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Victoria Royals Hire Morgan Klimchuk

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Selected 28th overall, with the pick the Calgary Flames received for Jarome Iginla, Morgan Klimchuk will join the group of players that only ever played a single NHL game. The 27-year-old has joined the coaching staff of the Victoria Royals of the WHL, signaling a definite end to his professional career.

Klimchuk last played during the 2019-20 season with the Belleville Senators, scoring 12 goals and 26 points in 49 games. In 2021-22 he coached U15 prep players at Edge School, a private athletic academy outside of Calgary. Through 274 AHL games, he scored 62 goals and 133 points.

While he has quite a bit of work ahead of him, these kinds of early retirement stories can lead to extremely young head coaches at the professional level. Klimchuk was picked in the same round as Nathan MacKinnon and Aleksander Barkov, for instance, players who are still right in their prime on the ice.

Remaining Restricted Free Agents

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August 28: The list below has been updated to reflect the remaining restricted free agents as of August 28, 2022.

August 12: We’re now coming up on one month since the start of free agency, and two months until the start of the 2022-23 regular season. Teams have mostly completed their offseason business, though a handful still have big issues to solve at some point in the next few weeks.

The arbitration schedule has finished and many of the front offices are slowing down for the rest of the summer in preparation for a long upcoming campaign. That is, except for the teams that still have restricted free agents to sign.

According to CapFriendly, 29 players who received qualifying offers are still unsigned, though that list includes a few New York Islanders minor leaguers who very well could have already agreed to contracts. The Islanders do also have Noah Dobson, who is among the most important names on the list after his breakout 51-point campaign.

Dobson, 22, looks as though he will be a building block for the team through the next decade, and seems positioned for a long-term contract at some point in the near future.

Beyond New York, many eyes are on the Dallas Stars, where Jason Robertson and Jake Oettinger remain unsigned. Other than Miro Heiskanen, there may not be any more important players on the Stars roster than the star forward and emerging goaltender. Both would command hefty cap hits on long-term deals, and given the $10MM in cap space remaining for Dallas, may end up with bridge contracts when things are all said and done.

There are other full-time NHLers among the group too. Alexander Romanov, Kirby Dach, Filip Zadina, Ryan McLeod, and Alex Formenton all played at least 70 games this season for their respective clubs, and are without deals to this point. The full list is below:

Arizona Coyotes

Barrett Hayton

Calgary Flames

Adam Ruzicka

Buffalo Sabres

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen

Dallas Stars

Jake Oettinger
Jason Robertson

Edmonton Oilers

Ryan McLeod

Los Angeles Kings

Michael Anderson
Sean Durzi

Montreal Canadiens

Kirby Dach
Cayden Primeau

New York Islanders

Parker Wotherspoon

Ottawa Senators

Erik Brannstrom
Alex Formenton

Philadelphia Flyers

Hayden Hodgson

San Jose Sharks

Jonah Gadjovich

Seattle Kraken

Cale Fleury

Toronto Maple Leafs

Rasmus Sandin

Vegas Golden Knights

Nicolas Hague

Of note, most of these players are eligible to sign an offer sheet, if they choose to. Only Romanov and Cates are what are called 10.2(c) players, which are not eligible to negotiate with any team other than their own.

There are also several players like Josef Korenar, who are technically still restricted free agents relative to the NHL but have signed overseas. These rights will be held by their team after issuing qualifying offers but there is no need to list them with the above group.

Any of these restricted free agents must sign a contract before December 1 to be eligible to play in the NHL this season. Though training camp provides a soft deadline, that is the actual threshold that negotiations need to be completed by, or else a player could miss an entire year.

Submit Your Questions For The #PHRMailbag

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As most of the hockey world takes a vacation, the World Juniors in Edmonton are providing a nice change of pace for fans looking to get a glimpse of their future stars. Anaheim Ducks forward Mason McTavish leads the tournament with six goals and ten points, sometimes looking like he is six or seven years older than the rest of his competition, while Luke Hughes continues to dominate as the tournament’s best defenseman. With the tournament coming to a close in just a few days, we’ll soon have to turn our attention back to the coming season.

With that in mind, it’s time to run another edition of the PHR Mailbag.

Last time, the mailbag was broken into two parts. The first examined the risky situation in Toronto’s crease, Pierre-Luc Dubois’ future in Winnipeg, and P.K. Subban’s continued free agency. The second focused on some offer sheet candidates, the front office in Philadelphia, and some often-discussed trade targets.

You can submit a question by using #PHRMailbag on Twitter or by leaving a comment down below. The mailbag will run on the weekend.

Minor Transactions: 08/19/22

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Now that Nazem Kadri has signed, some dominoes may fall over the next few weeks in terms of the remaining free agents. But even before that, there will be minor moves to continue fleshing out AHL rosters and the like. As always, we’ll keep track of those notable moves right here.

  • Koletrane Wilson is joining the Rockford IceHogs for the upcoming season, signing a one-year AHL contract. The Chicago Blackhawks continue to put an emphasis on the depth in the minor leagues, and Wilson was a big contributor for the Kansas City Mavericks of the ECHL last season. The 22-year-old defenseman had 16 points in 57 games while racking up 73 penalty minutes.
  • Matt Cairns, a third-round pick of the Edmonton Oilers that never signed and thus became an unrestricted free agent, is back with the Cincinnati Cyclones for another year. The 24-year-old defenseman had 16 points in 65 games with the ECHL club last season, while also getting into two matches with the Rochester Americans.
  • Alessio Beglieri, a Swiss netminder that went undrafted this year, will have a chance to give NHL scouts a more up-close performance this time around. He’s agreed to come to play for the Mississauga Steelheads of the OHL, after being selected 38th overall in the CHL Import Draft. He’ll be joined by Swiss forward Valdemar Hull, the team’s other import selection, who won’t be eligible for the draft until next year.
  • Per a team release, the Henderson Silver Knights have signed forward Alex Swetlikoff to a two-year AHL contract. Swetlikoff earned the contract in the Vegas Golden Knights organization after participating in their development camp in July. In his final WHL season with the Everett Silvertips last year, Swetlikoff posted 33 goals and 84 points in 68 games.

This page will be updated throughout the day

San Jose Sharks Announce Several Hires

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After Brian Wiseman was originally announced as an assistant coach with the New York Islanders for the upcoming season, the team eventually decided that he would not be joining the team. Now, the veteran coach has found a new gig, as he will join David Quinn’s staff with the San Jose Sharks as an assistant.

He isn’t the only one joining the Sharks today though. The team has also named Stephane Leblanc its director of CHL scouting, and added Tommy Wingels and Luca Sbisa as development coaches.

Wingels, 34, played parts of seven seasons with the Sharks to start his NHL career, after working his way up from the sixth round of the 2008 draft. The hard-working forward managed to set a career-high with 16 goals and 38 points in 2013-14, though that kind of production wouldn’t last long. His last season in the NHL was 2017-18, before playing a pair of years overseas.

Sbisa meanwhile never did play for the Sharks, but he certainly faced them many times. A veteran of 549 regular season games, most of them in the Pacific Division, the 32-year-old saw just one game in the 2020-21 season before failing to play at all in 2021-22. Retirement will bring him to the Sharks staff, where he can pass on some of the tricks that made him a first-round pick in 2008.

Dmitri Ovchinnikov Heading To KHL

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The Toronto Maple Leafs won’t have Dmitri Ovchinnikov in North America this season. After the young forward signed his entry-level contract in February and made his AHL debut with the Toronto Marlies at the end of the year, he has now signed a new one-year deal with Sibir Novosibirsk and will transfer to the club for the upcoming season.

This loan does not cancel Ovchinnikov’s contract with the Maple Leafs, only delays his debut as a full-time member of the AHL club. The talented 20-year-old forward scored twice in his seven games with the team this spring, after rarely seeing the ice in his 17 KHL appearances.

Hopefully, he’ll be able to claw out a bigger role for his Russian club and start contributing as he has at the MHL level, where Ovchinnikov has been better than a point-per-game player the last three seasons. The fifth-round pick is under contract with the Maple Leafs for two more seasons.

Matthew Virgilio Signs With Soo Greyhounds

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The Soo Greyhounds announced a player signing today, getting Matthew Virgilio to commit and sign a standard OHL player agreement. No big deal, one might think, given the fact that Virgilio was a fourth-round pick in this year’s OHL draft.

But it’s not that simple. Virgilio, at the time, was committed to the University of Michigan and had signed a tender in the USHL to play for the Tri-City Storm. Had that commitment not been in place, he easily would have gone in the first round of the OHL draft, quite near the top as one of the best defensemen in his age group.

The 16-year-old is considered a top prospect for the 2024 NHL Draft and will now get to show off his skills in the Soo for the next several years. General manager Kyle Raftis explained:

Matthew is a very polished defenseman who has the ability to move pucks efficiently, control play in all three zones, and also bring a physical edge and intensity to his game on the defensive side of the puck. The way he plays the game shows a high-level of maturity and poise that are rare traits to find with a player at his age.

The Greyhounds now list him at 6’0 183-lbs in their release, despite him only turning 16 a few months ago. For prospect watchers and draft gurus, he’ll be one to watch.

Morning Notes: Price, Monahan, McMorrow

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The Montreal Canadiens would like a healthy Carey Price to be leading them onto the ice every night. But since that’s not a possibility right now, taking the entire year (and perhaps the rest of his career) off might actually be the best option for the team. Eric Engels’ latest column for Sportsnet examines the Price situation, his current injury status, and how his absence actually might benefit the team in the long run, thanks to the salary cap system.

In it, he also suggests that the Canadiens’ competitive window likely won’t be until 2025, at which point even a healthy Price would be 38. Even if it happened sooner than that, the veteran goaltender’s time leading Montreal is all but over.

  • With Sean Monahan undergoing his own hip surgery earlier this year, Canadiens fans were wondering whether he would even be ready for the start of the season, after acquiring him yesterday. The veteran center is hoping so and told the media that he’s already back on the ice four times a week preparing for the season. He feels healthy and ready to “play hockey again at a high level.” While the Canadiens landed a first-round pick for Monahan already, if he can reclaim any sort of semblance of his former self, they may be able to flip him for even more.
  • The Denver Pioneers are having a good week, and it continues with the commitment of top prospect Brendan McMorrow. The 16-year-old will be joining the U.S. National Team Development Program this year, with his sights set on the 2024 draft and a freshman season at DU in 2024-25. So much for the second-round pick that the Spokane Chiefs used on the young forward in the 2021 WHL US Prospects draft.

Carey Price Not Expected To Be Ready For Season; May Not Play At All

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When the Montreal Canadiens made the trade for Sean Monahan earlier today, some wondered whether it meant that Carey Price had not responded well to his rehab work. After all, the Canadiens are well over the cap if Price was going to be healthy enough to play this season.

That does not appear to be the case. Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes announced that Price will not be ready for the start of the season and there is a chance he does not play at all. News on the goaltender’s knee has been “discouraging” and Hughes does not currently see a path through rehab to Price playing this year.

The team will have more information when Price undergoes his medical at training camp but as of now, they seem to be preparing for life without him. Monahan’s addition pushed them nearly $6MM over the cap ceiling, though he too is unlikely to be ready for the start of the year. The former Calgary Flames forward underwent hip surgery earlier this year and Hughes expects him to be back at some point in November.

That will mean at least $16.8MM on long-term injured reserve to start the year, as the Canadiens use their cap space and financial might to acquire future assets.

Price has four years left on the eight-year, $84MM contract he signed in 2017, though a huge chunk of that has already been paid over the first half of the deal (and this year’s signing bonus).

As frustrating as it may seem for Canadiens fans, the possibility of Price never playing again may actually benefit the organization in the long run. The 35-year-old goaltender has come nowhere close to performing up to the level of a $10.5MM cap hit over the last several years, save for the incredible performance in Montreal’s cinderella run to the 2021 Stanley Cup Final.

Since he signed that massive extension, Price has recorded a .908 save percentage in 203 regular season games, posting a 91-86-24 record in the process. A huge reason for those struggles has been injuries, which have cropped up all over his body after so much time in the net.

While surgery remains an option to try and get his knee back to a level where he can reclaim the crease, there’s no telling how his body would react to that kind of an operation at this point or whether he’d be able to perform at even an NHL level, let alone his own previous mark. With over 700 regular season games played, Price currently ranks 27th all-time, and is even higher (21st) on the wins list.

In the meantime, Jake Allen and Sam Montembeault will serve as the Canadiens’ tandem, with restricted free agent Cayden Primeau still to sign.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Calgary Flames Sign Nazem Kadri

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The Calgary Flames may have lost Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau, but they certainly aren’t rebuilding. After trading Sean Monahan to the Montreal Canadiens to clear enough cap space, the team has signed free agent forward Nazem Kadri to a seven-year, $49MM ($7MM AAV) contract. PuckPedia has the full details:

  • 2022-23: $4.5MM salary + $2.5MM signing bonus
  • 2023-24: $4.5MM salary + $2.5MM signing bonus
  • 2024-25: $4.5MM salary + $2.5MM signing bonus
  • 2025-26: $4.5MM salary + $2.5MM signing bonus
  • 2026-27: $6.0MM salary + $1.0MM signing bonus
  • 2027-28: $7.0MM salary

Kadri, 31, came into the summer as one of the top free agents on the market after an incredible season with the Colorado Avalanche that included a career-high 87 points and resulted in a Stanley Cup championship. It’s not often a player of that caliber sits on the open market for more than a month but it appears as though the Flames and general manager Brad Treliving (whose birthday is today) are going to be the beneficiaries. Kadri comes to town along with Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar, completely changing the look of the team and essentially replacing the production of Gaudreau and Tkachuk.

Treliving released the following statement:Nazem is a highly competitive top six player who makes our centre ice position deep. He brings a high skill level and determination to our group combined with his recent experience of a Stanley Cup championship. We look forward to welcoming Nazem and his family to Calgary and his contributions to our team’s ultimate success.

The issue some will point to is the age of the two-way pivot, who will turn 32 in October, and how he had never really come close to his 2021-22 level of production previously. While that is true, Kadri also offers some things outside his overall offensive production that can make him a valuable part of the team. A strong defensive player who has received Selke Trophy votes on three occasions, he is also willing to engage physically and has had a knack for scoring at clutch moments. Avalanche fans will fondly remember his first playoff run with the team when he led all postseason players with five game-winning goals in just 15 appearances.

Of course, as good as those two performances were, you can’t discuss Kadri without mentioning his other postseason escapades. Three times–twice for the Toronto Maple Leafs and once for Colorado–he has been suspended in the playoffs, arguably costing his team a chance at advancing. While he can say that part of his game is behind him, the most recent incident was just a year ago, and there’s no guarantee he won’t do something to jeopardize his team again in the future.

Still, adding a player like this to the mix keeps the Flames’ competitive window wide open, at least for the next couple of seasons. The Huberdeau extension and this long-term deal for Kadri will likely not end well, though, with the salary cap expected to increase significantly down the road, they at least will get some relief.

One other thing that might be brought up is how Kadri blocked a trade to the Flames just a few years ago, when the Maple Leafs tried to send him west in exchange for T.J. Brodie. The London, Ontario native explained that decision earlier this year in a piece for the Player’s Tribune, saying that it had nothing to do with Calgary and everything to do with trying to stay in Toronto, where he wanted to win. The Maple Leafs would end up sending him to Colorado, a team he couldn’t block, and signed Brodie in free agency instead.

The only way the Flames can afford a player like Kadri is by moving out considerable salary, and that’s what a Monahan trade represents. The 27-year-old forward has a $6.375MM cap hit for next season and has completely fallen off a cliff in terms of production over the last few years. Once a consistent 30-goal, 60-point center, Monahan had just eight goals and 23 points in 65 games this year while seeing his ice time drop to just 14 minutes a night. Injury has hampered his game significantly, and there’s no telling at this point if he’ll ever get back to being a top-six contributor.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

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