Senators Notes: Pinto, Arena, Korpisalo
There doesn’t appear to have been progress on contract talks between the Ottawa Senators and restricted free agent forward Shane Pinto, says The Athletic’s Ian Mendes. Pinto’s agent, Lewis Gross, declined to comment when Mendes reached out to him for an update last week, and Mendes anticipates “radio silence” in the near future. While the Senators would certainly love to have Pinto under contract when training camps kick off a month from today, they technically have until December 1 to sign Pinto to a deal for him to maintain eligibility to play in the NHL this season.
Drafted 32nd overall in 2019, Pinto’s stock rose sharply this season after he shouldered some top-six minutes at times with Joshua Norris limited to just eight games with a shoulder injury. That being said, his production didn’t jump off the page. He did score 20 goals, finishing sixth on the team, but he added just 15 assists to finish with 35 points in 82 games. He likely won’t command a significant number on a short-term extension, but anything above the league minimum is incredibly tough for the Senators to make work at the moment. After signing Vladimir Tarasenko to a one-year, $5MM pact earlier this month, CapFriendly projects the Senators with just $895K assuming a bare-minimum roster of 11 forwards and seven defensemen.
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- Mendes also mentioned another area of interest for Senators fans, the status of a potential new arena, which remains in flux with Michael Andlauer set to take over as the team’s majority owner. Ottawa mayor Mark Sutcliffe had spoken to Mendes earlier in the summer, referencing a Canadian Department of National Defense building downtown as another potential site as compared to the long-rumored LeBreton Flats plot. However, with the government’s lease on the building slated to run through 2035, construction could take quite a while to start before the Sens see their new home. That’s not to say a solution won’t be found sooner, but Mendes believes Andlauer’s initial priorities will lie with the team on the ice, putting discussions on a new, more centrally located home on the back burner for the time being.
- Free agent addition Joonas Korpisalo spoke to NHL.com’s Mike Zeisberger over the weekend, saying he’s excited to get to work in Ottawa with an old friend in goalie tandem partner Anton Forsberg. The two netminders have won a pro championship together already, winning the 2016 Calder Cup while members of the AHL’s Lake Erie Monsters in the Columbus Blue Jackets organization. Korpisalo arguably had the best season of his career in 2022-23, starting a career-high 37 games while putting up a very respectable .914 save percentage, given he played the majority of the year on a Blue Jackets team with a rather hapless defense thanks to a score of injuries. On a more competitive team in Los Angeles after a late-season trade, Korpisalo excelled with a .921 mark down the stretch. That being said, the five-year, $20MM contract Ottawa signed him to this summer is widely viewed as a serious gamble, and rightly so – Korpisalo has just a .904 career average across more than 200 games of NHL experience and has no experience starting the majority of his team’s games.
2009 NHL Draft Take Two: Sixth Overall Pick
Hindsight is an amazing thing, and allows us to look back and wonder “what could have been.” Though perfection is attempted, scouting and draft selection is far from an exact science and sometimes, it doesn’t work out the way teams – or players – intended. For every Patrick Kane, there is a Patrik Stefan.
We’re looking back at the 2009 NHL Entry Draft and asking how it would shake out knowing what we do now. Will the first round remain the same, or will some late-round picks jump up to the top of the board?
The results of our redraft so far are as follows, with their original draft position in parentheses:
1st Overall: Victor Hedman, New York Islanders (2)
2nd Overall: John Tavares, Tampa Bay Lightning (1)
3rd Overall: Ryan O’Reilly, Colorado Avalanche (33)
4th Overall: Matt Duchene, Atlanta Thrashers (3)
5th Overall: Chris Kreider, Los Angeles Kings (19)
At fifth overall, PHR voters elected to take one of the draft’s better goal-scoring specialists in Kreider, who received 25% of the total votes. Selected straight out of high school, Kreider was drafted as a center but would end up on the wing for the New York Rangers, who took him in the mid-first round. It took him a few years to make the NHL, but he quickly became a dependable middle-six winger once he did, posting solid two-way numbers and routinely scoring over 20 goals. The last two seasons have done wonders for Kreider’s legacy, though, posting 88 markers over 160 games.
Coming up to the podium at sixth overall is the Phoenix Coyotes. The era of Wayne Gretzky behind the bench is now over after four underwhelming seasons, and the franchise is still looking to return to postseason play for just the third time since the year 2000.
They selected Swedish defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who had spent the entire 2008-09 campaign playing pro hockey with Leksands IF in the Swedish second-tier HockeyAllsvenskan. He posted a massive two-way season there, recording 17 points in 39 games and a +44 rating. Few argued with the pick at the time, and given his peak with the Coyotes, it’s hard to argue they truly made the wrong selection.
He played one more season in Sweden before coming over to the Coyotes in 2010, splitting his rookie year between the NHL and AHL but getting decent NHL action with 48 games, albeit in a bottom-pairing role. He broke into a top-four role during his sophomore season and never looked back, routinely earning Norris Trophy votes and was eventually named the team’s captain in 2018 after the retirement of Shane Doan.
His all-around game began to decline significantly beginning with the 2019-20 season, though, and in the summer of 2021, the Coyotes were able to offload his contract on the Vancouver Canucks in a deal that’s turned out quite well for Arizona, in retrospect. That doesn’t change the fact he provided the Coyotes with solid top-pairing performance for the better part of a decade, however, finishing his stint in the desert with 388 points and averaging 23:26 per game across 769 games.
He didn’t last particularly long in Vancouver, either, and the Canucks executed the largest non-compliance buyout in NHL history this summer to get out of the remaining four years of his massive eight-year, $66MM extension signed with the Coyotes that kicked in just as his decline began in 2019. He’ll suit up for the Florida Panthers next season, looking to prove he can turn things around on a one-year deal.
Ekman-Larsson trails only Hedman and Nick Leddy in total games played for a defenseman from the 2009 class with 902, and he’s third in career points behind Hedman and Tyson Barrie with 439. Despite his solid tenure as a member of the Coyotes, though, should the team have gone in a different direction? Let us know who you think the Coyotes should have selected below:
2009 Redraft: Sixth Overall
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Nazem Kadri 29% (216)
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Mattias Ekholm 21% (157)
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Evander Kane 10% (76)
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Oliver Ekman-Larsson 10% (72)
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Brayden Schenn 8% (61)
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Dmitry Orlov 5% (39)
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Anders Lee 5% (38)
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Ryan Ellis 4% (28)
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Tyson Barrie 1% (11)
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Reilly Smith 1% (11)
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Nick Leddy 1% (6)
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Tomas Tatar 1% (6)
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Brian Dumoulin 1% (5)
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Kyle Palmieri 1% (5)
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Darcy Kuemper 1% (4)
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Erik Haula 0% (3)
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Mike Hoffman 0% (3)
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David Savard 0% (3)
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Calvin de Haan 0% (2)
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Marcus Johansson 0% (2)
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Dmitry Kulikov 0% (2)
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Jakob Silfverberg 0% (2)
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Sami Vatanen 0% (2)
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Robin Lehner 0% (1)
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Brayden McNabb 0% (1)
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Craig Smith 0% (1)
Total votes: 757
If you can’t access the poll above, click here to vote.
Jonathan Bernier Announces Retirement
Veteran netminder Jonathan Bernier announced his retirement today via an Instagram post. He had not played since early into the 2021-22 campaign with the New Jersey Devils due to a hip injury, which kept him out for the remainder of that year and the entire 2022-23 season.
Drafted by the Los Angeles Kings with the 11th overall pick in 2006, Bernier never became the elite full-fledged starter they projected, but he did become a dependable backup or even tandem option during his peak seasons. Some of it was pure circumstance, though – he was stuck behind Jonathan Quick on the Kings’ list of goalie prospects and only got his first true shot at shouldering starting responsibility outside of the organization on a weak Toronto Maple Leafs team.
Bernier would go on to play 14 seasons and over 400 NHL games for the Kings, Maple Leafs, Devils, Anaheim Ducks, Colorado Avalanche, and Detroit Red Wings. He finishes with a 165-163-40 record in 363 starts, a .912 save percentage, a 2.78 goals-against average, and 18 shutouts. His peak actually came in his first season as a starter, not earning any Vezina consideration in 2013-14 despite putting up a 26-19-7 record and .922 save percentage in 55 games on a Toronto squad that struggled defensively. His numbers trailed after that, however, and he never got a shot as a full-time starter anywhere else other than his three seasons in Toronto.
Injuries certainly aren’t how anyone wants to end their career, especially when Bernier had signed on for two years in New Jersey to aid in their return to playoff contention. Unfortunately, he played just ten games there before the long-term hip injury eventually ended his time in the NHL.
After his stint in Toronto ended on a steep decline in 2016, Bernier went on to become a high-end backup option over the next five seasons – one spent in Anaheim, one spent in Colorado, and three spent in Detroit before joining the Devils. It was a long professional journey for Bernier, who first tasted NHL action with four starts as a 19-year-old with the Kings in 2007-08.
PHR wishes Bernier the best in retirement and any future endeavors.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Boston Bruins Sign Alex Chiasson To PTO
The Boston Bruins have signed forward Alex Chiasson to a professional tryout agreement, per a team announcement. Chiasson will attend the Bruins’ training camp in hopes of earning an NHL deal in Boston or elsewhere and extending his career.
The 11-year NHL veteran has become somewhat of a cult legend for converting on PTOs. This is now the fifth one of his career and his third straight one – although last season’s with the Arizona Coyotes did not result in a contract. That led to him sitting out for the beginning of the 2022-23 campaign before signing an AHL pact with the Grand Rapids Griffins. After scoring 20 points in 29 games there, he signed a one-year, $750K deal at the trade deadline with the Detroit Red Wings to aid in their playoff push. Back in the NHL, Chiasson still looked like he deserved a spot in the lineup with six goals and nine points in 20 games.
Before that, Chiasson had a strong 2021-22 season with the Vancouver Canucks, finishing eighth on the team in goals with 13 in 67 games. That season came after a three-year stint with the Edmonton Oilers, during which he scored a career-high 22 goals and 38 points in 73 games during the 2018-19 campaign. Overall, the 32-year-old now has over 650 games of NHL experience across stints with seven teams, including a Stanley Cup win in a depth role with the Washington Capitals in 2018.
Chiasson will look to increase that figure to eight and convert on yet another PTO in Boston. The team could certainly use a cheap goal-scoring option for their bottom six, and while he doesn’t offer much in terms of youth, he does offer significantly more scoring upside than someone like A.J. Greer and could give the team more options to construct their third and fourth lines as well as the second power-play unit.
Interestingly, Bruins independent reporter Joe Haggerty notes this is a sort of full-circle move for the Bruins. They’d aggressively pursued Chiasson when he was a member of the Dallas Stars back in 2013 when he had just seven NHL games under his belt, hoping to get him as part of the massive Tyler Seguin trade that eventually transpired between the two parties.
Philadelphia Flyers Sign Oliver Bonk
The Philadelphia Flyers have signed defenseman Oliver Bonk to a three-year, entry-level contract, according to a team release. Philadelphia didn’t disclose the financial terms for the deal, which locks in their latter of two first-round picks from the 2023 NHL Draft.
The son of longtime Ottawa Senators center Radek Bonk is likely destined for a return to the OHL’s London Knights next season, which would slide the beginning of his ELC to 2024-25. Given his age, the Flyers can execute this move twice, keeping him on his ELC all the way through the 2027-28 campaign – something Charlie O’Connor of The Athletic believes is the likeliest scenario.
Bonk had a slow start to his draft year but slowly rose up draft boards as he regained confidence, leading to the point production you’d like to see in juniors for someone who projects as a shutdown defender. The 18-year-old right-shot defender finished the OHL regular season with ten goals, 30 assists, 40 points, and a +17 rating in 67 games while playing a second-pairing role behind Montreal Canadiens prospect Logan Mailloux, who was reinstated by the league in 2021-22 from an indefinite suspension after he was charged with and convicted of taking and distributing an offensive photo without consent while playing in Sweden.
After earning second all-rookie team honors in the OHL and all-rookie team honors in the CHL last season, Bonk projects to take over the number-one defenseman role in London next season. He is ineligible for assignment to the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms until the 2025-26 season, per the NHL/CHL transfer agreement. If Bonk doesn’t crack the Flyers roster by then, he must be returned to juniors. He will be a restricted free agent upon the expiration of his contract, which could be anywhere between 2026 and 2028 depending on when the Flyers bring him to the NHL.
Minor Transactions: 08/19/23
Even over the weekend, moves from the AHL and other notable leagues are trickling in as teams across the hockey world round out their opening night rosters for 2023-24. Expect continued movement on the minor-league and European league front, especially over the next two weeks, with some seasons kicking off as early as September 1. Here’s a listing of today’s notable minor moves:
- 2014 Minnesota Wild sixth-round pick Chase Lang is staying with the ECHL’s Indy Fuel for next season, per a release from the club. Lang, now 26, has played in the ECHL since the Wild let him become a UFA after completing his entry-level contract in 2019. The 6-foot-1 forward recorded 20 points and 97 penalty minutes in 45 games for the Fuel last season, finishing second on the team in time spent in the penalty box. Lang hasn’t played an extended AHL role since he skated in 22 games with the Iowa Wild in 2017-18, and he spent the entirety of the final season of his ELC on an ECHL assignment with the Allen Americans. It’ll be a long road back for Lang to earn an AHL contract at this stage, let alone an NHL deal.
This page will be updated throughout the day.
Multiple Teams Showing Interest In Patrick Kane
While former Chicago Blackhawks and New York Rangers winger Patrick Kane may be the best UFA left on the market, no one expects him to sign a deal in the coming days. That’s because he’s still recovering from a hip resurfacing procedure he had done in June, which puts him on track to be cleared for game action sometime between October and December.
Speaking on NHL Network earlier this week, The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta gave various updates on the 34-year-old, including three teams that had displayed “significant” interest earlier in the summer: the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and New York Islanders. Pagnotta also mentioned the Boston Bruins as a potential suitor but to a lesser degree.
Undoubtedly, teams will want to watch him practice before extending him a contract, even if it’s just a one-year pact, as expected. A significant hip procedure for an athlete as late into their career as Kane is no small factor in what his game may look like after he’s recovered. Pagnotta believes there should be clarity on Kane’s health status and a more specific potential return date in “four to five weeks,” which could also be a target date for Kane signing rumors heating up in earnest.
Out of all the suitors Pagnotta mentioned, Colorado has made sense for Kane since the offseason began and still does today. Colorado projects to have four new faces in their middle six next season (Ross Colton, Jonathan Drouin, Ryan Johansen, and Miles Wood), but their scoring depth remains rather thin. Few would argue Kane is anywhere close to his prime at this stage in his career, especially coming off hip surgery, but he could still allow the team to reliably let Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen drive the top two lines separately. Playing alongside MacKinnon could also very well jumpstart Kane’s production to the point where he’s providing rather immense value on what’s sure to be an already affordable contract.
As things stand, Colorado also has the most favorable salary cap situation out of the three major contenders Pagnotta mentioned. They’re projected to have $2.025MM in cap space with captain Gabriel Landeskog on long-term injured reserve, per CapFriendly. Meanwhile, the Stars and Islanders are both between $300K and $500K over the $83.5MM Upper Limit and will need to run a 22-player roster to be compliant, at least to start the season, assuming no further moves are made.
It’s hard to imagine a fit for Kane in Dallas, too. Their top nine is truly stacked, boasting one of the best lines in hockey followed by a combination of players like Jamie Benn, Matt Duchene, Wyatt Johnston, and Tyler Seguin occupying lines 2 and 3. While Kane may be a true upgrade on someone like Evgenii Dadonov, Dallas signed Dadonov to a two-year, $2.25MM AAV extension this offseason. That’s not money usually given to a player slated for a fourth-line role, especially for someone who relies on point production to maintain efficacy.
The Islanders would make much more sense from a roster construction standpoint if they can make the money work. Wingers like Pierre Engvall and Kyle Palmieri are fine middle-six wingers, but they’re not ideal second-line flanks for a team still boasting championship aspirations with Mathew Barzal, Bo Horvat and Ilya Sorokin locked in for the long haul to rather hefty deals.
Regarding Boston, Kane may not be the top-six center they so desperately need, but he’d be a gigantic boon to a middle-six wing group that now looks awfully thin outside of Jake DeBrusk. Boston signed another veteran, James van Riemsdyk, to hopefully add a solid net-front punch, but after posting just 29 points in 61 games last season, expectations shouldn’t be high for the 34-year-old to be a high-end point-producing factor on the second or third line.
What may complicate fitting a contract for Kane under the cap is his lack of eligibility for performance bonuses. He’s still a year away from being eligible for a 35+ contract containing performance bonuses, and he didn’t miss significant time in-season with the hip injury. It removes the option for a team to give Kane a lower cap hit and compensate him more in performance bonuses, allowing them to deal with the after-effects in 2024-25 if they can’t fit the bonuses under their year-end cap hit.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Ryan Merkley Signs In KHL
Former San Jose Sharks first-round pick defenseman Ryan Merkley is taking his services overseas at just 23 years old, as the KHL’s Kunlun Red Star has signed him to a one-year contract.
Merkley’s transition to pro hockey has been rocky, to say the least. The Sharks signed him to his entry-level contract just days after the 2018 Draft, but his contract slid for two seasons as he was returned to the OHL’s Guelph Storm for both seasons. Turning pro in 2020, Merkley registered 11 points in 31 games during his first outing with the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda, sticking in the minors throughout and looking to round out his game, which had well-documented defensive concerns.
His production never really took off from there, however, limiting his effectiveness in the area the Sharks hoped he could excel. He did get an extended NHL look in 2021-22, though, playing in 39 games with the Sharks but registering just a goal and six points. That could very well be the only NHL ice he ever sees.
Merkley didn’t make San Jose out of camp last season and was assigned to the minors, where he played out the entire 2022-23 season, posting 22 points in 58 games. In January, the Sharks dealt Merkley to the Colorado Avalanche for another disgruntled prospect, Martin Kaut, who also didn’t register much of an impact in the Sharks organization. After Merkley didn’t gain much of a significant role in Colorado’s system with the Eagles in the AHL, they opted not to qualify him in June and let him become an unrestricted free agent.
With no rumored NHL offers, Merkley heads to the KHL, where he could very well play out his pro career, including some other destinations in Europe. Signing in China, Merkley joins a Kunlun team captained by former NHLer Brandon Yip. He’ll need to show significant strides overseas in order to potentially regain an NHL contract some point down the line.
Colorado Avalanche Sign Matt Stienburg
The Colorado Avalanche have signed forward Matt Stienburg to a two-year, entry-level contract, per a team post on X. Stienburg was a draft pick of the Avalanche but briefly became a free agent on August 15 when his exclusive signing rights expired.
The 22-year-old center prospect was a third-round draft pick in 2019, heading off the board to Colorado at 63rd overall. He just completed a four-year collegiate stint at Cornell, although his sophomore season was wiped out entirely due to COVID. At Cornell, Stienburg finished with 20 goals, 26 assists and 46 points in 73 games and a +21 rating.
Stienburg stands out as a center with good size at 6-foot-1 and 183 pounds, with some aggressiveness in his game, although he’ll need to work on his offensive consistency to play a middle-six role in the NHL. He ended last season in the AHL on a tryout with the Colorado Eagles, recording two assists in eight games combined across the regular season and playoffs.
The Avalanche did not release the financial terms of Stienburg’s contract. However, he will be a restricted free agent upon the deal’s expiration in 2025. Over the next two years, he’ll look to make enough of an impact in the minors to warrant receiving a qualifying offer from Colorado at that point.
Minor Transactions: 08/18/23
Signings involving former NHL draft picks and other notable players continue to flow in as August marches on. Teams overseas and in North America are still finalizing their rosters, and action is once again ramping up in the AHL as their NHL affiliates mostly have their rosters set at this stage. We’re keeping tabs on all of today’s significant non-NHL deals here:
- 2017 Nashville Predators pick Tomas Vomacka is heading back home, signing a one-year deal with an option for one more with HC Dynamo Pardubice B in the 1. liga, Czechia’s second-tier pro league. The 24-year-old netminder signed his entry-level deal with the Predators after finishing a collegiate career at the University of Connecticut in 2021 but has been relegated exclusively to the ECHL since with the Florida Everblades and Norfolk Admirals, never getting an appearance with Nashville’s top minor-league affiliate in AHL Milwaukee. He struggled heavily in 34 games with Norfolk last season, posting an eye-popping 4.36 goals-against average and .868 save percentage. He’ll look to regain his game against easier competition in Czech second-tier pro hockey.
- The AHL’s Charlotte Checkers have signed forward Sean Josling to a one-year, two-way contract, per a team release. Josling, 24, is entering his fourth pro season and has spent most of that pro career so far in the ECHL with the Wheeling Nailers. He played primarily in the ECHL again last season, recording 21 goals and seven assists for 28 points in 47 games split between Wheeling and the Kelly Cup champion Florida Everblades. He’s a likely candidate for ECHL assignment again next season, returning to Florida as they’re the ECHL affiliate of the Checkers and Florida Panthers.
- The AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals are adding forward Kevin Wall on a two-year contract, according to the team. Wall, a 2019 sixth-round pick of the Carolina Hurricanes, became a free agent on August 15th after the Hurricanes opted not to sign him to an entry-level contract, forfeiting his exclusive NHL signing rights. The 23-year-old right wing recorded 17 goals and 14 assists for 31 points in 39 games last season at Penn State, his fourth and final season there. There’s still a potential pro future in the cards for Wall if he can make a smooth transition to pro hockey in Milwaukee, looking to earn an entry-level contract from their parent club, the Nashville Predators, or someone else.
This page will be updated throughout the day.