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Lightning’s Nick Paul Undergoes Upper-Body Surgery

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Lightning forward Nick Paul had an upper-body procedure performed last Friday, general manager Julien BriseBois said today (via the team’s Benjamin Pierce). He’ll miss around six weeks and is targeting an early November return.

Paul played through a left wrist tear in last season’s playoffs, BriseBois said at the time. It’s unclear if last week’s surgery was a delayed response to that injury or if it addressed a new issue. BriseBois did say that Paul was expected to be ready for training camp, so there’s a strong case for it being the latter.

There will be a significant hole to fill in Tampa’s middle six for the first month of the season. The versatile checker is coming off back-to-back 20-goal seasons and finished seventh on the team with 41 points last year, averaging north of 16 minutes per game and flexing between second-line wing and third-line center duties.

Paul starting the year on injured reserve will yield increased opportunities for the Bolts’ depth free agent signings, namely Pontus Holmberg and Jakob Pelletier. The latter is an especially intriguing candidate to slot into top-nine minutes. The Calgary 2019 first-rounder snuck through waivers at the beginning of last year but looked like he could handle at least third-line minutes after being recalled in December, scoring 11 points in 24 games for the Flames before he was traded to the Flyers in the Joel Farabee/Morgan Frost deal. He didn’t get much of a run in Philly, though, and he was an unrestricted free agent after being non-tendered.

He then signed a three-year deal with Tampa. This year carries a two-way structure, leading most to believe he was a candidate to end up on waivers again, but Paul’s vacant roster spot may give him an in. As for filling out their center depth, Yanni Gourde is beginning the first full season of his second stint with the Bolts, who acquired him and Oliver Bjorkstrand from the Kraken at last year’s trade deadline. He should be a relative lock to return to the role he found immense success in for Tampa during his first go-around with the club from 2015-21. He looked quite comfortable there down the stretch last year with 13 assists and 14 points in 21 games.

Maple Leafs To Hire Mark Giordano

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After going unsigned for 2024-25, veteran defender Mark Giordano appears to be putting a bow on his playing career. Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving said today they’ll announce in the coming days that they’ve hired him in a yet-to-be-disclosed role with their AHL affiliate, according to David Alter of The Hockey News.

That would signal the retirement of one of the game’s premier defensemen of the 2010s. He was intent on playing last season and beyond, his agent said last offseason. The Oilers and Sabres had expressed interest in him into training camp in 2024, as well as potential reunions with the Flames and Leafs, but no contract ever panned out. He’ll now make the jump into the next phase of his hockey career.

Giordano is in the running for one of the most fruitful undrafted free agent signings of all time. He landed his first NHL contract during the 2004-05 lockout, signing with Calgary out of OHL Owen Sound and spending the canceled year in the AHL. He made his NHL debut when the league resumed play for 2005-06. He got his first taste of full-time action the following year, making 48 appearances in a depth role. Without a guarantee of expanded playing time from the Flames entering 2007-08, though, Giordano opted not to re-sign with the club when his entry-level contract expired. He instead spent the year in Russia with Dynamo Moscow while remaining a restricted free agent.

He returned to the Flames for the 2008-09 season, more earnestly kicking off his career as a top-four fixture. He was more of a defensive-oriented piece early on but as he entered his 30s, his offensive production began to soar as well. He hit the 40-point mark for the first time in 2010-11 and, beginning with the prior year, averaged north of 20 minutes per game for Calgary for 12 years in a row.

Widely regarded as a top-20 defenseman in the league for most of his prime, Giordano exploded in the 2018-19 campaign for a career year at age 35. He took home the Norris Trophy and finished ninth in MVP voting on a 50-win Flames squad that year, racking up 74 points and a league-leading +39 rating in 78 appearances.

The Flames’ record slipped over the next couple of seasons, though. With Giordano entering the final season of his contract in the 2021 offseason and the Flames wanting to protect younger names like Rasmus Andersson and Noah Hanifin in that year’s expansion draft for the Kraken, the club left their captain exposed. Seattle picked him up, making him their first captain in franchise history, but his tenure in the Pacific Northwest was short-lived. The club was in the basement of the Pacific Division in their first year and, after Giordano scored 23 points in 55 games, traded the pending UFA to the Maple Leafs at the deadline for draft picks.

While the following summer meant the end of the six-year, $40.5MM contract he signed back in 2015, it didn’t mean the end of his time in Toronto. He signed a team-friendly two-year, $1.6MM deal that would see him finish his playing career with the Leafs as a serviceable bottom-pairing support piece. He made 144 regular-season appearances in a Toronto uniform in parts of three seasons, recording a 9-36–45 scoring line and a +49 rating.

Giordano’s 1,093 games in his second NHL stint rank seventh in the league among defensemen since 2008. His 561 points also rank 12th during that time. The Toronto native totaled a 158-419–577 scoring line in 1,148 career regular-season appearances with a +129 rating across 18 campaigns. All of us at PHR wish Giordano the best as he continues his career in the sport off-ice.

Image courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images.

Panthers’ Tomas Nosek Undergoes Knee Surgery

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Panthers center Tomas Nosek will miss the first several months of the season with a knee injury sustained during offseason training, general manager Bill Zito told reporters Wednesday, including George Richards of Florida Hockey Now.

Florida has likely been sitting on this information for a while. It offers additional context for their recent spree of depth forward signings and PTO agreements. In the last month, the Cats have added Luke Kunin on a league-minimum deal and brought in Noah Gregor and Tyler Motte on tryout pacts.

Nosek, 33, was widely projected to start the year as the Panthers’ fourth-line center. That was essentially the only role he played last season when healthy, oftentimes slotting in between fellow returnees Jonah Gadjovich and A.J. Greer. Injuries have become a commonality for the serviceable Czech pivot in the last few years. He spent the first month of last season on the injured list with an upper-body issue, and he also missed over half of the 2023-24 campaign with the Devils due to multiple ailments, including a knee injury.

The 6’3″ center is on the precipice of 500 career regular-season games and is entering his 11th NHL season and his second with the Panthers. He’s signed back-to-back league minimum contracts with the Cats, a decision that earned him his first Stanley Cup win last year after reaching the Final with the Golden Knights in their inaugural season. Nosek should also be remembered as the scorer of the first home goal in Vegas’ franchise history.

While a stable presence, Nosek’s offensive presence has deteriorated significantly in the last few years. He managed just 47 shots on goal in 59 appearances last year and only converted on one of them. He also averaged under 10 minutes per game for the first time. He’s still an effective checking presence, though, and has managed to keep his career-long streak of a 50% win rate or better on faceoffs alive.

In terms of his direct replacement to start the year, Jesper Boqvist might be the frontrunner. He was used as an extra forward in last year’s postseason and mainly slotted in on the wing when he was in the lineup, but he has more recent experience down the middle than any of Gregor, Kunin, or Motte. All of them can play center in a pinch, though, so Nosek’s absence likely won’t result in much of an on-ice hiccup for the Cats.

His newfound eligibility for long-term injured reserve also doesn’t change much for the Panthers, who still need to shed salary to be compliant for opening night. Since neither Nosek nor Matthew Tkachuk, who will also be on LTIR to begin the year after a recent adductor surgery, will miss the entire season, Florida is only eligible for $3.82MM in LTIR relief under the new rules taking effect this year. They currently have a projected exceedance of $4.5MM, per PuckPedia, so they’ll need to subtract a league-minimum salary to get under the ceiling to begin the year.

Jack Eichel Open To Continuing Extension Talks During Season

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Oftentimes, big-name pending unrestricted free agents aren’t open to continuing negotiations on an extension once the puck drops on the regular season to avoid the off-ice distraction. That won’t be the case for Golden Knights star Jack Eichel, who’s keeping the already cordial dialogue on contract talks open for however long he needs to, he said at last week’s Player Media Tour.

“I’m definitely not in the ‘no communication’ (camp),” Eichel told Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic. “I just try to focus on things that are in my control. If the contract happens organically, then it happens. Right now you’re just focused on getting yourself in as good a place as you can be to start the season and help the hockey team.”

Extension projections for Eichel have climbed to nearly $14MM per season on a max-term deal with next year’s salary cap set to rise to an estimated $104MM, according to AFP Analytics. That assumes he actually signs one of the last eight-year blockbusters before the maximum extension length drops to seven years next year, but there won’t be any hiccups there. TSN’s Chris Johnston said on his SDPN show last week that the player and club are in alignment on keeping him in Vegas for as long as possible.

Letting already drama-free talks continue to play out likely creates less distraction for the player than adding controversy to a set of negotiations that’s largely been out of the news since they began at the beginning of the summer. Yet Eichel’s use of the word “organically” to describe contract talks is a bit of a stretch. He’s just one of a potentially generational 2026 free agent class, flanking Kyle Connor, Kirill Kaprizov, and Connor McDavid atop the list. Seeing one of the first three sign a deal before McDavid sets the market with his expected short-term deal in Edmonton would be a surprise.

The other storyline is Vegas’ continued flirtation with the salary cap. Even under the new LTIR rules, the Knights will still be able to take full advantage of Alex Pietrangelo’s $8.8MM worth of LTIR relief if his injury status remains unchanged for 2026-27. That could leave them with around $29MM in spending money next summer when all is said and done. If that’s down to $15MM after getting an Eichel extension signed off, they still need to spread that around seven or eight other open roster spots. Only one of those spots is a free agent of true consequence for Vegas – that’s pending RFA Pavel Dorofeyev, who could conceivably swallow up half of that balance after scoring a team-leading 35 goals last season.

Mammoth Sign Seven Players To PTOs

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The Mammoth will have some added depth in training camp by way of seven professional tryouts targeted toward their AHL club, the club announced today. Among the seven, only two – forward Austin Poganski and goaltender Dylan Wells – already have a contract in the organization with Tucson for 2025-26. There will be five names – Ryan McGregor, Dryden McKay, Lleyton Moore, Ty Tullio, and Samuel Walker – looking to land either a two-way deal with Utah or an AHL contract with Tucson.

The 26-year-old McGregor has spent all five of his professional seasons exclusively with Tucson. The 6’0″ forward was a sixth-round pick by the Maple Leafs in 2017 but went unsigned, instead landing an entry-level deal with the Coyotes upon turning pro in 2020. That preceded a solid run as a bottom-six piece in southern Arizona, totaling a 24-44–68 scoring line in 201 career games for the Roadrunners. He spent last year in Tucson on an AHL deal after reaching Group VI unrestricted free agency. His lengthy history with the Arizona/Utah organizations makes him a solid bet to return for another year in a minor-league support role.

McKay actually already has a landing spot for 2025-26. He signed on with the Avalanche’s ECHL affiliate, the Utah Grizzlies, back in July. He didn’t get an invite to Colorado’s NHL camp, though, so he’ll instead stay in his new team’s area and get some reps in an NHL camp with the Mammoth. He’ll serve as a camp piece for roster management purposes in the preseason before presumably getting released and returned to the Grizzlies. The 27-year-old former Hobey Baker Award winner has a career .904 SV% and 3.06 GAA in 99 ECHL games over the last three years.

Moore, 23, is a skilled but undersized (5’8″, 179-lb) rearguard still adjusting to the pro game. He has two pro seasons under his belt, both with Tucson, and will be looking to land another minor-league deal to make it three. He has 12 points in 46 career games for the Roadrunners with a +5 rating.

Poganski’s PTO is just a formality to get him into camp and add a veteran player for preseason purposes. The 29-year-old was Tucson’s captain last season and will reprise the role in 2025-26. He had 15 goals and 41 points in 71 appearances for them last year. He has 22 career NHL appearances with the Blues and Jets between 2019 and 2022, but no points.

Tullio is still looking for a contract after a tumultuous 2024-25 season. A fifth-round pick by the Oilers in 2020, he was traded to the Sabres in last summer’s Ryan McLeod deal. He only played sparingly for their AHL affiliate in Rochester, though, leading the Sabres to loan him to the Flames’ farm club to finish the season. He had eight points in 13 games down the stretch in Calgary, so there’s some promise that he could land a two-way offer from the Mammoth or at least be something of an impact contributor for Tucson.

Outside of Poganski, Walker is the only other player here with NHL experience. He has a goal and an assist to his name in 13 games with the Wild, all of which came in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons. He spent all of last year in the minors and was acquired by Utah midway through the season in a minor swap. He didn’t see an NHL recall after his acquisition, which saw him score 22 points in 31 games for Tucson, and subsequently became a Group VI UFA. The 5’10” pivot will now be angling for a two-way deal or a contract with Tucson.

Wells, 27, has been an AHL backup/ECHL starter for some time now, although not routinely under an NHL contract. He’s entering his third season in Tucson and had a solid .900 SV% and 2.89 GAA in 10 games for them last year.

Bruins Promote Adam McQuaid, Hire Ben Smith

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Former Bruins defenseman Adam McQuaid is now carving out a successful career for himself in their front office. The club announced today that he’s been promoted to a director of player development role, among a few other minor hockey ops hirings and promotions.

It’s a new role in the organization, so McQuaid will presumably be taking some work off an assistant GM’s plate. Boston didn’t have a particularly large player development department – it consisted of McQuaid, their lone dedicated skater development coach and coordinator since his hiring in 2021, and longtime NHL netminder Mike Dunham as their goalie development coach.

While a reward for McQuaid’s work so far, the title change is also a signifier for Boston’s organizational repositioning from contender to retooler. The club was a big seller at last year’s trade deadline and added center James Hagens – their top prospect since selecting Charlie McAvoy nearly a decade ago – with the No. 7 overall pick in this year’s draft.

The Bruins are also bringing up Nick Neary from their AHL staff to join the big club. The 30-year-old joined the Providence Bruins in 2020 as a video coordinator before being promoted to the club’s video coach and manager of hockey operations prior to last season. He’ll now serve on the NHL staff as an assistant video coordinator under Mathew Myers, who’s been Boston’s video coach since 2019. Replacing Neary in Providence is Cam Wolbach, who lands his first documented hockey staffing job. He played high school hockey in Massachusetts as well as ACHA Division II hockey with Bentley University.

Joining McQuaid in Boston’s player development department is former NHL forward Ben Smith, who’s been brought on under McQuaid as a player development coordinator. It doubles as a retirement announcement for the 37-year-old, who had been playing in Germany since heading overseas in 2018. He suited up for Boston College but never played for the Bruins. Smith won a Stanley Cup with the Blackhawks in 2013 and recorded 54 points in 237 NHL games for them, the Maple Leafs, Sharks, and Avalanche.

Blackhawks Sign Matt Grzelcyk To PTO

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The leading point scorer among free agent defensemen this summer will have to settle for a camp tryout. Matt Grzelcyk is heading to the Blackhawks on a PTO, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. Chicago later confirmed the signing by listing Grzelcyk on their training camp roster.

While the market for Grzelcyk wasn’t near what he or anyone else expected, it’s still jarring to see a rearguard with the platform season he had not land a guaranteed contract heading into camp. The 31-year-old lefty was also a UFA last summer but landed a one-year, $2.75MM deal with the Penguins on the first day of free agency. That contract led to expanded ice time in Pittsburgh, where he saw some power-play usage and averaged north of 20 minutes per game for the first time in his nine-year career. He played all 82 games – the first time he’s ever done that, too – and ranked third on the team with 39 assists. Only Sidney Crosby (58) and Erik Karlsson (42) had more.

Individual defensive acumen and a lack of physicality remain the 5’10” defender’s limiting factors. Still, he was at least able to prove once again that he can be a productive puck-mover in a top-four role as he was for many years in Boston, serving as a routine Charlie McAvoy partner for a good chunk of his early career. That led AFP Analytics to project a three-year contract for Grzelcyk in the $3.75MM range annually on the open market, while we projected a slightly cheaper deal and ranked him No. 22 among all unrestricted free agents this summer.

Grzelcyk now heads to training camp in Chicago, where the Blackhawks will welcome him as insurance for the league’s most inexperienced defense group. Connor Murphy is the only defender under contract in the Windy City over the age of 25. Alex Vlasic, at 24 years of age and 179 games of NHL experience, is the club’s top lefty by a wide margin.

Most expected the Hawks to completely hand the keys over to their younger blue-liners this season. Their lack of notable moves on offense signaled they weren’t anticipating jumping back into playoff contention just yet as their rebuild enters its later stages. Even then, there simply may be too many question marks behind Vlasic on Chicago’s left side on defense to make general manager Kyle Davidson comfortable entering camp without any other options. The right side is fairly set with Murphy, 2024 No. 2 overall pick Artyom Levshunov, and 2022 first-rounder Sam Rinzel expected to anchor their own pairings. However, behind Vlasic on the left, there’s no clear No. 2 or No. 3.

That’s not to say Chicago doesn’t have options, but they do lack clarity. Wyatt Kaiser, 23, could be the frontrunner for second-pairing minutes but is still a restricted free agent. 2022 No. 7 overall pick Kevin Korchinski played just 16 NHL games last season with two assists. Defensive-minded lefties Nolan Allan and Ethan Del Mastro both held their own in NHL minutes last season but are far from finished products. Grzelcyk offers a safe plug-and-play option as their second lefty behind Vlasic, buying them time to sort out everyone else’s readiness. Leaving him on a tryout gives the Blackhawks an easy out if they do decide to let names like Allan and Korchinski run with regular minutes out of the gate.

Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.

Latest On Wyatt Kaiser

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With two days to get a deal done before missing some of training camp becomes a reality, there’s not much progress to report on contract talks between the Blackhawks and restricted free agent defenseman Wyatt Kaiser, Scott Powers of The Athletic reports.

Chicago is offering Kaiser a modest increase on his sub-$950K entry-level cap hit on a one-year deal, Powers reports. That hasn’t been enough for Kaiser to bite as his side was potentially eyeing a longer-term commitment. There isn’t a difference of opinion between the Blackhawks and Kaiser on what his ceiling is, but Powers relays that Chicago has been unwilling to extend a multi-year offer as they sort out where he sits in relation to their bevy of other young defenders.

The Blackhawks would be “happy to pay him what he’s worth come next season,” Powers writes, but they’re not quite sold enough yet on the 23-year-old to risk boxing out names like Kevin Korchinski, Nolan Allan, and Ethan Del Mastro from top-four minutes on the left side. Kaiser broke camp with the Hawks last year but ended up spending two months midseason with AHL Rockford. Upon being recalled back to Chicago ahead of the trade deadline, he was a fixture in the lineup and averaged 19:50 per game over 22 appearances. That came with a 3-2–5 scoring line and, notably, a +3 rating during a period in which Chicago had a -18 goal differential.

More of that could lead to a more lucrative multi-year deal for Kaiser next summer. His camp believes his strong end to last season means he’s earned that deal now.

There aren’t any methods to help bridge the gap aside from good old-fashioned negotiation. Kaiser is a restricted free agent in the truest sense of the word – he doesn’t have enough professional experience to qualify for arbitration, nor has he accumulated enough service time to be able to receive and sign offer sheets. He’s either playing for Chicago or not playing at all, barring a trade of his signing rights, meaning his leverage is about as minimal as it gets. That’s especially with the Blackhawks having multiple other young options to trial in top-four minutes along with veteran Matt Grzelcyk, who they’re set to ink to a professional tryout.

Rangers Name J.T. Miller Captain

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After parting ways with their previous captain via trade, the Rangers have found their new one the same way. J.T. Miller will wear the “C” for New York this season after last year’s midseason pickup, Vince Z. Mercogliano of The Athletic relays.

Miller, 32, will be the 29th captain in franchise history as he begins his first full season in his second stint with the team. He’ll be just their second captain since 2018. The team went without one for over four years after trading away Ryan McDonagh at the deadline before anointing Jacob Trouba ahead of the 2022-23 season. They’d spent the last nine months with the position vacant after dealing Trouba to the Ducks in December.

“Since his arrival last season, J.T. immediately became a leader for our group and exemplifies how we want to conduct ourselves both on and off the ice,” general manager Chris Drury said. “Congratulations to J.T. and his entire family on an incredibly meaningful achievement and we’re confident he will continue to represent our organization with class, commitment, and integrity.”

Miller, a first-round pick by the Blueshirts back in 2011, looked rejuvenated after they re-acquired him in a blockbuster trade with the Canucks in January. After three straight seasons with Vancouver above a point per game, he dipped back below the mark to start the season amid a leave of absence and a reported feud with fellow star forward Elias Pettersson. But after being put in the middle of a unit with William Cuylle and Mika Zibanejad in Manhattan, Miller finished the year with a 13-22–35 line in 32 appearances while recording 76 hits and winning 57.6% of his faceoffs.

The high-energy pivot will now be entrusted as the emotional focal point of the club as they enter a pivotal campaign. The club has a new head coach in Mike Sullivan and is looking for a more stable long-term outlook following a 12-month window that saw them drop from regular-season champs to missing the playoffs entirely. They’re also facing the potential loss of star winger Artemi Panarin to unrestricted free agency at the end of the year.

He isn’t the team’s only leadership change. The club also said Vincent Trocheck has been added as an alternate captain, replacing Chris Kreider, who was dealt to Anaheim earlier in the offseason. Panarin, Adam Fox, and Mika Zibanejad will continue holding ’A’s alongside him.

Image courtesy of Timothy T. Ludwig-Imagn Images.

Canadiens Expect Kirby Dach To Be Ready For Start Of Season

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The Canadiens are banking on having center Kirby Dach available for their opening night lineup after he underwent surgery on his right knee in February, EVP of hockey operations Jeff Gorton told Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports. Sportsnet’s Eric Engels adds he’s recovered enough to participate in training camp when it starts later this week, although it’s unclear if that’s in a contact capacity.

By all indications, the 24-year-old’s recovery from a second major surgery on his right knee in as many years has been as smooth as can be hoped. He was on the ice late last month for an informal skate in full gear, although that didn’t subject him to the pace and veracity of a formal camp session. Still, being back on the ice at around the five-month mark should be a good omen.

Montreal hopes a healthy Dach is also an improved one. He’s now entering his fourth season with the Habs after they acquired the 2019 third overall pick from the Blackhawks at the 2022 draft. He still hasn’t reached the heights and promise he offered during his first year north of the border, when he managed a 14-24–38 scoring line and averaged a hearty 18:30 per game despite injuries limiting him to 58 appearances.

In the last two years, his right knee issues have limited him to 59 games, scoring only 10 goals and 24 points with a -27 rating. He produced at a 54-point clip per 82 games back in 2022-23 but has only scored at a 33-point pace since. He also had some of the worst defensive impacts on the team last year before his season ended prematurely. Despite receiving the most sheltered even-strength minutes of his career by a wide margin, starting over 63% of his shifts in the offensive zone, Montreal controlled only 44.8% of shot attempts and 46.0% of expected goals with him on the ice. Posting below team-average possession numbers with that degree of sheltering is a rather significant red flag.

That’s not exactly the type of player a team with playoff aspirations wants centering their second line, particularly with a rookie Ivan Demidov likely to start the year on his flank. Nonetheless, their lack of offseason activity at forward hasn’t left them with many other options. It’ll be some combination of him, trade pickup Zachary Bolduc, and Alex Newhook – all promising young players with spotty or non-existent track records at center – competing for that 2C slot. Might bottom-six staple Jake Evans get a look at an expanded role coming off a career-high 36 points?

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