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Five Key Stories: 7/26/21 – 8/1/21

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To call this past week a busy one would be a significant understatement.  On top of a frantic first day of free agency (the full recap of which is here while some moves will also be covered below), there were plenty of significant signings and trades.  The biggest ones are recapped here in the key stories of the week.

Avoiding The Market: While it may have taken a little longer than anyone really expected, two captains managed to avoid making it to free agency.  First, Alex Ovechkin re-signed with Washington, inking a five-year, $47.5MM contract, ensuring he remains with the team that he has spent the past 16 years with.  He’ll now take aim at Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal record as he sits 165 away from setting the new standard.  Meanwhile, Gabriel Landeskog had to wait until mere minutes before the deadline for eight-year deals but in the end, he was able to secure a max-term eight-year, $56MM deal to stick around in Colorado.  He has been with the Avs for the past 10 years and while he won’t be able to set the franchise record for games played (Joe Sakic holds that title), Landeskog should have second place comfortably locked down by the time this deal ends.

Fleury To Chicago: The Marc-Andre Fleury era in Vegas came to a rather abrupt end as he was traded to Chicago in a cap dumping move with only minor leaguer Mikael Hakkarainen coming back in return.  Fleury was the first face of the franchise for the Golden Knights and he saved his best performance for last, posting a 1.98 GAA with a .928 SV% on his way to winning the Vezina Trophy for Goalie of the Year.  However, his $7MM cap hit was deemed too expensive for them to carry.  Fleury took some time to ponder his future but ultimately will report while Vegas GM Kelly McCrimmon didn’t waste much time spending the freed-up cap space.  First, he added winger Evgenii Dadonov from Ottawa for defenseman Nick Holden and a third-round pick to try to bolster their attack and then brought in goaltender Laurent Brossoit on a two-year, $4.65MM deal to serve as Robin Lehner’s new backup.

Hamilton Gets Paid: When Carolina gave Dougie Hamilton permission to speak with other teams and basically test the market early, they were hoping that Hamilton wouldn’t be able to command the money he was hoping to get which could have paved the way towards him re-signing.  That didn’t happen.  Instead, the top player to hit the open market was able to land a bigger contract than some expected, inking a seven-year, $63MM contract with New Jersey.  The 28-year-old is now tied with Cale Makar and teammate P.K. Subban for the fourth-highest cap hit among all NHL defensemen and gives the Devils the top-pairing defender they’ve been trying to acquire for several years.  New Jersey has had cap room to spend in the past but hadn’t been able to land a big fish on the open market.  They have now.

Seattle Splashes: Considering that the Kraken spent closer to the minimum amount than the cap ceiling in expansion, they had plenty of money at their disposal heading into free agency and opted to use a big chunk of it on a trio of players.  They added the top goalie on the market in Philipp Grubauer on a six-year, $35.4MM contract (that was originally rejected) plus one of the top wingers in Jaden Schwartz on a five-year, $27.5MM pact.  They also brought in center Alexander Wennberg on a three-year, $13.5MM contract, a nice reward for a strong season in Florida after being bought out by Columbus last fall.  Going back to Grubauer, his surprise signing sparked a pair of goalie trades.  Seattle flipped Vitek Vanecek back to Washington for a 2023 second-round pick while Colorado paid a steep price to acquire Darcy Kuemper (with $1MM of his $4.5MM price tag retained), sending defenseman Conor Timmins, a 2022 first-round pick, and a 2024 conditional third-rounder to the Coyotes to bring in the 31-year-old who is in the final year of his contract.

Jets Add Defensemen: The back end was a big issue for Winnipeg over the past two seasons and GM Kevin Cheveldayoff knew that needed to be addressed.  He didn’t wait for what wound up being a fairly light free agent market in terms of impact blueliners so he turned to the trade market instead.  First, he sent second-round picks in 2022 and 2023 to Washington for defenseman Brenden Dillon, then added Nate Schmidt from Vancouver for a third-round selection after Schmidt eventually agreed to waive his trade protection to facilitate the move.  With the moves, Winnipeg has added nearly $10MM to the cost of their back end but the two veterans are significant additions to a blueline core that also consists of Josh Morrissey and Neal Pionk.

Big Extension For Point: With too many things to cover in just five stories, we’ll add an extra one.  Tampa Bay was relatively quiet in terms of impact free agent signings due to salary cap reasons but they still had the biggest contract on the first day of free agency.  That went to Brayden Point who was eligible to sign as soon as the calendar flipped to the new league year and he did just that, inking an eight-year, $76MM extension that matches the recent ones handed out to Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy when they were eligible to sign them.  More cap challenges lie ahead for Tampa Bay following this deal – they have over $80MM in commitments for 2022-23 already per CapFriendly – but their star center will now be in the fold for the long haul.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Coyotes Re-Sign Cam Dineen

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The Coyotes have agreed to terms with one of their remaining free agents as PuckPedia reports (Twitter link) that they’ve re-signed defenseman Cam Dineen to a one-year, two-way contract.  The deal will pay $750K in the NHL and $90K in the minors.

The 23-year-old was a third-round pick of Arizona back in 2016 (68th overall) but has yet to see any NHL action through his first three professional campaigns.  Last season, Dineen played in 22 games with AHL Tucson, notching 10 points in 22 games, just four points shy of his previous career-high in 2019-20 when he played in 57 contests.

Dineen will now be waiver-eligible next season so he’ll have to pass through unclaimed to make it back to the Roadrunners.  That seems like a reasonable expectation but with Arizona’s back end undergoing a major makeover this summer, it’s possible that he could earn himself his first recall at some point in 2021-22.  Dineen will once again be a restricted free agent next offseason.

NHL Central Registry Rejects Philipp Grubauer’s Contract

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With the sheer volume of contracts that were filed with NHL Central Registry at the start of free agency, it has taken them some time to review them all to ensure they’re in compliance with all of the CBA rules.  Once in a while, deals are rejected because an element doesn’t meet the criteria and CapFriendly reports (Twitter link) that this is the case with the Kraken’s deal for goaltender Philipp Grubauer.  CapFriendly has the full details of the deal here.

Since more than half of the salary is paid out in the first three years of the contract ($18.5MM out of $35.4MM or 52.25%), it qualifies as a front-loaded contract which has some stricter rules than non-front-loaded deals and those rules changed when the new CBA was agreed on last year.

One of the rules for front-loaded contracts is that any salary variance from one year to the next cannot exceed 25% of the salary in the first year.  Grubauer’s salary in 2021-22 was set to be $5MM and 25% of that is $1.25MM.  Accordingly, any year-over-year variance cannot be greater than $1.25MM.  However, Grubauer’s original 2022-23 salary was $6MM and his 2023-24 salary was $7.5MM, a difference of $1.5MM.  This is what caused the contract to be rejected.

This shouldn’t be any cause for concern for the Kraken.  They just have to fiddle with the salary numbers to come up with a new agreement.  Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times reports (Twitter link) that a revised contract has already been filed that moves $250K in salary from 2023-24 to 2022-23, keeping the cap hit the same.  Technically, Grubauer is now a free agent once again but that shouldn’t last long once that revised contract is approved by the league.

Central Notes: Johnson, Suter, Coyotes

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Tyler Johnson was acquired by Chicago earlier in the week as a cap dump from Tampa Bay but as he recounted to reporters, including Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times, he was nearly a member of the Blackhawks long before now.  Johnson was never drafted and said that it was “almost a coin flip” between signing with them or the Lightning back in 2011.  The 31-year-old certainly made the wise choice as he won two Stanley Cups with Tampa Bay and has picked up 361 career NHL points.  After being more of a role player the last couple of seasons, Johnson could have a shot at a top-six spot with Chicago next season and could slot into the spot vacated by Pius Suter who was non-tendered at the beginning of the week and has since signed with Detroit.

More from the Central Division:

  • The four-year contract that the Stars gave Ryan Suter may have raised some eyebrows considering the defenseman is already 36 but if he has his way, he’ll be playing long past this deal. Speaking with reporters including NHL.com’s Tracey Myers, Suter indicated that he believes he can play in the NHL until he’s 45.  That would certainly be an impressive feat, one that hasn’t been done since Chris Chelios (although if Zdeno Chara plays next year, he’ll accomplish that as well).  Suter has logged heavy minutes throughout his career but with the depth that Dallas has in front of him, he shouldn’t have to play as much which would certainly help his chances of playing beyond this contract.
  • While the Coyotes quickly signed veteran goaltender Carter Hutton following their trade of Darcy Kuemper to Colorado, Arizona GM Bill Armstrong told reporters including Arizona Sports’ Austin Nicholson that they will continue to be on the lookout for goalie depth. Alexandar Georgiev of the Rangers and one of the Blue Jackets’ two goalies in Joonas Korpisalo or Elvis Merzlikins are speculative trade targets if they want to make a move to bring in a new starter while Devan Dubnyk and Curtis McElhinney are the best of the healthy UFAs that remain on the open market.

Canadiens Re-Sign Artturi Lehkonen

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The Canadiens have re-signed one of their pending restricted free agents, announcing the re-signing of winger Artturi Lehkonen to a one-year, $2.3MM contract.  He was eligible to file for salary arbitration on Sunday.

The 26-year-old has spent his entire five-year NHL career with Montreal who selected him in the second round (55th overall) back in 2013.  He recorded 18 goals in his rookie campaign but hasn’t been able to duplicate that mark and was only able to tally seven goals and six assists in 47 games last season while spending some time as a healthy scratch.  That continued at the start of the playoffs although he managed to get into 17 contests where he added three goals and an assist with one of those tallies being the overtime winner to send the Canadiens to the Stanley Cup Final.

The deal actually represents a lower AAV for Lehkonen whose previous cap hit was $2.4MM.  However, it’s still a small boost on his $2.2MM qualifying offer which was also his salary in 2020-21.  Lehkonen will still be eligible for restricted free agency next summer and while he has shown himself to be a capable checker, he’ll need a bounce-back season offensively to have a shot at cashing in with a bigger deal next summer.

Montreal now has just one NHL restricted free agent remaining in Jesperi Kotkaniemi who is coming off his entry-level contract and isn’t eligible for salary arbitration.  They currently sit roughly $2.3MM over the salary cap, per CapFriendly, but with Shea Weber out for the season and Paul Byron out for the start of the year after hip surgery yesterday, they’ll be able to get back in compliance by placing them on LTIR.

Jets Sign Riley Nash

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The Jets have added some veteran depth down the middle as they announced that they’ve signed Riley Nash to a one-year contract.  The one-way deal is worth the league minimum salary of $750K.

Nash split last season between the Blue Jackets and Maple Leafs.  He suited up in 37 regular season games – all with Columbus – picking up just two goals and five assists while winning 49.7% of his faceoffs and averaging 12:46 per game.  It looked like his season had come to an end in early April after suffering a knee injury.  However, Toronto flipped a 2022 seventh-rounder to acquire him, transferring him to LTIR in the process to expand their LTIR pool.  He was able to return for the playoffs although he only suited up in two of their seven games in their first-round loss to Montreal.

The Jets saw several veteran role players head elsewhere in free agency with Trevor Lewis going to Calgary, Nate Thompson signing in Philadelphia, and Mathieu Perreault inking a deal in Montreal and Nash will serve as a replacement for Thompson and should anchor their fourth line.  With 578 career NHL games under his belt, he’ll serve as a veteran penalty killer and will allow David Gustafsson to have a bit more time with AHL Manitoba before making the jump to the NHL on a full-time basis.

Sportsnet’s Ken Wiebe was the first to report that Nash was signing with the Jets.

Canucks Acquire Spencer Martin

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The Canucks have acquired some extra goaltending depth, announcing the acquisition of Spencer Martin from the Lightning in exchange for future considerations.  There was no mention of what the future consideration could be or what is required for it to transfer.

The 26-year-old signed a one-year contract with Tampa Bay with a cap hit of $800K in the NHL and $105K in the minors back in May but now won’t play a single game under that deal for them.  He spent last season with their AHL affiliate in Syracuse, posting a 7-5-2 record with a 2.83 GAA and a .907 SV% in 15 games.  His only NHL action came in three NHL appearances with Colorado back in 2017.

Tampa Bay had a bit of a logjam between the pipes after they signed Maxime Lagace at the beginning of free agency on Wednesday.  He joins youngsters Hugo Alnefelt and Amir Miftakhov in their system so there was no room for Martin to play.  He’ll have a better shot of seeing playing time in Vancouver as he’ll likely team up with Michael DiPietro in AHL Abbotsford with Arturs Silovs likely heading for the ECHL.

Golden Knights Sign Derrick Pouliot To AHL Contract

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A few years ago, Derrick Pouliot was basically a regular on Vancouver’s defense corps but his stock has slipped since then.  Now, the 27-year-old has opted to settle for a minor league contract as Henderson, Vegas’ affiliate, announced that they’ve inked him to a one-year deal.

It’s a bit surprising that Pouliot had to settle for a contract that doesn’t have an NHL portion as he was able to secure two-way pacts the last two seasons with a $425K guarantee.  While financial terms of this contract weren’t disclosed, AHL-only contracts don’t typically approach that high of a price tag.

Pouliot spent last season in Philadelphia’s system, playing in 25 games with AHL Lehigh Valley where he recorded three goals and 11 assists, decent numbers for a defenseman.  That helped earn him four separate recalls to the taxi squad during the year but it didn’t materialize into any NHL action, nor did it evidently help him to earn a two-way deal this time around in free agency.

Pouliot, the eighth-overall pick in 2012 to Pittsburgh, has played in 202 career NHL contests between the Penguins, Canucks, and Blues, notching eight goals and 40 assists.  But if he wants to make it back to the top level, he’ll have to have his contract first converted to an NHL deal.  Considering Vegas already has 47 out of 50 contracts on the books with Dylan Coghlan needing a deal as a restricted free agent, they will likely need to move out a player or two first to give themselves some wiggle room on that front.  Accordingly, Pouliot’s stay with the Silver Knights may be a long one while Vegas adds a capable veteran defender on a no-risk contract.

Stars Re-Sign Joel Kiviranta And Ben Gleason

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The Stars reached contract agreements with two of their restricted free agents.  The team announced that winger Joel Kiviranta signed a two-year, $2.1MM deal while defenseman Ben Gleason inked a one-year, two-way deal.  PuckPedia reports (Twitter link) that Gleason will make $750K in the NHL and $95K in the minors.

It was a bit of a tough year for Kiviranta.  He started the season on IR and after being activated, he was shuffled to and from the taxi squad on several occasions.  The 25-year-old then missed more than a month due to a lower-body injury.  In the end, he wound up playing in 26 games last season, notching six goals and five assists.  He had just 11 career NHL regular season contests under his belt heading into the season but had gotten himself on the radar with five goals in 14 playoff contests in the bubble in 2020.  Kiviranta was eligible for salary arbitration but instead will bypass that option and will now be eligible for unrestricted free agency two summers from now.

As for Gleason, he made four NHL appearances in his rookie professional season in 2018-19 but has exclusively played with AHL Texas since then.  Last season, he had four goals and 13 assists in 37 minor league games and will now need to pass through waivers in order to return there in 2021-22.

Kiviranta was the last NHL regular on the Stars to need a new deal although they have a trio of minor leaguers that remain as restricted free agents.  They now sit roughly $3MM above the cap ceiling per CapFriendly but with Ben Bishop appearing to be unable to play to start next season, they will be able to place him on LTIR and remain in cap compliance.

Oilers Re-Sign Warren Foegele

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After acquiring Warren Foegele earlier this week, the Oilers wasted little time getting him signed, announcing that they’ve inked him to a three-year deal that carries a cap hit of $2.75MM.  He was tendered a $2.25MM qualifying offer at the beginning of the week.

The 25-year-old was acquired from Carolina in exchange for defenseman Ethan Bear, a deal that opened up a spot for Edmonton to turn around and sign Cody Ceci while also giving them some grit on the wing.  Last season, Foegele played in 53 games for the Hurricanes, notching 10 goals and 10 assists while averaging a career-high 14:09 per game.  He was a little quieter in the playoffs, however, scoring just once while adding a single assist in their ten postseason contests.

Foegele had made it known that he was hoping to have a chance at playing a bigger role and he could get that opportunity with Edmonton.  The Oilers have used Zack Kassian in the top six at times to add some grit on their scoring lines and Foegele could conceivably fill that role with a bit more consistency.  If that happens, a $2.75MM price tag could turn into a team-friendly deal fairly quickly.

The contract buys out the remaining two years of RFA eligibility as well as Foegele’s first season of UFA eligibility.  He was eligible to file for arbitration tomorrow but that won’t be needed now.  Meanwhile, Edmonton is down to just one regular player as an RFA in winger Kailer Yamamoto who is not arbitration-eligible.

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was the first to report that the deal was close.

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