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Ducks Acquire Adam Cracknell From Maple Leafs For Steven Oleksy

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The Ducks and Maple Leafs have completed a swap of veteran depth players.  Anaheim has acquired center Adam Cracknell from Toronto in exchange for defenseman Steven Oleksy.  Both teams have announced the deal.

Cracknell signed with Toronto early in free agency, inking a one-year, one-way contract worth $650K.  He spent most of last year in the minors with the affiliates of the Rangers and Canadiens and has spent all of this season with the AHL Marlies.  He has fared well in his limited action, collecting three goals and seven assists in 14 games.  However, with the recent return of Sam Gagner from Vancouver and the acquisitions of Morgan Klimchuk and Michael Carcone, Toronto had a surplus of veteran AHL forwards to deal from as they’ve done here.  The 33-year-old is a veteran of 208 career NHL games and could get a look with the Ducks at some point this season on their fourth line.

The Ducks found themselves in a similar situation when it came to Oleksy.  Veterans Luke Schenn and Andrej Sustr have both spent considerable time with their AHL affiliate in San Diego and as a result, he was dropping down their depth chart.  In 15 games with the Gulls this season, he has a pair of assists along with 36 penalty minutes.  The 32-year-old also has 73 career games of NHL experience under his belt but will likely serve as a veteran depth player for the Marlies who he rejoins after spending part of the 2016-17 season with them.  Oleksy is in the second and final season of a two-year, one-way contract that also pays $650K and will be an unrestricted free agent in July.

In addition to this trade, the two sides also completed a minor league swap with Anaheim acquiring goaltender Jeff Glass from Toronto in exchange for future considerations.  Glass has struggled with the Marlies this season, posting a 4.31 GAA with a .849 SV% in ten games.  He made his NHL debut last year, getting into 15 games with Chicago.  The 33-year-old is on a minor league deal and will not count against Anaheim’s 50 contracts.

Ducks Sign GM Bob Murray To A Two-Year Extension

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Bob Murray will be sticking around in Anaheim for a few more years as the team announced that they have given their GM a two-year contract extension.  His current deal runs through the 2019-20 season so this ensures that he will be in the fold through the 2021-22 campaign.  Ducks CEO Michael Schulman released the following statement:

“Bob has created a winning organization with his commitment and expertise. We are very pleased to be in a position where expectations are high virtually every season, thanks in large part to Bob and his staff. We passionately share a common goal – bringing another Stanley Cup to Orange County.”

Murray first joined the team in 2005 as their senior vice-president of hockey operations.  In November of 2008, he was promoted to the GM role, taking over from Brian Burke.  Over that span, Anaheim has made the postseason eight out of a possible ten times while he was named GM of the Year back in the 2013-14 season.

The Ducks have done a strong job when it comes to drafting and developing players in Murray’s tenure; nine of their top twelve scorers this season were either drafted by the team or signed as an undrafted free agent so it’s certainly understandable that they’ve decided to keep the person largely responsible for that in the fold.

One area that will need to be addressed in the very near future is their salary cap situation.  Anaheim has nearly $74MM committed for next season already with just 16 players signed.  Even if the salary cap jumps to roughly $83MM as has been speculated, that doesn’t leave them a lot of wiggle room to re-sign pending UFA winger Jakob Silfverberg, re-sign or replace backup goalie Ryan Miller, and add to their team.  With this extension, Murray now knows he has the full backing of the organization to navigate through this and continue to shape their roster.

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was the first to report that the Ducks were working on an extension with Murray.

Carolina Hurricanes Still Pursuing Top-Six Forward

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The Carolina Hurricanes’ offense was dealt another blow today when Jordan Staal was diagnosed with a concussion, ruling him out for at least a few days if not longer. Staal hasn’t been a dominant scoring presence, but was still logging big minutes as a reliable two-way center that could play in all situations. What Carolina has been searching for all season—and likely even longer than that—has been a top-six forward that can really change the look of their group and provide some instant offense. Tonight, the panel of Insider Trading on TSN focused on the Hurricanes and Pierre LeBrun noted that the team is still desperately trying to upgrade their forward group:

Carolina, which really, really, really wanted to get in on William Nylander but never really got that shot, they want a top-six forward ASAP. They’ve got the surplus on defense to make it happen. 

The Hurricanes never really got that shot at Nylander because the Toronto Maple Leafs ended up signing their young forward at the last minute, but reports had surfaced for weeks that GM Don Waddell had made it clear to them he was interested. That comes as no surprise, given Carolina’s obvious need for a goal scoring talent to move into the group with Sebastian Aho and company if they want to really make a run at the postseason.

Carolina of course sent Jeff Skinner and Elias Lindholm packing in the offseason in two separate trades, bringing back just Micheal Ferland as a forward option. While Ferland has been as good as anyone could have hoped, he’s also missed time with a concussion and doesn’t have the top end potential like a player of Nylander’s caliber. That’s what the Hurricanes seem to be looking for, but whether they’ll get it or not is still to be seen.

A team connected to them by the TSN panel is the Anaheim Ducks, who according to Darren Dreger are looking for a left-handed shot defenseman. The Ducks recently sent away exactly that in Marcus Pettersson, but perhaps they felt there was a need for an upgrade even before trading him for Daniel Sprong. Even with Noah Hanifin now in Calgary, the Hurricanes still have an excess of left-handed options, as Jake Bean looks close to ready to compete at the NHL level. Jaccob Slavin, Calvin de Haan and Haydn Fleury are the other three lefties on the roster, though all three hold plenty of trade value.

There is little reason to think that Anaheim would be the only team interested in Carolina’s defense, especially as the trade deadline approaches. If they do decide to make one of their top names available, there should be plenty of offensive options on the table.

No Timetable For Patrick Eaves’ Return

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The Anaheim Ducks haven’t had much luck when it comes to injuries this season, and today issued updates on a pair of players. Cam Fowler, who hasn’t played since November 12th and needed surgery to correct a complex facial fracture, is scheduled for a mid-January return if he experiences no setbacks. Patrick Eaves, who had been out with back spasms, was apparently suffering them because of a broken rib. He has no timetable for a return.

Eaves, 34, has now played just seven games in the NHL since signing his three-year, $9.45MM contract extension in the summer of 2017. Robbed of almost the entire 2017-18 season after he was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, he’s now dealt with several injuries again this year and can’t seem to stay on the ice. The incredible breakout in 2016-17 that ended with 32 goals looks like it won’t be matched anytime soon, as he has just a single tally in those seven games since the start of last season.

That’s a real problem for the Ducks, who can’t find much in the way of consistent scoring. Eaves was brought back to offer a consistent two-way presence to lengthen out the lineup alongside players like Ondrej Kase and Adam Henrique, but has turned into dead money against the cap. Anaheim can and has placed his contract on long-term injured reserve at times to get some relief, but the in-and-out nature of status will keep them from doing much with that added flexibility.

For now, the Ducks will have to hope someone like Daniel Sprong, who was acquired from the Pittsburgh Penguins this week to provide some offense, can fill in for Eaves on the powerplay and in the top-nine. That’s a substantial gamble from a team that was expecting to compete for the playoffs this season.

Daniel Sprong Traded To Anaheim Ducks

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The Pittsburgh Penguins didn’t wait long to make another move to shake up their roster, this time trading away Daniel Sprong to the Anaheim Ducks. The Ducks will send defenseman Marcus Pettersson in return, in another case of a one-for-one deal.

Like Josh Leivo, who earlier today was traded by the Toronto Maple Leafs, Sprong hasn’t been able to find a fit in Pittsburgh despite his obvious offensive potential. Selected in the second round of the 2015 draft, the sensational QMJHL scorer has just nine points in 42 NHL games and was without a goal during his 16 contests this year. Some may say that he rarely looked deserving of a bigger opportunity while in Pittsburgh, but he certainly did in the minor leagues where he recorded 65 points in 65 games last season as a rookie. Still, it was obvious that he wasn’t going to find success with the Penguins in the immediate future, something that the team is desperately chasing while Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel are still in their prime Cup-contending years.

For Anaheim, there’s little reason to believe that an opportunity won’t be there for Sprong to thrive. The team has been struggling to find consistent offensive presences since Corey Perry and Ryan Kesler started to decline, and still had depth on defense to deal from. Pettersson, while a competent player that looks destined for a long NHL career, was unlikely to supplant the Ducks other star defensemen like Cam Fowler, Hampus Lindholm, Josh Manson or Brandon Montour. With others like Jacob Larsson and Joshua Mahura pushing for playing time as well, there was an obvious fit for these two teams to try and help each other.

Penguins GM Jim Rutherford told media after the trade that Pettersson could have a Brian Dumoulin-like affect for the team in the future, and that seems to be the ceiling for the young defenseman. Selected 38th overall in 2014, Pettersson has grown into a capable defender with a long reach, but has still yet to show much offensive upside that could take him to the next level of production. That’s not to say he needs to supply any offense to be productive—especially in Pittsburgh where they already have plenty of firepower—but he was the obvious choice to send out for Anaheim if they were looking to trade from their position of strength.

That lack of offense actually will likely benefit the Penguins, given that Pettersson is up for a new contract after this season. The pending restricted free agent has just 10 points in 49 games, and almost assuredly will be an inexpensive option for Pittsburgh to plug in next season. The team already has five defensemen signed to contracts that total more than $20MM, meaning a player like Pettersson with a reasonable cap hit is necessary. Sprong meanwhile is signed for another season at just a $750K cap hit, giving Anaheim plenty of time to see if they feel he can be a core piece before having to pay him anything substantial.

Edmonton Has No Interest In Moving Out of Pacific Division

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With the expected approval on Tuesday for the Seattle expansion franchise at the board of governor’s meeting, the next question that will have to be determined is how to re-align the Western Conference as Seattle will obviously move into the Pacific Division, giving them nine teams, while the Central Division would have just seven. While there has been talk about moving the Arizona Coyotes over to the Central Division, many feel the team should stay where it is as they have short rivalry trips to Las Vegas and Los Angeles/Anaheim.

Another popular suggestion is to move both the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames together to the Central Division and sending the Colorado Avalanche back to the Pacific Division. However, Terry Jones of The Edmonton Sun writes that option isn’t very popular in Edmonton.

“We want to stay in the Pacific. And we’re pretty strong about it,” insists Bob Nicholson, vice chairman and CEO of the Oilers Entertainment Group. “Seattle is going to come into the league and when they do come in, we definitely do not want to move. We feel the rivalries are too strong for the NHL to do that to our franchise.”

The two teams have built rivalries in the Pacific, including one between the Flames and the Vancouver Canucks, while Edmonton has built some significant rivalries with some of the California teams, most specifically with recent playoff matchups with the Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks. Nicholson said the team intends to appeal to the NHL to allow the Oilers as well as the rival Flames to stay in the Pacific Division.

“I just believe we’ve been in the league a long time now and hopefully the league will respect our rivalries, especially the Calgary and Vancouver rivalries,” said Nicholson.

Of course, there are new potential rivalries between both Calgary and Edmonton with a team such as the Winnipeg Jets and even the Minnesota Wild. Regardless, Nicholson has a strong feeling the league will accept the wishes of Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.

“I’m relatively confident from the unofficial conversations that have gone on, so far,” Nicholson said. “I’m expecting it to be simple and that it will be Arizona that would move into the Central. If it gets more complicated than that, I think there would be big debates. We expect to stay where we are. I would think it would be Arizona that would move.”

Minor Transactions: 11/30/18

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As we close in on the end of November, there are storylines aplenty around the league. William Nylander’s contract situation should come to a close, while the Philadelphia Flyers continue to search for a new GM. Meanwhile, the Buffalo Sabres and Colorado Avalanche are pushing for the top spot in the entire NHL. With five games on the schedule for tonight, we’ll keep track of all the minor moves right here.

College Notes: Henrikson, Crone, Risers

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The jump to North America has not been kind to Arvid Henrikson thus far and it has impacted his college recruitment. Yet, the big Swedish defenseman has made his decision on where he will begin his NCAA career and hopes that transition yields better results than his move to the USHL this year. Henrikson, 20, was a seventh-round pick of the Montreal Canadiens in 2016, following a point-per-game campaign in the Swedish juniors. His success in the pro ranks in Sweden has been less impressive, prompting a change in career path this off-season. Henrikson joined the Des Moines Buccaneers for the 2018-19 campaign, but has only registered one point through 18 games so far. While Henrikson has the size – 6’5″, 212 lbs. – and physical style to make a career out of being a stay-at-home defender, he has shown ample offensive ability before and hoped to showcase that side of his game in the USHL. Instead, he will hold out hope that perhaps his production will improve when he enrolls at Lake Superior State University next season. The Buccaneers announced today that Henrikson has committed to join the Lakers, where he will replace senior defenseman and Anaheim Ducks prospect Steven Ruggiero as the only drafted player in the program. Lake Superior may not be a powerhouse college program, but less spotlight and fewer expectations may be exactly what Henrikson needs to develop into the defenseman that the Canadiens hoped they were getting with a late flier a few years ago.

  • When Hank Crone finished third in scoring in the USHL in 2016-17, ahead of the likes of Andrei Svechnikov, Eeli Tolvanen, and future Boston University teammate Shane Bowers, many expected that it would be enough to get him drafted. Yet, the talented albeit undersized forward again was passed up. Last season, his first with BU, also did not go according to plan. Crone managed to record just twelve points and failed to live up to the offensive prowess he showed in juniors. As a result, Crone is back in the USHL this season, re-joining the Fargo Force rather than staying on with the Terriers. Unsurprisingly, he’s back at his old ways with 21 points in 19 games. As a result, he’s also willing to try his hand at the college game again and has committed to another top program. Hockey Commitments announced today that Crone has signed on to join the University of Denver next season, where he will have three years of eligibility left to show NHL teams what they missed. If Crone is able to get it right on his second try in the NCAA, he should draw considerable interest from the pro ranks down the road.
  • In his latest article about the biggest early “risers” of the most recent draft class, The Athletic’s Corey Pronman tabbed college or college-bound players as half of the most surprising performers so far this season. The top played named, who Pronman says has established himself as a “legit NHL prospect”, is Calgary Flames pick Emilio Pettersen. The Denver forward was a sixth-round pick out of the USHL after a strong but unspectacular season, but has been better than a point-per-game so far through twelve games and has looked like an elite play-maker against tough competition. Northeastern forward Tyler Madden, the Vancouver Canucks’ third-round pick, is next up. Madden has ten points through twelve games for the Huskies and has easily transitioned his two-way game to the college level. Also on Pronman’s list are UConn center Jachym Kondelik (NSH, Rd. 4), UMass center John Leonard (SJ, Rd. 6), Pettersen’s Denver teammate Brett Stapley (MTL, Rd. 7), and St. Lawrence-bound Martin Pospisil (CGY, Rd. 4), as the college game continues be a great developmental option for the NHL’s top prospects.

Minor Transactions: 11/25/18

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After another busy Saturday night in the NHL that saw some outstanding performances—not to mention a career defining five-goal explosion by Patrik Laine—just four games are on the schedule for today. The action kicks off with an afternoon tilt between the Calgary Flames and Arizona Coyotes, while the Edmonton Oilers travel to Los Angeles to take on the Kings to close out the night. As teams prepare for the upcoming week of action, we’ll be here to keep track of all the minor moves.

  • The Chicago Blackhawks have sent Luke Johnson to the AHL for the time being, assigning the 24-year old forward to the Rockford IceHogs. Johnson has just a single point in 13 games with the Blackhawks this season, his first in the NHL.
  • It wasn’t a long NHL visit for Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Trevor Carrick, who was recalled for just one game this weekend and is now on his way back to the Charlotte Checkers of the AHL. Carrick, like usual, has been lighting up the minor leagues with his quick first pass and ability to jump into the rush, scoring 17 points in 19 games. The 24-year old can’t seem to establish himself as a full-time NHL player, but is one of the most effective puck-moving defensemen in the AHL.
  • The Anaheim Ducks announced they have recalled defensemen Andrej Sustr and Andy Welinski from the San Diego Gulls and have assigned defenseman Joshua Mahura to the San Diego Gulls of the AHL. For Sustr, he returns after being placed on waivers on Oct. 26 and assigned to the AHL. A veteran of 322 NHL games, the 27-year-old played seven games for the Gulls tallying one assist. The team also brought up Welinski after assigning him to San Diego Saturday, making it a likely paper transaction. As for Mahura, the 20-year-old fared well in his NHL debut. He had been faring well in San Diego, posting eight points in 12 games and had a point in three games for the Ducks.
  • The turntable for Timothy Gettinger continues as the 6-foot-6, 220-pound power forward has been recalled by the New York Rangers after being assigned to the Hartford Wolf Pack Saturday evening after being recalled by the Rangers on Friday. Gettinger, who made his NHL debut Saturday with a 7:00 minute performance, returns to the team. In 20 games for the Wolf Pack, Gettinger has seven goals and 11 points.
  • The Carolina Hurricanes announced they have recalled forward Valentin Zykov and defenseman Jake Bean from the Charlotte Checkers of the AHL. Zykov has been recalled after a playing in Charlotte on a conditioning loan posting two goals in six appearances with the AHL squad. Bean will likely replace Carrick who was assigned to Charlotte earlier Sunday (see above). The team’s 13th-overall pick in 2016 will hope to make his NHL debut Tuesday in Montreal. He has three goals and 10 points in 20 games with the Checkers.

Anaheim Ducks Return Max Comtois To Juniors

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The Anaheim Ducks have finally decided the fate of rookie Max Comtois, who found himself on the outside of Anaheim’s top-six in recent weeks. Despite having already burned the first year of his entry-level deal and the fact that the team couldn’t send the 19-year-old prospect to the AHL, the team decided to return him to the Drummondville Voltigeurs of the QMJHL, according to TVA’s Mikael Lalancette (translation required).

Comtois provided the Ducks with a young top-six forward at the start of the season when the team was overwhelmed with injuries to many of their veterans, including Corey Perry, Ryan Kesler, Patrick Eaves, Ondrej Kase were placed on injured reserve to start the season. While some of those players starting getting healthy, other players went down after that, including Ryan Getzlaf and Jakob Silfverberg, allowing Comtois to continue his play. The rookie reached the 10-game mark with successful numbers, posting two goals and seven assists, before having to go on injured reserve himself with a lower-body injury. Once returned, the team sent him on a conditioning loan to the AHL where he scored just once in four appearances. However, with most of Anaheim’s veterans returned and the team starting to show success, there was little opportunity for playing time at the NHL level and the team was forced to make a decision about Comtois. While he had already burned the first year of his entry-level deal by one game, the team was not allowed to send him to the AHL permanently. So to guarantee quality playing time, the team had to return him to his junior team.

It’s a big deal for his new junior team, however, as he will return to the QMJHL for his final season there, but now joins the Drummondville Voltigeurs, who gave up a fortune in draft capital to acquire Comtois’ rights from the Victoriaville Tigres back in June. Drummondville gambled on moving their 2018 first and second-round picks as well as their 2019 first and second-round picks to get Comtois only to see him make Anaheim’s roster, which looked like a disaster in October. Instead, the gamble paid off as the Voltigeurs get the star forward after all for a team competing for a title this year as they currently boast the fifth-overall record in the QMJHL.

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