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Snapshots: Training Camp Start Date, Rask Free Agency, 2020 Young Stars Classic, Lindblom Recovery

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Phase 2 of the NHL’s return to play initiative is well underway, but the rest of the timeline is still being finalized. Phase 3, originally planned for July 10, is being pushed back a couple of days to July 13th, per Greg Joyce of the New York Post. Teams already are looking into cutting the number of exhibition games from 2 to 1 given the shortened timetable and increased risk with each passing day, per Louis Jean of TVA Sports. Phase 3 marks the official start to training camp for the 24-team playoff that will determine the Stanley Cup winner for the 2019-2020 season. Team facilities have largely opened up as players have begun to arrive early to get into game shape. But that’s not all that’s happening in the NHL…

  • The Boston Bruins and goaltender Tuukka Rask are close to embarking on a classic game of free agent chicken. Both Rask and his partner between the pipes Jaroslav Halak will be free agents at the end of the 2020-2021 season. We chronicled earlier today the deal that brought Task to Boston fourteen years ago, but if the Bruins are going to lock up their 33-year-old goalie, it’s likely going to cost – Rask’s current $7MM price tag makes him the fifth highest-paid goaltender this season, behind Carey Price, Sergei Bobrovsky, Henrik Lundqvist, and Marc-Andre Fleury, writes Joe Haggerty of NBC Sports. Rask has a legitimate shot at winning his second Vezina Trophy, and the tandem of Rask and Halak already secured the Jennings Trophy for the year. On the other hand, depending on how next season goes, Rask could take a pay cut, given that he’ll be entering his age-35 season.
  • The 2020 Young Stars Classic has officially been postponed because of coronavirus, per Mark Scheig of The Hockey Writers. The four-team, round-robin tournament would have featured prospects from four of the NHL’s Canadian franchises: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. The tournament had been scheduled for mid-September, but it’s now officially postponed. There’s no telling at this stage if the tournament will ultimately be canceled or just pushed back.
  • In a bit of good news: Philadelphia Flyers’ winger Oskar Lindblom recently underwent radiation treatments to treat Ewing’s sarcoma, per Dan Gelston of The Associated Press. The rare form of bone cancer ended Lindblom’s season early and put his life in danger, but the treatments went as planned and he appears to be on the road to recovery. Not only that, but he’s already targeting a return to the NHL, tweets The Athletic’s Charlie O’Connor. Lindblom, 23, looked to build on his strong rookie season when he posted 33 points with 13:45 ATOI for the Flyers in 2018-2019. He potted 11 goals with 7 assists in just 30 games before his life-threatening diagnosis. There is zero chance that Lindblom returns this season, but that he’s already eyeing a return to the ice at all is a big win for Lindblom and the Flyers. 

One Trade The Maple Leafs Would Like To Have Back

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In the summer of 2006, the Toronto Maple Leafs decided not to pick up a contract option on 41-year-old Ed Belfour. Totaling three seasons as resident netminder in Toronto, Belfour spent much of his final season in Toronto hampered by a balky back. He was limited to 49 games in 2005-2006 and a substandard .892 save percentage. GM-at-the-time John Ferguson Jr. probably made the right call moving on from Belfour (though Belfour would bounceback somewhat in his one and only season with the Florida Panthers before retiring) – where Ferguson and the Maple Leafs erred was in choosing Belfour’s successor.

Looking ahead, the Maple Leafs had two goalie prospects to dream on: Tuukka Rask and Justin Pogge. Unfortunately, neither Rask, 19, nor Pogge, 20, were ready to step between the pipes. Thus, Ferguson Jr. moved to deal from a position of future depth to secure a near-term solution. Toronto traded Rask to the Boston Bruins in a straight-up swap for 26-year-old goaltender Andrew Raycroft.

On its face, the deal made some sense for both sides: Rask had been a recent first-round pick, #21 overall of the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, while Raycroft came to Toronto decorated as the 2003-2004 Calder Trophy winner as the league’s top rookie. The Bruins were run at the time by interim General Manager Jeff Gorton (now the GM of the New York Rangers), who said this of the deal: “We had an opportunity, with three good, solid goaltenders who are all number one goalies in the NHL, and they couldn’t all play for us. Andrew had some value and we were able to move him for a player we really like, who is along the lines of Hannu Toivonen.” 

Of course, Toivonen would be traded to St. Louis the following season for Carl Soderberg. He’d start 17 games for the Blues in 2007-2008 and never again appear in the NHL. So while the comparison wasn’t as apt as Gorton intended, his point was clear. Nevermind that it’s a little curious for Gorton to trade for a player in Rask whom he would describe as being, essentially, “similar to the other guy we already have,” so it’s possible Gorton knew more about the organization’s future intentions than he let on at the time.

More to the point, perhaps, was that the Bruins had made their choice about their starting goalie. A month before the Rask/Raycroft swap, Boston extended Tim Thomas with a three-year deal. The late-blossoming Thomas was primed to take over after 38 games and 2.77 GAA in 2005-2006.

Thomas was the Bruins’ chosen goalie moving forward, and he would take the heft of the timeshare as Rask came of age through the 2011-2012 season. Thomas was a four-time All-Star and two-time Vezina Trophy winner, including in 2011, when he took two-thirds of the timeshare en route to a Stanley Cup. Rask played a key role in getting that Bruins team through the regular season, but it was Thomas who steered the ship to the Cup. He took home the Conny Smythe Trophy as the oldest player ever to win the playoff MVP award. Unfortunately, his political views became a distraction in the following seasons – but Gorton’s trade with the Maple Leafs in the summer of 2006 provided Thomas’ heir apparent.

Rask took over as the primary goalie in 2013-2014, leading the league in shutouts and winning the Vezina Trophy. He’s been one of the top goaltenders in the league ever since. Fourteen years later, Rask and Jaroslav Halak will share the Jennings Trophy this year, combining to allow just 2.24 GAA for the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Bruins. Rask has been a huge part of the Bruins’ success over the years in keeping Boston competitive. He put up a .934 save percentage in the postseason last year, helping the Bruins to the Stanley Cup Final. Rask has twice gotten the Bruins to the Stanley Cup since taking over as the primary goaltender, losing to the Blackhawks in 2013 and the Blues in 2019.

Back in Toronto, it’s been a long and winding road to current netminder Frederik Andersen. Andersen has settled in for Toronto, making his first all-star team in 2019-2020, his fourth season in Toronto. But even Andersen came at a cost: a 1st and 2nd round pick to Anaheim in the summer of 2016.

Raycroft, meanwhile, served up a league-high 205 goals in the 2006-2007 season for the Maple Leafs. His numbers would only get worse the year after, 3.92 GAA and a .876 save percentage. He left Toronto after a season and a half with a .890 save percentage and a 39-34-14 record. Pogge never developed to take the throne either. Six starts during the 2007-2008 season make up the entirety of his NHL career. He’d bounce around the AHL for a couple of seasons but never make it back to the NHL.

In the interim between Belfour and Andersen, the Leafs cycled through a number of unspectacular puck-stoppers: Jonas Gustavsson, Raycroft, Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Vesa Toskala, Garret Sparks, and Ben Scrivens each took a turn, but James Reimer and Jonathan Bernier had the most successful runs. Bernier made 140 mostly forgettable starts with a .915 save percentage from 2013 to 2016, and Reimer – who helped end Toronto’s playoff drought in 2012-2013 – took his office hours in the Toronto net for 196 starts and a .914 save percentage from 2011 to 2016.

But none quite rises to the level of Rask, who has stabilized the Boston goal for an entire era of Bruins’ hockey. For the Bruins, dealing for Rask was one of their better deals of the last twenty years. For the Maple Leafs, they’d probably like to have this one back.

That said, John Ferguson Jr., the GM who made the deal for Toronto, has probably made his peace with the deal: he’s currently the Executive Director of Player Personnel for – you guessed it – the Boston Bruins.

Victor Berglund Expected To Stay Overseas For 2020-21

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  • Although he signed his entry-level contract back on Monday, don’t expect Bruins prospect Victor Berglund to play in North America next season. Reporter Mark Divver notes (Twitter link) that Berglund is expected to fulfill his previous commitment to play in Lulea of the SHL for the 2020-21 campaign and then come to North America after.  It will be his first taste of action at the top level in Sweden after previously playing in their second-tier Allsvenskan.

Kevan Miller Not Considering Retirement

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Kevan Miller is a free agent at the end of the season, but despite being out due to injury since April of 2019, the 32-year-old defender isn’t ready to pack it in, per Amalie Benjamin of NHL.com.

Miller, currently employed by the Boston Bruins, went under the knife for the fourth time with the most recent procedure on his kneecap. With all that he’s been through, a return to the ice would be a remarkable story. Signed originally by the Bruins six years ago as an undrafted free agent, Miller made a role for himself in Boston – when healthy. The Bruins missed Miller’s presence in the Stanley Cup Final last year, writes Joe Haggerty of NBC Sports, and if he’s able to get himself back on the ice, he could be helpful to a team again.

Still, given the financial implications of the pandemic and Miller’s long history of knee troubles, it would be surprising to see Miller drum up much interest in free agency. That said, there’s absolutely a team out there that should be willing to give him a look – especially at the price point that he’s likely to command. Step one, however, will be for Miller to finish his rehab and get back to life as usual.

Miller had to fight his way onto an NHL team, and that kind of grit extended onto the ice where he’s succeeded as a physical, bruising defender. But that’s the kind of player he is, writes The Athletic’s Fluto Shinzawa. The intensity is a double-edged sword, helping Miller fight to make himself a role on the ice, while playing a role in the injuries that have kept him from it. Shinzawa provided a quote from Miller, commenting on his style of play: “I don’t have another identity, to be honest with you, especially on the ice. That’s who I am. Who I am on the ice is who I am off the ice. Maybe a little softer off the ice. That’s my bread and butter. I don’t think I’m going to go out there and score 50 goals.”

One Trade The Islanders Would Like To Have Back

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While we await the return of the NHL, it’s a great time to look back at some of the influential transactions in NHL history. Yesterday we looked at the Capitals ill-fated midseason acquisition of winger Martin Erat. The deal cost them Filip Forsberg, who has developed the way Nashville hoped he would, while Erat provided little value at all during his short stay in Washington. But if we’re going to look at trades that helped shape our current era of NHL hockey – for better or worse – we should start at the top (or the bottom).

For trades worth second-guessing, there are very few as satisfying as the deal made between the Islanders and Senators way back in 2001. The deal sent Zdeno Chara to Ottawa along with Bill Muckalt and a 1st-round pick in exchange for Alexei Yashin. It’s frankly amazing that a deal from 2001 would include players still contributing in the NHL today, some nineteen years later, but that speaks to the impact of this transaction.

To find where the Islanders went wrong, there’s no better place to start than with Chara. Lots must go right for a player to reach his full potential, but that’s exactly what happened after Chara went to Ottawa. The deal came after Chara spent parts of four seasons in Long Island, and the then-23-year-old hadn’t really taken off. He was coming off a season in which he played in 82 games, but managed only 9 points and a plus/minus of -27. The Islanders weren’t a playoff team, finishing the 2000-2001 season in fifth place with 52 points.

Of course, things went much better for Chara from that point forth, as the hulking blueliner earned six Norris nominations (one win), seven All-Star honors, and he won a Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011. He’s also the NHL’s active leader in Plus/Minus (288) and Defensive Win Shares (99). The Senators only got four seasons from Chara, but they were among the best regular-season teams in the NHL during those years, making the playoffs each of those four seasons, and even managed to beat the Islanders in the first round of the 2002-2003 playoffs.

To make matters worse, Chara wasn’t the only piece the Islanders sent out on that ill-fated day in 2001. Bill Muckalt also went north in that deal, though the right-winger is at least one piece Islanders’ fans don’t have to lose sleep over. He played just one season in Ottawa, and he would be out of the league not two years later.

There’s one final piece. The Islanders sent the 2nd overall selection in the draft to the Senators, a pick that turned into center Jason Spezza. Spezza starred in the middle for eleven years in Ottawa, making two All-Star teams as one of the game’s stellar goal creators. He’s 91st all-time in the NHL now in Adjusted Points (1015) and 92nd all-time in Assists (599). At age-37, he’s a veteran presence on a Toronto Maple Leafs team that will look to enter the playoff field with a win against Columbus whenever play resumes.

Considering the Senators nabbed two all-timers from New York, this has to qualify as a pretty good deal for them. But there’s a give-and-take to every good deal right? Perhaps not so much. The Senators sent Alexei Yashin to the Islanders. Yashin was a fine player, just a year removed from a second-place finish for the Hart Trophy, but they gave up a lot to get him. To make matters worse, the Islanders doubled down and gave him a 10-year, $84MM contract less than three months after the trade, a contract that would have paid Yashin through his age-37 season. For examples of players remaining viable that deep into their careers, we need not look any further than Chara and Spezza. Unfortunately, the Islanders bet on the wrong horse. Yashin wouldn’t come close to recouping the value the Islanders poured into him. They bought him out after the sixth year.

Bruins Sign Victor Berglund

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With Monday being the deadline for players under contract next season for teams in countries that have transfer agreements with the NHL to sign an NHL deal, there have been quite a few signings today.  Boston has joined in on the action as CapFriendly reports that they’ve signed defenseman Victor Berglund to a three-year, entry-level contract.  The deal carries an AAV of just over $818K before performance bonuses and breaks down as follows:

2020-21: $775.5K salary (including signing bonus), $70K AHL salary, no performance bonuses
2021-22: $835K salary (including signing bonus), $70K AHL salary, $15K performance bonuses
2022-23: $842.5K salary (including signing bonus), $70K AHL salary, $82.5K performance bonuses

Berglund was a seventh-round pick of the Bruins back in 2017 (195th overall) and has spent time in Sweden’s second-tier pro league (Allsvenskan) since his draft-eligible year while playing in MODO’s system.  This season, he picked up 10 goals and 12 assists in 52 games and got into a pair of games in the qualification round before the COVID-19 pandemic put an end to that.

The 20-year-old has committed to transfer to Lulea of the SHL for next season back in March but presumably will now set his sights on a full year in North America with AHL Providence.  It won’t be Berglund’s first foray into the AHL though as he got into four games with them late in the 2019 season.

East Notes: Gostisbehere, Bruins FAs, Red Wings Youth

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There was quite a few rumors surrounding the trade status of Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere at the trade deadline in February, but in the end, the team couldn’t find a deal that they liked. After all, Gostisbehere was a top offensive defenseman with the Flyers for several years before back-to-back poor seasons. Of course he is just 27 years old and while he’s recovering from knee surgery this season, the team still believes he has quite a bit of value.

However, Philadelphia Inquirer’s Sam Carchidi writes in his most recent mailbag, that the team is still looking for a trade partner for Gostisbehere and hope to find the right deal this offseason. He adds that the team isn’t willing to just give the blueliner away as he still has vast potential, but the team might be willing to accept a second-round pick or a young forward with 20-goal potential down the road.

  • NHL.com’s Amalie Benjamin reports that Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said that with the uncertainty of the salary cap going forward, the team has shelved any thought of discussing contracts with their UFAs and RFAs. The team has several unrestricted free agents, including defenseman Torey Krug, Zdeno Chara, Joakim Nordstrom and Kevan Miller. The team also has several key restricted free agents, including Jake Debrusk, Anders Bjork and Matt Grzelcyk, but will have little cap room to work with and with rumors that the cap may not increase next year, could force the team to make some difficult decisions.
  • Despite a record losing season in Detroit, MLive’s Ansar Khan writes that Detroit Red Wings general manager Steve Yzerman and the coaching staff do feel that the team made quite a bit of progress in their development of their younger players. He notes that the team were thrilled with the play of defenseman Filip Hronek, who averaged 23:54 of TOI, while posting nine goals and 31 points. While his minus-38 isn’t impressive, the team saw a blueliner whose defense improved greatly. The scribe also points out the improved play of 2018 first-rounder Filip Zadina, Givani Smith and defenseman Gustav Lindstrom.

Snapshots: Players Work Visas, Bruins, Coyotes

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The NHL has informed players who require work visas have been advised to return to Canada or the United States by June 21 in order to address those issues in time for the upcoming 24-team playoff.

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman writes that with the league’s calendar ending on June 30th, so do players work visas. The league has sent a memo to players that it is “strongly recommended” they return to their home team’s country to extend their work visas due to the possible delays in getting those work visa extensions during COVID-19. There are concerns that players who don’t return in the next week might have trouble returning to North America in time for mandatory training camps, which is currently slated to start on July 10.

That could cause some concern for players who have already been told they don’t have to report to their NHL team until training camp and now are expected to show up 19 days earlier with no guarantee that play will resume due to the always-developing coronavirus.

  • The Boston Globe’s Kevin Paul Dupont writes that the Boston Bruins announced that a Bruins’ player has tested positive for COVID-19. According to general manager Don Sweeney, an unnamed player was tested three times, testing positive the first time, but negative the next two. The player has been asymptomatic since appearing at the team’s local practice facility for league-approved voluntary workouts. That player is now no longer allowed to train at the facility until a further test later this week. “I think everyone is learning how we properly interact and distance and react to the original test results,” said Sweeney. “This [workout] phase is a voluntary phase, but I think we are learning and we’ll continue to learn throughout, as the players go through it and, really, however everybody interacts.”
  • On a similar note, Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston reports that the Arizona Coyotes have indicated that a staff member has tested positive for COVID-19 and remains asymptomatic. The team reports that no other player or staff member has tested positive during the Phase 2 testing protocol.

Peter Cehlarik Linked To HC Lugano

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Last month, Bruins forward Peter Cehlarik voiced his frustration with head coach Bruce Cassidy in an interview with TA3 in his native Slovakia and indicated that he was looking for a change of scenery.  That change doesn’t appear to be coming with another NHL team though.  Instead, he appears to be heading overseas.  His agent Louis Leitch told Mattias Persson of HockeyNews.se last week that he was fielding interest from teams in Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland.  It appears he’ll be heading to the latter of the three countries as a report from Flavio Viglezio of Corriere Del Ticino in Switzerland has the 24-year-old close to signing with HC Lugano of the Swiss NLA.

After a strong rookie AHL season in 2016-17 that also saw him get into 11 games with Boston, it looked as if Cehlarik was going to be a part of their future core.  However, he hasn’t progressed much since then and wound up clearing waivers this season.  He played in 48 games with AHL Providence this year and picked up a respectable 16 goals and 21 assists while adding an assist in three contests with the big club.

As a restricted free agent with arbitration eligibility this offseason, the Bruins can retain his NHL rights by issuing him a qualifying offer.  However, with Cehlarik expressing his desire to leave on top of what appears to be stagnated development, they could also just decide to cut bait altogether by non-tendering him later this offseason.

NHL Officially Announces Several Awards

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With the league announcing their return to play format, the regular season is now over. Though we don’t know exactly when the Stanley Cup will be handed out, we do know who has won several regular season awards. The league officially announced the winners of the Art Ross, Maurice “Rocket” Richard, William M. Jennings and Presidents’ Trophy today.

Leon Draisaitl is your 2019-2020 Art Ross winner, after recording 110 points in just 71 games. He was 13 points ahead of teammate Connor McDavid for the league lead and the only player to crack the 100-point threshold in the shortened season. Draisaitl now has 93 goals and 215 points over his last two seasons, truly proving himself to be a superstar talent even when anchoring his own line. The 24-year old is under contract through the 2024-25 season at an $8.5MM cap hit, a deal that now looks like a huge bargain.

Like most years since he entered the league, Alex Ovechkin will take home the goal-scoring title once again. The Washington Capitals superstar has now won the Rocket on nine different occasions, the most of any player in history. This year is a little different however, as he won’t win it alone. David Pastrnak of the Boston Bruins tied Ovechkin for the lead league, meaning they will both be given the award. Pastrnak becomes the first Bruin to lead the league in goals since Phil Esposito nearly a half-century ago.

It wasn’t just offense in Boston however, as Tuukka Rask and Jaroslav Halak take home the Jennings as the goaltending duo with the lowest goals-against-average. The team allowed just 174 goals in 70 games, with Rask and Halak combining for an eye-popping .921 overall save percentage.

That balanced performance is exactly why the Bruins take home the Presidents’ Trophy as the regular season’s best team. With a 44-14-12 record they had dominated the Eastern Conference right from the start of the year, following their Stanley Cup Finals appearance in 2019. Though anything can happen in the restarted playoff picture, the Bruins should still be considered one of the favorites.

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