Nick Ritchie Signs In Slovakia
Former NHL winger Nick Ritchie has found a place to play for 2024-25. Slovakia’s HC Nove Zamky announced on Facebook that he’d inked a one-year deal.
Ritchie, 28, last played in the NHL with the Coyotes and Flames in the 2022-23 season. He began the year in Arizona and was a decent depth scoring option, scoring nine goals and 12 assists for 21 points in 58 games. At the trade deadline, he was dealt to the Flames for his brother, Brett Ritchie, and finished the year with five points in 16 games for Calgary.
He wasn’t re-signed upon reaching unrestricted free agency. Ritchie had to settle for a professional tryout, inking a PTO to attend the Blues’ training camp in 2023 but was released and wasn’t offered a contract. That signaled the likely end of Ritchie’s NHL career unless he could dominate on an AHL contract or overseas.
The 2014 10th overall pick attempted to do the latter, signing with Finland’s Kärpät. It didn’t go to plan, though. He scored just once and posted a whopping 70 PIMs and a -7 rating in 10 games. They mutually terminated his contract, and he finished the year in Germany with the Iserlohn Roosters, where things didn’t go much better with two points and a -4 rating in eight appearances.
Unsigned for this year up to this point, Ritchie will now look to ply his trade in a slightly less competitive European professional circuit in Slovakia. He joins Nove Zamky’s roster as the only player with NHL experience besides defenseman Shawn Lalonde, who appeared in one game with the Blackhawks in the 2012-13 season.
Barring a significant resurgence overseas, Ritchie’s NHL stats will likely remain where they are until he retires. The 6’3″ left-winger made 481 appearances for the Ducks, Coyotes, Bruins, Maple Leafs, and Flames across eight seasons, scoring 84 goals and adding 102 assists for 186 points.
Lightning To Reassign Conor Sheary
Oct. 24: Sheary has cleared waivers, per Friedman. He can now be assigned to Syracuse at will, something Eduardo A. Encina of the Tampa Bay Times reports will happen in short order.
Oct. 23: The Lightning have placed winger Conor Sheary on waivers for the purpose of assignment to AHL Syracuse, per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet.
Sheary’s time in Tampa hasn’t gone to plan since inking a three-year, $6MM contract in free agency in 2023. He missed significant time in the first half of last season with an upper-body injury and wasn’t the same after coming back, serving as a healthy scratch on several occasions later on. His four goals in 57 games were his lowest ever in a season, and his 15 points were undermined only by his 10 in 44 games with the Penguins in his rookie season in 2015-16.
Fast forward to the beginning of this season, and little has changed for the 32-year-old. He was a healthy scratch for the Lightning’s first game and has only played every other contest, going without a point and recording a -2 rating in third-line minutes alongside Michael Eyssimont and Conor Geekie. Possession quality has become an issue for the veteran, who controlled a career-low 43.5% of expected goals at even strength last season.
Sheary will likely clear waivers given the money and term left on his deal. If so, and assuming he reports to Syracuse, it will mark his first AHL action since he was part of the Penguins organization nine years ago. The preference on both sides would likely be to find a trade for Sheary, which he’d likely need to waive his 16-team no-trade list to make happen.
The Lightning can reduce Sheary’s cap hit from $2MM to $850K by stashing him in the minors.
Anthony Duclair To Miss 4-6 Weeks With Leg Injury
Oct. 24: The Islanders have received what’s likely the best-case scenario regarding Duclair’s injury. It’s indeed not season-ending and will only cost him the next four to six weeks, the team announced. That puts his absence around 13 to 20 games, not including time he’s already missed. He should return between Nov. 21 and Dec. 5.
Oct. 21: Islanders general manager Lou Lamoriello told reporters today that winger Anthony Duclair is facing a long-term absence after sustaining an apparent left leg injury Saturday against the Canadiens (via Andrew Gross of Newsday). Lamoriello estimates it won’t be a season-ending absence, but they’ll have a more specific timeline tomorrow after further testing.
Duclair, 29, now has to hit pause on his fresh start on Long Island after negotiating himself a four-year, $14MM deal in free agency over the summer. He was expected to be an impact piece for a lagging Islanders offense and appeared to fit the bill early on, logging top-line minutes with Mathew Barzal and Bo Horvat. He posted two goals and an assist in five games while posting dominant possession metrics – the trio controlled 64.6% of expected goals together, per MoneyPuck.
He’s occasionally been a standout secondary goal-scorer without being much of a defensive liability, if at all. He’s historically posted slightly above-average possession metrics, but injuries and plain old consistency issues have led to wildly different year-to-year point totals. The Quebec native showed his ability to flourish in top-six usage as recently as the 2021-22 campaign when he had a career-high 31 goals and 58 points in 74 games for the Panthers.
But Duclair tore his Achilles tendon while training the following offseason, keeping him out for the vast majority of 2022-23. He wasn’t terribly effective after returning to play down the stretch, scoring only twice in 20 appearances. He’s flipped teams twice since then, first traded to the Sharks in a cap-dump deal over the 2023 offseason and again to the Lightning as a deadline rental last season.
Duclair did the best he could on a severely undermanned Sharks offense, posting 16 goals and 27 points in 56 games before the trade. He ended the campaign on a tear in Tampa, though, scoring eight times and adding seven assists in 17 games while playing the top-line complementary role that yielded so much success from him in South Florida. The Islanders were hoping to get a similar rate of production out of him while placing him with their star forwards, but instead, they’ll lose his services for a significant portion of the first year of his contract.
For now, the outlook for this year’s Islanders becomes dicey. They’ve again struggled to score out of the gate, ranking 26th in the league with 2.60 GF/GP. Missing Duclair for an extended period certainly won’t do anything to improve that. But the Isles’ possession play at even strength has been strong, and they’re getting stellar goaltending from Ilya Sorokin (.953 SV% in 2 GP). That’s a familiar recipe that’s gotten them to the postseason in recent years, even with a subpar offense.
Lamoriello said the Islanders will add a forward on a call-up from AHL Bridgeport later in the coming days to replace Duclair on the roster. Julien Gauthier, who’s on waivers, won’t be staying on the roster with today’s news. It’s a performance-based demotion that will see him head to Bridgeport if he doesn’t get claimed. He also said that veteran enforcer Matt Martin, who remains on a PTO, isn’t a candidate for a contract at this time. Someone already in the organization will get the call.
In terms of who replaces Duclair’s minutes alongside Barzal and Horvat, today’s line rushes indicated it’ll be Simon Holmström (via Stefen Rosner of NHL.com). The 2019 first-round pick has two assists and a +1 rating in five appearances this season while averaging 13:32 per game, seeing most of his time at right wing alongside Anders Lee and Jean-Gabriel Pageau.
Jeff Vinik No Longer Majority Owner Of Lightning
The NHL’s Board of Governors approved a partial sale of the Lightning from majority owner Jeff Vinik to a group of investors led by Doug Ostrover and Marc Lipschultz, the team announced today. The sale was approved on Oct. 1, one week before the regular season began. David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reports that Ostrover and Lipschultz’s group have become majority owners of the franchise by a slight margin with the transaction, which valued the Lightning at $1.8B.
Back in August, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reported that Ostrover’s group was working on acquiring a majority stake. However, that’s not where discussions between him and Vinik Sports Group began earlier this year, Pagnotta said. It’s an incredible return on investment for Vinik, who purchased the franchise in 2010 at a paltry $93MM valuation (per Pagnotta) – a 21.4% rate of return over 14 years.
Per the details of the agreement made public by the Lightning, Vinik will retain full control over the team’s hockey operations department and continue serving as team governor for the next three years. That control will transfer to Ostrover and Lipschutz in 2027. According to the team, Vinik still plans on remaining with the organization as a minority owner, alternate governor, and board of directors member.
Under Vinik’s ownership, the Lightning had their most extended period of success. They’d won a championship before, defeating the Flames in the 2004 Stanley Cup Final, but weren’t a consistent championship contender from year to year. But in Vinik’s 14 full seasons as majority owner, Tampa made the playoffs 11 times, won the Stanley Cup twice (2020, 2021), and advanced to at least the Eastern Conference Final seven times total, including their Cup wins and two Stanley Cup Final losses (2015, 2022).
Ostrover and Lipschutz are founders of Blue Owl Capital, an alternative investment asset management company. The team said they were connected with Vinik through their relationship with Lightning minority ownership firm Arctos.
Maple Leafs Activate Joseph Woll From Injured Reserve
The Maple Leafs announced they’ve activated goaltender Joseph Woll from injured reserve. Netminder Dennis Hildeby was returned to AHL Toronto from his emergency loan in a corresponding transaction to open a roster spot.
There’s a chance Woll will make his season debut and start tonight against his hometown Blues, per TSN’s Darren Dreger. Even if not, he’ll dress as the backup to Anthony Stolarz, who initially signed with Toronto in free agency to be a 1B option behind Woll but has stolen the show thus far with a .938 SV% and 1.83 GAA through five games.
Woll, 26, spent the first couple of weeks of the regular season on the shelf due to what head coach Craig Berube called “lower-body tightness.” He was on Toronto’s opening night roster but landed on IR hours before their season opener against the Canadiens on Oct. 9. The netminder spent over a week off the ice before returning to practice last Friday.
A third-round pick of the Leafs back in 2016, Woll was a full-time NHL option for the first time last season. A high ankle sprain cost him nearly three months in the middle of the season and limited him to 25 appearances in what amounted to a three-goalie rotation with Martin Jones and Ilya Samsonov, neither of whom are still in the organization. He churned out slightly above-average numbers, logging a .907 SV%, 2.94 GAA, and 2.6 GSAA with a 12-11-1 record.
That showing, plus a sublime .964 SV% and 0.86 GAA in nearly 140 minutes of postseason action in Toronto’s first-round loss to the Bruins, earned him a three-year, $11MM contract extension over the summer that goes into effect for the 2025-26 season. This year, he still costs just $766.7K against the salary cap as part of a three-year, $2.3MM deal he signed back in 2022.
Assuming he can stay healthy for the rest of the campaign, he’ll surely eclipse the career-high 23 starts and 25 appearances he set last season. Whether he takes the lion’s share of the starts the rest of the way is another question entirely, given how well Stolarz has started the campaign, but it would be surprising to see the Leafs deviate too far away from a 50/50 split between the pipes the rest of the way.
For the 23-year-old Hildeby, his NHL debut was a mixed showing. The 2022 fourth-round pick had been on emergency call-ups at some points last season but never got into a game. Now the No. 3 option behind Stolarz and Woll after outplaying veteran Matt Murray during training camp, he was called up as soon as Woll landed on IR. He made two starts while backing up Stolarz to begin the season, looking excellent in his debut against the Devils in Toronto’s second game. But after making 21 saves on 23 shots in his debut, the Swede gave up six goals on 38 shots against the Blue Jackets in a 6-2 loss on Tuesday.
Hildeby now returns to the Marlies, where he posted a .913 SV%, 2.41 GAA, 21-11-7 record, and four shutouts in 41 games last season. It was his first in North America after spending his entire development in his native Sweden. The 6’7″, 223-lb netminder earned an All-Star Game nod for those strong numbers.
Blackhawks, Predators Looking To Add Middle-Six Center
The Blackhawks and Predators are among the teams looking to add an impact piece down the middle to aid their second and third forward lines, writes Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet.
Unluckily for them, it’s a quiet trade market, as acknowledged by Nashville general manager Barry Trotz on 102.5 FM The Game recently. “No one is trading anyone right now,” Trotz said, Friedman relayed. They’re also not the only game in town. Earlier this week, Flames GM Craig Conroy spoke to Sportsnet’s Eric Francis and acknowledged/confirmed a report from Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli that he’s looking to give his upstart Calgary club a boost down the middle.
For Nashville, the need for a No. 2 behind Ryan O’Reilly is obvious. Almost nothing has gone right for the Predators, who are last in the Central Division with a 1-5-0 record after backing up the armored truck for Jonathan Marchessault, Brady Skjei, and Steven Stamkos in free agency. But addressing what looked like the biggest hole on their roster heading into the season would likely still be a good place to start, at least once other teams start seriously considering moves.
There’s little reason to break up last year’s first line of O’Reilly, Filip Forsberg, and Gustav Nyquist, which resulted in a career year for the latter and was one of the division’s best trios. That means marquee signings Marchessault and Stamkos slot in on the wings on line two, but who to center them was always a lingering question after their July 1 additions. Currently, veteran Colton Sissons is being tasked with the role, but as a checking center, he’s grossly miscast in a top-six role. He’s also been a complete non-factor to begin the season with no points and a -8 rating in six contests, averaging under 15 minutes per game. The Preds hoped Thomas Novak might also be an option, and while he’s done more offensively with three goals in six games, he’s 11 for 30 in the faceoff dot (36.7 FOW%).
Meanwhile, the Blackhawks have deployed rotating personnel on their bottom three lines, with Connor Bedard off to a point-per-game start in his second NHL season. After playing most of last season on Bedard’s wing, Chicago wanted to move Philipp Kurashev back to the middle and cast him as their No. 2 center. It hasn’t worked out, though, as he’s already been a healthy scratch once and has just one goal and a -6 rating in six games. Andreas Athanasiou, a pending UFA, also doesn’t look like an option, with no points through five games. They have a few future options for the role internally, namely first-round picks Oliver Moore and Frank Nazar, but they’re understandably looking to take a small step forward out of their rebuild in the interim until they’re ready for that type of usage.
PHR Live Chat Transcript: 10/23/24
PHR’s Josh Erickson hosted his weekly live chat today at 2:00 pm Central. You can view the transcript using this link.
Blues Place Robert Thomas On Injured Reserve, Activate Oskar Sundqvist
12:35 p.m.: The Blues have activated Sundqvist off IR, per a team release. That fills Thomas’ vacant roster spot and has the Blues back at the maximum of 23 players. He’ll likely play tomorrow for the first time since sustaining a torn ACL against the Golden Knights in late March.
11:18 a.m.: The Blues have placed center Robert Thomas on injured reserve, per a team release. The star forward sustained a fractured ankle in last night’s loss to the Jets and will be re-evaluated in six weeks.
Thomas left the game in the second period after blocking a shot from Winnipeg’s Neal Pionk. A standard IR placement means he’d be eligible to return on Oct. 29, but he’ll be out until at least Dec. 4. That means Thomas will miss St. Louis’ next 19 games at the very least – nearly a quarter of the regular season.
The 2017 first-round pick has a laundry list of minor injuries throughout his seven-year NHL career, but seldom few have lasted more than a couple of weeks. Only one, a broken left thumb sustained in February 2021, sidelined him for as long as this ankle fracture will.
However, no injuries affected Thomas last season; he played in all 82 games for the first time. Various injuries and illnesses cost him nine games in 2022-23, and he’s also had a pair of semi-serious shoulder injuries in the past few years. But he’s still made at least 70 appearances on four occasions, including last year’s career-best 60-assist, 86-point campaign.
Now in his prime, the 25-year-old is emerging as the Blues’ top forward and one of the league’s better playmaking centers. He’s produced precisely a point per game since the beginning of the 2021-22 season, tied for 30th in the league over that timeframe. He’s also become a strong option in the dot, winning over half his draws the past few years. That was especially important for St. Louis after making natural winger Pavel Buchnevich their No. 2 center, a tricky proposition considering his career 32.5 FOW%. This year, Thomas had a goal and five assists through seven games.
Thomas joins Nick Leddy and Oskar Sundqvist on injured reserve (Torey Krug is on LTIR and out for the season after ankle surgery). They’ve opened up a roster spot with his IR placement. With Alexey Toropchenko still day-to-day with a lower-body injury, they’ll likely summon a forward from AHL Springfield before tomorrow’s game against the Maple Leafs. Captain Brayden Schenn, who has just two points through seven games but a 51.5 FOW%, could replace Thomas as their top-line center.
Sean Durzi, John Marino Undergo Surgery; Maveric Lamoureux Recalled
Utah defensemen Sean Durzi and John Marino have both undergone surgeries that will see them sit out most of the season, the team announced. Durzi will be out four to six months after having his right shoulder surgically repaired, while Marino will miss three to four months after undergoing surgery to address a lower back issue. The team later said that they’ve recalled 2022 first-rounder Maveric Lamoureux from AHL Tucson, but with a full 23-man roster, there’s still a corresponding move coming.
The team didn’t disclose when each player underwent surgery. However, if Durzi underwent it within the last few days, a six-month timeline would mean his regular season is over after just four appearances. Meanwhile, Marino should return in the lead-up to or after the league’s schedule pauses for the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off. Both players are already on injured reserve, and with over $8MM in cap space, a transfer to LTIR is unlikely for either.
It’s a regrettable development for both players and the team, although it’s not unexpected. Reports from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet and Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff indicated earlier this month that an absence of at least four months awaited Durzi. Utah head coach André Tourigny said last Friday that Marino would still be unavailable for “months.”
Durzi, who turned 26 on Monday, is in the first year of the four-year, $24MM extension he signed in June to keep him off this summer’s RFA market. Acquired by the Coyotes from the Kings in the 2023 offseason, he excelled in a top-pairing role in the desert, controlling 54.8% of shot attempts at even strength and posting 41 points (9 G, 32 A) in 76 games. Unfortunately, he’ll now miss most of his first season under that contract.
The 2018 second-round pick of the Maple Leafs has been traded twice – first from Toronto to Los Angeles in 2019’s Jake Muzzin trade and again from L.A. to Arizona in 2023. He’s now averaged 20:48 per game across 216 NHL appearances, recording 108 points with a -20 rating but a strong 51.8 CF%. Through four games this year before sustaining the injury on a hit from Devils defenseman Jonas Siegenthaler over a week ago, he had two assists and a +2 rating.
Durzi is a left-shot but played the right side throughout much of last season in Arizona. He did so again to begin 2024-25, suiting up on the right side on Utah’s first pairing alongside offseason trade acquisition Mikhail Sergachev. With Marino also out long-term, Utah will be without its top two right defensemen for most of its inaugural season.
Marino, also a trade pickup by general manager Bill Armstrong over the summer, has yet to play a game for Utah. He sustained the back injury during offseason training and never practiced with the team during training camp. He was initially listed as week-to-week and was later upgraded to day-to-day, signaling a potential return was near, but an evident setback landed him on IR to start the regular season.
Despite their recent aggressiveness in the trade market, don’t expect Utah to swing a deal for a right-shot defenseman in the coming days. Chris Johnston of The Athletic and TSN reports they “intend to lean on internal solutions,” at least for now. One of those internal solutions is the 20-year-old Lamoureux, a hulking 6’7″ right-shot defender who’s off to a hot start with Tucson in his first professional season. The former QMJHL champion and All-Star has two goals and an assist through his first four AHL games.
Utah’s injured players were already on IR before today’s news, so they’re likely sending someone down to accommodate Lamoureux’s addition to the roster. That will be depth defender Patrik Koch, Belle Fraser of the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Utah recalled the 27-year-old last week after Durzi’s injury, but he was a healthy scratch in three straight contests. Koch, a mainstay in pro leagues in Czechia and Slovakia, jumped to North America with the Coyotes organization last season. He spent most of the year in Tucson but made his NHL debut in March, posting a shot on goal and receiving a 10-minute misconduct penalty in a game against the Wild.
Lamoureux joins Robert Bortuzzo and Michael Kesselring as the right-shot defensemen on Utah’s active roster. However, both Ian Cole and Juuso Välimäki can and have played on their off side in recent days. He could make his NHL debut tomorrow against the Avalanche.
Justin Schultz Signs With HC Lugano
HC Lugano of the Swiss National League has agreed to a one-year deal with UFA defenseman Justin Schultz, per a team release. He’s headed overseas after failing to land a one-way deal, two-way deal, or even a PTO from an NHL club this offseason.
Schultz, 34, had spent the last two years in Seattle after inking a two-year, $6MM contract with the Kraken in free agency. He remained what he has been for much of the last few years, a capable depth puck-moving presence with too many defensive shortcomings to truly lock down a top-four role. He made 143 appearances in a Kraken jersey, posting 60 points (14 G, 46 A), a -19 rating, and 62 PIMs.
A second-round pick of the Ducks back in 2008, Schultz didn’t sign with Anaheim coming out of a three-year run at Wisconsin in 2012 and instead landed with the Oilers as a free agent. The two-time NCAA All-American broke into the NHL immediately, playing in all 48 games for Edmonton during the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season and finishing seventh in Calder Trophy voting. He was a top-four fixture for the Oilers, averaging over 22 minutes per night over 248 appearances in parts of four seasons, but his box stats clearly paint the picture of a one-dimensional blue-line threat – 101 points with a -78 rating.
Edmonton traded Schultz to the Penguins near the 2016 trade deadline, where he’d have the best years of his career. While Kris Letang missed significant time with injury in the 2016-17 campaign, Schultz was briefly Pittsburgh’s No. 1 defenseman. He had a career-high 12 goals, 39 assists, and 51 points with a +27 rating in 78 games for the Pens that year, finishing 10th in Norris voting, before adding 13 points in 21 playoff games to help Pittsburgh to its second straight Stanley Cup championship.
Schultz’s offensive production and all-around play continually declined from that point, though. Upon finishing up a three-year, $16.5MM extension in 2020, he landed a two-year deal with the Capitals. He played 120 games for Washington, posting 50 points (7 G, 43 A) with a -3 rating, before heading to Seattle.
A move overseas well into his 30s could signal the end of Schultz’s NHL career. If so, he finishes with 71 goals, 253 assists, 324 points, a -57 rating, and a 49.4 CF% in 745 regular season games. He joins a Lugano defense corps with two other former NHLers, Carl Dahlström and Mirco Müller.