Five Key Stories: 6/7/21 – 6/13/21
With the number of teams still playing down to four, the busy offseason draws closer. While the biggest stories are still a few weeks away, there was still some notable news around the league over the past seven days.
Larsen Promoted: The first domino in the head coaching searches around the league has fallen. The Blue Jackets have their new bench boss and it’s someone they’ve had all along as the team promoted assistant Brad Larsen to the top role, handing him a three-year deal. The 43-year-old has been with Columbus since 2014-15 so he will be quite familiar with the current roster and will now be tasked with helping them get through what appears to be a pending rebuild with prized defenseman Seth Jones indicating recently that he’s not interested in signing a contract extension.
Kadri Suspension Upheld…Again: After being suspended for eight games for a hit in the first round of the playoffs, Avalanche center Nazem Kadri decided to try his luck with the appeal process. The first went to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and the eight-game ban was upheld. The next step was to independent arbitrator Shyam Das who also upheld the suspension. A big part of the decision was Kadri’s prior suspension history and the fact that Justin Faulk sustained an injury on the play.
Rask Needs Surgery, Wants To Stay With Bruins: Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask was dealing with lingering hip trouble all season long and now that the season is over for Boston, he’s set to undergo surgery to repair a torn labrum. That procedure will keep him sidelined through the first half of next season. The 34-year-old is also set to become an unrestricted free agent this month and this news certainly doesn’t help his leverage. However, he has also made it clear that he only wants to play for Boston so he’s not in a situation where he will want to shop himself to the highest bidder. If the Bruins are okay with Jeremy Swayman as the starter for the first half of the season, it’s possible that they could bring Rask back to have their playoff tandem back together in the second half.
Shero To Minnesota: Former Penguins and Devils GM Ray Shero has found his next team as the Wild announced that they’ve hired him as a senior advisor to GM Bill Guerin. It’s not the first time the two have worked together as Shero acquired Guerin while with Pittsburgh and then hired him as a development coach after his retirement. Shero will replace Jack Ferreira who spent the past three seasons in an advisory role and has worked in an NHL front office since 1980-81.
Latest On Eichel: It hasn’t been a great offseason for Jack Eichel. The Sabres star bemoaned the “disconnect” between him and management in his end-of-season media availability and wants a surgery to repair a neck injury that the team won’t sign off on. Now, there are reports that Buffalo would also like to move on from the 24-year-old and have a fresh start. Top centers rarely become available and while he carries a $10MM cap hit through 2025-26, there still should be considerable interest although the standoff over his neck certainly isn’t going to help his value.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Stephen Johns Announces His Retirement
It has been a tough past few years for Stars defenseman Stephen Johns as he has battled post-concussion symptoms which limited him to just 17 games over the past three seasons. He has attempted to come back a few times in that stretch but has decided to call it a career, announcing his retirement on social media.
The 29-year-old was a second-round pick (60th overall) back in 2010 to Chicago but didn’t get his first NHL opportunity until he was traded to Dallas back in the 2015 offseason. He made his NHL debut the following season and then became more of a regular in 2016-17, playing in 61 games that year and 75 the following campaign, becoming a reliable shutdown defender that played with plenty of physicality. That helped earn him a well-deserved three-year, $7.05MM extension in 2018 as the Stars appeared to lock up a key defensive presence on their back end.
However, a late-season concussion in 2018 led to post-concussion symptoms that cost him all of 2018-19 and most of 2019-20. He was able to come back late in the year, suiting up in 17 games while logging over 17 minutes a night. He even got into the first four games in the bubble before the symptoms returned and unfortunately, they kept him out for all of this season as well.
With his contract coming to an end, Johns has decided to hang up his skates, sort of. While he won’t be skating on the ice anymore, he will be doing a rollerblading tour across the country. PHR joins the hockey community in wishing Johns the best of luck in his next adventure.
Offseason Checklist: Philadelphia Flyers
The offseason has arrived with roughly half of the league missing the playoffs and several more having since been eliminated. It’s time to examine what those teams need to accomplish over the coming months. Next up is a look at Philadelphia.
After making it to the second round last season, expectations were fairly high for the Flyers heading into this season. However, while they started strong with seven wins in their first ten games, their goaltending struggled mightily as the campaign progressed and Philadelphia wound up in sixth in the East Division as a result. GM Chuck Fletcher opted to keep the coaching staff intact but will be tasked with finding a player or two to help vault them back into playoff contention. Here’s what will be on their offseason checklist.
Re-Sign Sanheim
Philadelphia’s list of pending restricted free agents isn’t particularly long but one of their notables is defenseman Travis Sanheim. Following a breakout 2018-19 season, he wound up signing a bridge contract that would ideally set him up for a more lucrative one at this point in time while giving the Flyers some more certainty about what type of role he’d be able to fill.
That hasn’t exactly happened, however. His production dipped sharply this season as he managed just three goals and a dozen assists in 55 games. Instead of his numbers trending towards being worthy of top-pairing minutes, they went the other way. While his possession numbers were still strong, he, like pretty much everyone else on their back end, had some adventures in his own end as well. That’s not an ideal platform season by any stretch.
Sanheim is going to be a part of their long-term core but will he be a key player or fill more of a supporting role? It’s hard to see that question being definitively answered now so instead of a long-term contract that buys out some UFA years, both sides may be better off with a one-year pact that keeps him RFA-eligible but gives them more time to see where he fits in. That type of contract would come in slightly higher than his $3.25MM qualifying offer.
Giroux Extension Talks
Claude Giroux has been a fixture in Philadelphia’s lineup for the past 13 seasons and should move into second in all-time franchise scoring (behind Bobby Clarke) at some point next season. Along the way, the captain has been shifted between center and the wing on multiple occasions and has adapted well. While he’s not the 102-point scorer he was just a few years ago, the 33-year-old is still a fixture in their top six and has provided a good return on his eight-year, $66.2MM contract that he signed back in July of 2013.
That deal is now a year away from expiring which means that Giroux will be eligible to sign an extension once the new league calendar starts on July 28th. It’s hard to see Giroux wanting to go elsewhere at this point but it’s also hard to see him commanding a contract that’s particularly close to his current $8.275MM AAV. His per-game averages the past two years are the lowest they’ve been in a decade and considering he’ll be 34 when his next contract kicks in, that’s unlikely to tick up. Giroux may very well want to make this his last contract, especially since it’s his last chance at signing without the 35-plus classification that some teams try to avoid.
If an extension can be worked out this summer, it will take away any distraction of Giroux playing in his contract year and give Fletcher some certainty about what type of cap room he’ll have in the future. It’s not something that has to get done but it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Flyers try to work something out with their franchise fixture.
Rebuild And Re-Sign The Goalie Tandem
There were three different goalies that played for the Flyers this season. None of them played particularly well and none of them are under contract for 2021-22.
Of the three, it’s safe to suggest that Carter Hart will still be around. After a good showing in his rookie year in 2018-19, he followed it up with an even better performance last season which helped lead to the higher expectations heading into 2020-21. He even did well start this season but once the calendar flipped to March, he struggled mightily, posting a save percentage of just .852 in 15 games from then until the end of the season. As a result, he goes from being someone that looked to be a safe bet for a long-term contract that bought out some UFA years to someone that will wind up on a bridge deal to see if this year was just a blip or a sign of things to come.
It also presents a challenge for Fletcher in terms of who to partner up with Hart. Brian Elliott has been with the Flyers for the past four seasons and outplayed Hart this year. If all would have gone well, Hart would have done well, earned a long-term contract, and potentially allowed for Elliott to be retained. But now, they may need someone that can legitimately push for playing time. At 36, that’s unlikely to be Elliott and instead of spending $1.5MM for the backup spot, that amount may need to be doubled as they shop at the higher end of the UFA market. (Alex Lyon was the other goalie to play this season and is set to become an unrestricted free agent as well. He could be brought back or replaced with another veteran third-stringer.)
Upgrade The Back End
Let’s go back to Philadelphia’s defensive group. Their core – Ivan Provorov, Sanheim, Philippe Myers, and Shayne Gostisbehere – all struggled relative to expectations with Gostisbehere clearing waivers at the trade deadline. It’s still a fairly young collection of rearguards as Gostisbehere being the only one older than 25. But it’s also a group that could use a veteran as they never really properly replaced Matt Niskanen who surprisingly retired last fall; the Erik Gustafsson signing did not work out well at all and didn’t provide the defensive stability that Niskanen did.
A better blueline leads to fewer scoring chances and fewer goals which is less stress for Hart as he looks to rebound next season. Finding someone who is stable in the defensive zone and can play in their top four would certainly give their defense corps a significant lift. Affording such a move could be tricky with roughly $12MM in cap room with Sanheim plus a goalie tandem needing contracts so Fletcher will have to find a way to free up some space before trying to fill this need.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.
Snapshots: Johnson, Benn, Haas
Avalanche defenseman Erik Johnson is expected to waive his no-move clause for the upcoming expansion draft, reports Mike Chambers of the Denver Post. The 33-year-old was limited to just four games this season due to an upper-body injury, last suiting up in January. Johnson has two years left on his deal with a $6MM AAV and considering that and how little he played this season, it’s extremely unlikely that he would be picked by Seattle. Johnson waiving his protection would allow Colorado to protect all three of Cale Makar, Devon Toews, and Samuel Girard.
Elsewhere around the NHL:
- The Stars are expected to keep Jamie Benn at center next season, notes Matthew DeFranks of the Dallas Morning News. Dallas moved him there out of necessity late in the season and the veteran did well, notching 17 points in the final 19 games. Tyler Seguin should be ready to go for next season while Joe Pavelski and Roope Hintz remain in the fold so either one of them is going to shift to the wing or they will be starting next season with an enviable group of centermen which would also allow them to run three scoring lines which would be useful for a team that hasn’t been in the top half of the league in goals scored since 2015-16.
- While now-former Oilers forward Gaetan Haas signed a five-year deal in Switzerland earlier in the week, he could still be in the NHL next season. Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal notes that Haas’ contract contains an out clause by August 15th if he’s able to secure an NHL deal that’s to his liking. It’s hard to imagine he will receive a prominent enough offer to walk away from a half-decade of playing at home but he’ll have a couple of weeks in free agency to try to find one.
Expansion Primer: Washington Capitals
Over the next few weeks, we will be breaking down each team’s situation as it pertains to the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft. Which players are eligible, who will likely warrant protection, and which ones may be on the block to avoid the risk of losing them for nothing? Each team is required to submit their protection lists by 4:00 PM CDT on July 17th. The full eligibility rules can be found here, while CapFriendly has an expansion tool to make your own lists.
Expansion wasn’t too kind to Washington last time as they lost Nate Schmidt to Vegas and he quickly went from a depth defender to a key part of their back end for three seasons before cap constraints necessitated a move to Vancouver. While rosters can still change in the next six weeks, it certainly appears as if the Capitals will be losing another notable piece to the Kraken next month.
Eligible Players (Non-UFA)
Forwards:
Nicklas Backstrom (NMC), Nic Dowd, Lars Eller, Shane Gersich, Carl Hagelin, Garnet Hathaway, Axel Jonsson-Fjallby, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Beck Malenstyn, Anthony Mantha, T.J. Oshie, Garrett Pilon, Brian Pinho, Conor Sheary, Daniel Sprong, Tom Wilson
Defense:
John Carlson, Brenden Dillon, Nick Jensen, Lucas Johansen, Michal Kempny, Dmitry Orlov, Justin Schultz, Trevor van Riemsdyk
Goalies:
Pheonix Copley, Zach Fucale, Ilya Samsonov, Vitek Vanecek
Notable Unrestricted Free Agents
G Craig Anderson, F Daniel Carr, D Zdeno Chara, G Henrik Lundqvist, F Alex Ovechkin, F Michael Raffl
Notable Exemptions
D Alexander Alexeyev, D Martin Fehervary, F Hendrix Lapierre, F Connor McMichael
Key Decisions
Since Seattle was unveiled as the 32nd NHL franchise, there has been plenty of speculation about Oshie, who was raised just north of there. Wouldn’t it be something if a hometown player became the first-ever captain of the franchise? And hey, clearing his $5.75MM AAV through 2025 off the books would give the Capitals some much-needed cap flexibility. However, he certainly doesn’t want to go and GM Brian MacLellan has indicated that he wants Oshie back as well. Let’s not forget that he was one of their top scorers this season and they’re a team that wants to win now. It’s possible that he could be left unprotected due to his contract to allow them to protect a bubble forward but with other viable options to choose from, he doesn’t seem to be the strongest of candidates to be picked.
Let’s dig into those bubble forwards. Wingers Hagelin and Hathaway appear to be safe bets to be left unprotected as their price tags are a little high for the roles they provide and for a team in need of cap space, they’re not going to protect a role player making more than they’d get on the open market. Eller makes a little more than most third line centers but with plenty of uncertainty surrounding Kuznetsov’s future with the team (he appears to be a prime candidate to be traded), it’s hard to see them letting their insurance policy in Eller go.
That leaves a trio of forwards to ponder in Sheary, Sprong, and Dowd. Sheary had a respectable 14 goals in 53 games this season and recently signed a two-year contract with a $1.5MM cap hit, a more than reasonable price tag. However, Sprong had 13 goals in 42 games and will have an AAV below the league minimum next season. He’s also five years younger than Sheary but has bounced around already in his career and had limited usage in the playoffs. Then there’d Dowd, their fourth-line center for the past three years. He had 11 goals in 56 games this season, won over 56% of his faceoffs, and is signed for the league minimum. There’s a lot of value in that contract. Only one can be kept, however.
Having said that, it might not matter which one gets protected as in the end, their other positions appear to be riper for the picking.
Heading into the season, Samsonov looked like a lock to be protected. However, injuries and COVID-19 limited him to just 19 regular season appearances where he didn’t play particularly well, notching just a .902 SV%. On the other hand, he has been their goalie of the future since he was picked 22nd overall in 2015 and his rookie season showed plenty of promise. There is definitely still some upside to the 24-year-old who is a pending restricted free agent.
Still, Samsonov’s struggles opened the door for Vanecek who went from having no NHL experience this season to their de facto starter where he performed a little better than Samsonov did (a .908 SV% with an identical 2.69 GAA). It’s also worth noting that he’s also signed at a cap hit that’s below the league minimum next season. Even to Seattle, a team that probably won’t go right to the Upper Limit right away, that carries a lot of value.
Unlike skaters, there is no alternate protection scheme that allows a team to protect multiple goaltenders. Barring a side agreement, one of them has to be made available and whichever one is left exposed becomes an immediate contender to be selected.
There is an interesting decision that needs to be made on the back end as well. Carlson and Orlov are locks to be protected but that only leaves one slot for several capable defenders.
Schultz was one of the bigger surprise signings last fall when he got a two-year, $8MM contract despite a tough year with Pittsburgh. To his credit, he bounced back nicely with 27 points in 46 games which is decent value for an offensive defender. On a back end that doesn’t have a lot of offensive pop beyond Carlson and Orlov, losing him would definitely hurt.
But while Dillon doesn’t provide much on the scoresheet, he brings a lot of physicality and defensive acumen to the table which earned him a four-year, $15.6MM deal after impressing in his short stint upon being acquired as a rental at the trade deadline. He brings a dimension that they were seeking for a while and with three years left, he’s more likely to be part of their long-term plans over Schultz who will be unrestricted next summer. But is $3.9MM too pricey for Seattle for a stay-at-home defender?
Kempny could have been in the mix for this final slot had he been healthy but injuries wiped out his entire season. He should be ready for next season but after not playing this season, he’s not a big risk to be selected. Jensen is a contract they wouldn’t mind unloading to free up some extra wiggle room but they’d need some incentive to take him and while van Riemsdyk has over 400 career games of experience (including the playoffs) and is signed for just $950K, it doesn’t seem likely that he’ll entice the Kraken either.
Projected Protection List
F Nicklas Backstrom (NMC)
F Lars Eller
F Evgeny Kuznetsov
F Anthony Mantha
F T.J. Oshie
F Conor Sheary
F Tom Wilson
D John Carlson
D Dmitry Orlov
D Justin Schultz
Skater Exposure Requirement Checklist
When Vegas had their expansion draft, a minimum of two forwards and one defenseman had to be exposed that were under contract and played either 40 games in the most recent season or 70 over the past two combined. Due to the pandemic, those thresholds have been changed to 27 games played in 2020-21 or 54 in 2019/20 and 2020-21 combined. In creating our expansion list for each team in this series, we will ensure that these criteria are met.
Forwards (4): Nic Dowd, Carl Hagelin, Garnet Hathaway, Daniel Sprong
Defensemen (4): Brenden Dillon, Nick Jensen, Michal Kempny, Trevor van Riemsdyk
There are definitely a couple of viable routes for Seattle to take here. Dillon isn’t flashy but is definitely dependable and would comfortably step into their top four for the foreseeable future. But Vanecek is coming off a strong first NHL season and is cheap. At least three goalies have to be picked by the Kraken and at a bare minimum, he’d be an intriguing pick-and-flip candidate. He’s also a restricted free agent at the end of next season so it’s quite plausible for him to be viewed as part of their longer-term plans. Seattle GM Ron Francis will have a tough decision to make but he will be landing a quality player from the Capitals either way.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.
West Notes: Expansion, Nosek, Menell, Leach
Typically, the only teams that can sign a player to a max-term eight-year contract is the one they’re currently on. However, Seattle will be able to change that. As Pierre LeBrun notes in his latest piece for The Athletic (subscription link), the NHLPA negotiated a “no loss of status or rights’’ provision in the latest CBA which means that a pending free agent selected by the Kraken could still receive an eight-year deal as long as the contract is signed before free agency opens up on July 28th.
Seattle will have a 72-hour exclusive negotiating window with any free agents that are left unprotected by their current teams in advance of next month’s expansion draft. If they reach an agreement with one of those players, that player automatically becomes the selection from the team that originally had them.
Elsewhere in the West:
- Golden Knights center Tomas Nosek is getting closer to returning to the lineup, GM Kelly McCrimmon told reporters, including Ben Gotz of The Athletic (Twitter link). The veteran has missed the last 11 games since leaving their second contest against Minnesota back in the first round with an unspecified injury. Nosek has been an important depth player for Vegas since joining them in expansion and surprisingly had a career year offensively this season with 18 points in just 38 games.
- Wild defensive prospect Brennan Menell surprisingly signed in the KHL for this past season but the move worked out as he was one of the top scoring defensemen in that league with 38 points. As Michael Russo of The Athletic suggests (subscription link), that could put him in a spot to push for a one-way contract at the league minimum of $750K to come back to North America. Russo notes that Menell’s representatives reached out last month to start talks for a contract for next season but GM Bill Guerin wanted to wait until their playoffs finished first. If he does return, he’d need to play in 75 NHL games next season to avoid reaching Group VI unrestricted free agency.
- The Coyotes have interviewed Providence head coach Jay Leach for their vacant head coaching position, reports Craig Morgan of AZ Coyotes Insider (Twitter link). The 41-year-old has spent the past six seasons in the AHL including the past four as head coach of Boston’s affiliate. Leach also played in 70 career NHL games over a 13-year professional career.
Coyotes To Interview Mike Van Ryn For Head Coaching Vacancy
The Coyotes will interview Blues assistant coach Mike Van Ryn for their vacant head coaching position on Monday, reports Craig Morgan of AZ Coyotes Insider (Twitter link). That spot was opened up at the end of the season when Rick Tocchet’s contract was not renewed after four years behind the bench.
The 42-year-old played in parts of eight injury-plagued NHL seasons with the Blues, Panthers, and Maple Leafs before retiring at the age of 31 to start his coaching career. Since then, he has been a head coach in the OHL and AHL as well as an assistant in the OHL and NHL.
Van Ryn spent two years with Arizona in 2016-17 and 2017-18 as a development coach and head coach with AHL Tucson (where he coached a handful of current Coyotes including Conor Garland and Lawson Crouse) so he has some familiarity with the organization. From there, he went to St. Louis, joining their bench as an assistant coach in 2018. GM Bill Armstrong was with the Blues before joining the Coyotes so he would be quite familiar with Van Ryn as well; the two overlapped for two seasons.
Arizona isn’t in a spot where they’re hoping to become contenders right away so a pricey veteran bench boss probably isn’t what Armstrong is looking for. Most of their core group is still fairly young so a younger coach may be the better way to go. While Van Ryn hasn’t garnered much head coaching consideration elsewhere, this fit could be a good one for both sides.
Snapshots: Martinook, Mangiapane, Reilly
Hurricanes winger Jordan Martinook is set to hit the open market this summer but he’s hoping it doesn’t come to that. In his end-of-season media availability (video link), the 28-year-old made it clear that he’s hoping to remain with Carolina:
I want to see it through. I think we’re right there. We’re so close. If I were to go somewhere else, it’d be tough to see if they were to win here because I feel like I was a big part of it.
At the end of the day, it’s obviously a business. I want to stay here, but I have a family. I just had a baby girl, so I have to look out for myself and my family. I want to be a Hurricane, so hopefully we can make that happen.
If he wants to stay with the Hurricanes, Martinook is probably looking at a dip in salary. He carried a $2MM cap hit this season but managed just 13 points in 44 games and while he’s valuable on the defensive side of things, teams will be looking to save on bottom-six players to give themselves some extra flexibility. That’s likely to be the case here as well.
Other notes from around the NHL:
- Fresh off being named MVP at the Worlds, Flames winger Andrew Mangiapane indicated in a recent appearance on Sportsnet 960 (audio link) that he would be interested in signing a long-term extension with the team. 2021-22 is the final year of his two-year, $4.85MM contract so he will be eligible to sign a new deal when free agency opens next month. Mangiapane had 32 points this season (the second straight year with that total) so while he may want to stick around for the long haul, he’s probably going to be better off waiting to see how next season goes in the hopes of improving his negotiating leverage heading into those discussions.
- Mike Reilly fit in quite well with the Bruins after being brought in at the trade deadline, logging over 21 minutes a game down the stretch and in the playoffs. In his end-of-season availability Friday (video link), the pending unrestricted free agent expressed a desire to remain with Boston. The 27-year-old has bounced around a bit as of late but with 27 assists in 55 games this season and how his year finished, he should garner considerable interest on the open market next month.
Offseason Checklist: Calgary Flames
The offseason has arrived with roughly half of the league missing the playoffs and several more having since been eliminated. It’s time to examine what those teams need to accomplish over the coming months. Next up is a look at Calgary.
Expectations were fairly high for the Flames heading into the season. They landed the top goaltender in free agency back in the fall in Jacob Markstrom while also adding Christopher Tanev to anchor a defensive pairing. These win-now moves didn’t do much to move the needle, however. Geoff Ward lost his head coaching job before the halfway point of the season with Darryl Sutter being brought in to turn things around but he managed the same .500 win percentage as his predecessor. Their only playoff victory in the past six seasons was the Qualifying Round in the bubble so it appears more changes will be on the horizon. What those changes should be highlights their summer checklist.
Add A Backup Goalie
Calgary had David Rittich backing up Markstrom for most of the season and the results weren’t particularly great although they were able to get a third-round pick from Toronto who brought him in as injury insurance for the playoffs. Louis Domingue served as the backup after that and he’s an unrestricted free agent this summer. That creates an opening that will need to be filled.
The good news is that there are plenty of free agents available so GM Brad Treliving shouldn’t have a hard time finding one. The question here will be how much they want to commit to Markstrom’s understudy. Markstrom, when healthy, has shown himself to be capable of logging heavy workloads and this season was no exception as only Connor Hellebuyck made more appearances. If they want him to play that much over the next couple of years, they can shop at the lower end of the market and free up some cap room for other areas. However, most teams don’t want their starter playing 60-plus games each season and if the Flames feel that way, they’ll have to shop closer to the higher end where it will cost another million or so on the AAV.
Core Decisions
The Flames have a core group up front and while they have shown flashes of strong offensive performances, it simply hasn’t been good enough. Returning the same core that has underachieved feels like a complete non-option at this point as expecting a big internal improvement from this group probably isn’t feasible. The question isn’t if the core will be back but rather how much of it won’t be.
The biggest uncertainty surrounds Johnny Gaudreau. The winger is set to enter the final year of his contract and while he has expressed a willingness to sign an extension, it’s fair to speculate if Calgary may feel otherwise. The 27-year-old didn’t have a bad year – he led the team in scoring and improved his per-game rates from 2019-20. But he’s also not the same player he was a few years ago when he put up two seasons of better than a point-per-game average including a 99-point campaign in 2018-19. He’s still a top-line player for now but do they want to commit a long-term contract to him? If not, then he becomes one of the more intriguing trade candidates of the summer as letting him walk to unrestricted free agency isn’t a viable idea.
Sean Monahan has also been in trade speculation already. He also has seen his production taper off in recent years and he had just 10 goals and 28 points this season in 50 games. In terms of output from centers, he was third behind Elias Lindholm and Mikael Backlund. With two years left, he’s not a rental either although they’d be selling low. With three top-six pivots, do they look to flip one for some help on the wing?
Is one move going enough or will multiple changes be needed to shake things up? That’s what Treliving is going to have to determine in the coming weeks and with it being harder to move money once the top free agents are off the board, he will likely need to make this decision by the end of July.
Add Offensive Help
On top of shaking up their offensive core, Calgary needs to add to it. They’ve been in the middle of the pack defensively the last couple of seasons but have only managed to finish 20th in goals scored in each of the past two seasons. They didn’t have a 20-goal scorer either. The composition of their roster is better suited towards a score by committee approach but for that to work, they need to have three lines capable of scoring. They’re not there just yet.
Yes, younger players like World Championships MVP Andrew Mangiapane and Dillon Dube are capable of improving and providing a boost from within. But adding one more top-six forward would also go a long way towards deepening their attack. However, with nearly $68MM in commitments to just 14 players, that doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room for an impact addition so some cap juggling will be needed if Treliving is going to be able to add to the core.
Protect Giordano
With how well a lot of side deals in expansion went for Vegas back in 2017, some have expected there won’t be as many of those made this time around. But Calgary looks like a team that may want to do so given their situation on the back end.
With Noah Hanifin, Rasmus Andersson, and Tanev, Calgary has three blueliners locked up for at least the next three seasons. It then stands to reason that those will be the three that they protect from Seattle, assuming they use the standard 7/3/1 protection scheme. However, that leaves their captain Mark Giordano on the outside looking in.
Giordano has been a fixture for the Flames for nearly 15 years aside from a brief stint in the KHL. He’s second in franchise history in games played and third in scoring by a defenseman. Yes, he’s nearing the end of his playing career (and has just one year left on his contract with a $6.75MM AAV) but he’s someone the Flames would undoubtedly want to keep around as long as it doesn’t cost them one of those other three protectees, even if it took away from adding up front.
While a 37-year-old on a pricey expiring contract may not seem like the best fit for an expansion franchise, he’d give Seattle some short-term stability and an intriguing trade chip so they could be inclined to take him. Treliving will need to find a way to talk them out of potentially doing that.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.
Jets Notes: Copp, Heinola, Little
Two summers ago, the Jets surprisingly went to salary arbitration with forward Andrew Copp following a then career-best 28-point campaign and he was ultimately awarded a two-year deal with an AAV of $2.28MM. The 26-year-old will be in need of a new deal this offseason in his final season of RFA eligibility but told reporters, including Ted Wyman of the Winnipeg Sun, that what happened then won’t have any bearing on negotiations now. Copp is certainly in the drivers’ seat when it comes to these discussions. He’s coming off a 39-point season and is a year away from being eligible for unrestricted free agency so if early talks don’t go well, he can just file for arbitration, still walk away with a fair-sized raise, and hit the open market in 2022.
More from Winnipeg:
- The lack of NHL action for defenseman Ville Heinola raised some eyebrows this season but Wyman notes in a separate column that it wasn’t due to the team wanting his contract to slide another season. That ultimately happened as he suited up just five times in 2020-21, allowing for another automatic one-year extension; he’ll still have three years on his entry-level deal next season. Head coach Paul Maurice indicated some depth on the left side of the back end and a need to get faster as the reasons that the 20-year-old was rarely able to get into the lineup.
- Jets forward Bryan Little missed all of this season due to a perforated eardrum and while he hasn’t retired, GM Kevin Cheveldayoff stated as his end-of-season press conference (video link) that he remains unavailable and that “there are no medical opinions that say that he should play”. The 33-year-old has three years remaining on his contract with a cap hit of just under $5.3MM and assuming he’s unable to return, he’ll spend that time on LTIR as he did this season.