Senators Recall Zack Ostapchuk
The Senators have recalled center Zack Ostapchuk from AHL Belleville, per a team announcement. He’ll play Ottawa’s final two games of the season instead of Mark Kastelic, who left Saturday’s shootout win over the Canadiens with an upper-body injury.
Ostapchuk, 20, got a brief stint with the Sens last month but failed to record a point in six games. He was returned to Belleville on March 22.
Before and after his first NHL call-up, the 2021 second-round pick showed flashes during his inaugural professional season but has struggled with inconsistency. In 66 games for Belleville this season, he’s scored 17 goals and has added 11 assists for 28 points and a +4 rating. The 6’3″, 205-lb forward has gotten into a fair amount of penalty trouble, too, recording 47 PIMs on the year. Most of his scoring has come in bunches – he has quite a few two-point games this season, but he has also routinely gone more than five games without getting on the scoresheet.
There’s no risk on the Sens’ part of giving him another crack in the NHL lineup for their season-ending back-to-back this week, though. They’re guaranteed a bottom-three spot in the East with a 36-40-4 record, and their final two games are against likely divisional champions in the Rangers and Bruins. It should be a good test for Ostapchuk to see how he fares against contending teams’ depth. He’s expected to center their third line, flanked by Boris Katchouk and Parker Kelly. Ottawa is dealing with a rash of injuries at forward to end the season, including star centers Tim Stützle and Joshua Norris, Kastelic, and depth winger Angus Crookshank.
While Ostapchuk signed his entry-level contract back in September 2021, it only took effect this season after sliding twice. He has two seasons remaining on his deal at a $825K cap hit and is under team control through 2029.
Jakob Silfverberg Signs With HockeyAllsvenskan’s Brynäs IF
Brynäs IF of the HockeyAllsvenskan, Sweden’s second-tier professional league, has signed Ducks winger Jakob Silfverberg to a two-year contract, the team announced. Financial terms were not disclosed. Silfverberg announced last week that he would be retiring from the NHL at the end of the season.
The 33-year-old now returns to the club where he spent the entirety of his junior and professional career before arriving in the NHL with the Senators in 2012. It’s far from an unexpected move. As far back as May 2023, reports out of Sweden indicated that Silfverberg planned to return to Brynäs after his contract in Anaheim expired this offseason.
The pair of news items over the last week put a bow on Silfverberg’s decade in SoCal, which began when the Ducks acquired him, along with Stefan Noesen and a first-round pick that became Nick Ritchie, from Ottawa for Bobby Ryan in the 2013 offseason. He’s been a mainstay in the Anaheim lineup since, suiting up 771 times over the past 11 years. The 2009 second-round pick posted 158 goals and 354 points while averaging 16:23 per game, earning Selke Trophy votes in three straight seasons from 2015-16 to 2017-18.
Now in his mid-30s, it may be ambitious for Brynäs supporters to hope Silfverberg picks up where he left off. His final season with the club in 2011-12 was nothing short of electric. He played in the top-level Elitserien (now Swedish Hockey League) and captained the club while posting 54 points in 49 games, leading the league in points per game. The two-way winger is likely in line for a middle-six role there.
Brynäs may currently be in the HockeyAllsvenskan, but there’s a strong chance Silfverberg will play in the SHL next season. They were the best team in the regular season with a 33-5-3-11 record and have advanced to the finals against Djurgårdens IF. Their best-of-seven series begins Wednesday. The winner will gain promotion back to the top level in 2024-25.
Lightning Sign Dylan Duke To Entry-Level Deal
The Lightning have signed forward Dylan Duke to a three-year, entry-level deal beginning next season, per a team announcement. Financial terms were not disclosed. The center, who the Lightning drafted in the fourth round in 2021, will immediately report to AHL Syracuse on an ATO.
Duke, 21, had been with the University of Michigan since his draft year and had his season end late last week in a national tournament semifinal loss to Boston College. He opts to turn pro after his junior year.
In 41 games this season, he scored 26 goals, 23 assists and 49 points with a +8 rating, setting career highs offensively and ranking third on the Wolverines in scoring. He’s the second high-profile Michigan player to turn pro in recent days, joining Blackhawks forward Frank Nazar.
Duke doesn’t let his small frame (5’10”, 181 pounds) stop him from being a problem for opposing netminders. He’s consistently a solid net-front presence once his team gets set up, earning most of his tallies from within 10 feet of the crease. He’s a bright spot in a relatively weak Tampa Bay pool, checking in as their fourth-best prospect in Scott Wheeler’s 2024 rankings for The Athletic.
Don’t expect to see Duke’s name on the NHL roster come opening night this fall. He’s not the fastest player in the world, and considering his frame already puts him at a disadvantage, the Lightning would probably like to see how he stacks up against professional opponents in the AHL. He also profiles more as a winger than a center at the NHL level – he shifted to wing for most of his collegiate career – likely in a middle-six role.
That’s not ideal for the Lightning, who are incredibly thin at center among their up-and-comers. However, they won’t complain about an influx of young talent at any position as their contention window slowly closes. Duke, along with top-40 picks Ethan Gauthier and Isaac Howard, are a promising group of potential secondary scorers.
Duke will be under contract with the Bolts through 2026-27. The following summer, he will be an RFA without an extension.
Red Wings Recall Ville Husso From Conditioning Stint
The Red Wings have recalled goaltender Ville Husso from his conditioning loan to AHL Grand Rapids, per CapFriendly. Unfortunately, the move doesn’t indicate the netminder is ready to return to action. He was scheduled to start for Grand Rapids on Friday against Rockford but was pulled from warmups after sustaining what Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde called a “little setback” (via Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press).
Husso, 29, landed in Detroit last year after two seasons with the Blues but struggled in his first season as a true starter. In 56 starts, he posted a .896 save percentage, a 3.11 goals-against average, four shutouts, and a 26-22-7 record.
Multiple lower-body injuries this season, the most recent of which has kept him out of action since February, have derailed his attempts to return to his elite form in a tandem role in St. Louis. He made 19 appearances earlier this season with a .892 SV%, including just eight minutes of action against the Oilers on Feb. 13 after missing nearly two months with a separate lower-body injury.
With this setback, it’s safe to assume Husso is done for the regular season. He would have been the third goalie on Detroit’s depth chart anyway, as both Alex Lyon and James Reimer have put up far better numbers as they chase the franchise’s first playoff berth in nearly a decade. Those two have posted save percentages of .906 and .905, respectively, although Lyon’s done so over a much larger sample size with 42 starts and one relief appearance.
The Wings are tied with the Capitals for the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference with 87 points through 80 games but lose the tiebreaker due to having three fewer regulation wins. Detroit has a much easier schedule over their final two games, a back-to-back home-and-home with the Canadiens starting tonight, while the Caps have to face the Atlantic Division champion Bruins and the Flyers.
Snapshots: Hronek, Hurricanes, Wood
The Canucks have one of the better defensemen on expiring deals this summer in top-pairing threat Filip Hronek. He’s broken out alongside Quinn Hughes in his first full season in Vancouver and is under team control this summer as an RFA with arbitration rights. Speaking on the Sekeres and Price podcast today, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli thinks that Hronek is in a position to land an AAV in the $8MM range this summer after Vegas blue-liner Noah Hanifin signed a max-term extension with a $7.35MM cap hit last week. With the far superior Hughes locked in at $7.85MM through 2027, however, it’s nearly unfathomable that Canucks GM Patrik Allvin would dole out that kind of cash. If the 26-year-old’s camp holds firm in that ask, a one-year deal awarded via arbitration to walk him to unrestricted free agency in 2025 could be the outcome if Vancouver doesn’t trade his signing rights.
Other tidbits from around the league this afternoon:
- A flurry of lineup changes are taking place for the Hurricanes in today’s match against the Blackhawks, the team’s Walt Ruff relays. Captain Jordan Staal and defensemen Jalen Chatfield and Brett Pesce will return after missing Friday’s win over the Blues with undisclosed injuries. Brady Skjei will exit the lineup for load management down the stretch, while winger Teuvo Teräväinen remains out for a second straight game with an undisclosed injury. It’s the second-to-last game on Carolina’s schedule, and a regulation loss today locks them into second place in the Metropolitan Division.
- The Avalanche have the services of depth winger Miles Wood back in the lineup against the Golden Knights today, per the game’s roster report. The 28-year-old had missed three games with a lower-body injury. Wood, who signed a six-year, $15MM contract to join the Avs last offseason, returns in a third-line role with Ross Colton and trade-deadline pickup Brandon Duhaime. He has nine goals and 24 points in 72 games on the year.
West Notes: Dunn, McDavid, Girard
The Kraken shut down defenseman Vince Dunn for the season ahead of today’s 3-1 loss to the Stars, GM Ron Francis told Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times. Their top blue-liner hasn’t played since sustaining an upper-body injury on April 3 against the Kings.
Dunn, 27, had barely played since the trade deadline, and his absence cost Seattle any small chance they had at making a late-season run to the playoffs. An upper-body injury sustained on a check from behind from Flames winger Martin Pospisil in early March knocked him out of action for nearly a month, and he played just one full game upon returning before taking an elbow to the head from Los Angeles winger Alex Laferriere.
While the team hasn’t confirmed, both plays involved head contact and could have resulted in concussions. As such, he’ll get an extended period of rest and will look to rejoin the team over the summer and be a full participant in training camp. His season ends after registering 46 points in 59 games, nearly last season’s exact point-per-game pace that helped him earn 11th place in Norris Trophy voting. He has three seasons remaining on his contract, which carries a $7.35MM cap hit.
Elsewhere in the Western Conference:
- The Oilers will again be without Connor McDavid tonight against the Canucks, per Sportsnet’s Jack Michaels. A regulation win without their captain would put Edmonton within one point of Vancouver for the Pacific Division title with three or fewer games remaining for both squads. McDavid has a lower-body injury that’s been nagging him for a while, he said earlier this week, although it was aggravated in his last appearance, an April 6 meeting with the Flames. Tonight will be his third straight absence, which further delays his chase for 100 assists. The 27-year-old had a whopping 24 points in his last 11 games before exiting the lineup.
- Avalanche defenseman Samuel Girard left today’s game against the Jets with an upper-body injury and didn’t return, per the team. Head coach Jared Bednar said post-game that he’s entered concussion protocol. It’s a tough blow to a team already reeling from the 7-0 loss to Winnipeg, now primed to lose home-ice advantage in their upcoming first-round series. The 25-year-old Girard has yet again anchored their second pairing behind Cale Makar and Devon Toews, ranking third among Colorado d-men in average time on ice (19:39) and fourth in points per game (0.31). While his three goals and 15 assists in 58 contests have been underwhelming offensive production from the blue-liner, he’s cleaned up his possession game after a difficult couple of seasons. His 55.9 CF% and +7.5 expected rating are his highest since 2020-21.
Central Notes: Coyotes Relocation, Neighbours, Krug, Mrázek, Mišiak
Short of an official announcement from the league, the Coyotes are relocating to Salt Lake City next season and being sold to Smith Entertainment Group, the ownership of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, with the league as an intermediary. GM Bill Armstrong traveled to Edmonton yesterday to inform the team of the relocation while on their road trip, and players and staff are expected to travel to Utah sometime next week.
Over the next few days, when a sale announcement comes, it will become clear how complex this transaction will be. One rumored piece of the sale appears to be set in stone, per John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports. Current Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo will indeed retain the intellectual rights to the franchise as part of the sale. If he can get an arena built within five years and various other benchmarks are met, he’ll have first right of refusal for a Phoenix-area team and can trigger an expansion draft. In doing so, he’d need to return the $1B he’ll receive from the league for the franchise this offseason as an expansion fee.
Other tidbits out of the Central Division:
- Blues breakout winger Jake Neighbours has likely played his last game of the season, interim head coach Drew Bannister said Saturday (via NHL.com’s Lou Korac). The 22-year-old is dealing with an upper-body injury he sustained on April 6 against the Sharks. He’s missed the last three games and is on track to miss St. Louis’ final two after they were eliminated from playoff contention last night. It puts a bow on a good campaign for the 2020 first-round pick, who set career highs with 27 goals, 11 assists and 38 points in 77 games while creeping into top-six minutes (15:42 per game). While his nearly 19% shooting rate is likely unsustainable, he’s been steadily increasing his shot volume – averaging 1.88 per game this season compared to 1.23 last year. He’ll be eligible to sign an extension beginning July 1, with his entry-level contract set to expire in 2025. Bannister also said that defenseman Torey Krug won’t suit up in tomorrow’s game against the Kraken but could return for their final game of the season in Dallas on Wednesday. The left-shot offensive defenseman is day-to-day with an upper-body injury sustained on April 10 against the Blackhawks, already keeping him out of one game.
- A pair of European Blackhawks players found themselves in the news today, including starting goaltender Petr Mrázek. He told reporters today, including Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times, that he’ll join the Czech national team at the conclusion of the season in advance of this year’s World Championship in Prague and Ostrava. The 32-year-old has only suited up at the Worlds twice, once as a teenager in a backup role in 2012 and again as the starter in 2017, posting a .881 SV% and 2.47 GAA in four outings. It was quite a strong season for Mrázek in the Chicago crease, managing to stay healthy and start a career-high 51 games. He did so quite competently, recording a .906 SV% behind a leaky Blackhawks blue line that resulted in him accumulating 4.7 goals saved above average, his highest mark in eight years. He or Ducks up-and-comer Lukáš Dostál will likely occupy the starter’s crease for Czechia at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy. Additionally, 2023 second-round pick Martin Mišiak signed an ATO with AHL Rockford today and will make his North American professional debut. The Slovak winger spent the 2023-24 campaign with the Erie Otters of the Ontario Hockey League, racking up 23 goals and 47 points in 60 games with a -14 rating.
Blackhawks Sign Frank Nazar To Entry-Level Deal
Blackhawks first-round pick Frank Nazar will sign his entry-level deal and join the team immediately, The Athletic’s Scott Powers reports Saturday. Nazar, the 2022 13th overall selection, had his sophomore season at the University of Michigan end Thursday after Boston College eliminated them in the semifinals of the national tournament.
The 20-year-old was the second of three first-round selections Chicago made that year, five picks after defenseman Kevin Korchinski. A collegiate rival of Nazar’s, University of Minnesota defenseman Sam Rinzel, was selected in the mid-20s.
The Detroit-born forward is an exceptionally intelligent passer and was one of six Wolverines to hit the point-per-game mark this season, notching 41 points (17 goals, 24 assists) in 41 games. He struggled away from the puck, posting a -7 rating, second-worst on the team and 11 points worse than any other elite offensive threat on the stacked Big 10 member squad.
Part of that was due to a slow start. Nazar missed all but 13 games last season due to hip surgery and was sluggish early on, logging four points in his first seven games. That changed in a 10-1 drubbing of Lindenwood in late October, in which he rattled off three assists and kickstarted an eight-game point streak with four multi-point outings.
That momentum carried into the New Year when he joined Team USA for the World Juniors and notched eight assists and a +9 rating in seven games to help fuel the Americans’ gold medal run. Upon returning to campus, he posted 14 points in six games with Michigan but was more inconsistent in closing out the season, ending the year with three goals and two assists in seven games of Big 10 and national tournament play.
Viewed as a steal at the time of his draft, Nazar was billed as a top-10 threat by multiple public scouting outfits. He hasn’t displayed the overall development and consistency you’d like to see from a top-10 pick yet, but he does look to still provide solid value for his 13th-overall billing. Nazar remains a bit of a raw talent, but Chicago will get him to at least one of their final three games this season to see where he’s at compared to NHL competition. A strong showing now could boost his chances of cracking next season’s opening night roster, although his overall game would likely benefit from a little bit of seasoning with AHL Rockford.
If all goes well, Nazar will be a top-nine lock by the end of his entry-level deal in 2026 and join the multitude of other recent Blackhawks first-rounders in helping the franchise become consistent championship contenders once again. The 5’9″ forward can play both center and wing but is likely more suited for the latter at the professional level. He was the second-ranked prospect in the organization behind 2023 first-round pick and University of Minnesota center Oliver Moore in The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler’s February ranking.
The financial terms of Nazar’s ELC have yet to be disclosed. It will be a three-year deal, though, and upon expiry, it will make him an RFA, putting him in line to need new deals at the same time as Korchinski and franchise center Connor Bedard.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Coyotes, NHL Have Made “Significant Progress” On Salt Lake City Relocation
Friday: Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and PHNX Sports’ Craig Morgan both report that Coyotes players were informed today that relocation to Salt Lake City is indeed happening. Morgan suggests an official announcement could come on April 17, the date of Arizona’s final home game.
Wednesday: The Coyotes, in conjunction with the NHL, have made “significant progress” today on an agreement to relocate the team to Salt Lake City and sell the club to Smith Entertainment Group, owners of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports. The league reportedly sent a memo to its Board of Governors today after a report from Seravalli this morning said the NHL was preparing a contingency plan for a Coyotes relocation, including two distinct schedule matrices. A relocation is not final, but reports indicate the tide is turning that way.
Neither the Coyotes nor the league, which have routinely been quick to respond to developments in their arena saga as they become public, has commented on today’s reports. Subsequent reporting from ESPN’s Emily Kaplan and Greg Wyshynski says the NHL would act as an intermediary between Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo and Ryan Smith’s SEG in a sale, purchasing the club from Meruelo for $1B before selling to SEG at an increased $1.3B. The $300MM difference would be split among the league’s other 31 owners as a relocation fee, less than half of the $650MM fee Seattle Kraken ownership paid for an expansion franchise in 2021.
Seravalli says that Coyotes players have possibly “been informed that something of a ‘verbal’ agreement is in place to relocate to Salt Lake City,” but has “received pushback on that characterization of talks.” Wyshynski reports that the team has not formally informed its players of any sale agreement and that they’re following relocation developments through social media. Regardless, an official announcement on relocation is likely to come before the end of the month, per Kaplan and Wyshynski.
There is no indication that a Salt Lake City relocation would end Meruelo’s bid for a plot of land in north Phoenix that’s set to be awarded at a public auction on June 27. Kaplan, Seravalli and Wyshynski all report that “Meruelo would be first in line to purchase an NHL expansion team should the league decide to return to Arizona,” a decision that would be contingent on a suitably located arena to avoid the attendance issues that plagued the team when they operated out of Gila River Arena in Glendale from 2003 to 2022. Meruelo could also retain the branding and naming rights to the Coyotes franchise as part of this transaction, per Seravalli, which could be applied to an expansion franchise after the north Phoenix plot is developed.
Upon relocating to Salt Lake, the franchise formerly known as the Coyotes would play 2024-25 out of the Delta Center, which is shared with the Jazz. However, much like the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where the Islanders played from 2014 to 2020, the arena isn’t optimized for hockey. It has significant sightline issues at either end of the rink.
Kaplan and Wyshynski say that “NHL leadership has made it clear to Smith they would need hockey-specific renovations for the Delta Center to be a permanent NHL home,” something Smith has agreed to carry out. Utah lawmakers have also approved the construction of a new downtown venue in advance of the 2034 Winter Olympics, which will be optimized for use by both the Jazz and an NHL team. However, it still needs to be approved by Utah Governor Spencer Cox.
Over the past few months, Smith has been relatively open about his desire to acquire an NHL franchise, including submitting a formal request to initiate an expansion process. Speaking over the All-Star break, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said that “the Utah expression of interest has been the most aggressive” among prospective new markets.
This looks to be the first relocation the NHL has had in over a decade. The most recent was in 2011, when the Atlanta Thrashers were abruptly sold to True North Sports and Entertainment and became the second iteration of the Winnipeg Jets. The first relocated to Phoenix in 1996 to become the Coyotes in search of more optimal financial conditions.
While financial instability and ownership concerns have continued to plague the Coyotes franchise, the NHL’s presence in the market has been an undeniable positive, helping develop Phoenix into an area with multiple elite youth hockey programs and spurring the growth of the sport in the southwest United States.
The Coyotes were initially a consistent playoff team after arriving in the desert, but they’ve made the postseason only four times since moving out of downtown Phoenix to Glendale. Three of them came consecutively between 2010 and 2012, culminating in a Western Conference Final loss to the Kings, the eventual Stanley Cup champion. It was the only time the Jets/Coyotes franchise had reached the “final four” rounds since being absorbed from the collapse of the WHA in 1979.
For the past two seasons, the franchise has played out of the 4,600-seat Mullett Arena on the Arizona State University campus in Tempe. Meant as a temporary move after the City of Glendale opted not to renew its lease agreement in 2022, Meruelo planned to build an arena and entertainment district within Tempe city limits near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
The proposal required a public vote to pass, however. A May 2023 referendum failed to green-light the project, leaving them back at square one.
The Yotes’ now-likely departure comes as their on-ice performance was beginning to improve after a years-long rebuild. They ended up far south of the playoff demarcation line but had a strong start to the season and were hovering around a playoff position well into December.
They’ve gotten strong offensive production from their current core of Clayton Keller, Matias Maccelli and Nick Schmaltz yet again, high-end goaltending from breakout performer Connor Ingram, and have high-end prospects on the way, led by winger Dylan Guenther. The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler ranked their prospect pool as the ninth-best in the league in February.
Pacific Notes: McDavid, Desharnais, Pietrangelo, Gibson, Stalock
Oilers superstar Connor McDavid will miss his second straight contest with a lower-body injury tonight when they take on the Coyotes, per Jason Gregor of Sports 1440 Edmonton. “I won’t go tonight. We will see about tomorrow. We are going day-by-day,” McDavid said.
Per Gregor, the lower-body ailment had been nagging McDavid for some time but was aggravated in last Saturday’s contest against the Flames, in which he played over 20 minutes and registered two assists. The Edmonton captain isn’t worried about it lingering for much longer, however, and his availability for the playoffs currently isn’t in question. His absence didn’t stop the Oilers from rattling off their seventh straight win on Wednesday in a 5-1 dismantling of the Golden Knights. He needs one more assist this season to reach 100 and would be the first player to do so since Wayne Gretzky in 1991.
Sticking with the Oilers, their front office has tabled contract talks with pending UFA defenseman Vincent Desharnais through the postseason, TSN’s Ryan Rishaug reports. They’d been in discussions for the past while, per Rishaug, as Edmonton looks to keep around their breakout depth shutdown force. He’s late to the party for full-time NHL roles at age 27 but has become a regular this season with a goal, 10 assists, and a +5 rating in 73 contests while averaging 15:31 per game. He hasn’t been tasked with too much responsibility but has controlled possession well, logging a 54.7 xGF% at even strength. He’s nearing completion of a two-year, two-way contract and is almost certainly looking at a one-way deal next season, regardless of whether he stays in Edmonton.
Elsewhere in the Pacific:
- Golden Knights star defenseman Alex Pietrangelo hasn’t resumed skating as he deals with a lengthy illness and will likely be out for at least two more games, head coach Bruce Cassidy said (via The Athletic’s Jesse Granger). He’s yet to be cleared to practice by the team’s medical staff. Pietrangelo missed six games with an illness in late March and returned to the lineup against the Wild on the 30th but exited again after two appearances. He hasn’t been with the team in over a week, last skating in an April 2 contest against the Canucks. Vegas will continue to roll with Nicolas Hague playing his offside on their top pairing, with the newly-extended Noah Hanifin in his absence.
- The Ducks have reassigned netminder Alex Stalock to AHL San Diego. Starter John Gibson is set to return from an upper-body injury tonight against the Flames. The latter is expected to make his first start since March 30 against the Oilers, head coach Greg Cronin said. Gibson backed up Lukáš Dostál in two contests before sustaining the injury outside of game action, forcing Stalock’s recall last week. The 36-year-old farmhand didn’t play, with Dostál making five straight starts. Stalock’s been recalled on multiple instances this season but hasn’t seen any NHL ice, with either Dostál or Gibson leading the way in the other’s absence. He’s struggled heavily in the minors this season, posting a .889 SV% in 13 games. A pending UFA, Stalock could be heading toward retirement this summer.