Blue Jackets Nearing Deal With Cole Sillinger
The Blue Jackets are close to handling business with RFA forward Cole Sillinger. Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reports Columbus and Sillinger are within “striking distance” on a two-year contract.
Sillinger has been a staple on Columbus’ roster for the past three seasons after going 12th overall in the 2021 draft. The 6’1″ pivot’s 220 career appearances lead the class.
With his three-year entry-level contract going into effect immediately upon his post-draft season, this was the first summer that anyone selected in 2021 could have been eligible for restricted free agency. Other 2021 draft class RFAs this summer were Columbus’ Kent Johnson, who went seven picks ahead of Sillinger, and Lightning defenseman J.J. Moser. Kraken pivot Matthew Beniers, who went second overall, is also an RFA this summer and remains without a deal.
Last season, Sillinger seemed to get himself back on track after a major sophomore slump that saw him demoted to AHL Cleveland for a brief period. The 21-year-old set career-highs with 19 assists, 32 points and a -4 rating while averaging 16:07 across 77 games.
It was an important step to show that Sillinger likely still has a top-six ceiling, although his poor showing in the faceoff dot and middling possession metrics to date suggest he may be better served as a winger. Among Blue Jackets who took at least 100 faceoffs last season, Sillinger’s 46.3 FO% ranked fifth.
While he hasn’t established himself as a bonafide core piece for the Jackets yet, he is working his way into the conversation as a valuable role player at a young age. His 74 blocked shots tied captain Boone Jenner for the most among Columbus forwards in 2023-24, and his 119 hits ranked fourth on the team, as did his 157 shots on goal. His possession metrics trended in the right direction, too, yielding career-highs of 48.4 CF% and 46.6 xGF% at even strength.
Sillinger, who was born in Columbus while his father, Mike Sillinger, was playing for the Blue Jackets, would be an RFA upon expiry of a two-year contract. He’d only be 23 years old in the 2026 offseason and well-positioned to cash in on a long-term deal if he takes a significant step in his development.
The Canadian national will be part of a continued youth movement in Columbus this fall with a forward group that also includes the aforementioned Johnson, Yegor Chinakhov, Adam Fantilli, Kirill Marchenko, and Dmitri Voronkov.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
West Notes: Morrison, Gulyayev, Georgiev
The Kraken’s AHL affiliate, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, have reached the Calder Cup Final in each of their first two seasons of existence. They’re loading up for a third run to the championship series, signing left winger Cam Morrison to a one-year deal, per the league.
Morrison, 25, was a second-round pick of the Avalanche in 2016 but never signed, instead opting to land with the Blackhawks as a free agent in 2020 coming out of Notre Dame. He played out his entry-level contract without an NHL call-up and has spent the past few seasons bouncing between various AHL and ECHL clubs, although he’s beginning to solidify himself as a quality depth piece at the second-highest level of play in North America.
The 6’3″, 209-lb forward spent last season in the Panthers organization on an AHL contract with the Charlotte Checkers, where he had five goals and six assists for 11 points with 10 PIMs and a +5 rating in 45 games. He also appeared in eight ECHL games for the Kelly Cup champion Florida Everblades, where he had five goals and an assist.
Morrison will head out West to a Coachella Valley team set to have a solid veteran presence up front, including captain Max McCormick, Brandon Biro, and Mitchell Stephens, all of whom are under contract with the Kraken on two-way deals and have NHL experience.
More updates from the Western Conference:
- Don’t expect Avalanche prospect Mikhail Gulyayev to get his feet wet in the AHL before making his NHL debut. The defenseman told Sergey Demidov of Responsible Gambling that “my path to the NHL is to come and play right away.” Gulyayev, 19, was picked 31st overall in 2023 and remains under contract with Avangard Omsk of the Kontinental Hockey League through 2025-26. It’s likely he’ll play out the final two seasons of that deal before signing his entry-level contract with Colorado and making his NHL debut in the fall of 2026. An offensive powerhouse in the junior ranks, Gulyayev had four goals and eight assists for 12 points in 64 games for Avangard in his first full professional season last year.
- The Avalanche also have a bit of a question mark in the crease with Alexandar Georgiev entering the final season of his contract. It seems likely the pending UFA will test the market next summer, opines Aarif Deen of Mile High Sports. Georgiev currently costs $3.4MM against the cap for the strapped Avs, and Deen believes a solid season from the netminder would likely price him out of Colorado’s goaltending budget, while an underwhelming season from the Bulgaria-born goalie would likely influence the Avs to walk away. Thus, 24-year-old Justus Annunen‘s performance in his first season of full-time backup duties will be one of the bigger storylines in Denver in 2024-25.
Blue Jackets Hire Scott Ford, Mike Haviland As Assistant Coaches
The Blue Jackets have hired Scott Ford and Mike Haviland to serve as assistant coaches under new bench boss Dean Evason this season, the team announced Thursday.
They replace the outgoing Josef Boumedienne and Mark Recchi, who Aaron Portzline of The Athletic previously reported would not be returning. The club’s other two assistants from last season, Jared Boll and Steve McCarthy, will be back in 2024-25 as expected.
Ford, 44, will jump behind an NHL bench for the first time. The British Columbia native had spent the last eight seasons in the Predators organization as an assistant coach with their AHL affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals.
Before transitioning to coaching, Ford played 522 AHL games across 10 seasons, 378 of which came with the Admirals. A burly right-shot defenseman in his playing days, Ford had played or coached for Milwaukee in parts of every season since 2008-09.
Ford also spent six seasons with Evason in Milwaukee as a player and coach. He played out the final three seasons of his career with the Admirals with Evason at the helm and began coaching as Evason’s assistant for three seasons before Evason departed in 2018 to take an assistant coaching role with the Wild.
Haviland, 57, brings considerably more coaching experience to the Columbus bench than his new colleague. He’s technically an internal promotion, having spent the last two seasons with their AHL affiliate in Cleveland as their associate coach.
Before that, the Middletown, New Jersey native was named the AHL’s Coach of the Year in 2007 with the Norfolk Admirals and later won the Stanley Cup with the Blackhawks as an assistant in 2010. Prior to joining Cleveland in 2022, Haviland spent seven years as the head coach of Colorado College.
Salary Cap/Transactions FAQs: Waivers, Retention, Buyouts, More
This is the second edition of PHR’s Salary Cap/Transactions FAQ. If you’re not seeing your question answered here, check to see if we got to it in our first edition.
Today’s topics include some waiver insight, salary retention, buyout specifics, and more. Some questions have been edited for style and clarity.
cpd26: We see cap-strapped teams send young, waiver-exempt players down to AHL on paper transactions often to bank up cap space daily. Why don’t we see the same with overpaid, underperforming veterans who would clear waivers? Thinking Justin Holl, Ville Husso, Nate Schmidt (pre-last year’s buyout), Marc-Edouard Vlasic (if Sharks needed space), and Conor Sheary would be candidates… Obviously, this doesn’t work with NMCs, but none of them have one. Why do vets only get sent down for the longer term, like Jack Campbell and Calvin Petersen?
That’s a great point. The short answer is that the waiver process takes longer, and it’s easier for teams to accrue cap space by sending waiver-exempt players down to the AHL on off days, as the Stars did with Logan Stankoven. It’s a zero-risk move, especially since the player is informed it’s a paper transaction.
There are a few cons to waiving veterans, as you propose. There’s obviously little doubt they’d clear waivers, as you laid out, but you are losing a day of accumulating cap space by waiting for the waiver process to finish up. It also doesn’t give you complete cap relief, only up to $1.15MM, as that’s the maximum buriable threshold at the moment. Of course, after initially clearing waivers, there’s a grace period in which those veterans can be shuttled between leagues at will until they’ve spent 30 days on the NHL roster or played 10 NHL games, whichever comes first.
But because they’re giving you $1.15MM in relief, they also cost $1.15MM to call up again, which a lot of those cap-strapped teams can’t stomach for short-term, game-day moves. It’s more complicated to plan out long-term, and you risk damaging your relationship with the veteran and, with it, any hope that they may rebound to being worth their cap hit. That last point is probably less of a stressor/worry for front offices, but it still comes to mind.
fafardjoel: When a team retains money in a transaction, for example, 50% for a $6MM player for two years in exchange for a third-round pick, do they actually pay this money to the player? Who pays what?
Correct. The team trading the player away is on the hook, in that case, for exactly half of the player’s base salary and signing bonuses after the trade. The acquiring team pays the player the other 50% of the deal’s life.
frozenaquatic: I’m always seeing news that players opt for lower AAV contracts for a shorter term but hold out for higher AAV for longer. Wouldn’t it make sense to be guaranteed $4MM a year for eight years rather than $2MM annually for two years? What if you are terrible in those two years and can’t command $4MM? Is it worth that much of a gamble that you’ll get $6MM AAV on your next contract, which you would have to catch up money on your lower AAV short term contract?
It’s mostly about aging curves. Players don’t want to take a low-AAV, long-term deal in their early to mid-20s because it robs them of their maximum earning potential as potential UFAs in their prime in their late 20s. Yes, they run the risk of regressing and losing their value. But every contract negotiation is a gamble from one side, essentially—either the player or team. It’s quite reasonable for a player on the right side of the aging curve to bet on themselves.
Now, for a more established veteran, you’re exactly right. Recent examples of those players (Taylor Hall, John Klingberg, Vladimir Tarasenko, etc.) have almost all gotten burned by taking one or two-year deals when the market wasn’t what they wanted for long-term offers. That trend seems to have died out already this summer. But for RFA-eligible players, lower-cost bridge deals make a good amount of sense. Just ask Elias Pettersson, who bet on himself and won with his three-year, $7.35MM AAV deal that turned into an eight-year, $11.6MM AAV extension.
goosehiatt: In a buyout situation, does the player get the full balance of the contract or does he only get the portion that the team is penalized?
The player only gets two-thirds or one-third of the base salary they were originally owed, spread out over twice the remaining length of the contract at the time it was bought out. It depends on their age. Most players (26 or older) will receive two-thirds. For all players, buyouts don’t affect their signing bonuses. Those are guaranteed/paid in full after the deal is bought out.
It’s that messy calculation that determines the cap penalties for the team executing the buyout and why long-term signing bonus-heavy deals are so desirable for superstars. It’s not all about having the money paid up front, it’s also about having it protected in the event of a buyout.
MixtureBill: For waiver order, is it always based on reverse standings order, or are teams moved to the “end of the line” after making a claim? Would the last place team have priority on all waiver claims until the order is changed at the given date during the season, or once making a claim do they no longer have top priority?
Nope. If a team remains in 32nd place for eternity, they have first dibs on players on waivers for eternity.
That given date you mention is Nov. 1, by the way. So, for any players who get placed on waivers between now and November, the Sharks will still have priority, then the Blackhawks, then the Ducks, and so on.
Gmm8811: Does the AHL and ECHL operate under the NHL CBA, or do they have their own CBA?
Not only do they not share a CBA, they don’t share a players’ association. AHL and ECHL players aren’t part of the NHLPA. They’re members of the Professional Hockey Players’ Association (PHPA), which then negotiates CBAs with the AHL and ECHL on behalf of the players.
Wyatt Kalynuk Signs With Liiga’s Pelicans
Pelicans of Liiga, Finland’s top-level professional league, have signed free agent defenseman Wyatt Kalynuk to a one-year deal, per a team press release.
Kalynuk, 27, spent last season with the AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds while on a two-way contract with the Blues. He became a UFA at the end of the season after finishing fourth among Thunderbirds defenders in scoring with five goals, 13 assists and 18 points in 66 games with 65 PIMs and a -1 rating.
A seventh-round pick of the Flyers in 2017, Kalynuk spent three seasons at Wisconsin but opted not to sign with Philadelphia upon graduating. Instead, the Manitoba native inked an entry-level deal with the Blackhawks in 2020 after a junior year with the Badgers that saw him post 28 points in 36 games while serving as captain, earning Big 10 First All-Star Team honors.
Kalynuk made his NHL debut in his first professional season, suiting up in 21 games with Chicago during the abbreviated 2020-21 campaign. The left-shot defender stayed on the NHL roster or taxi squad for most of the year, doing well in a bottom-pairing role with four goals, five assists, and 25 hits while averaging 16:16 per game with a -6 rating. In his short stint with AHL Rockford that year, he was elite offensively, with 10 points in only eight games.
But things went downhill from there for Kalynuk, who played only five NHL contests the following season. His effectiveness in the minors was also diminished, but he was still Rockford’s second-highest-scoring defender with 27 points in 52 games. Still, it wasn’t enough to convince Chicago to keep him around, and they opted not to issue him a qualifying offer when his ELC expired in 2022.
Kalynuk has since played exclusively in the minors on two-way deals, suiting up for the Blues’, Canucks’ and Rangers’ primary affiliates. After failing to repeat his previous offensive success wherever he went, it’s not surprising to see the blue-liner opt for perhaps a bigger role in Finland. He leaves the AHL behind after 74 points in 187 games over the last four years.
He’ll be Pelicans’ second defenseman with NHL experience on this season’s roster, joining former Hurricane Michal Jordan. The Lahti-based club will suit up in the Champions Hockey League beginning next month after finishing as the runner-up to the Liiga championship last season.
Submit Your Questions For The #PHRMailbag
Things have slowed down considerably after a hectic rush to begin free agency. With the dog days of summer in full swing, it’s time to open up the mailbag once again.
Our last one came in the more immediate aftermath to the draft and free agency and was broken into two pieces. The first looked at whether the Golden Knights could deal from their blue line depth to improve their depth scoring, whether Utah could move on from Barrett Hayton, and a few remaining storylines to keep an eye on this offseason, among other things. The second dealt with the best lineup fit for Steven Stamkos in Nashville, how the Flyers may alter their roster ahead of Matvei Michkov‘s arrival, and the Stars’ cup chances.
You can submit a question by using #PHRMailbag on Twitter/X or by leaving a comment down below. The mailbag will run on the weekend.
PHR Live Chat Transcript: 8/7/24
PHR’s Josh Erickson hosted his weekly live chat today at 2 p.m. Central. Use this link to view the transcript.
International Notes: Beaudin, Schmiemann, Zahejsky
Some notable minor transactions from around the hockey world today as August moves along:
- Former Senators center J.C. Beaudin will remain overseas this season after signing a one-year deal with Finland’s TPS, per a team announcement. Beaudin, 27, was a third-round pick of the Avalanche back in 2015 but didn’t make his NHL debut until 2019-20 with Ottawa, posting an assist and a -4 rating in 22 games. He spent the following two seasons in the AHL with Belleville and Laval before heading overseas in 2022. He signed with Grizzlys Wolfsburg of the German DEL, where he racked up 22 goals and 48 points in 90 games over the last two seasons.
- Defenseman Quinn Schmiemann is making his first jump across the pond, as Slovakia’s HC Dukla Trencin announced on Facebook that they’ve signed the 23-year-old to a one-year contract. Schmiemann was a sixth-round pick of the Lightning in 2019 out of WHL Kamloops but never signed, instead beginning his professional career in the Canucks organization on an AHL deal with Abbotsford in 2022. Schmiemann rarely got into the lineup in Abbotsford and was sent back to the Lightning organization at last season’s AHL trade deadline, finishing the season with the Syracuse Crunch. The 6’2″, 201-lb left-shot defender had four goals and 10 assists for 14 points and a +10 rating in 67 AHL games the last two years and will now head to Europe after failing to land an NHL contract.
- A potential first-round pick in next year’s draft is coming to North America. Czech forward Vit Zahejsky has signed a scholarship and development agreement with WHL Kamloops after they selected him second overall in last month’s CHL Import Draft, the team announced today. Zahejsky is one of the younger players in the 2025 class and doesn’t turn 17 until this weekend. The 5’10”, 170-lb forward spent last season in his native Czechia with HC Karlovy Vary’s U20 club, managing 19 goals and 39 points in 42 games against much older competition. He’s currently representing Czechia at this year’s Hlinka Gretzky Cup, where he has a goal and an assist in two games.
Snapshots: Cotter, World Juniors, Murashov
The Devils were looking for some more size and speed in their bottom six when they gave up former top-10 pick Alexander Holtz in a trade with the Golden Knights to acquire Paul Cotter, general manager Tom Fitzgerald told James Nichols of New Jersey Hockey Now.
“For us today and what we wanted to accomplish, adding a guy like Paul Cotter, who we believe has upside and has a little bit of Miles Wood in him. He can skate and is physical,” Fitzgerald said. It’s easy to see the comparable drawn between the current and former Devil – both have 6’2″ frames and above-average straight-line speed. Cotter checks in nearly 20 lbs heavier than Wood, who left New Jersey in free agency in 2023 to sign a long-term contract with the Avalanche.
The 24-year-old played 138 NHL games over the last three seasons with Vegas before the trade, scoring 22 goals and 23 assists for 45 points while averaging 12:44 per game. He finished second on the Knights with 233 hits last year, which would have led the Devils by a long shot – Curtis Lazar was their leader with 179.
More from around the hockey world today:
- Before NHLers return to the international stage at the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off in February, the world’s top U-20 talents will convene again for the World Juniors in December and January. This season’s edition is in Ottawa, and well in advance of the event, The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler, Corey Pronman and Max Bultman took a crack at projecting what rosters may look like for the four traditional powerhouses.
- After signing his entry-level contract last week, Penguins goalie prospect Sergei Murashov is ready for the jump to North America, he tells Daria Tuboltseva of Responsible Gambling. The 20-year-old is hoping for a chance at NHL action this season, but he’s “ready to spend an entire season in the AHL.” “We’ll see how it goes,” Murashov continued. “It’s a new challenge for me. The Penguins’ coaches have told me about the specific aspects of playing in the AHL.” A 2022 fourth-round pick, Murashov has been one of the best goalies in the Russian junior circuit the past three seasons and had a .930 SV% and 24-4-2 record in 30 appearances with Loko Yaroslavl last season. In a six-game Kontinental Hockey League call-up to Lokomotiv, he continued his strong play with a .925 SV%, 1.84 GAA and his first professional shutout.
William Bitten Signs With Spartak Moscow
Free agent forward William Bitten has signed a one-year contract with Spartak Moscow of Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League, the team announced in a press release. He played last season with the AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds in the back half of a two-year, two-way deal with the Blues before becoming a Group VI UFA in July.
The 26-year-old only got one NHL opportunity before heading overseas – a four-game call-up with St. Louis in 2022-23. The Ottawa native logged one assist and 10 hits with a +1 rating, but failed to record a shot attempt while averaging 6:39 per game.
A third-round pick of the Canadiens in 2016, Bitten never suited up for Montreal or their AHL affiliate in Laval. He did sign his entry-level contract with them shortly before his draft rights were set to expire in 2018 after completing a four-year stint in the Ontario Hockey League, but he was traded to the Wild for Gustav Olofsson before the 2018-19 campaign began. In the Minnesota system, Bitten struggled to build on his strong offensive production in juniors, limited to 77 points in 168 games with AHL Iowa before he was traded again to the Blues in 2021.
His offensive acumen seemed to improve somewhat after the move to the Blues’ affiliate in Springfield, posting 103 points in 178 games over the past three seasons. But the speedy 5’11” forward was still never able to put himself in consideration for full-time NHL duties and has already passed through waivers unclaimed multiple times. The 2018 OHL champion now heads to Moscow, where he joins a Spartak offense headlined by former Canucks and Sharks winger Nikolay Goldobin, 2012 Stanley Cup champion Andrei Loktionov and Golden Knights prospect Ivan Morozov.