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KHL Notes: Radulov, Petan, Pasquale

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It’s back to the KHL for Alexander Radulov, or at least that is what appears to be the meaning behind a tweet from last night. Ak Bars Kazan tweeted “What’s in the transfer news?” along with a video clip suggesting that Radulov has signed, and several other reports surfaced that it will be a two-year deal.

Importantly though, nothing has been officially announced at this point and Radulov’s name does not appear in Wednesday’s transfer news. A return to the KHL for the 35-year-old forward certainly would make sense as Radulov’s role with the Dallas Stars was diminished greatly this season, to the point where he barely averaged over 14 minutes a night. The big winger had just four goals and 22 points in 71 games and will be 36 by the time next season begins. If it is the end of his NHL career, he’ll finish with 524 regular season games, 368 points, and the one run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2020.

  • Another name that could be heading overseas is Nic Petan, who Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK TV reports is in talks with Omsk Avangard. There’s no deal in place, but Petan trying his hand somewhere else would also make sense. The 27-year-old forward has bounced around the last few years and still can’t seem to find a fit at the NHL level, despite outstanding numbers in the minor leagues. In 18 games this season for the Vancouver Canucks, he failed to score a single goal and recorded just two points. (UPDATE: Irfaan Gaffar of The Fourth Period disagrees with Dhaliwal’s report, indicating that there has not been any talks between Petan and a KHL club).
  • Eddie Pasquale, who recently served as one of the goaltenders for Team Canada at the Olympics, is staying in the KHL but with a new team. The veteran netminder saw his contract terminated with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, only to sign a new deal with Metallurg Magnitogorsk that will run through 2022-23. Pasquale last appeared in North America during the 2018-19 season, wen he saw three NHL games for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

St. Louis Blues Extend Calle Rosen

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The St. Louis Blues have decided to bring back one of their depth defensemen, signing Calle Rosen to a two-year, two-way contract extension. The team did not immediately release financial details, but Lou Korac of NHL.com reports that it will carry an average annual value of $762.5K at the NHL level and includes strong AHL salaries of $400K in 2022-23 and $450K in 2023-24. Rosen was set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer.

Relative to some other players in the minor leagues, those are huge numbers for Rosen and are obviously a nice reward after playing on a one-year, two-way deal worth considerably less this season. The 28-year-old defenseman ended up playing 40 games for the Springfield Thunderbirds during the regular season, suiting up just 18 times for St. Louis.

Things changed in the playoffs as the team desperately needed healthy options, forcing Rosen into the lineup on nine occasions. One of those games, of course, included the collision with Nazem Kadri and Jordan Binnington, one that knocked the netminder out of the series and created an ongoing controversy.

Rosen is an interesting player, as there is very obvious offensive upside that he has shown throughout his time in North America. The undrafted defenseman joined the Toronto Maple Leafs organization in 2017-18 after a successful career in Sweden and posted outstanding numbers in the minor leagues. In 2018-19 he had 46 points in 54 games for the Toronto Marlies, numbers that obviously interested other teams. Coincidentally enough, Rosen was eventually included in the Kadri trade to the Colorado Avalanche in 2019, which saw Tyson Barrie and Alexander Kerfoot go the other way.

After another trade took him back to Toronto less than a year later, he ended up a free agent without a ton of NHL experience. The Blues snatched him up, and those 18 regular season appearances nearly matched his previous total.

Now, with a two-year deal in hand, he’ll likely see more time in St. Louis, mostly as an injury replacement or seventh defenseman. The team still has five veteran options signed to one-way contracts for each of the next two seasons, with younger players like Niko Mikkola and Scott Perunovich in need of new deals as restricted free agents this summer.

Vincent Trocheck Hoping To Return To Carolina

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The Carolina Hurricanes, like many of the Stanley Cup contenders that fell short this season, have some tough decisions to make in the summer. Four roster forwards and two defensemen will be unrestricted free agents, including second-line center Vincent Trocheck. The veteran pivot is coming off a six-year, $28.5MM deal that he signed with the Florida Panthers and is likely looking at a raise from the $4.75MM cap hit he has carried since 2016.

When asked today about whether he’d like to stay in Carolina, Trocheck told reporters including Chip Alexander of the Raleigh News & Observer that the team has “some unfinished business” and that he would welcome a return to the Hurricanes. The two sides apparently did have some conversations about a new contract during the season but no decision was reached.

Trocheck, 28, arrived in Carolina at the 2020 trade deadline and has been a nice counterpoint to Sebastian Aho and Jordan Staal, giving the team three centers that are all capable of filling various roles. All three average substantial penalty killing time, while Trocheck and Aho are both leaders on the powerplay. Combined, they give the Hurricanes a strong advantage in the faceoff circle and lengthen the lineup considerably. Trocheck’s 96 points in 135 games has been strong production, and he added another ten in 14 playoff appearances this year.

Still, there are some real critiques about the play of the former Panther as well, and the idea of bringing him back on a long-term deal may have some Hurricanes fans squirming in their seats. While Staal’s contract is set to expire after next season, the team is about to have several younger players–including Aho himself–that need new deals. Aho, Teuvo Teravainen, and Brett Pesce are all scheduled for unrestricted free agency in 2024, while Seth Jarvis will also need a new contract that summer as he comes off his entry-level deal.

The fact that Nino Niederreiter (and maybe Ian Cole) also needs a new contract this summer could also have an effect on the Trocheck negotiation, as there will only be so much money to go around. If the team feels as though they want to take another crack at it with the entire group, bringing everyone back will be an expensive proposition.

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Columbus Blue Jackets Sign Joona Luoto

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After just seeing his last NHL contract terminated in 2021, Joona Luoto is back. The young forward has signed a one-year, two-way contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets. The contract carries a $750K salary in the NHL and a $300K salary in the AHL, according to Brian Hedger of the Columbus Dispatch.

Luoto, 24, played 16 games for the Winnipeg Jets in 2019-20 but was limited to minor league work the following season and then ended up terminating his entry-level deal in September after it was clear he wouldn’t be making the squad. That led him back to Finland, where he played for his hometown Tappara Tampere and showed exactly why he was an interesting undrafted signing in the first place.

In 14 playoff games, Luoto scored eight goals and 17 points, winning the Jarri Kurri award as the best postseason player. His club won the league championship (his second Liiga title), and now he’s joining a new NHL organization with obvious ties to Finland. Not only does general manager Jarmo Kekalainen hail from there but Tampere is also the hometown of Blue Jackets star Patrik Laine. In fact, the two played for years together at the minor and junior levels.

Whether he makes an impact at the NHL level next season remains to be seen, but Luoto will at least get another chance on this side of the pond. If he scores even a single point, he will have eclipsed his time in Winnipeg; he was held scoreless in all 16 appearances so far.

Dean Kukan Signs In Switzerland

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June 1: As expected, Kukan has officially signed with the ZSC Lions. What may not have been expected was the length of the contract. Kukan has inked a five-year deal with the Swiss club, essentially ending his NHL career entirely.  The undrafted defenseman will finish with 153 regular season games.

May 20: Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Dean Kukan is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent this summer, and he isn’t expected back. While playing for Switzerland at the World Championship, Kukan told SRF that he will return home next season to play in the National League, though wouldn’t confirm which team.

Kukan, 28, was a regular in the Blue Jackets lineup the last few seasons, playing in 41 games this year. Signed to a two-year, $3.3MM deal in 2020, he would have entered the market as an interesting depth option that has more than 150 games of NHL experience. Still, even the Blue Jackets never iced him much, with Kukan averaging just over 16 minutes a night this season, and he provides almost no offensive upside with 30 career points.

It will be interesting to see how long his new contract is, and if it will essentially end his career in North America. Given he will turn 29 in July and obviously wants to return home, this season may have been the last we’ll see him in the NHL.

Undrafted, he came up through the ZSC Lions program before heading to Sweden back in 2011, meaning this will be quite the homecoming for the 2016 Calder Cup champion.

Philadelphia Flyers Will Not Sign Connor McClennon, Marcus Westfalt

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With the deadline to sign him later today, the Philadelphia Flyers are going to watch at least one draft pick become an unrestricted free agent. Olivia Reiner of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the Flyers will not sign Connor McClennon to an entry-level contract.

McClennon, 19, was selected 178th overall in 2020 and has taken his game to a new level this season for the Winnipeg ICE. Playing with a forward group that is loaded with offensive talent, the undersized forward took full advantage, scoring 43 goals to lead the club in just 62 games. His playoff performance was much of the same, with 21 points in 15 games before the ICE eventually lost to the Edmonton Oil Kings.

Still, it’s hard to know if his performance was a true step forward or just the result of playing with names like Matthew Savoie and Conor Geekie, two of the top handful of prospects for the 2022 draft. Charlie O’Connor of The Athletic tweets that the organization is not satisfied with McClennon’s skating, given his small stature.

Of note, McClennon could still sign a contract with the Flyers in the future but he will not be limited to them once the deadline passes. If another team wants to offer him an entry-level contract, he’ll be eligible to sign it as soon as this evening. He’s one of many players drafted in 2018 or 2020 that will become free agents today, including first-round pick Filip Johansson.

Later in the day, the team confirmed that they will also not sign Marcus Westfalt, the other player whose rights will expire today. The 22-year-old winger has been stuck in the Swedish second tier for several years and was always a longshot to sign after being selected in the seventh round of the 2018 draft.

Montreal Canadiens Officially Name Martin St. Louis Head Coach

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The Montreal Canadiens have made it official, announcing Martin St. Louis as the 32nd head coach in franchise history. The interim tag has been lifted, and St. Louis has signed a three-year contract, keeping him behind the bench through the 2024-25 season. Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes released the following statement:

We are happy to officially appoint Martin as head coach of the Montreal Canadiens. Martin is a proven leader, a great communicator with a deep understanding of and passion for the game of hockey. His arrival brought a renewed energy to our group, and we look forward to him returning behind the bench to continue guiding our team for the foreseeable future.

St. Louis, 46, immediately impacted the Canadiens after taking over from Dominique Ducharme last season. The Hall of Fame player jumped behind the bench for the first time and guided the club to a 14-19-4 record down the stretch. While those numbers aren’t impressive in a vacuum, when compared to the 8-30-7 that Ducharme had recorded, St. Louis was obviously a vast improvement.

Perhaps most notable was the transformation of young sniper Cole Caufield. A player that has heard comparisons to St. Louis for years because of their shared stature, Caufield had just one goal in the entire season before the coaching change. Suddenly he found life under his new bench boss and managed 22 goals in 37 games under St. Louis, incredibly leading Montreal in goals despite his brutal start.  If Caufield’s emergence was important, it certainly was a nice sign for St. Louis’ future with the club.

Just because he’d never coached at the NHL level before, doesn’t mean that St. Louis has no connections to talent at that level. Not only does he have a long history with Hughes and fellow executive Jeff Gorton, but other young players have also explained how familiar they are with the legendary player from his days coaching minor hockey. Even Shane Wright, the potential first-overall pick for Montreal at this year’s draft, told Mike Zeisberger of NHL.com yesterday that he had played against a team coached by St. Louis in the past.

As a player, St. Louis was rather unique. Undrafted, the 5’8″ forward from the University of Vermont started things off with the Calgary Flames but famously found himself on waivers early on. When he ended up with the Tampa Bay Lightning, things clicked and he would go on to become one of the most consistent offensive players in the league for the next decade. In total, he played in 1,134 regular season games and racked up 1,033 points, won the Stanley Cup, Olympic gold, and many individual awards. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2019, a few years after retirement.

It may be a risk to hire a coach with such little experience behind the bench, but this is no ordinary coach. The Canadiens will hope that his unique hockey story continues with success in this next chapter.

Snapshots: St. Louis, James, Tarasenko

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Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes met with the media today, as the team prepares for the draft combine and meetings with many of the top available prospects. When asked about head coach Martin St. Louis, Hughes explained to reporters including Eric Engels of Sportsnet that a contract should be settled in the coming days.

St. Louis seemed to have a very positive impact on the team after coming in partway through the season, and though the club posted just a 14-19-4 record under him, there are high hopes for his future should he want to coach long-term. The 46-year-old was a Hall of Fame player but had very little coaching experience before he took over in Montreal.

  • Speaking of a Hall of Famer taking over, Angela James will move from the bench to the front office for the Toronto Six, as she was named general manager of the PHF franchise today. James, of course, is one of the most influential figures in women’s hockey history, and recently became a part-owner of the Six along with a group including Anthony Stewart and Ted Nolan. James was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011 and won four World Championship gold medals.
  • It seems so long ago now that Vladimir Tarasenko requested a trade away from the St. Louis Blues. The veteran winger made a triumphant return to the ice this season, scoring 34 goals and setting a new career-high with 82 points in just 75 games. With six more tallies in the postseason, there’s little doubt that the 30-year-old can still contribute at a high level. With one year left on his contract, the question was posed to Blues general manager Doug Armstrong today about whether Tarasenko would still be on the team next season. His answer: “I’m not concerned about Vladi for next year at all.” Armstrong suggested that he won’t worry about the 2023 offseason–when Tarasenko and Ryan O’Reilly are both scheduled to hit unrestricted free agency–just yet, as he’s focused on next season’s roster.

Minnesota Wild Not Expected To Sign Filip Johansson

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Though it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise with the deadline set for tomorrow, Michael Russo of The Athletic has confirmed that the Minnesota Wild are not going to sign Filip Johnasson. The 2018 first-round pick will become an unrestricted free agent and the Wild will receive a compensatory pick in this year’s draft, which will be 56th overall.

Johansson, 22, has spent the last three seasons playing in the SHL, where his offensive numbers have never really improved. In 47 games this season the young defenseman had just three goals and 11 points. Not only that but he hasn’t been included in any major international events for Sweden since the U18 World Juniors in 2018 and signed a two-year extension with Leksands in December, which keeps him under contract through the 2023-24 season.

All that adds up to a player that didn’t hold a ton of upside for the Wild, and given the fact that they can now get a solid compensatory pick, leaving him unsigned makes at least some sense.

Still, when looking back at the 2018 draft it is easy to think about what could have been. Just as the Wild’s pick was approaching, the New York Rangers traded up four spots and selected St. Paul native and NHL regular K’Andre Miller with the 22nd selection. While it’s certainly no guarantee that the team would have gone with the 6’4″ Miller, who was committed to the University of Wisconsin, he or one of the many other defensemen that followed (Rasmus Sandin, Mattias Samuelsson, and Alexander Romanov are among the group taken soon after) could have been a difference-maker for the Wild already.

Now, though a second-round pick does hold value, the team will likely have to wait several other years for that player to mature and develop–if he makes it at all. This unfortunate result is just another oddity in the whirlwind 14-month tenure of former Minnesota general manager Paul Fenton.

Carolina Hurricanes Send Pyotr Kochetkov, Jack LaFontaine To AHL

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For most of the Carolina Hurricanes, the season is over and they now face months of disappointment before getting another chance to chase a championship. Not so for at least two members of the team, as Pyotr Kochetkov and Jack LaFontaine have both been sent to the AHL’s Chicago Wolves.

Kochetkov, 22, likely didn’t think he’d be appearing in more playoff games than regular season contests in his first NHL campaign, but that’s exactly what happened. The young netminder was forced into the crease on four occasions these playoffs, including games six and seven against the New York Rangers. While he struggled in those appearances, it’s hard to blame someone who had just three games of NHL experience and 15 games of AHL experience to this point.

A second-round selection in 2019, there’s still huge upside in the Russian goaltender, and he showed it with the Wolves this year. In the AHL, Kochetkov went 13-1-1 with a .921 save percentage.

LaFontaine, meanwhile, was pulled right out of college hockey this season when the Hurricanes were struggling to find healthy goaltenders. The 24-year-old started the year with the University of Minnesota (even serving as captain), before signing his entry-level contract in early January. He appeared in two NHL games, 13 AHL games, and even two ECHL games, posting better numbers as the competition decreased. The third-round pick didn’t appear in the playoffs but was needed as the emergency goaltender with Frederik Andersen’s status unclear.

Now, the two goaltenders will re-join a Wolves team that is set to take on the Stockton Heat in the Western Conference Finals. The series kicks off on Friday, and it will be interesting to see if either one sees any action. To this point, the Wolves have gone with Alex Lyon in the playoffs, who has a .926 save percentage in seven games–winning six of them to cruise through two rounds.

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