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Vancouver Canucks Recall Collin Delia

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Things are going from bad to worse for the Vancouver Canucks. After Thatcher Demko suffered an injury in last night’s game, the team recalled Collin Delia from the AHL. The recall is under emergency conditions, meaning there is an injury of some sort preventing the team from icing two healthy goaltenders.

So far, no update has been given on Demko’s status. But he was helped off the ice last night holding his right leg and was ruled out soon after.

While Demko hasn’t been good this season, losing him won’t help the Canucks turn things around. Spencer Martin hasn’t been much better and Delia has an .884 save percentage in the minor leagues this season.

The Canucks are now 9-12-3 on the year and it’s hard to imagine them getting back into the race without elite goaltending. Demko is their best chance at that, even with his struggles so far.

St. Louis Blues Return Jake Neighbours To AHL

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The St. Louis Blues have sent Jake Neighbours back to the AHL after his most recent call-up. The young forward played in two games, recording two shots, two blocks, and a hit while failing to record a point.

Neighbours, 20, like so many other prospects, needs to play. He wasn’t going to see much ice time with the big club, getting just 13 shifts in last night’s loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. At the AHL level, he can touch the puck a lot more and get his confidence up, something that must be waning after so many scoreless appearances as a pro. Neighbours has two goals and three points in 22 career NHL games and has yet to score an AHL goal in seven games.

There’s still plenty of optimism about the 2020 first-round pick, but it’s hard to see how playing fewer than ten minutes a night on an NHL fourth line is the right development path. He may be up again at some point but the focus should be on getting him rolling in the minor leagues.

The struggle of course is that the Blues aren’t winning, either, so head coach Craig Berube needs to do anything he can to turn the ship around. The club is 11-12 on the year and has lost their last two after a strong stretch. Balancing Neighbours’ long-term development with the short-term team needs is a difficult task, especially if they believe he is one of the 12 best forwards in the organization.

David Farrance Traded In AHL

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The Chicago Wolves have completed a pair of minor league trades, sending David Farrance to the Colorado Eagles and acquiring Alex Green from the Laval Rocket. Both deals are for future considerations.

Farrance, 23, was a third-round pick of the Nashville Predators in 2017 and a Hobey Baker candidate at one point in college, but has fallen nearly completely off the map in the years since. He signed a two-year contract with the Predators in 2021, with the first year burning at the end of the 2020-21 season, and spent all of last year with the Milwaukee Admirals.

At the end of his entry-level deal, the Predators decided to leave him unqualified, making him a free agent. An AHL deal with the Wolves followed, but after 14 games he’s on his way out of that organization too.

That said, the Eagles do have a reputation for reclamation projects, especially defensemen. Perhaps they will be able to turn around his career and get it back on a track that one day leads to the NHL.

In 14 games this season, he had five points.

Magnus Hellberg Sent On AHL Conditioning Assignment

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It’s been a whirlwind season for Magnus Hellberg, who started the year with the Seattle Kraken, was claimed by the Ottawa Senators, reclaimed by the Kraken, and then nabbed by the Detroit Red Wings a little over a week ago. At the time, it was something of a curious move, given the Red Wings already had two goaltenders – Ville Husso and Alex Nedeljkovic – at the NHL level, but Detroit had shown interest in Hellberg since bringing him back to North America last season.

A few days ago, Sean Shapiro of EP Rinkside posited a theory about what the Red Wings could do with their three-headed goaltending monster. It included conditioning stints in the minor leagues for Hellberg and Nedeljkovic, which has now partly come true. The former has been sent to the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins for conditioning, allowing him to be assigned to the AHL without clearing waivers.

This doesn’t completely solve the issue, as a conditioning stint can only be two weeks in length. The idea, perhaps, is to basically swap the two by sending Nedeljkovic for a stint when that two weeks is up. The trick is that a conditioning stint does not remove a player from the NHL roster, meaning the Red Wings would be dedicating three spots to goaltenders either way.

At the very least, this should allow Hellberg to actually see some game action. The 31-year-old has played only once all season, a start for the Senators in which he stopped 29 of 31 shots.

Vegas Golden Knights Recall Daniil Miromanov

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The Vegas Golden Knights have been one of the quietest teams in the league when it comes to transactions this season, with hardly any changes made to their NHL roster from the start of the year. In fact, they hadn’t recalled a single player through the first two months, instead working with the group that broke camp to get them to a 17-6-1 record.

Today that changes, as Daniil Miromanov has been recalled from the Henderson Silver Knights. The 25-year-old defenseman is off to a strong start in the minor leagues with six goals and 13 points in 17 games.

Undrafted, Miromanov has had a very interesting path to the NHL. The 6’4″ Russian was actually a forward when he played in the QMJHL, racking up points with the Acadie-Bathurst Titan and Moncton Wildcats, but made the transition to defense in the years since. He played in the KHL, Czech league, ECHL, and AHL before making his debut with Vegas, playing 11 games with the club last season.

Now, with size and offensive instincts, he is an interesting player to follow. The Golden Knights appreciated him enough to give him a two-year contract this summer, the second year of which is a one-way deal. With Alex Pietrangelo dealing with a personal reason and away from the team, they’ve added one of Henderson’s best players to the roster to fill in.

Ian Mitchell Recalled From Rockford

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Dec 1: Wth Tinordi now heading to injured reserve, Mitchell is back up with the big club.

Nov 24: The Chicago Blackhawks, no longer without Seth Jones, have returned Ian Mitchell to the minor leagues. The opportunity for Mitchell was limited, and he’ll have to wait for his next NHL chance after being scratched last night.

Jones returned from a thumb injury and played more than 21 minutes for the Blackhawks in their game against the Dallas Stars, scoring a goal and recording three shots on net. All six Chicago defenders actually recorded at least one point in the 6-4 loss, with depth options like Jarred Tinordi even crossing the 18-minute mark.

In a normal situation, it might be surprising that the Blackhawks would send Mitchell back down given his obvious upside, but the team has been very careful to keep young players in Rockford this season. If the 23-year-old Mitchell was going to sit in the press box with the NHL club, they might as well give him back to the AHL so he can play in regular games. With seven other defensemen in Chicago seemingly ahead of him on the depth chart, it doesn’t make much sense to keep him up.

Patrik Laine, Elvis Merzlikins Activated From Injured Reserve

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The Columbus Blue Jackets are getting healthier. Patrik Laine and Elvis Merzlikins have both been activated from injured reserve, with Daniil Tarasov loaned back to the AHL to make room. The move suggests both will be ready to return tomorrow against the Winnipeg Jets.

Laine, 24, has played eight games this season between two separate stints on IR and has just two goals so far. The Finnish sniper signed a four-year, $34.8MM deal in the offseason that secured his future with the Blue Jackets, and put him in line for a career year across from newcomer Johnny Gaudreau. Things haven’t gone according to plan, with Laine and a huge chunk of the Columbus roster spending more time on the shelf than the ice.

For Merzlikins, things haven’t gone well even when he was healthy. The 28-year-old netminder posted a .864 save percentage through nine appearances, his last coming on November 15. He has recorded a performance above .900 just once this season, and has allowed at least five goals in four of nine games. If the Blue Jackets have any chance of climbing back into the race, they need Merzlikins to find the level of play he showed as a rookie, when he finished fifth in both Calder and Vezina voting.

Coincidentally, Tarasov has actually been much closer to those numbers this season, posting a .912 in six appearances. While the team has faith in Merzlikins as the starter, they shouldn’t hesitate to go back to the young Tarasov if the former continues to struggle.

Ottawa Senators Recall Nikita Zaitsev

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Another night another loss for the Ottawa Senators, who can’t seem to get things back on track for very long. The club was beaten 3-1 by the New York Rangers, and the pair of Nick Holden and Erik Brannstrom played fewer than 15 minutes each. Perhaps a change is coming, as Nikita Zaitsev has been recalled from the AHL today.

The 31-year-old defenseman has been pushed out of the lineup and off the roster this season, after playing at least 55 games in each of the last six years. In three games with the Belleville Senators, Zaitsev had no points and was a -3, similar numbers to those he had in his seven games with Ottawa.

Despite his cap hit, which places him as the second most expensive defensemen in the Senators organization, Zaitsev has been an inconsistent mess for the last few years. The player that scored 36 points as a rookie with the Toronto Maple Leafs is nowhere to be seen, and even his one-on-one defending – arguably his greatest skill when first arriving in North America – has deteriorated.

The Senators have to try something, though, as this season is slipping away from them one game at a time. The club is now 8-13-1 on the year, good for last in the Atlantic Divison.

Vancouver Canucks Recall Phillip Di Giuseppe

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Nov 30: With Mikheyev fully back in the fold, Vancouver returned Di Giuseppe to Abbotsford Wednesday night, per the team.

Nov 29: After opting to waive him over a month ago, the Vancouver Canucks are bringing forward Phillip Di Giuseppe back up to the NHL. General manager Patrik Allvin announced his recall from the AHL’s Abbotsford Canucks Tuesday night.

Di Giuseppe comes to the NHL to potentially relieve Ilya Mikheyev, who could miss tonight’s game against the Washington Capitals with an illness. Both Di Giuseppe and Mikheyev were on the ice for warmups ahead of the game.

Now 29, Di Giuseppe is in his second year with the Canucks organization. He’s yet to score a goal this season in Abbotsford but does have five assists through seven games after approaching a point-per-game pace last season.

He has 201 games of NHL experience split between Carolina, Nashville, and the New York Rangers, and his a capable fourth-line plug-in when required.

As he has not spent more than 30 days on an NHL roster since clearing, Di Giuseppe will not require waivers again when the team opts to return him to Abbotsford.

Carolina Hurricanes Acquire Zack Hayes

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According to a team release Wednesday, the Carolina Hurricanes have acquired defenseman Zack Hayes from the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for future considerations.

Hayes, 23, goes to the Hurricanes organization after two-and-a-quarter years in the desert. An undrafted free agent, Hayes signed a two-year entry-level contract with Vegas for the 2021-22 season after spending 2020-21 on an AHL contract with Vegas’ affiliate, the Henderson Silver Knights. 

The 6’3″, 218 lb defenseman made his NHL debut last season, skating in three games while injuries decimated Vegas’ blueline. Things haven’t gone too well for him in the minors this year, though, registering a lone assist through 14 games after a ten-point year in 2021-22.

His game leans on the defensive side, though, and that’s what Carolina hopes Hayes provides to their organization. Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell called Hayes “an experienced leader who knows how to play physically on the back end.”

For the Golden Knights, the trade frees up a needed contract spot. The team was previously at the 50-contract limit, preventing them from making any additions. That can be especially tricky when injuries ravage an organization’s goalie depth, a situation Vegas knows well from their first year in the league.

It’s the second time this calendar year that the Hurricanes have exchanged future considerations for assets from the Golden Knights. Carolina more famously acquired Max Pacioretty and Dylan Coghlan from the Knights in a salary-motivated transaction before this season. While future considerations are rarely ever put into play anymore, the Hurricanes are working up quite a debt of gratitude toward Vegas.

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