seguin hasn’t faced a setback and that this move is simply a rest day out of caution. Seguin made his return from an 11-game absence on March 20th, after bearing with a lower-body injury that held him out for a month. He’s scored four points in three games since returning, including a three-point performance on Sunday in 17-and-a-half minutes of ice time – the most he’s played since mid-January. The performance must have taken a toll on Seguin, who will now be held out of the lineup despite 22 goals and 49 points in 61 games this season.
Ty Dellandrea is expected to fill in for Seguin in the Stars lineup, set to play in his 41st game of the season. He has two goals and nine points on the year so far, a big step down from the 28 points he recorded in 82 games last season. This is Dellandrea’s second season in a full-time NHL role, though he’s retreated to being a healthy scratch after playing in every game last season.
Other notes from around the league:
- The Chicago Blackhawks have signed 2023 third-round draft pick Jiri Felcman to an AHL amateur try-out for the remainder of the season, per Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times (Twitter link). Felcman is moving to North American pros after spending much of the season in Switzerland’s U20 league, where he’s managed 23 points in 26 games. The 18-year-old centerman has also scored four points in 13 Swiss League games – Switzerland’s second-tier league – and one assist in five National League games – Switzerland’s top league. His move to North America will void his previous commitment to Langnau of the National League for next season.
- The Florida Panthers welcomed both Aleksander Barkov and Gustav Forsling back to the lineup on Tuesday per a team announcement (Twitter link). Barkov has missed the team’s last three games with an undisclosed injury, while Forsling is returning after missing two games with illness. These returns will likely bump Kyle Okposo and Uvis Balinskis out of the lineup.
- Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reports that players are expected to receive around half of the 6% escrow they paid this season if the NHL’s revenue projections hold. That’s particularly notable as it suggests that the potential exists for future salary caps to go up quicker than anticipated. As it stands, there is a maximum 5% escalator on the cap for next season as dictated by the CBA but that can be waived if both the NHL and NHLPA agree.
“Since upwards of half of the escrow withholding could be returned to players, it also calls into question whether the NHL Players’ Association could or should have pushed harder for a higher salary cap for this season. Under new executive director Marty Walsh, the NHLPA engaged in discussions on raising the $83.5 million salary cap as prescribed by the Memorandum of Understanding. But the NHL requested givebacks in return, saying that they would also have to raise the escrow withholding percentage commensurately.”
I don’t really get this line of reasoning at all.
“”Upwards of half the escrow withholding could be returned” still means that the players will end up losing 2-3% of the face value of their contracts. Pushing for a higher cap might have benefited a relatively small number of 2023 UFAs/RFAs, but for the majority of players on previously existing deals (or new deals that would not have been inflated by a higher cap) it just would have meant more lost to escrow. Hard to see how that could be considered a win for the NHLPA.
I feel like a shocking number of hockey fans and even professional writers don’t fully grasp this fundamental point, even after nearly two decades. Raising the cap doesn’t mean players get paid more. In fact for most players it’s the exact opposite, since pushing for a higher cap ceiling without a commensurate increase in revenue just means more lost to escrow.
Players get 50 percent of HRR, period, whether the cap is set to $80 million or $100 million or anything else. The cap basically just determines how much players get per paycheck during the season. But eventually both sides have to square up to 50-50 at the end.”
Note: I copied this from another site and I believe it raises some very valid points about the players salary structure. And then you have this too:
” Now you’ve got that bizarre lawsuit where Tavares was hit for 38% of his signing bonus instead of the 16-18% in the Canadian tax law. Those bonus structures for Toronto are huge. If there’s a shift in how they are taxed there are going to be a couple of unhappy campers out there.”