NHL Issues Update On COVID-19 Testing
Just a few hours after the MLB had to postpone several games due to a COVID-19 outbreak, the NHL released their own testing results for the final week of training camp. Those results were of a much different tenor, as the league had zero positive results out of 4,256 tests from last week. More than 800 players were included in those tests. During the two-week Phase 3 period, the league had two positive tests. All 24 teams have arrived in the bubble cities and will continue to be tested daily.
It’s hard to take this news as anything other than extremely encouraging for a league that is trying to finish the 2019-20 season in the safest way possible. The hurdle of getting to the bubble cities healthy was seen by many as the most difficult one, given the strict quarantine protocols they would be under once arriving. The players will now be stuck inside hotels and rinks for the next several weeks (or months, depending on how they perform), effectively completely isolated from the outside world. If they are heading into those bubbles completely healthy, there seems to be a good chance they will be able to finish the season.
It is important to remember that there are still obstacles in the way, but it does appear as though hockey is back. The exhibition schedule will start tomorrow, with official round-robin and qualification round games starting on the weekend.
Morning Notes: Pastrnak, Hamilton, Colorado
Exhale, Boston Bruins fans. David Pastrnak is back. The superstar winger is expected to practice with the team today in Toronto as they prepare for their round-robin games. Pastrnak has been sitting out after coming in contact with someone who had tested positive for COVID-19. Ondrej Kase, who has also been sitting out, has not yet joined the team in Toronto and will hopefully meet them at a later date. Remember, Kase will be subject to a four-day hotel quarantine after arriving in Toronto–whenever that is.
The Bruins will start their official games on Sunday when they take on the Philadelphia Flyers, trying to lock up the top seed that they held when the season was paused. They’ll have to watch and see who comes out of the qualification round before knowing which team is their first-round matchup.
- It could potentially be the Carolina Hurricanes, but winning that qualification round may be a bit tougher for Rod Brind’Amour‘s squad, given that they’re still missing Dougie Hamilton. The defenseman suffered an apparent injury last week during training camp and is still “unfit to play” according to his head coach. Hamilton is on the 31-man roster for the Hurricanes, which also includes Brett Pesce who is dealing with his own injury rehab. Pesce underwent shoulder surgery in March that gave him a four-to-six month recovery timeline.
- Speaking of interesting 31-man rosters, the Colorado Avalanche included several young players that could be interesting difference-makers if inserted into a lineup. Shane Bowers, Bowen Byram and Conor Timmins all made the cut, while Vladislav Kamenev did not. Ryan S. Clark of The Athletic examines what exactly that means for the future of each prospect, while also looking at other pressing issues for the Avalanche like the goaltending battle between Pavel Francouz and Philipp Grubauer.
Nils Hoglander Loaned To SHL
After wowing the hockey world with his incredible skill, Nils Hoglander didn’t have to wait around long to sign his first NHL contract this spring. The Vancouver Canucks signed Hoglander to a three-year entry-level contract in April, with the intention of bringing him to training camp for the 2020-21 season. Unfortunately, that training camp will now be delayed, meaning Hoglander would be waiting around for months during his most important development period. To solve that problem, he has been loaned to Rogle in the SHL where he will compete until the NHL training camp opens in mid-November.
Hoglander, 19, was a second-round pick in 2019 by the Canucks, but quickly started to generate hype thanks to his highlight-reel lacrosse-style goals in both the World Juniors and Swedish league play. The 5’9″ forward has incredible skill with the puck and finished with 16 points in 41 games for Rogle last season. While that number doesn’t jump off the page, it’s important to remember he was just an 18-year old playing against professionals at the highest level in Sweden.
Whether he can bring the same sort of jaw-dropping talent to Vancouver isn’t clear, but getting him skating and training is obviously a priority. These types of loans will be common as teams try to keep their prospects on a strong development path. Obviously, Hoglander also doesn’t have an NHL roster spot locked up when the 2020-21 season comes back, meaning they’ll have to make another decision on where he will play. His entry-level deal includes a European Assignment Clause, meaning he could force his way back to Sweden if sent to (or left in) the minors at a certain point.
Minor Transactions: 07/23/20
As the NHL gets ready for their upcoming postseason, minor league clubs are preparing for next season. When some minor signings come in we’ll keep track of them right here.
- Nick Boka and Luke Boka have signed with the Fort Wayne Komets for the 2020-21 season, getting a chance to show what they can do when on the same ice. The Michigan brothers took very different paths to professional hockey, with Nick attending the University of Michigan after being drafted by the Minnesota Wild in 2015 and Luke playing five seasons for the Windsor Spitfires of the OHL, captaining them the last two.
- Steven Ruggiero has signed with the Adirondack Thunder, after spending last season in the Anaheim Ducks organization. The 23-year old defenseman was a sixth-round pick in 2015 but never signed with the Ducks after his college career ended, meaning that even though he was in their system on an AHL deal he was technically an unrestricted free agent. Ruggiero had nine points in 57 games for the Tulsa Oilers of the ECHL last season.
- Those Oilers have grabbed a pair of players from Adrian College, signing Dean Balsamo and Joey Colatarci for the upcoming season. It’s not every day that a pair of teammates from Division III schools get a chance to play professional hockey, but these two each earned DIII All-American honors for 2019-20.
- The Kalamazoo Wings have signed Raymond Brice out of Michigan Tech, where he served as captain during the 2019-20 season. Brice never could get his offense to translate to the college level, meaning professional hockey may serve as an even greater challenge.
Ivan Lodnia Loaned To KHL
The Minnesota Wild have decided to loan prospect Ivan Lodnia to the KHL for the 2020-21 season, according to his agent Dan Milstein of Gold Star Hockey. Michael Russo of The Athletic confirms that Lodnia will play the entire season in the KHL with Dinamo Minsk, instead of returning to North America when the 2020-21 NHL training camps open.
Selected 85th overall in 2017, Lodnia has spent the years since playing in the OHL where he was the leading scorer for the Niagara IceDogs in 2019-20. The two-way winger scored 62 points in 41 games and will now have to try and take his game to the professional ranks. During a six-game try-out with the Iowa Wild in 2018 he failed to record a single point and now he’ll have to wait an entire season to get another chance in the AHL.
Lodnia, 20, signed his entry-level deal with Minnesota back in 2017 and saw it kick in for the 2019-20 season. He’ll burn the second year playing in the KHL, though technically the team could recall him at some point if they felt it necessary. If not, that means he’ll have just one year of North American pro hockey under his belt when he goes into negotiations as a restricted free agent in the summer of 2022, not exactly a position of leverage for the young forward.
Metropolitan Notes: Murray, Samsonov, Hamilton
The Pittsburgh Penguins have a choice to make in net when they head into the 24-team playoff, deciding whether to use Matt Murray or Tristan Jarry as their starter. Though he admits it is the coach’s decision, Penguins GM Jim Rutherford told Josh Yohe of The Athletic that he believes Murray will be the choice after seeing how well the more experienced netminder performed in this week’s practices.
Murray, 26, is only a year older than Jarry but has the added benefit of two Stanley Cups and 48 playoff games under his belt. The 6’4″ netminder struggled mightily this season, however, posting an .899 save percentage. Jarry meanwhile put up a .921 and was selected to the All-Star game, but has never appeared in the postseason. The Penguins will start things off with a qualification round against the Montreal Canadiens.
- There is another interesting goaltending situation to keep an eye on in the Metropolitan Division, and that’s what is happening in Washington. The Capitals still haven’t gotten a single practice out of young star netminder Ilya Samsonov, who has been “unfit to play” for the entire training camp so far. When asked, head coach Todd Reirden wouldn’t comment on whether Samsonov will be traveling with the team to Toronto in a few days as the Capitals enter the “bubble.” For now, Braden Holtby remains the default choice as starter for Washington despite his own struggles—to the tune of an .897 save percentage—this season.
- After leaving practice yesterday, Dougie Hamilton was absent again for the Carolina Hurricanes this morning. The defenseman was in “visible discomfort” when leaving yesterday according to team reporter Michael Smith, who also notes that the Hurricanes are already missing Brett Pesce thanks to his shoulder surgery in March. While Pesce hasn’t been ruled out completely from participating in the playoffs, Hamilton was expected to be back to full strength after missing the last two months of the regular season. Given the league’s policy on not giving out injury information, there’s no way of telling what exactly happened to Hamilton or how long he’ll be out.
Anthony Bitetto, Xavier Ouellet Confirm Positive COVID-19 Tests
Though the Seattle Kraken have stolen the news of the day in the NHL, there are still 24 teams preparing for the upcoming 2020 playoffs and trying to navigate their way through a pandemic. Two players among those 24 teams have admitted to testing positive for COVID-19, though both have now re-joined the club.
Xavier Ouellet of the Montreal Canadiens confirmed to reporters today including John Lu of TSN that he tested positive, though his diagnosis came with plenty of confusion. Ouellet first tested negative when he arrived at training camp, before then testing positive and going into quarantine. He never experienced any symptoms and then subsequently tested negative multiple times to be allowed to re-join the group. The defenseman isn’t even sure if he ever actually had the virus, though did confirm to Lu that a blood test confirmed antibodies.
Winnipeg Jets defenseman Anthony Bitetto meanwhile tested positive on June 24, according to team reporter Mitchell Clinton. He apparently quarantined himself for 29 days and told Clinton he “was pretty lucky to not have to deal with the more serious symptoms.” Bitetto returned to practice today for the first time.
The two players join a small group that has admitted to testing positive. Otherwise, the NHL is not releasing information on individual players.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
32nd NHL Franchise Named Seattle Kraken
Say hello to the Seattle Kraken. The new expansion franchise and 32nd NHL team has officially announced its name after months of anticipation. The team will go with a blue and teal color scheme as they prepare to join the league for the 2021-22 season. They will play at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, where a full reconstruction of the old KeyArena is taking place.
After the success of the Vegas Golden Knights, it quickly became apparent that the league would be looking for another strong ownership group to bring the 32nd franchise into play. When high-profile financial backers like David Bonderman and Jerry Bruckheimer partnered with sports executive Tod Leiweke, that group was an obvious choice. Seattle as a market had been explored in the past and when the arena work was started it was obvious that an NHL team would follow.
The Kraken are expected to join the Pacific Division for the 2021-22 season, with the Arizona Coyotes switching to the Central at that time. There is an obvious geographical rivalry with the Vancouver Canucks that will likely be pushed by the league, but it’s hard to know just how well Seattle will navigate the expansion process.
The Golden Knights were one of the greatest expansion stories in sports history, making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals in their inaugural season. That’s thanks to the exceptional roster they built through savvy expansion draft maneuvers, something that may not be quite as easy for Seattle to accomplish.
Teams will have plenty of time to prepare their rosters for the draft—which will have the same rules, although Vegas will not take part—in order to not hand over the same kind of leverage to the Kraken. That said, with the flat salary cap there may be even more cash-strapped teams looking for help, something that Seattle GM Ron Francis could take advantage of.
According to Leiweke in today’s press conference, Seattle has already received over 10,000 season-ticket deposits and has more than 40,000 people on the waiting list.
Poll: Who Should Win The 2020 Calder Trophy?
The finalists have been announced for all the major awards, but like every year there is much debate over who should take home each piece of hardware. In fact, with a shortened season and unorthodox playoff scenario, the views and reasoning behind each vote will perhaps vary even more wildly.
So as we get closer to the return of NHL hockey in Edmonton and Toronto, where 24 teams will try to chase the Stanley Cup, we’re going to ask you, the PHR faithful, to explain who you would vote for if given the chance.
We’ll start with the Calder Memorial Trophy, annually awarded to “the player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition in the NHL.” The rookie scoring race was incredible this season and likely would have gone down to the wire, while some others that were left out of the finalist group had good cases of their own.
The ones that did make that top-3, were Cale Makar of the Colorado Avalanche, Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Canucks and Dominik Kubalik of the Chicago Blackhawks.
Makar, 21, came into the 2019 playoffs like a freight train, immediately becoming one of the most dynamic players on the Avalanche roster. That impressive debut didn’t take away his rookie eligibility, but it did give him an experience base to rely on as his first full season began. When things kicked off on the 2019-20 season, Makar was already in high gear, recording points in each of his first five and nine of his first 11 regular season games. By the end of November it was apparent that Makar wasn’t going to slow down his scoring pace, as he had put up eight goals and 26 points in his first 26 games.
Unfortunately, he suffered an injury in early December that kept him out for a handful of games and he would finish the season with only 57 games played. His 50 points weren’t quite enough to topple Hughes for the rookie lead, though he did score at a higher pace.
No, the Vancouver defenseman would end up taking home the scoring title among first-year players with an amazing 53 points on the season. The sweet-skating Hughes was a revelation for the Canucks, who started to rely on him more and more as the season went on. By the end of it, Hughes seemed to be starting every Vancouver possession by escaping pressure with his edges and carrying the puck up the ice. In his first 20 games of the season, Hughes averaged just over 20 minutes of ice time a night. In his final 20, that number grew to more than 22 and a half, including several nights when he pushed close to 30.
The University of Michigan product is a catalyst for offense in Vancouver and will be for years to come, but he did only actually score eight goals. That was four fewer than Makar, and 22 fewer than the third finalist who comes with much less fanfare.
Kubalik arrived in Chicago as something of an unknown, after being drafted by the Los Angeles Kings seven years ago and then playing in Europe until the age of 24. It wasn’t clear if he would even be able to hang in the NHL (though frequent readers of our PHR chats will remember his name being thrown around as one to watch), but he did more than just keep his head above water. After a few early healthy scratches, Kubalik put his stamp on the Blackhawks roster with 30 goals in 68 games, with only four of those tallies coming on the powerplay. That production comes despite averaging just over 14 minutes a night, though that number was substantially higher by the end of the year when he found himself playing alongside Chicago’s top players.
The soon-to-be-25-year-old Kubalik is a deserving candidate to be sure, but there were other names that many believed should end up in the conversation as well. Adam Fox of the New York Rangers put up 42 points and was arguably the team’s best defenseman by the end of the year, while Columbus Blue Jackets netminder Elvis Merzlikins was among the league leaders with a .923 save percentage in his first season.
There’s an argument to be made for many of these names, but who will you cast your vote for? Take part in the poll below and then jump into the comments to defend your decision!
[Mobile users click here to vote!]
Minor Transactions: 07/22/20
As the NHL gets ready for their upcoming postseason, minor league clubs are preparing for next season. When some minor signings come in we’ll keep track of them right here.
- Jordan Szwarz, who played mostly for the Belleville Senators this season, has signed with Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod in the KHL for 2020-21. Szwarz scored 36 points in 46 games for Belleville, but actually also got into three contests with the Ottawa Senators. Those weren’t his first opportunities in the NHL, as he’s now totaled 50 games at the highest level.
- The Iowa Wild have signed four new contracts, adding Phil Beaulieu, Kameron Kielly, Jesse Mychan, and Josh Maser on AHL deals. All four contracts are just for one year as the organization keeps adding to their depth for the upcoming season. For everyone but Mychan, who won the Kelly Cup with the Colorado Eagles in 2018, this will be their first opportunity in professional hockey.
- Speaking of the Eagles, Matt Abt and Ian Scheid have both signed with Colorado for the upcoming season. Abt spent the last two seasons with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, while Scheid is coming out of Minnesota State University (Mankato).