Logan Mailloux Renounces Himself From 2021 NHL Draft
Any team that was struggling with the decision of whether or not to select Logan Mailloux in the upcoming draft has now been taken off the hook. The top prospect has renounced himself from the 2021 NHL Draft, asking teams not to select him.
Mailloux, 18, according to reports in The Athletic and Daily Faceoff, was charged in Sweden with taking and distributing an offensive photo without consent during a consensual sexual encounter last year. According to Katie Strang and Corey Pronman of The Athletic, at least nine teams had already completely dropped Mailloux off their draft list because of the incident. Now, the prospect is asking for the entire league to pass on him. In a Twitter post today, Mailloux wrote:
Being drafted into the NHL is an honour and a privilege that no one takes lightly. The NHL Draft should be one of the most exciting landmark moments in a player’s career, and given the circumstances I don’t feel I have demonstrated strong enough maturity or character to earn that privilege in the 2021 Draft. If I were to ever have the honour of being selected I would want a fanbase to be proud to welcome me to their organization. I know it will take time for society to build back the trust I have lost, and that is why I think it is best that I renounce myself from the 2021 NHL Draft and ask that no one select me this upcoming weekend. I feel that this would allow me the opportunity to demonstrate an adequate level of maturity and character next season with the London Knights in the OHL and provide all the NHL teams the opportunity to reassess my character towards the 2022 NHL Draft.
Should he go undrafted, Mailloux could return to the London Knights and continue his hockey career. When asked for comment by Strang, the Knights released a statement indicating that they would continue to work with the young defenseman to “help him better understand his actions, the ramifications of his actions and [ensure] that this does not happen again.” If undrafted, he would be eligible for the 2022 draft. Mailloux was ranked 23rd among North American skaters by NHL Central Scouting.
Latest On Vladimir Tarasenko
UPDATE: Bally Sports Midwest’s Andy Strickland reports that if the Seattle Kraken do select Tarasenko, he won’t be on the team for opening night. They’ll be trading him to a different team.
So you want Vladimir Tarasenko but can’t afford his entire cap hit. The St. Louis Blues won’t agree to a retained salary deal (at least not for a reasonable price). How do you get him? The answer may be the Seattle Kraken. According to David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period, teams have reached out to Seattle in hopes that they would select Tarasenko in the expansion draft only to retain salary and trade him afterward. The Kraken are apparently open to eating a portion of the contract for the right deal.
The 29-year-old winger was one of the key names left unprotected for this week’s draft, after his relationship with the Blues deteriorated over the last year. Tarasenko is coming off multiple shoulder surgeries and has lost trust in the Blues medical staff, according to several reports. Since the start of the 2019-20 season, he has played in just 34 regular season games, scoring seven goals and 24 points. Whether he’s healthy enough to contribute at a high-level next season is still completely unclear, though he did play in all four Blues playoffs games against the Colorado Avalanche–even scoring two goals in the deciding game four.
Of course, a deal like this would also come with an opportunity cost for the Blues. By selecting Tarasenko, they would be passing on the other options from the Blues roster. That includes 24-year-old defenseman Vince Dunn, who was also left unprotected despite registering 32 goals and 102 points in the first four seasons of his career. Dunn’s tenure in St. Louis has been rocky, with several healthy scratches, but he is also a young, offensive weapon that teams often covet.
That means whatever you’re offering for Tarasenko better be worth it, as the Kraken would be eating a portion of his $7.5MM cap hit, giving up a high-end (albeit risky) sniper, and missing the chance to select a young defenseman.
While Pagnotta doesn’t list the teams that would be interested, it’s easy to imagine several of the league’s top contenders would want to take the risk of a half-off Tarasenko. When healthy, he was one of the league’s most dominant goal scorers, putting up five consecutive seasons of at least 33 goals. If Seattle was willing to retain half of his cap hit, for instance, and Tarasenko proves healthy enough to get back to his previous totals, it would be quite a bargain for $3.75MM.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Manitoba Moose Hire Mark Morrison
After Pascal Vincent left the Manitoba Moose for the Columbus Blue Jackets the team, and their NHL affiliate the Winnipeg Jets, were on the lookout for a replacement. They’ve found it in Mark Morrison, who will become the next head coach of the Moose after several seasons with the Anaheim Ducks.
Morrison is a familiar face, having served as an assistant with the Jets affiliate when it was in St. John’s and then in Manitoba for two years. His last head coaching job was for the Victoria Salmon Kings, which at the time was the organization’s ECHL affiliate. Though he has spent the last four years as an assistant with the Ducks, there are long ties to Canada for Morrison, who twice represented the country at the World Juniors as a player and suited up many other times for his country internationally.
His time in the NHL spanned all of ten games, but Morrison had a long, successful playing career that included more than a decade with the Fife Flyers, serving as a player-coach up until his retirement in 2005. He’s now back with the Jets, where he’ll be tasked with developing the next wave of talent in the AHL.
Winnipeg had some outstanding young players at the AHL level this season, headlined by top prospect Cole Perfetti. The 19-year-old forward, selected 10th overall in 2020, put up 26 points in 32 games at the minor league level despite being too young to normally even qualify. With the OHL not playing, Perfetti took his opportunity to play with the Moose and ran with it. Unfortunately, unless the league issues exemptions, Perfetti won’t have that same opportunity in 2021-22. Still too young, he’ll either have to make the NHL squad or return to the Saginaw Spirit of the OHL at the start of the season.
The Moose went 18-13-5 this season, meaning there is lots of room for improvement by Morrison. The team will start off the 2021-22 season on October 15.
San Jose Not Expected To Make Side-Deal With Kraken
The San Jose Sharks took advantage of the expansion draft frenzy by acquiring Adin Hill from the Arizona Coyotes just before the roster freeze went into effect. The Coyotes were at risk of losing Hill for nothing in the draft, so turned him into a goaltending prospect and second-round pick before Seattle had the chance to claim him. The Sharks won’t be under the same pressure and Kevin Kurz of The Athletic tweets that they are not expected to make any side-deals with the Kraken before Wednesday’s draft.
As the draft approached, it seemed more likely that the Sharks would make a deal with Seattle to take one of the team’s high-priced assets than to protect an extra player or two. Instead, they decided (or were forced) to protect all of the aging stars, not leaving much for the Kraken to choose from. If the expansion club takes someone like Dylan Gambrell, who recently re-signed with the team, it certainly wouldn’t be too painful given they were willing to trade him just a few days ago. A side-deal certainly isn’t necessary to protect any of those that are currently exposed.
One has to wonder if this is an opportunity missed, even if it would have cost the Sharks a hefty price. While Erik Karlsson and Marc-Edouard Vlasic would have been the top candidates for a side-deal trade where Seattle received something to take on their contracts, both have no-movement clauses that they would have had to agree to waive. It’s Brent Burns then that is the real discussion piece since he has no such protection. The Sharks could have left the 36-year-old defenseman available and worked on a deal for Seattle to assume the $8MM cap hit. That price would have been substantial, but given the team doesn’t have a ton of other prime targets, perhaps a trade could have been achieved.
Instead, the Sharks protected Burns and will seemingly go into another season with $26.5MM tied up in three aging defensemen. His deal, which runs through 2024-25, will actually expire first among the three. Karlsson is signed at $11.5MM through 2026-27 and Vlasic at $7MM through 2025-26. It’s going to be difficult for the Sharks to put together a contending team with that kind of money tied up. Though it would have been painful, a side deal may have been the best option.
Of course, the recent history of trading with an expansion team may be weighing heavily on the minds of many general managers around the league. In 2017, quite a few teams worked out deals with the Vegas Golden Knights to direct their expansion selections, and almost none of them paid off. In fact, many became abject failures that set up the Golden Knights for success while stripping multiple valuable assets out of the original organization. There is a chance, at least, that Burns lives up to his hefty contract for the next four seasons or that the entire group experiences a bounce-back campaign, meaning a trade would have been a huge mistake. There’s also the potential that San Jose GM Doug Wilson did try to work out something like a Burns-trade, only to be rebuffed by Kraken GM Ron Francis completely. Seattle has full say over how they construct their team and whether they want to take on any bad money at an early stage.
Latest On Ryan Suter’s Free Agency
When the Minnesota Wild initiated a buyout earlier this week, not many were surprised to see Zach Parise on his way out. Ryan Suter‘s inclusion however came as a shock, and could very well have changed the offseason plans for several teams around the league. The 36-year-old defenseman is still capable of top-four minutes in the NHL and is suddenly looking for a new home.
According to Michael Russo of The Athletic, there’s already interest from across the league. Russo spoke to Suter’s agent Neil Sheehy, who called it a “new sweepstake” and explained that “not a single team in the league…ever thought that Ryan Suter would be available.” Russo examines several of the expected contenders for Suter’s services, though the list is already long and likely not even exhaustive at this early stage.
From the 2009-10 season to the 2018-19 season, Suter received votes for the Norris Trophy as one of the league’s best. He was a finalist in 2013, finishing as the runner-up to P.K. Subban in the shortened season. For several years he averaged closed to 30 minutes a night for the Wild, hopping over the board every other shift. Though his Norris-contending days may be over, Suter still averaged more than 22 minutes a night for the Wild this season and once again posted strong possession numbers.
There was, however, a striking decline in his offensive production, as Suter managed just 19 points in 56 games. He hadn’t posted fewer than 31 points since his sophomore season in 2006-07, with his best per-game rate actually coming as recently as 2019-20. He had 48 points in 69 games that season, including 18 on the powerplay. That suggests Suter could even experience an offensive bounce-back if given the right role, though the contenders that will be vying for his services likely already have their powerplay quarterbacks in place.
Even if the level he showed this season is the new norm for Suter, there’s still plenty of hockey left in the veteran defenseman. After 656 regular season games with the Wild, he’ll be looking for a new home–and he won’t have to look long.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Free Agent Focus: San Jose Sharks
Free agency is now just a few weeks away and many teams are already looking ahead to when it opens up. There will be several prominent players set to hit the open market in late July while many teams have key restricted free agents to re-sign as well. It’s been nothing but pain in San Jose the last few years as they try and navigate huge contracts to aging stars.
Key Restricted Free Agents
F Ryan Donato – Donato has failed to live up to expectations for three different NHL teams now, following his first year in San Jose. The Harvard product that set the hockey world on fire in 2018, scoring three points in his first game and nine in his first twelve now has just 77 in 180 career matches. In 50 games with the Sharks this season he scored six times and registered 20 points despite ample powerplay time and relatively easy deployment. He’s clearly an NHL talent, but it doesn’t look like Donato is ever going to be the consistent top-six contributor that many expected coming out of college. An arbitration-eligible free agent coming off a $1.9MM cap hit, there’s actually a chance he doesn’t even get qualified by the Sharks.
F Rudolfs Balcers – Balcers on the other hand will, even after registering just eight goals and 17 points in 41 games. The key part of Balcers game is his ability to contribute defensively as well as in the offensive zone, and he was rewarded with increased playing time down the stretch. In fact, Balcers had all but replaced other more recognizable names like Kevin Labanc by the end of the year, even moving ahead of Timo Meier on some nights. It seems likely that the Sharks will explore a multi-year deal with the young forward, if only to lock him in at a low number before giving him a bigger role on the team. If not, he is also arbitration-eligible but doesn’t have the counting stats to earn a huge raise through that process.
Other RFAs: F Noah Gregor, F Joachim Blichfeld, F Alexander True, D Christian Jaros
Key Unrestricted Free Agents:
F Kurtis Gabriel – You might look at the five career points that Gabriel has and wonder why he would be included in a free agent list, but from all accounts, the physical winger has a market waiting for him. Gabriel was given permission to talk to other teams already according to a report from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet last month, meaning he could go quick on day one of the frenzy if the Sharks aren’t going to retain him. Now 28, the 6’4″ enforcer racked up 55 penalty minutes in 11 games this season, including 19 in his final game of the year.
F Patrick Marleau – The ageless wonder is an unrestricted free agent once again and suggested at the end of the season that he would like to play again in 2021-22. Marleau passed Gordie Howe for first place on the all-time games played list, though some still point out that he doesn’t have the true record. Though the 41-year-old Marleau has now played the most regular season games in history, he’s still 18 games behind Mark Messier for the most NHL appearances including playoffs. With a full season, Marleau could become the first person to ever play in more than 2,000 combined NHL games, as he currently sits at 1,974. He doesn’t add much these days, but having Marleau break that record in any other sweater certainly wouldn’t feel right.
Other UFAs: F Marcus Sorensen, F Maxim Letunov, D Greg Pateryn
Projected Cap Space
The team has struggled, they only have 16 players under contact and yet San Jose still has just over $9.2MM in cap space to spend this summer. The money owed to the quintet of Erik Karlsson ($11.5MM AAV), Brent Burns ($8MM), Logan Couture ($8MM), Evander Kane ($7MM), and Marc-Edouard Vlasic ($7MM) cripples any chance of making significant changes, and none of those contracts will be off the books until at least 2025. It’s hard to see the Sharks making a big splash on the open market unless they find a way to rid themselves of at least one of those veteran players.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.
Carolina Hurricanes Re-Sign Morgan Geekie
The Carolina Hurricanes have re-signed restricted free agent forward Morgan Geekie to a one-year contract. The two-way deal will pay Geekie $750K at the NHL level and $75K at the AHL level, but does come with a $125K minor league guarantee. Hurricanes GM Don Waddell released a short statement about the young forward:
Morgan played well in his first full NHL season this year. We’re excited for him to take the next steps in his development.
Geekie, 22, played 36 games in the NHL this season, and though he received an average of fewer than ten minutes a night, still registered nine points. That follows his debut in 2019-20 when he tallied four points in just two games, which had Carolina fans extremely excited about his future down the middle of the lineup. While that excitement may have waned a bit, Geekie still represents solid depth for the team’s bottom-six next season.
Not to be forgotten at this time of year is the expansion draft, which Geekie could play an important role in. The Hurricanes, like every other team, need to expose at least two forwards that are under contract through the 2021-22 season and have played at least 27 games last season or 54 in the last two. With a new contract, Geekie now meets that threshold, giving the team some more flexibility when it comes to choosing which forwards to protect this weekend.
If left exposed, he represents. a potential target for former Carolina and current Seattle GM Ron Francis, though there could be several more attractive options left unprotected by the Hurricanes. No matter where he ends up, Geekie will have to battle for a full-time roster spot again next season and prove that he’s worth more than just a two-way deal the next time he hits restricted free agency.
Nashville Predators Discussing Contract With Erik Haula
When it came time for Erik Haula to test free agency last year, he entered the market as an interesting test case for the flat cap world. A 29-goal scorer in 2017-18, he had experienced two down years but was still arguably one of the top centers available. Like so many others, he felt the squeeze of an uncertain hockey landscape and ended up taking a one-year, $1.75MM deal with the Nashville Predators, a significant pay cut from the $2.75MM he had earned each of the three previous seasons.
Now, as free agency approaches once again, Haula may not even test the market at all. Adam Vingan of The Athletic reports that the 30-year-old center is discussing a new contract with the Predators.
In 2020-21, Haula settled into a depth role, averaging just over 12 minutes of even-strength ice time but contributing on both special teams. He scored nine goals and 21 points in 51 games, but did win 55% of his faceoffs and was a versatile enough middle-six option for the Predators. Re-signing with the team at a reasonable price would provide him with some security heading into another uncertain offseason, though the deal would likely have to wait a few days.
Tomorrow, a transaction freeze will be put in place after teams submit their protection lists for the upcoming expansion draft. Even with the Predators moving out Viktor Arvidsson, it still seems unlikely that they would want to protect Haula after signing him to a new deal, given they will currently have to go the eight-skater route in order to protect their top-four defensemen. There are always ways around those protection issues, but signing Haula early would only complicate things.
The veteran center knows all about expansion draft dealings. He was Vegas’ choice from the Minnesota Wild in 2017, signing a three-year deal with the Golden Knights on expansion day. The Wild lost not only Haula but also Alex Tuch to make sure the Golden Knights didn’t select Matt Dumba, a deal that certainly worked out for Vegas. Haula scored 29 goals and 55 points in that inaugural expansion season, numbers that he hasn’t approached before or after. Though that production may never come again, it does add to his value knowing that he could step into a more offensive role in a pinch.
Nashville does have a good amount of cap space this summer, but with new deals owed to restricted free agents like Juuse Saros, Dante Fabbro, and Eeli Tolvanen, it could disappear quickly. If they’re bringing back Haula, it’s because they believe he represents a better value than some of the other options that will become free agents later this month.
Alexander Edler Expected To Test Free Agency
The Vancouver Canucks could soon part ways with one of their franchise icons. Alexander Edler will test the free agent market, his agent Mark Stowe told Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK TV. Edler has played his entire 925-game career in Vancouver.
While this could just be a negotiating tactic from Edler’s representatives, the two sides may also just be ready to move on. Now 35, Edler’s role with the Canucks this season was diminished, receiving almost no powerplay work as Quinn Hughes and Nate Schmidt quarterbacked the two units. His even-strength ice time ranked fifth among Canucks defensemen, though his short-handed role was still necessary.
Stowe explained that this is likely the last time Edler really has the chance to test the market given his age, hinting that he perhaps is looking for a multi-year deal to finish his career. There may still be a spot for him around the league, but with age has come a drastic decline in effectiveness for Edler as well.
At one point, the smooth-skating defenseman could glide around the ice effortlessly, shutting down rushes and jumping into the offense whenever needed. He formed quite a dynamic triangle with Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin whenever on the ice together, leading to 13 straight seasons of at least 20 points. That skating stride has slowed, however, and Edler was exposed at times this season to some of the speed and skill in the league. While perhaps not as bad as his tough defensive deployment made him look this year, there’s certainly no guarantee he can handle top-four minutes at this point in his career.
For the Canucks, it was never likely that they could bring Edler back on anything close to the $6MM he has earned in each of the last two seasons. The team needs that cap space for Elias Pettersson and Hughes extensions as both young stars reach restricted free agency. If Edler wants one last payday, it likely wasn’t going to come in Vancouver.
Minnesota Wild Not Expected To Qualify Dmitry Sokolov
The Minnesota Wild are going to say goodbye to a prospect that never could quite reach the next level. Dmitry Sokolov will not be tendered a qualifying offer from the Wild according to Michael Russo of The Athletic, meaning he will become an unrestricted free agent. The young forward has already signed a contract in the VHL, meaning he wasn’t going to return to the Iowa Wild anyway, but with this, the Wild will also forfeit his rights.
Sokolov, 23, was a seventh-round pick by the Wild in 2016, who always came with plenty of question marks. His conditioning and skating were both inconsistent, and though he showed an excellent scoring ability, could not impact the rest of the game in a positive way. Despite those issues, the Wild still gave him a chance, signing him to a three-year entry-level contract in 2018, hoping to fix some of the problems and create an NHL player.
In 2018-19, his first year of AHL hockey, there were some promising signs. He scored 16 goals and 30 points in 60 games, seemingly committed to his development in the minor league level. Unfortunately, that development has stalled in the years since, with Sokolov recording just three goals and four points in 14 games this season for the Wild.
Russo also mentions Alexander Khovanov, who the Wild hope to bring back to North America after spending this year in Russia. Khovanov, 21, was the team’s third-round pick in 2018 and scored 99 points in 51 games for the Moncton Wildcats in 2019-20. Russo tweets that it “sounds like” the young center will return, meaning he’ll be in line for some AHL time under his entry-level contract.