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Ryan Reaves Signs Two-Year Extension With Golden Knights

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Ryan Reaves has some unfinished business with the Vegas Golden Knights. Reaves has appeared with the Golden Knights for each of their three seasons, and he’ll be back for the next two, the right-winger announced himself via Twitter. The terms of the deal were revealed in the team announcement. Reaves will make $1.75MM per season.

The native Canadian entered the league in 2005 as a fifth-round draft choice of the St. Louis Blues. He made his debut with the Blues as a 24-year-0ld during the 2010-2011 season, ultimately spending seven seasons in St. Louis. The Blues traded Reaves and a 2nd round pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins in June of 2017 for a 1st rounder and Oskar Sundqvist. Reaves didn’t last a full season with the Penguins, while Sundqvist has turned himself into a rotation piece for the Blues.

The Penguins shipped Reaves to Vegas with a 4th rounder for Tobias Lindberg (who has since been traded twice more). This season, Reaves registered 15 points with 10:09 ATOI. As noted by the team in their press release, Reaves led the league in hits this season with 316 across 71 games. The 33-year-old should continue to be an active presence if/when the Golden Knights return to action.

Jets Sign Kristian Reichel To Two-Year Deal

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The Winnipeg Jets have signed Kristian Reichel to a two-year, entry-level contract that will start next season, per CapFriendly (via Twitter). The deal will pay out a base contract of $700K in the first season and $775K in the second year. The Jets have announced the deal as well.

The 22-year-old Czech native comes to Winnipeg as an undrafted free agent after two seasons with the Manitoba Moose of the AHL. Reichel registered 17 points this past season (including 12 goals) in just 39 games, a marked bump after notching 10 points in 55 games the year prior. The Moose list Reichel as a right-winger, though as a draft prospect he was listed at center, and indications are that Jets view him in that light as well.

Reichel’s best season as a professional came arguably the year before he joined the Moose. While with the Red Deer Rebels of the WHL, Reichel put up 57 points across 63 games. While that showing didn’t get him drafted to an NHL team, the son of former NHL player Robert Reichel will look to get his first taste of NHL action with the Jets next season.

Goalie Notes: Fleury, Holtby, Lundqvist

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The Vegas Golden Knights will presumably embark on a four-team round-robin to determine playoff seeding whenever play resumes. Given that it’s unlikely any team will play in front of a home crowd, the seeding doesn’t have quite the same impact as most years. Nonetheless, the mini-tournament will be an import return to play. For the Golden Knights, that means solidifying certain roster decisions, such as determining who is going to be in goal come playoff time. Peter DeBoer will be working with GM Kelly McCrimmon and President of Hockey Operations George McPhee to make final roster decisions, per The Athletic’s Jesse Granger. Marc-Andre Fleury is a living legend who led Vegas to the Stanley Cup Final in their first season, but time makes a mockery of us all, and just two years later, he could lose his starting gig to midseason acquisition Robin Lehner. Both netminders are likely to get a start during the round-robin phase, but it’s still probably Fleury’s job to lose, given his veteran status both in the league and on this particular team.

  • In Washington, Caps’ coach Todd Reirden spoke with a number of reporters, including JJ Regan of NBC Sports, who reported that Braden Holtby will be in net – at least for now. Ilya Samsonov stands by should Holtby struggle. Holtby started 47 games this season to just 22 for the rookie Samsonov, but with Holtby’s .897 save percentage versus .913 save percentage for Samsonov, there’s at the question whether the Caps would be better off with the youngster in goal. The Caps are hoping for a better playoff result than last year’s disappointing first-round loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. It wasn’t exactly the title defense Alex Ovechkin and company had planned, but the Caps will get another chance to make good in the playoffs this season. They’ll need Holtby at his finest to make a run.
  • In another potential changing of the guard, the Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist landed on a list of potential buyout candidates this offseason from Sean Leahy of NBC Sports. There’s no doubt that Lundqvist is expensive next season with a cap hit of $8.5MM, but it’s difficult to imagine Rangers games without the Swede minding the net. Still, even if the Rangers deem apparent successor Igor Shesterkin to be ready, they’d still have to buyout Lundqvist for $5.5MM, which might not present enough savings to make the move worthwhile, not when they’d still need a second goalie. Alexander Georgiev, 24, is the other piece of this puzzle, the primary backup for the last couple of seasons and a restricted free agent this offseason.

Snapshots: Resuming Play, Viewing Experience, Blackhawks

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The NHL and the NHL Players’ Association has thus far avoided much of the public acrimony that’s developed between other leagues and their players (namely, the MLB, but to a lesser extent, the NBA as well). But the largest hurdle is yet to come, per ESPN’s Emily Kaplan and Greg Wyshynski. There is, of course, the final decision on the two hub cities, which will be put to a vote once the league makes their decision. But the conditions within those hubs are likely to be the biggest barrier to resuming play. Namely, players aren’t wild about being sequestered away from their families, reports Kaplan and Wyshynski. A major factor going into the selection of the hub cities is the extent of accommodations and dining options available, but those issues have largely been framed as a means to maintain player morale – not necessarily to accommodate families. Needless to say, these are not minor issues, and the players will surely have much to say on the issue when it comes time for the Phase 3 and Phase 4 votes. More from around the league on returning to action…

  • In other parts of the hockey-verse, discussions are underway to alter the viewing experience of the NHL as we know it should play resume without fans, per The Athletic’s Sean Fitz-Gerald. Obviously, without fans present, the ambiance of playoff hockey is going to be much, much different. That said, interested parties are working on ways to make it work. Some ideas being kicked around are putting microphones on the players or lighting the ice to make it appear spotlit (blacking out the seats as much as possible). Of course, these are largely cosmetic issues for TV networks to work on while the logistics of returning to play are still being litigated. Regardless, expect at least a new wrinkle or two to your NHL broadcast if/when NHL players are back on the ice.
  • For their part, the Blackhawks are looking inward as they prepare for a potential play-in series against the Oilers, per Charlie Roumeliotis of NBC Chicago Sports. With coaches not allowed on the ice with players until the training camp portion of the reboot begins, players are focusing on their own conditioning and timing. That’s likely the plan moving forward, at least for the Blackhawks and coach Jeremy Colliton, who said, “For now, the focus has been our own players and their development and how can we improve within ourselves watching video of our own game. That’s how training camp will be, too. But as we get closer to that series, we’ll dig deeper and make sure we’ve covered all the bases.”

Sabres Sign Oskari Laaksonen To Three-Year, Entry-Level Deal

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The Buffalo Sabres announced the signing of defenseman Oskari Laaksonen to a three-year contract, per the team. Laaksonen joins Buffalo on an entry-level contract after the team made him a third-round pick in the 2017 draft.

Since being drafted 89th overall by the Sabres, Laaksonen, 20, has spent the past three seasons with Ilves of the Finnish Elite League. Laaksonen recorded 12 points for the Ilves over 46 games this past season. He also won a gold medal with Team Finland at the 2019 World Junior Championship while skating alongside another Sabres’ youngster, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. 

Laaksonen’s stock jumped shortly after the draft, and the young puck-mover has continued to impress during his time in his native Finland. He had signed a two-year deal with the Ilves, putting doubt into whether he’d be ready to make the jump to the NHL. But evidently, he’s ready.

The deal comes on the heels of the Sabres learning that they’d lost defenseman Lawrence Pilut to the KHL. Pilut, 24, looked like a potential building block for the Sabres, who instead now transition the future of their defence to Laaksonen. Included in the press release announcing the signing was a comment from Sabres’ GM Jason Botterill, who said, “The work Oskari has put in to improve his game has paid off during his last two seasons. His success on the international stage and what he’s done as a 19- and 20-year-old playing in a professional league is impressive.”

The Sabres finished the year in sixth place of the Atlantic Division, on the outside looking in for the upcoming 24-team playoff. Buffalo hasn’t made the playoffs since the 2010-2011 season, the second of back-to-back losses in the quarterfinals to the Flyers and Bruins, respectively.

Roman Polak May Not Return To Stars, Signs With HC Vitkovice

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The rest of the 2019-2020 NHL season remains in limbo – at least for the time being – but that hasn’t stopped Roman Polak of the Dallas Stars from planning his future. Polak has agreed to a contract with HC Vitkovice of the Czech league, per the team’s website. The deal with his hometown team does not technically begin until next season. The agreement exists in principle only until his contract with the Dallas Stars runs out at the end of the season.

Theoretically, Polak would be available for a playoff run with the Stars, though the blueliner doesn’t appear all that motivated to finish out the season under the current circumstances. If Polak does return for the remainder of the NHL season, it would likely require significant pressure from the Stars. Given his druthers, Polak pretty plainly prefers to move along to the next phase of his hockey career.

The Athletic’s Sean Shapiro shares a quote from Polak, originally captured by sport.c.z, where Polak said, “I am already determined to stay at home … If I really had to finish the NHL, I would go. But I will do everything to make it unnecessary. I will definitely be here next season.”  

The soundbites from Polak paint a picture of someone steering clear of the remaining 2019-2020 season. Polak was set to be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season, so the 34-year-old is in a position to control his own destiny. How hard the Stars push Polak to return remains to be seen, but there’s a good chance Polak has played his last game in the NHL. The bruising defenseman appeared in 41 games this season for the Stars – his second in Dallas – recording four assists without scoring a goal in 16:40 ATOI. He missed roughly six weeks early in the season after fracturing his sternum while attempting a hit against the Bruins in early October.

From an aerial view, Polak’s decision to make a move for the future of his hockey life is certainly interesting in the context of the coronavirus shutdown. There’s a possibility that he’s not going to be the only player that prefers not to return for the 24-team playoff.

As for the Stars, they’re in a good position to withstand the potential loss of Polak. As one of the top four teams in the Western Conference, the Stars will ease back into play via a round-robin with the Blues, Avalance, and Golden Knights to determine the seeding for the top four spots heading into the postseason. Matthew DeFranks of the Dallas News provides comment from Stars GM Jim Nill, who said, “We can’t make someone come back under their wishes. If anyone wants to stay home, that is their decision.”

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