Minor Transactions: 11/15/23
There’s a lot of activity around the world of professional hockey today, both in terms of player movement and in terms of games on schedule. The Champions Hockey League continues today with two Round of 16 contests, including a contest between the reigning German and Swiss champions. Over in Finland, Liiga resumes today, with Devils prospect Lenni Hämeenaho‘s Ässät Pori up against JYP.
On the player movement front, there has been quite a bit of activity recently as the European break for international hockey has concluded. As always, we’ll keep track of notable moves here.
- Former superstar Premier League goalkeeper Petr Čech will now have the chance to play at the highest level of professional hockey in the United Kingdom. The reigning EIHL champion Belfast Giants, who also competed in the Champions Hockey League this season, have signed Čech on loan as a temporary solution to the injury issues the club is currently wrestling with. Although it is likely that Čech’s celebrity influenced this signing far more than his on-ice ability, he is at least a somewhat capable hockey goalie. This season, he’s playing for the Oxford City Stars in a lower level of British hockey, and has posted a .900 save percentage in six games.
- Veteran defenseman Teemu Suhonen has led both of Finland’s top two divisions of pro hockey in scoring by a defenseman at times in his career, but he has slowed down in recent years. After signing a short-term deal with Liiga’s Vaasan Sport, Suhonen’s exceptional start to the season has now earned him a full-year deal. Suhonen has played in nine games for Sport, and has chipped in three goals and 10 points. He’s playing a significant role for the club that often sees him skate in over 20 minutes per night, and at 34 this contract will allow him to continue to re-establish himself as a top offensive blueliner in the Finnish Liiga.
- Adam Samuelsson, the son of 1080-game NHL veteran Ulf Samuelsson, has signed with the ECHL’s Maine Mariners. The 23-year-old isn’t quite the player his father was, but he does have some impressive experience on his resume. A U.S. National Team Development Program product, Samuelsson won a Silver Medal at the IIHF World Under-18’s in 2018 and would go on to make his pro debut playing third-division hockey in Sweden. Samuelsson made his ECHL debut last season and split the campaign between the Newfoundland Growlers and Tulsa Oilers, scoring a combined four points and 63 PIM’s. A hulking six-foot-six rearguard, Samuelsson will bring even more size and physicality to a Mariners blueline that doesn’t have a single player below six feet tall.
- Rookie ECHLer Nick Nardella has been traded from the Idaho Steelheads to the Wichita Thunder in exchange for future considerations. Nardella, 24, is a five-foot-ten winger who had a decent start to his professional career last season, scoring three goals in three games for the Iowa Heartlanders. That earned him a shot with the Steelheads, but he struggled to make an impact and the team has now dealt him after just three games. Seeing as the Thunder are just 4-7-1, perhaps they believe the addition of Nardella can help jump-start a sputtering offensive attack.
- Another ECHL rookie, former Michigan State Spartans forward Adam Goodsir, has been traded from the Worcester Railers to the Iowa Heartlanders in exchange for future considerations. The 25-year-old has scored three points in eight games this season for the Railers, and he earned his spot with the team after a decent showing in a late-season cameo at the conclusion of his collegiate career. The Heartlanders currently rank second-to-last in their division for goals scored, so this reinforcement could help them climb in the standings should he hit the ground running.
- Matthew Barnaby Jr, the son of 834-game NHL veteran Matthew Barnaby, has signed with Finnish second-tier club RoKi. The Buffalo, NY native, 25, has made the decision to not return to the ECHL and instead try his luck in Europe. Barnaby spent last season with the Orlando Solar Bears, scoring 12 points in 42 games in a bottom-six role. Barnaby worked his way into the ECHL from the SPHL and will now seek to do the same in Finland, putting some good games on tape to potentially earn a contract later on in a higher-level European league.
- Former college hockey star Ian Scheid, once a top defenseman for Minnesota State Mankato, has reached an agreement on a mutual contract termination with his club, HC Slovan Bratislava of the Slovak Extraliga. Scheid, 28, signed a two-way, AHL/ECHL deal at the end of his collegiate career and split 2020-21 between the AHL’s Colorado Eagles and ECHL’s Utah Grizzlies. He used that campaign s a launching pad to land him a deal with the DEL’s Straubing Tigers, a club he would spend two seasons with. After helping Straubing to the German playoffs for two consecutive seasons, Scheid signed with Slovan but struggled to make an offensive impact. He’ll now look for a new team after scoring just four points in 15 games in the Slovak capital.
- Johnny Walker has made the decision to end his time with the EIHL’s Dundee Stars after eight games played. The 27-year-old Arizona native, once a point-per-game scorer in the NCAA with the Arizona State Sun Devils, has left Dundee according to an official team announcement. Walker scored two points in eight games to go along with 12 penalty minutes, and one wonders if a return to the ECHL is in the cards since he spent 2022-23 with the Utah Grizzlies. Walker made more of an impact last season with Utah, scoring 12 goals and 18 points in 33 games to go along with 171 penalty minutes.
- After spending 17 games with Liiga side HPK Hameenlinna to start the season, defenseman Elias Ulander has transferred to Västerviks IK of the Swedish HockeyAllsvenskan. A veteran of 116 Liiga contests, has had quite the hockey journey in recent years, seeing time with clubs in Liiga, Mestis, Denmark, and Slovakia. He returned to Liiga for this season after a solid 2022-23 in Slovakia that saw him help HK Spisska Nova Ves to a respectable playoff run, but his time with HPK was not the most impressive. After losing six of his last seven games with HPK, Ulander appears to have decided that playing in HockeyAllsvenskan is likely more suited to his talents at this current stage of his playing career.
This page may be updated throughout the day.
West Notes: Avalanche Reassignments, Draisaitl, Harley
The Colorado Avalanche have announced that defenseman Caleb Jones and Sam Malinski have been reassigned to the franchise’s AHL affiliate, the Colorado Eagles. The reasoning behind Malinski’s reassignment is relatively clear, the player made his NHL debut last night and now will return to the Eagles to resume playing a regular role there.
With Jones, the reassignment could mean a few things, as outlined by The Athletic’s Peter Baugh. Jones’ reassignment could be a paper transaction to maintain his waiver-exempt status, or it could be an indication that injured blueliners Josh Manson and/or Samuel Girard are healthy and ready to return to head coach Jared Bednar’s lineup.
Some other notes from the Western Conference:
- The Edmonton Oilers got a crucial win in new head coach Kris Knoblauch’s debut, but the 4-1 victory over the New York Islanders has come at a personal cost to superstar center Leon Draisaitl. Draisaitl has been fined $5,000, the maximum allowable under the CBA, by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety for what the department termed a “dangerous trip” on Islanders center Bo Horvat.
- Dallas Stars head coach Peter DeBoer told the media today that defenseman Thomas Harley will be out for tonight’s game when the team hosts the Arizona Coyotes. Harley is, according to DeBoer, dealing with a day-to-day injury, and it was specifically clarified that he is not in concussion protocol. Harley was on the wrong end of a big hit in the most recent Stars contest, so there was fear that his injury could be something more major it but appears the worst has been avoided. Harley has had a solid start to the season on the Stars’ bottom pairing next to Jani Hakanpää and in his absence his spot there is set to go to Joel Hanley.
Nashville Predators Place Tommy Novak On IR
The Nashville Predators have placed forward Tommy Novak on injured reserve. According to the team, Novak will be out for four-to-six weeks with an upper-body injury.
In a corresponding move, the Predators have recalled defenseman Spencer Stastney from their AHL affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals.
The loss of Novak, 26, for this extended timeframe is a significant one for both Nashville and Novak himself.
For Nashville, the team is losing its second-line center, one of its most reliable offensive producers, and someone who stands behind only Filip Forsberg on the club’s scoring leaderboard.
For Novak, this injury represents a moderate setback in a crucial platform season.
Although Novak has been undeniably stellar since breaking into the NHL last season, (he scored 17 goals and 43 points in 51 games last year) he doesn’t exactly have the largest sample size of success at the game’s highest level.
Sure, Novak was moderately productive for four seasons as a Minnesota Golden Gopher and hovered around the point-per-game mark at times for AHL Milwaukee, his NHL resume, outside of last season and the start to this year, is relatively thin.
That’s relevant for Novak specifically, as he’s a pending unrestricted free agent and could very well want to cash in on the open market. Missing four-to-six weeks not only costs Novak a chunk of games in which he could again showcase his talent, it also confirms that he will, barring an extension, enter the open market without a single complete NHL season of productivity.
Assuming he gets there, will he still be an in-demand player on the open market? Absolutely, as he won’t even turn 27 until April and has so far scored 12 points in 14 games. If he can put together a near-point-per-game season, he’ll still be hitting free agency as a relatively young, highly productive pivot. Those types of centers almost never hit the open market.
But even though Novak will likely still be in a solid position to hit free agency, the reality is that this injury is a setback in terms of Novak’s ability to reach the apex of his earning power this summer.
Replacing Novak on the Predators’ roster is Stastney, a 23-year-old left-shot defenseman. The Illinois native has been a developmental success story for the Predators, as he’s begun to establish himself as a quality depth defenseman, someone who can hold down a top-four role in the AHL and then survive in the NHL when called upon.
That’s a better-than-expected outcome for a fifth-round pick, and the silver lining to Novak’s injury is that the Predators will get another chance to see what Stastney can do at the NHL level.
With this recall, the Predators are now carrying eight defensemen on their roster, though with Ryan McDonagh out of the lineup Stastney could see some ice time should head coach Andrew Brunette prefer him to Marc Del Gaizo, who brings more offensive touch but a bit less defensive reliability compared to Stastney.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Calgary Flames Reassign Dustin Wolf
The Calgary Flames have announed that goaltender Dustin Wolf has been reassigned to the team’s AHL affiliate, the Calgary Wranglers.
This move is an indication that starting netminder Jacob Markström is now ready to return from the day-to-day injury that has kept him out of the lineup for a week.
Although Markström and Dan Vladař have struggled so far this season, the Flames’ $6MM AAV commitment to Markström has him entrenched as the team’s starter. Same for Vladař and the Flames backup goalie role, although the $2.2MM AAV goalie’s grip on that role is notably shakier.
Although Wolf has been the AHL’s best player since making his full-time debut in 2021-22, the aforementioned situation in the Flames’ net means Wolf getting sent down is no huge surprise. The AHL MVP is still just 22 years old, and does not require waivers to be sent to the minors.
So for Calgary, it makes more sense for the team to keep Wolf as the AHL starter rather than have him either stapled to the bench as a third goalie, or as a backup to Markström potentially at the cost of Vladař being claimed on waivers.
Wolf returns to the minors having at least made his NHL debut, though, in a 4-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators. Wolf’s .924 save percentage so far this season in the AHL is more reflective of his talent than his performance in one NHL start, of course, and assuming Wolf can continue his stellar play in the AHL, another recall may not be far off should the Flames’ two goalies continue to struggle.
Minor Transactions: 11/12/23
The looming presence of the NFL regular season on the sports calendar as well as the European hockey international break means that today’s schedule around the world of hockey is lighter than normal. There are still a few games on the docket, including a contest in the AHL between the Hartford Wolf Pack and Providence Bruins that was the Wolf Pack interim head coach Steve Smith.
Even though today isn’t very busy in terms of game action, the transaction wire remains active as teams around the world add, subtract, and extend players. As always, we’ll keep track of notable moves here.
- Ottawa Senators 2022 third-round pick Tomas Hamara was traded in the OHL, sent to the Brantford Bulldogs from the Kitchener Rangers in exchange for two draft picks. The 19-year-old defenseman, who has represented Czechia at two IIHF World Junior Championships, has scored just three points in 18 games for Kitchener this season and will look for an uptick in production with the Bulldogs.
- 25-year-old Norwegian netminder Jonas Arntzen has signed a three-year contract with his current club, Örebro HK of the SHL. Arntzen is currently in his fourth season as the backup to former NHLer Jhonas Enroth with Örebro, and he even played in 13 playoff games last season as Örebro made a run to the SHL Semifinals. This season, he has played five games and posted a .899 save percentage.
- Journeyman Swedish netminder Robin Rahm has added a seventh country to the list of nations he’s played professional hockey in, signing a one-month contract with Slovenia’s HK Olimpija Ljubljana. The 37-year-old joins the ICEHL side to fill the void left by an injury to starter Lukáš Horák. Rahm has a .901 save percentage in 30 career ICEHL games, all of them from 2018-19 with EC Graz. In addition to that move in net. Ljubljana has also announced that forward Ville Leskinen has had his short-term deal converted to a full-time contract, coming after he scored four goals and five points in 12 games with the club.
- Czech Extraliga club HC Vítkovice have signed forward Marcel Barinka, 22. The former Halifax Mooseheads forward was in the midst of his fourth season in the DEL, having bounced from Cologne to Berlin to Augsburg and then finally to Iserlohn. Barinka has had success playing internationally with Czechia but has struggled to find the scoresheet at the club level. The hope will be that he can unlock some offense with Vítkovice, who rank 1oth out of 14 clubs in the Czech Extraliga in goals scored.
This page may be updated throughout the day.
Ottawa Senators Recall Jacob Larsson
The Ottawa Senators have announced that defenseman Jacob Larsson has been recalled from the team’s AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators.
This recall brings the Senators to a full 23-man roster, and adds a sixth defenseman to their roster under normal conditions. As noted by CapFriendly, Tyler Kleven and Jacob Bernard-Docker are on the Senators’ roster under emergency conditions.
Larsson, 26, is a 2015 first-round pick who has nearly 200 games of NHL experience. While he never quite lived up to the hype as a top prospect for the Anaheim Ducks, Larsson’s strong skating has kept him around in North America. Larsson played in 55 games for AHL Belleville last season, and earned seven NHL games with the Senators. This season, he’s scored two goals in 10 games for Belleville.
With the Senators preparing to head to Sweden for games on November 16th and 18th, this recall not only adds some additional defensive depth to their roster, but also serves as a nice reward for Larsson. Larsson, who is Swedish, has played in both the SHL and HockeyAllsvenskan, and has represented Sweden at IIHF tournaments, including two World Junior Championships.
New Jersey Devils Reassign Max Willman
According to the AHL’s official transactions wire, the New Jersey Devils have reassigned forward Max Willman to their AHL affiliate, the Utica Comets. In a corresponding move, the Comets have reassigned forward Erik Middendorf has been reassigned to the Devils organization’s ECHL affiliate, the Adirondack Thunder.
Willman is a 28-year-old center who signed a one-year, $775k contract with the Devils in the offseason. After his five-year collegiate career ended, Willman, a former Buffalo Sabres draft pick, began his pro career in the ECHL with the Reading Royals. He scored 25 points in just 20 games, earning a quick call-up to the AHL with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
Willman would go on to establish himself as a regular player for the Phantoms over the next few years, even earning a total of 50 NHL games with the Philadelphia Flyers.
He was signed by the Devils over the summer to bolster the organization’s forward depth, and he has played a heightened role for the Comets than what he normally received with Lehigh Valley. He’s responded to getting first-line minutes with production, as he’s posted seven points in seven games.
The Devils rewarded his hot start with an NHL call-up, and he played in two games for the club. He played 11-12 minutes in each contest and even scored a goal against the Chicago Blackhawks before settling in as a healthy scratch.
With the Devils optimistic that Colin Miller will be able to return to the lineup on their two-game road trip, sending down Willman clears a spot on the Devils’ roster that can go to Miller when he is able to be activated off of injured reserve.
With Willman back on Utica’s roster, Middendorf was returned to Adirondack. The 23-year-old former Michigan State Spartan is in his first full season as a professional player, and he has gotten off to a good start for the Thunder. He’s scored three goals and four points in five games, and was rewarded with an AHL call-up. He registered one shot on goal during the Comets’ loss against the Rochester Americans on November 10th, and now he’ll return to the Thunder having gotten a taste of AHL hockey.
Colorado Avalanche Sign Joel Kiviranta
The Colorado Avalanche have signed forward Joel Kiviranta to a one-year, two-way $775k contract, according to a team announcement.
Kiviranta originally began the season on a PTO with the Avalanche, spending training camp and preseason with the team. He then signed an AHL contract with the Colorado Eagles, and after a strong start there he’s earned a full NHL deal.
The 27-year-old Finnish winger has scored six points in 10 games for the Eagles so far this season, where he has played in a first-line role. This season has been Kiviranta’s second in the AHL, as he made his debut in North America with the Texas Stars in 2019-20.
For the last three seasons, Kiviranta has exclusively played in the NHL with the Dallas Stars. He struggled to make an impact in 2022-23, scoring eight goals and nine points in 70 games.
Kiviranta is perhaps best known for his playoff exploits, something Avalanche fans are all too familiar with. He scored five points in 15 games on the Stars’ run to the Western Conference Finals last season. He also made headlines in the 2019-20 playoffs when he, as a rookie, scored a hat trick in Game Seven against the Avalanche, eliminating them from the Western Conference Semifinals in overtime.
Now, Kiviranta finds himself on the other side of things as a key AHL contributor for the Eagles. Now that he’s signed this NHL deal, he’ll have a chance to play in the NHL this season in Colorado.
Seattle Kraken Reassign Devin Shore
The Seattle Kraken have reassigned forward Devin Shore to their AHL affiliate, the Coachella Valley Firebirds.
Forward Brandon Tanev, who has been out with an injury since October 10th, was a full participant in practice today in Seattle. In order to activate him and return him to coach Dave Hakstol’s lineup, the team needed to clear a roster spot, so Shore is headed to the AHL.
Shore has been with the Kraken since October and played in the team’s game last night against the Edmonton Oilers. A veteran bottom-six center, Shore has 431 career NHL games on his resume. He scored one goal and two points with the Kraken this season, skating in a total of nine games.
He spent last season as a depth forward for the Oilers, scoring nine points in 47 games. Shore hasn’t been a full-time AHLer ever in his career, so it’s likely that he’ll find his way back to the Kraken roster at some point this season.
Montreal Canadiens Recall Gustav Lindström, Loan Joel Armia To AHL
The Montreal Canadiens have recalled defenseman Gustav Lindström, according to a team announcement. In a corresponding move, the Canadiens loaned Joel Armia to their AHL affiliate, the Laval Rocket.
The rationale behind these two roster moves is quite clear. The Canadiens were carrying only six defensemen, in large part thanks to the fact that they are carrying three goalies on their 23-man roster.
With defenseman Jordan Harris dealing with an injury and currently a game-time decision for tonight’s contest against the Vancouver Canucks, the Canadiens needed an extra defenseman on their roster to provide security in case Harris can’t play.
With David Savard injured, the state of the Canadiens’ defensive depth chart leaves Lindström as the team’s seventh defenseman. So the veteran has been elevated to the NHL roster, leaving the Rocket just before their game against the Manitoba Moose.
In order to recall Lindström the Canadiens needed to clear room on their roster, and to do so they’ve sent Armia to the AHL. Armia, who cleared waivers earlier this season, was a healthy scratch for the Canadiens’ win last night over the Boston Bruins. With four goals and five points for the Rocket this season, he’d be a major addition to the Laval lineup should he dress for any games.