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St. Louis Blues Activate Marco Scandella, Scott Perunovich

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The St. Louis Blues are getting two defensemen healthy for the first time this season. As announced by the team, Marco Scandella and Scott Perunovich have been activated from injured reserve, while Jake Neighbours replaces them as he lands on IR with an upper-body injury.

Scandella could make his season debut Tuesday against the Carolina Hurricanes. The 32-year-old is in the third season of a four-year, $13.1MM contract but hasn’t played since undergoing hip surgery last September.

Perunovich remains one of the organization’s best prospects despite missing significant time over the past three seasons with various injuries. A talented offensive defender, Perunovich underwent surgery to repair a fractured left shoulder last October after he sustained the injury in a preseason game.

The 45th overall selection in the 2018 draft, Perunovich has been assigned to the AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds as he continues to adjust to game action. He’s already recorded one assist in two games on a conditioning stint.

Neighbours officially lands on injured reserve after head coach Craig Berube told reporters yesterday he’d be out long-term. Per the team, Neighbours will be reevaluated in five weeks, meaning he could return with a handful of games left in the season.

It’s been an especially long road to recovery for Scandella, who’d been skating for nearly three months before returning to full health. As he enters the twilight of his NHL career, Scandella is coming off a 14-point effort in 70 games last season.

Perunovich could see NHL action near the tail end of the campaign to prime him for a full-time role in 2023-24. However, with so little professional experience under his belt over the past few seasons, some consistency in his ice time (and routine) at the AHL level could prove beneficial.

Pittsburgh Penguins Activate Tristan Jarry

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The Pittsburgh Penguins activated starting netminder Tristan Jarry from injured reserve, the team announced Monday afternoon. Goaltender Dustin Tokarski was re-assigned to the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in a corresponding transaction.

Jarry is expected to start tonight when the Penguins host the New York Islanders. It will be his first start since January 22, missing the following nine games with an upper-body injury.

Pittsburgh’s been their best with Jarry in goal, and his return couldn’t come at a more important time in the season. The Penguins are surrounded by a tight pool of teams looking to secure Wild Card spots in the Eastern Conference, and the team’s 4-4-2 record in their past ten games can be attributed in part to poor goaltending.

The 27-year-old Jarry has been one of the better netminders in the league this season, boasting a .921 save percentage and a 16-5-5 record. Pittsburgh is below .500 with backups Casey DeSmith and Tokarski in the net.

Tokarski returns to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, where he has a sparkling .920 save percentage in 21 appearances.

Colorado Assigns Ben Meyers To The AHL

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Ben Meyers has been shuffled back and forth between the NHL and AHL in recent weeks and on this transaction, he’s going back down as the Avalanche announced (Twitter link) that the winger has been sent back to AHL Colorado.  It’s his third assignment to the minors over the past three weeks.

Meyers has played in 31 games this season, including suiting up earlier this afternoon in a comeback overtime victory over Anaheim.  However, he hasn’t had much offensive success at the top level, managing just a single goal without any assists while averaging around ten minutes a night.  He has fared better at the minor league level, collecting six goals and three assists in 15 games with the Eagles.

The 23-year-old signed with Colorado as an undrafted college free agent last season, burning the first year of his contract right away as he got into a handful of games with the Avs down the stretch.  He’ll be a restricted free agent this summer owed a qualifying offer of just over $874K but at this point, it seems likely that the team will be pushing for him to take less than that in exchange for either a one-way deal or a two-way pact with a higher AHL salary as his lack of NHL production will make it tough to justify paying more than the minimum.

New York Islanders Recall Arnaud Durandeau On Emergency Basis

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The New York Islanders have announced that forward Arnaud Durandeau has been recalled from their AHL affiliate, the Bridgeport Islanders, on an emergency basis. The recall puts Durandeau in a position to make his NHL debut at the age of 24.

A sixth-round pick at the 2017 draft, Durandeau impressed scouts with his tenacity and feisty scoring ability. He scored 41 points in his draft season, before improving to 53 the year after and then 38 goals and 73 points in his final QMJHL season with the Halifax Mooseheads.

Durandeau signed a two-year, two-way extension with the Islanders over the summer, capping off an impressive breakout professional season. Durandeau’s pro debut in 2019-20 was uneven, and he spent 15 games in the ECHL. The following year, Durandeau scored eight points in 14 AHL games, and then last season he saw his production tick up quite a bit, to 15 goals and 37 points in 64 games.

He helped Bridgeport reach the AHL playoffs, and returned this season with the expectation that he would resume playing a major role. He has done just that, and ranks fourth in team scoring with 33 points in 48 games, behind two veterans in Chris Terry and Andy Andreoff, as well Ruslan Iskhakov, one of the Islanders’ top prospects.

While it’s unlikely that Durandeau plays any sort of major role for coach Lane Lambert during this emergency recall, he is the type of player who can impress in limited minutes. He’s grown to be a well-liked contributor in the AHL, and it would be no surprise if Islanders fans take a quick liking to his work ethic.

Ottawa Senators Make Tyler Motte Trade-Related Scratch, Recall Dillon Heatherington

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The Ottawa Senators have recalled Dillon Heatherington from the AHL’s Belleville Senators, per a team announcement. According to Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch, this recall was made so that Heatherington could make the trip with the Senators to Boston for Monday’s game, adding a seventh defenseman to Ottawa’s roster.

While this move does not seem directly related to any trade conversations, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that “conversations have intensified” around Senators forward Tyler Motte.

It seems that beyond just this recall, even more Senators’ roster moves could be on the horizon. Garrioch adds that Motte will sit for Ottawa’s game today against the St. Louis Blues for trade-related reasons. While no deal has been completed yet, Garrioch notes that it’s being worked on.

As for the officially-announced transaction, the 27-year-old Heatherington now has a chance to return to the Senators’ lineup for the first time since late December, when he got into three games for head coach D.J. Smith’s team. In those three games, Heatherington averaged a shade over nine minutes of ice time per game, almost entirely at even strength. In total, the 2013 second-round pick has 23 games of NHL experience on his resume.

At the AHL level, Heatherington is more of a difference-maker. He currently serves as the captain of AHL Belleville and plays a top-pairing role for the team. While he isn’t a major offensive contributor (he has eight points in 39 games this season) he’s a valued leader, an AHL veteran with Calder Cup championship experience, and a capable defensive defenseman. He should be able to adequately fill a depth role for the Senators with this recall.

As for Motte, a deadline-season deal would mark his second mid-season trade in as many years. He was dealt to the New York Rangers last season and helped them on their run to the Eastern Conference Final. Motte is an energetic bottom-six forward who doesn’t provide a ton on the offensive end but is a respected penalty killer.

With an expiring $1.35MM cap hit, it’s easy to see why a contending team would want to pull the trigger relatively early on a deal to acquire Motte, assuming the price is within reason. Last year, the Rangers paid a fourth-round pick to the Vancouver Canucks in order to acquire Motte, although the New York Post’s Larry Brooks tweets that “the asking price is significantly higher” than it was last season to acquire Motte this year.

Edmonton Oilers Recall Devin Shore

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The Edmonton Oilers have recalled forward Devin Shore from the team’s AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors. This move returns Shore to Edmonton after he was reassigned to Bakersfield a few days ago.

Oilers forward Klim Kostin missed the team’s shootout loss to the New York Rangers due to an illness, so should he be unable to play in the team’s game tomorrow against the Colorado Avalanche, one would assume that Shore has been brought back to the active roster to fill in Kostin’s vacated lineup spot.

According to PuckPedia, this recall of Shore is as an emergency roster exception, meaning he does not carry a cap hit until the team either has 20 healthy players and/or sufficient cap space to count him.

Shore, 28, hasn’t played in the NHL yet in 2023, and last saw the ice for the Condors on January 28th. Shore has played in five AHL games this season, and scored five points in that span. At the NHL level, the 404-game veteran has scored three points in 29 games so far this season.

At just 8:42 per night, Shore averages the least amount of ice time by any Oilers forward this year with at least 20 games played. He has gotten a few looks on the team’s penalty kill, but in general coach Jay Woodcroft has used Shore sparingly.

Last season was a similar story, with Shore skating in 49 games for the Oilers, averaging nine and half minutes per night with over a minute per night played on the penalty kill. While Shore has two seasons of 30-plus points on his resume, that secondary offensive element to his game has largely eroded as he’s settled into the depth role he now occupies.

Without Kostin in the lineup, the Oilers were forced to play with an opening in their fourth-line left-wing roster spot. While Shore has operated more as a center throughout his professional career, he should be able to fill that spot on the wing next to Derek Ryan and Jesse Puljujarvi if he does end up getting into the lineup.

Snapshots: Blues, Orlov, Senyshyn

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The St. Louis Blues are not technically out of the playoff race, sitting 26-26-3 after today’s loss, but the front office decided that this wasn’t their year weeks ago. General manager Doug Armstrong spoke with Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about his recent selling spree, moving Vladimir Tarasenko, Niko Mikkola, Ryan O’Reilly, and Noel Acciari over the last ten days.

As we have suggested in the past, the Blues aren’t guaranteed to use the draft picks they’ve landed this month. Instead, they could flip them for established NHL talents to try and reload this offseason. Armstrong admitted as much, explaining that the team needs to “retrench with players 25, 26, and under that have term on their contracts.”

  • The Washington Capitals are trying to work out an extension with Dmitry Orlov, but Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic writes that “term is a significant issue” in the negotiations. Orlov, 31, has a lot of miles on his body, with more than 750 NHL games (regular season and playoffs) in an 11-year career, and is probably looking for one more big payday as he nears unrestricted free agency. Coming off a six-year, $30.6MM deal, he is playing nearly 23 a night for Washington, who have been without John Carlson for a big chunk of the year.
  • Zachary Senyshyn has been traded again, this time in the minor leagues. The former Boston Bruins prospect was traded from the Utica Comets to the Chicago Wolves in exchange for future considerations. Ben Birnell of the Daily Sentinal gives some context on the deal, explaining that the Comets have had to sit a player all season, because of the rule that limits the number of minor league veterans that can be in the lineup at any one time. Senyshyn, 25, is approaching 300 regular season games in the AHL.

Stars Recall Fredrik Olofsson

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The Stars have added some extra forward depth in advance of their game tonight against Columbus, announcing the recall of winger Fredrik Olofsson from AHL Texas.  Dallas had an open roster spot so no corresponding move needed to be made.

The 26-year-old is in his first season in North America after signing with the Stars as a free agent last May, inking a one-year, one-way contract worth the NHL minimum of $750K.  Olofsson was initially drafted by Chicago back in 2014 but didn’t sign with the team, allowing him to become a free agent.  He will once again hit the open market in July.

Olofsson has been up for two separate stints with Dallas this season, getting into 13 games.  He has held his own in a limited role, picking up a goal and three assists while averaging a little under ten minutes per night on the fourth line.  Olofsson has been a bit more productive in the minors, tallying five goals along with nine helpers in 37 contests.  Knowing he’ll be testing free agency again in a few months, he’ll need to make an impact if he wants a shot at landing another one-way agreement.

Washington Capitals Re-Assign Dylan McIlrath To AHL

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Saturday: McIlrath’s time with Washington has come to an end for the time being as the team announced that they’ve returned him to AHL Hershey.  He suited up in Thursday’s game against Florida, logging 11:31 of ice time in his first action since 2019-20.

Wednesday: The Washington Capitals recalled defenseman Dylan McIlrath from the AHL’s Hershey Bears on Wednesday, the team said in a statement.

McIlrath’s recall comes as Washington has two players out of the lineup on personal leave: captain Alex Ovechkin and Aliaksei Protas. The Capitals don’t expect Ovechkin back in the lineup this week, as he remains in Russia after the passing of his father, while Protas returned to the team today after the birth of his and his wife’s first child, said NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti.

With Alexander Alexeyev already on Washington’s roster as an extra defenseman, the chances of McIlrath’s season debut appear slim, barring injuries. Now in his second season in the Capitals organization, all 118 professional games since 2021-22 have come in a Bears uniform.

The 10th overall selection in the 2010 draft by the New York Rangers, McIlrath hasn’t played an NHL game in over three years. Now 30, McIlrath has kept up the physical pedigree that earned him his lofty draft position, but his play with the puck never translated into a meaningful NHL role.

In 44 games with Hershey this season, McIlrath has logged 10 assists and leads all Hershey skaters with 83 penalty minutes.

Canucks Recall Christian Wolanin, Place Travis Dermott On IR

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The Canucks have made a pair of roster moves in advance of their tonight against Philadelphia, announcing (Twitter link) that they’ve recalled defenseman Christian Wolanin from AHL Abbotsford while placing defenseman Travis Dermott on injured reserve with an undisclosed injury.

Wolanin is up for only the second time this season with the first stint lasting less than 48 hours.  The 27-year-old has found another gear offensively in the minors this season, recording an impressive 55 points in 49 games.  That’s good for a tie for fourth overall in AHL scoring while he leads all blueliners by 10 points at a minimum.  Prior to this season, the most points that Wolanin had in the minors in a single season was 31.  He has 70 games of NHL experience under his belt with three different teams and has seen NHL action in each of the last five years.

Dermott, meanwhile, has had a tough season, missing more than 30 games with a concussion and now he’s on the shelf again having last played on January 25th.  When healthy, the 26-year-old has been limited to just 11 games where he has only a single goal while averaging 13:45 per game, a career low.  He’s in the final season of a two-year, $3MM contract and is owed a qualifying offer of $1.75MM this summer.  With his struggles and Vancouver’s cap situation, he looks like a potential non-tender candidate this summer.

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