Jake Evans Drawing Trade Interest
Little has changed for the basement-dwelling Canadiens to start the season. Their 4-6-1 record has them tied with the Bruins for last place in the Atlantic Division, and their -15 goal differential is second-worst in the league, behind only the Sharks’ -17 mark.
The slow start can mainly be attributed to poor team defense. The Habs are controlling an abysmal 43.2% of shot attempts and 41.2% of high-danger chances at 5-on-5, contributing along with average goaltending to a league-worst 4.18 goals against per game. But a lack of high-powered offense despite a fiery-hot top line of Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovský and Nick Suzuki isn’t helping matters either. With patience slowly beginning to run thin, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet wrote recently that general manager Kent Hughes is “looking for an edge up front,” just not at the expense of any up-and-comers they think could make an impact in the next couple of years.
But the Habs have a bevy of legitimately useful NHL talents, especially down the middle, that could be flipped in hopes of landing a piece with more offensive punch. One of them is 28-year-old Jake Evans, who sources tell Marco D’Amico of Responsible Gambler is drawing early-season trade interest from “at least three teams.”
A seventh-round pick back in 2014, Evans has consistently shouldered third-line minutes over the past few seasons. While doing so, he’s posted decent possession metrics in challenging even-strength deployment for one of the league’s worst defensive teams. He’s kept that up this season, rocking a 43.4 CF% and a 48.3 xGF% that ride above team averages. He’s also upped his game offensively in a small sample, scoring twice and adding three assists for five points in 11 games. That works out to 0.45 per game, a marginal uptick on the 28 points in 82 games (0.34 per game) he recorded last season.
Evans isn’t much of a chance generator on his own. After recording 124 shots on goal in 72 games in 2021-22, leading to a career-high 13 goals and 29 points, he’s only averaged around one shot per game. He gets involved physically, however – his 65 blocked shots ranked second among Habs forwards last season behind Slafkovský. Since making his NHL debut in the 2019-20 season, he’s also been their most oft-deployed forward on the penalty kill, averaging 2:27 per game while shorthanded over his career. He’s averaged 3:31 on the PK this year, 38 seconds more than second-place Christian Dvorak.
But Evans is a pending unrestricted free agent, and given his age, he’s likely playing the most effective hockey of his career. That means he won’t be a core part of the Canadiens teams the organization hopes to challenge for playoff spots in the next few years, and if he does stick around, it would be in a reduced role. With his career-average 51.0 FOW%, he can help more competitive teams looking to add a more defensively responsible pivot to their bottom six.
As D’Amico points out, the Canadiens aren’t just considering changing their forward group. They would also like to add a right-shot defenseman if possible. While Evans alone won’t get them a premier talent there, flipping a player who’s questionable to re-sign could at least help them shore up their depth at the position.
Mathew Barzal Leaves Road Trip, Being Evaluated For Upper-Body Injury
The Islanders announced Friday that star forward Mathew Barzal has left their road trip and has returned to New York to be evaluated for an upper-body injury. The club will announce a return timeframe in the next few days after he meets with doctors.
Things keep shifting from bad to worse for the Isles, who have dropped three straight and are now last in the Metropolitan Division with a 3-5-2 record. However, they do have games in hand on the sixth-place Flyers and seventh-place Penguins, both of whom they trail by one point. Their league-worst 2.10 goals per game is the major culprit of their struggles, though, and Barzal’s absence certainly won’t help.
It had been an underwhelming start to the season for Barzal, now in his ninth season on Long Island, before sustaining the injury. It’s unclear when it occurred – he logged a whopping 22:46 of ice time against the Blue Jackets in Wednesday’s shutout loss. But he’s been limited to two goals and three assists in 10 appearances with a -3 rating, a rate of production that’s been sliced in half from last year’s point-per-game showing. He’s averaging 2.3 shots on goal per game, down from 3.0 last season. His possession numbers are still substantial, even if his partnership with Bo Horvat on the team’s first line hasn’t been gelling after new linemate Anthony Duclair landed on LTIR with a leg injury last week.
Simon Holmström had been a fixture as the top-line left wing alongside Barzal and Horvat since Duclair’s injury. That experiment will end with Barzal out as the Islanders turn to their veterans for more offense. Anders Lee and Jean-Gabriel Pageau will move up from middle-six roles to flank Horvat on the first line tonight against the Sabres, reports Andrew Gross of Newsday. After sitting as a healthy scratch for three straight, Oliver Wahlstrom will re-enter the lineup.
However, the Isles’ injury situation is not all bad. Head coach Patrick Roy told reporters, including Stefen Rosner of NHL.com and The Hockey News, that defenseman Alexander Romanov will be a game-time decision but will likely return after missing three games with an upper-body injury. He’ll return to his top-pairing role with Noah Dobson – the duo has controlled 51.4% of expected goals when deployed together this season, per MoneyPuck. Romanov, 24, had two assists in seven games before exiting the lineup.
Avalanche Recall Nikita Prishchepov
The Avalanche announced that they’ve recalled forward prospect Nikita Prishchepov from AHL Colorado ahead of tomorrow’s game against the Predators. Veteran depth piece T.J. Tynan is also back up on the NHL roster after being papered down yesterday to accrue cap space and delay his temporary waiver exemption.
With Matthew Stienburg suspended for two games for charging Lightning defenseman Erik Černák in Wednesday night’s loss, the injury-plagued Avalanche didn’t have the roster flexibility to replace him in-house. He was sent down to AHL Colorado yesterday, freeing up his roster spot but delaying the commencement of his suspension until he returns to the NHL roster. That meant two recalls were coming today – Tynan plus a new face from their minor-league affiliate.
That new face is Prishchepov, who’s now poised to make his NHL debut tomorrow, months after the Avs took him in the seventh round of the 2024 draft. The 20-year-old was an overage pick who’d been passed over in the 2022 and 2023 drafts but worked his way into consideration with 22 goals and 67 points in 63 games for QMJHL Victoriaville in his third and final season of junior hockey. Colorado inked the Russian center/left-winger to an entry-level contract early last month after a decent training camp, which proved prudent in hindsight.
Prishchepov is off to a decent start to his professional career, scoring once and adding three assists in six AHL games with 8 PIMs and a +3 rating. It’s good production early on from the 6’1″ forward, but it’s clear he’s a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option this early on in his development.
Unfortunately for the Avs, their injury situation up front constitutes an emergency. They were already without top-six forwards Gabriel Landeskog, Artturi Lehkonen and Valeri Nichushkin to begin the season. Ross Colton and Jonathan Drouin have since joined them on injured reserve, although the latter is close to returning. Miles Wood is also day-to-day with an undisclosed injury. However, he won’t be out long enough to warrant an IR placement, meaning the Avalanche only had 11 healthy forwards available against Tampa. Oliver Kylington, one of their two extra defenders on the roster, slotted in as their third-line left wing.
Prishchepov still has two seasons left after this one on his ELC. He costs $806.7K against the cap while on the NHL roster, although that’s somewhat irrelevant for the Avs right now with so much money stashed on long-term injured reserve. He’ll be a restricted free agent in the summer of 2027.
Predators Sign Ozzy Wiesblatt To Two-Year Extension
The Predators have signed forward prospect Ozzy Wiesblatt to a two-year, two-way extension, per general manager Barry Trotz. The deal is worth $775K per season at the NHL level, but his minor-league salary wasn’t disclosed.
It’s a nice bit of organizational security for the 2020 first-round pick of the Sharks, who’s had a peculiar last few months. The 22-year-old winger was in his second season with the Sharks AHL affiliate, the San Jose Barracuda, last year. But after posting underwhelming rookie totals, he still struggled to pop off offensively on one of the AHL’s worst teams. After scoring three goals and 11 points in 34 games and struggling to get much playing time, the Sharks loaned him to Nashville’s affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals, without rescinding his NHL rights.
Wiesblatt finished the season with a goal and five assists in 16 appearances for Milwaukee. He appeared to gain more confidence in postseason play, registering nine points in 15 Calder Cup Playoff games as the Admirals advanced to the Western Conference Final. That showing piqued the Preds’ interest enough to acquire his NHL rights in June, sending the signing rights to forward Egor Afanasyev to the Sharks in return.
Now in the final year of his entry-level contract, the Calgary native has two assists and a +1 rating in six appearances for Milwaukee in 2024-25. He’s still likely a ways away from seeing NHL action, but he’s done enough to secure an extended minor-league audition. He has plenty of runway to continue his development and rediscover the form that led him to churn out 25 goals and 70 points in 64 games in his draft year for WHL Prince Albert, convincing San Jose to select him with the final pick of the first round.
Wiesblatt will be 25 years old when his extension expires in the summer of 2027. He’ll be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights at that time and will have two years of team control left.
Blue Jackets To Activate Dmitri Voronkov From Injured Reserve
The Blue Jackets will have left-winger Dmitri Voronkov in the lineup for the first time this season tonight against the Jets as he makes his return from an upper-body injury, head coach Dean Evason told reporters (including the team’s Jeff Svoboda). He’ll be activated from injured reserve, but with ample cap space and an open roster spot, no corresponding transaction is necessary.
Voronkov, 24, had his start to his sophomore NHL season delayed when he sustained the injury late in Columbus’ preseason schedule against the Penguins. The initial prognosis wasn’t good, but it quickly became apparent that Voronkov wouldn’t require surgery to address the issue and would be back in weeks, not months. He returned to practice late last week, so he’s had a bit of run-up before re-entering the lineup.
It’s a legitimately impactful bit of news for the Blue Jackets, who have won two in a row and are now in wild-card position early on with a 5-3-1 record through nine games. Their offense clicking at a top-10 rate with 3.89 goals per game has much to do with that, and Voronkov’s return should only help them in that regard. The 2019 fourth-round pick arrived in North America last season after spending the prior five years with Ak Bars Kazan of Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League. He made an immediate impact in a middle-six role, finishing fifth on the team in scoring with 34 points (18 G, 16 A) in 75 games. With Voronkov on the ice at even strength, Columbus controlled 50.4% of shot attempts and 52.2% of expected goals, considerably above team averages.
Evason said that his return will send late-offseason pickup Kevin Labanc to the press box. Signed to a one-year league-minimum pact after being released from his professional tryout with the Devils, the 28-year-old had points in four of his last five games and five assists in seven games overall with a +3 rating. Nonetheless, it’ll be his third healthy scratch of the young season.
Voronkov is a pending restricted free agent. He’s in the final season of his entry-level contract, which earned him a $92.5K signing bonus over the summer and pays him a base salary of $832.5K this season for a cap hit of $925K. He’ll be eligible for arbitration.
Panthers Reassign Patrick Giles
The Panthers announced that they’ve loaned center Patrick Giles to AHL Charlotte. As expected, this opens the cap space necessary to activate Tomáš Nosek from long-term injured reserve before this afternoon’s Global Series game against the Stars.
Giles, 24, is waiver-exempt and never stood much chance of sticking around on the NHL roster after Nosek was ready to return. The undrafted free agent signing out of Boston College has played nine games since being called up in the first few days of the season, but the numbers show he’s not ready for a full-time job. The 6’4″, 205-lb forward went 14 for 47 on draws (29.8 FOW%), posted a -1 rating, and managed only four shots on goal while failing to record a point. He averaged 7:23 per game, and the Panthers were caved in for those limited minutes he was on the ice, controlling only 37.6% of shot attempts at even strength. That’s despite Giles receiving 63.3% of his zone starts in the offensive end.
This is Giles’ first season signed to an NHL contract. He’d spent the last two on AHL deals with Charlotte, with 37 points (16 G, 21 A) in 148 games with a +2 rating. In June, he inked a two-year entry-level contract with Florida, making him a restricted free agent with arbitration rights in 2026.
Nosek coming off LTIR means he’ll be making his Panthers debut in a mid-season neutral site game in Finland, which is certainly unusual. The 32-year-old bottom-six fixture inked a one-year, one-way league minimum pact with the Cats over the summer. He’ll center Florida’s fourth line between A.J. Greer and Mackie Samoskevich, adding 434 games of NHL experience to the unit. He’ll be a significant upgrade over Giles in the role without considering point totals, boasting a career 54.4 FOW% and an impressive 51.4 xGF% at even strength, considering his usual defensive deployment. Nosek is coming off a tough year with the Devils, though, limited by injuries to six points and a -11 rating in 36 games.
Golden Knights Reassign Brendan Brisson
The Golden Knights announced yesterday night that they’ve assigned winger Brendan Brisson to AHL Henderson. No corresponding transaction was made, so Vegas is left with an open spot on the active roster.
Brisson, the Golden Knights’ first-round pick in 2020 (No. 29 overall), made the team out of camp for the first time this season. It’s been a nightmarish start for him, though, while many other of Vegas’ depth scorers have succeeded. He’s without a point and has posted a -3 rating in seven games, averaging 10:11 per contest. He’s been a healthy scratch on four occasions and has a combined -4 rating in his last two outings. The Los Angeles native has seven shots on goal and has controlled only 43.8% of shot attempts and 33.9% of expected goals when deployed at even strength.
It’s not what the Knights expected out of the 23-year-old, especially after he recorded two goals and six assists for eight points in his first 15 NHL appearances last season throughout a few call-ups. He’s been buried in fourth-line minutes and has now effectively lost his lineup spot to preseason waiver claim Cole Schwindt, who had two assists and a +3 rating against his former team, the Flames, in just 9:02 of ice time on Monday.
Many expected Brisson’s emergence to be critical for the Golden Knights this season to replace the scoring lost by the departures of Michael Amadio, Jonathan Marchessault and Chandler Stephenson in free agency. Instead, it’s been players like Pavel Dorofeyev (6 G, 3 A in 11 GP), Tanner Pearson (3 G, 4 A in 11 GP) and Brett Howden (5 G in 11 GP) picking up the slack for the Knights, whose 4.55 goals per game are second in the league.
Now, the speedy Brisson returns to Henderson to improve his game. He has 40 goals and 83 points in 117 appearances for Vegas’ top affiliate over the past three seasons, including 19 goals and 38 points in 52 games in 2023-24. He’s in the final season of his entry-level contract and will be a restricted free agent next summer.
Maple Leafs Assign Connor Dewar, Jani Hakanpää On LTIR Conditioning Loans
The Maple Leafs announced today that forward Connor Dewar and defenseman Jani Hakanpää will get some AHL action under their belt after being assigned to the Toronto Marlies on conditioning stints. They’ll remain on long-term injured reserve and won’t count against the NHL roster until they’re ready to return.
Unlike regular conditioning loans in which a player remains on the active roster but can play as many AHL games as are scheduled for their affiliate club over two weeks, LTIR conditioning loans can only last for up to six days or three games, whichever comes first. After the conditioning loan ends, the team must activate the player from LTIR if they’re deemed ready to return to play and haven’t sustained any setbacks in their recovery.
That means some significant roster moves will be coming for the Leafs next week, assuming Dewar’s and Hakanpää’s loans are successful. They have the necessary cap space to activate them, especially after freeing up a decent chunk of money by swapping Timothy Liljegren ($3MM cap hit) for Matt Benning ($1.25MM cap hit) in their trade with the Sharks earlier this week. But they lack actual roster space, and they’ll need to remove two players from the 23-man roster to activate them.
One of those two moves will undoubtedly be waiving depth defenseman Philippe Myers. He unexpectedly made Toronto’s opening night roster after spending most of the last two seasons in the AHL. However, he’s made no impact since doing so. Rostered as a second extra defenseman, he’s only made one appearance so far this season, posting a -1 rating in 12:11 of ice time against the Bruins on Oct. 26. The other move will be more complex. With no other obvious waiver candidates aside from Myers, general manager Brad Treliving could make his second trade in as many weeks to open up the other space.
Outside the roster shenanigans, the Leafs are close to gaining two legitimately valuable depth pieces. Dewar, 25, has donned the Maple Leaf logo before, appearing in 17 regular-season and six playoff games last season after being acquired from the Wild on trade deadline day. He was serviceable in a fourth-line role, posting a goal and four assists with a -2 rating, averaging nearly 13 minutes per game. He can easily switch between center and wing, has recorded over 120 hits in his two full NHL seasons, and averaged 2:24 per game on the penalty kill for Toronto last season after the trade, second among Leafs forwards behind David Kämpf (2:27).
Dewar filed for salary arbitration last summer after reaching restricted free agency but settled before his hearing, agreeing to a one-year, $1.18MM contract to return to the Leafs. He did so two months after receiving shoulder surgery in May. He’s been skating away from and with his teammates for almost a month now as he works his way back, and it now appears he’s not too long away from making his season debut. The 2018 third-round pick scored a career-high 11 goals in 74 appearances last season, split between Minnesota and Toronto.
When Hakanpää comes off LTIR, though, it’ll be the 32-year-old’s Leafs debut. After sitting out the last few months of the Stars’ season with a knee injury, he inked a reported two-year, $3MM deal with Toronto immediately after becoming an unrestricted free agent on July 1. But that contract was never registered with the league, a story that began gaining traction later that month. Hakanpää underwent arthroscopic surgery to address the knee injury while with Dallas but was still dealing with lingering effects, which he and the Leafs’ medical staff initially disagreed on how to move forward from. After a few months of back-and-forth, the two sides came to terms on a revised one-year, $1.47MM contract in mid-September.
A fourth-round pick of the Blues back in 2010, Hakanpää didn’t make his NHL debut until signing with the Ducks as a free agent in 2019. After brief stops in Anaheim and Carolina, the 6’6″ Hakanpää emerged as a legitimate shutdown threat in Dallas. Over the past three seasons, the right-shot defender posted 40 points (12 G, 28 A) and a +29 rating in 226 appearances for the Stars, averaging 18:02 per game with a whopping 363 blocks and 668 hits. With Hakanpää on the ice at even strength, the Stars controlled 46.6% of shot attempts and 47.7% of expected goals, with sub-50 numbers to be expected given his lack of offensive deployment.
Upon their returns, Dewar will look to unseat Kämpf, Pontus Holmberg or Steven Lorentz for a spot in Toronto’s bottom six, while Hakanpää will likely look to usurp Simon Benoit or Conor Timmins for a bottom-pairing role.
Pacific Notes: Celebrini, Montour, Brännström, Bains
Sharks rookie center Macklin Celebrini returned to the ice today for the first time since sustaining a lower-body injury in the season opener, the team relayed to reporters, including Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News. He’s now missed 10 games with the ailment and will miss his 11th tonight when San Jose hosts the Blackhawks. There’s still no change in his status, the team stressed – he remains week-to-week, so it could be well into November before the 2024 first-overall pick hits the ice again.
The 18-year-old’s NHL debut against the Blues earlier this month was a mixed bag. He scored his first NHL goal and added an assist in a 5-4 overtime loss. But he went just 1-for-14 on faceoffs, and he was hemmed in at even strength. The Sharks were out-attempted 31-12 with Celebrini on the ice.
Unsurprisingly, it’s been a tough go for the Sharks with or without Celebrini in the lineup. They remain last in the league with a 2-7-2 record, although they have rattled off back-to-back wins against Utah and the Kings. Their 2.45 goals per game are up slightly from last year’s 2.20, and Celebrini should both help and stand to benefit from that offensive uptick under first-year head coach Ryan Warsofsky.
Elsewhere in the Pacific Division:
- The Kraken will be without their top two offensive defenders against the Maple Leafs tonight. Vince Dunn is already on long-term injured reserve, and Brandon Montour will now be out as he heads home to be present for the birth of his daughter, Terry Koshan of The Toronto Sun reports. With Dunn missing most of the young campaign, Montour has taken the reins and is tied for second on the team in scoring with four goals and five assists in 10 games. He’s averaging 23:42 per game and had his first career hat trick in his most recent outing, an 8-2 win over the Canadiens on Tuesday. It’s been a strong start for the 30-year-old, who signed a seven-year, $50MM contract with the Kraken in free agency over the summer.
- The Canucks have papered defenseman Erik Brännström and winger Arshdeep Bains down to AHL Abbotsford, a move they’ve made multiple times this season to accrue cap space and delay the expiration of the former’s waiver exemption. Both will be back on the roster ahead of Saturday’s game in San Jose. Brännström especially has been strong in a depth role since coming over from the Avalanche in an early season trade, posting an assist and a +3 rating in six appearances while averaging 14:15 per game. The Canucks have controlled 53.5% of shot attempts with him on the ice at even strength.
Wild Assign Liam Öhgren, Luke Toporowski To AHL
The Wild have assigned 2022 first-round pick Liam Öhgren to AHL Iowa, the team announced Thursday. They also activated depth winger Luke Toporowski from season-opening injured reserve and sent him to Iowa along with Öhgren.
Öhgren’s reassignment prefaces the likely return of forward Ryan Hartman tomorrow from the upper-body injury that’s sidelined him for the past five games, as relayed by Michael Russo of The Athletic. But Hartman was never on IR, and they had an open roster spot anyway, so it’s not a forced transaction to create roster space. Instead, it’s a legitimate demotion for a talented but unpolished youngster who’s struggled to make an NHL impact this season.
The 20-year-old Öhgren is still new to the North American scene. The Wild signed him to his entry-level contract shortly after drafting him in the summer of 2022 but loaned him to Sweden’s Djurgårdens IF and Färjestad BK in back-to-back seasons, sliding the deal twice before finally recalling him from his overseas loan at the end of last season. The 6’1″ left-winger had a goal and assist in four games for the Wild down the stretch, averaging 14:31 per game and registering eight shots on goal.
Öhgren has shown his goal-scoring ability in the professional ranks, lighting the lamp 12 times in 26 games for Färjestad last season in the Swedish Hockey League. While he may have an NHL-ready shot, his early-season audition after making the opening night roster shows he’s got more work to do, going pointless with a -2 rating in seven appearances. He was plopped in fourth-line minutes alongside Jakub Lauko and either Frédérick Gaudreau or Marat Khusnutdinov at center, so he didn’t have the highest-skill linemates to work with. Still, he struggled to control possession, posting a 45.6 CF% and 42.5 xGF% at even strength, which are both well below team averages. He was limited to eight shots on net on 15 attempts, and he averaged just 9:33 per game.
He’ll now get the chance to work on his game in Iowa, where he went without a point and posted a -4 rating in three appearances to end last season. He’ll likely play a starring role on an understaffed team that’s 1-6-1 through their first eight games, although they did just get 2024 AHL All-Star Graeme Clarke added from the Wild’s SOIR.
They’re also adding Toporowski, whose presence on SOIR evaded us at PHR at the beginning of the season and had been absent from our roster tracker. The 23-year-old Iowa native was acquired by Minnesota from the Bruins in last year’s Pat Maroon swap and is in the second season of the two-year entry-level contract he signed with Boston in the summer of 2023. He suited up in 66 AHL contests between Providence and Iowa last season, scoring 12 goals and adding 16 assists for 28 points. The 5’11” left-winger will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights next summer.