Quotable: Crosby, Wheeler, McDavid
Sidney Crosby didn’t start 2015-16 the way he wanted. Through his first 30 games, the Pittsburgh Penguins captain had only 19 points, and was struggling to a -7 rating. Crosby had never finished a season with fewer points than games played, but it looked like he was in danger of putting up the worst season of his career. It wouldn’t happen, as Crosby would remind the world why he is one of the best players in the world, finishing with 85 points on the season and trailing just Patrick Kane and Jamie Benn for the league lead.
In an enlightening article for SI.com yesterday, Crosby writes about his struggles last season and how much the media and fan reaction got to him.
…when the media repeats the same questions — particularly when the team isn’t winning consistently — you already know that whatever is being said out there, it isn’t good. You can feel the atmosphere in the arena and see the look in people’s eyes. It’s hard not to hold the stick a little bit tighter. It’s hard not to want to fix it all with one big game. It’s hard not to over-think and over-work and try to make perfect plays instead of just playing.
Las Vegas Hires Kelly Kisio As Pro Scout
If you were an expansion team, looking to fill your ranks with the best hockey minds not currently employed by an NHL team, where would you look? Las Vegas has decided that the WHL is the place to go, as they’ve mined another long-time front office member from the junior ranks. According to a team release, Kelly Kisio, a member of the Calgary Hitmen front office for the past 18-years, has been hired by the expansion franchise as a pro scout.
Kisio first joined the Hitmen in 1998-99 as the General Manager, and continued in that role until 2013 when he was promoted to President of Hockey Operations. He also spent four seasons behind the bench with the club from 2004-08 while still in his GM role. He’ll now join the Vegas club as a pro scout covering the western region.
An excellent player in his day, Kisio scored 658 points in 761 goals for the Red Wings, Rangers, Sharks and Flames, including a 78 point effort in 1987-88. Serving as captain of the Rangers for over three seasons he made one all-star appearance in 1993.
The hiring of Kisio follows a clear pattern for GM George McPhee this summer, after he hired AGM Kelly McCrimmon from the Brandon Wheat Kings and amateur scout Bruno Campese from the Prince Albert Raiders among others.
Free Agent Profile: Jakub Nakladal
Jakub Nakladal entered this off-season as a relative unknown among hockey fans (and maybe even some teams), but was considered by some to be a dark horse candidate for this summer’s best value signing. A 28-year-old rookie with the Calgary Flames in 2015-16, the 6’2″, 212 lb. Czech native played in only 27 games last season. In his brief showing, he played about 14 minutes per game and managed to record two goals and three assists.
At first glance, the numbers are nothing to get too excited about. A closer look reveals otherwise though; Nakladal was actually a very capable and productive player for the Flames. The “HERO chart” below displays that not only was he an outstanding possession player by Corsi standards, who created offense and made his team mates better, but he was also a solid defensive presence. In fact, by statistical standards, Nakaladal played as well as an average top-four defenseman last season. If you don’t trust the numbers, trust the people. A good measure of a free agent’s ability and value is how much the fan base wants him back. Social media will tell you that Flames fans would very much like to see Nakladal return to Calgary, though the team’s depth makes that unlikely. If the fans who watched him play believe he is worth having, he likely is. Other fans have caught on as well. As the market has slowed to a crawl in these last few weeks and the list of available names continues to shrink, Nakladal’s name has resurfaced as seemingly every fan’s top PTO target.
Regardless, Nakladal remains unsigned. Perhaps his 27 games were not enough for other NHL teams to get a good read on him. It’s also possible that his strong possession statistics could be perceived as skewed because of too few minutes. Maybe yet another reason is that executives are simply not clamoring to acquire a player who could be 30 before he plays in 100 NHL games. For some reason or another, the market for Nakladal’s services has not formed yet. With only so many names remaining, it seems like a matter of time though.
Potential Suitors
It is very unlikely that Nakladal will be handed a top-four position, or even a top-six gig at this point. Few teams are still looking to make additions with training camp right around the corner. However, his market value is clearly low and his ceiling appears to be high, making the risk to teams still looking around for talent very low. At the very least, he is a capable player who could be a reliable seventh or eighth defenseman with enough upside to crack the starting lineup or who could also be a valuable AHL stash. An added benefit is that he is also a right-handed shot. Teams looking to balance their defensive depth or who simply lack depth and are willing to take a shot on a skilled player, should be taking a long look at Nakladal as the summer winds down. The Boston Bruins, for example, have three right-handed defensemen with NHL experience in Kevan Miller, Colin Miller, and veteran Adam McQuaid, but only Kevan Miller managed to stay in the starting lineup throughout the 2015-16 season. The New Jersey Devils have also been speculated to be looking for a right-handed shot, after trading away Adam Larsson left only Damon Severson and new addition Ben Lovejoy as righties on the line. Add the Carolina Hurricanes, Dallas Stars, Edmonton Oilers, Ottawa Senators, Washington Capitals, and Vancouver Canucks to a list of teams that could be helped and certainly not hurt by adding an affordable puck-moving defenseman, and Nakladal’s availability seems even stranger.
Expected Contract
The calendar flips to September tomorrow, and contracts at this point in the off-season are impossible to predict. Who would’ve guessed that Boston would sign Dominic Moore to a guaranteed deal yesterday with six proven centers already on the roster? Nevertheless, deals do get done, even as the summer draws to a close. Much like the situation with James Wisniewski (if he’s healthy) in Tampa Bay, some lucky team might have the chance to strike gold by extending a Professional Tryout Offer to Nakladal. Considering the possibility that Nakladal has yet to really reach his potential, given what limited play time he saw last year, an even better move might be to just sign him to a short, cheap contract and ensure that no one else can take him off your hands. Whether signed off of a PTO or guaranteed right away, Nakladal should end up on an NHL roster to the tune of $800K or so. Unless they have a lot of faith in young stud Brandon Carlo or really want to play both McQuaid and K. Miller every night, bet on the Bruins, who have cap space and roster space, to make another move and take a chance on Nakladal in 2016-17.
Columbus Blue Jackets Sign Jarret Stoll To PTO
After the Calgary Flames added Chris Higgins and the Carolina Hurricanes added Raffi Torres on professional try-outs earlier today, the Columbus Blue Jackets have decided to get in on the action. The team has invited veteran Jarret Stoll to training camp on a PTO, as Aaron Portzline reports.
Stoll, 34, spent last season between the New York Rangers and Minnesota Wild contributing just nine points in 80 games. Once an effective scoring threat capable of putting up 40 points per season, Stoll hasn’t hit double digits in goals since 2010-11. Last season saw his minutes decreased to just over 12 a game, as he became a PK and faceoff specialist, hardly spending any time in the offensive zone.
Now, Stoll will try to hook on with a team in desperate need of cheap options to fill out their roster. The club is just $3.8MM under the cap, despite only having 18 players (twelve forwards and six defense) under NHL deals. While Zach Werenski, Pierre-Luc Dubois and Oliver Bjorkstrand all might make the team to provide some young inexpensive options, someone like Stoll could provide a cheap, veteran, bottom-six option for a team with so much tied up in terrible contracts.
Calgary Flames Sign Chris Higgins To PTO
The Calgary Flames have announced the signing of Chris Higgins to a professional try-out. Higgins was bought out earlier this summer by the Vancouver Canucks after a dreadful 2015-16 season that saw him relegated to the AHL for the first time in over a decade.
Higgins, 33, has declined rapidly in recent years and put up only four points in 33 games last season at the NHL level. A former three-time twenty-goal scorer, he could once be counted on to provide 30-40 points while playing a solid two-way game. The Canucks decided he wasn’t going to be able to recapture that skill though, buying out the final year of his contract to save less than $2MM in cap space this season; Higgins will be paid $833K for the next two years, making any contract he earns in Flames camp a bonus.
This isn’t the first time Higgins will be in a Calgary sweater, as the team acquired him in 2010 from the Rangers in a four-player swap. Ironically, that was during his second worst season of his career, one that saw him score only 17 points in 72 games. Perhaps the Flames are convinced they can turn him around this time, and provide some veteran leadership to a group led by young forwards.
Pacific Division Notes: Coyotes, Daly, Marleau, Goldobin
After acquiring Dave Bolland and Pavel Datsyuk in separate trades this summer, the Arizona Coyotes could be in a position to conceivably carry nearly $18MM – once Chris Pronger‘s $4.935MM cap hit is added – on their salary cap for three players who won’t be suiting up for the this year. All told, the Coyotes will pay out just $1.675 in actual salary for those players (Pronger is set to earn $575K in the final season of a long-term arrangement he originally signed with Philadelphia, while the insurance policy on Bolland’s contract will cover all but $1.1MM once he is placed on LTIR). These maneuverings have allowed Arizona to easily cross the salary cap floor while at the same time limiting the actual salary obligations; not an unimportant factor for a small market, budget team.
In a piece appearing on Today’s Slapshot, Craig Morgan asked NHL deputy commissioner if Arizona’s handling of the salary cap was a growing concern for the league. Surprisingly, Daly indicated the league did not feel the Coyotes were exploiting a “loophole,” in the CBA while still leaving open the possibility the NHL could look to address the matter in future bargaining with the player’s union.
“I would say that it’s a matter that we monitor, like all other areas of the CBA (collective bargaining agreement), and if we believe it starts to be abused in a way that is inconsistent with how the system is designed to work, at that point, we would try to correct it in collective bargaining with the union. I would say we aren’t at that point on this issue — we do not view it as the loophole that some describe it as.”
While most teams utilize their available cap space to sign or trade for players from other organizations, or to extend their own players, Coyotes GM John Chayka is using Arizona’s as a method to add more quality young talent to what is already considered a strong group of prospects. It’s simply good business and soon enough Chayka’s talent-acquisition strategies will start paying off on the ice for the Coyotes.
Elsewhere in the Pacific Division…
- Patrick Marleau has spent the entirety of his excellent 18-year NHL career with the San Jose Sharks; a career which has seen the forward tally 481 regular season goals and 1,036 points. Marleau’s name has shown up in trade rumors on more than one occasion during his time in the Bay Area, most recently last season, but nothing has ever come of it. Yet, as Joey Alfieri of Pro Hockey Talk writes, the 2016-17 campaign will, in all probability, be the final one of Marleau’s storied Sharks career. As Alfieri points out, Marleau is in the final year of his contract and the team has several younger options on the LW – Mikkel Boedker, Tomas Hertl and Nikolay Goldobin – under team control for the next several seasons. Even if Marleau is willing to take a discount on the $6.66MM he is earning this season, the Sharks are far more likely to prioritize re-signing Brent Burns and Joe Thornton, both of whom are also scheduled to reach free agency next summer.
- The Calgary Flames recently reached agreement with one of their top players, Sean Monahan, inking the restricted free agent to a monster seven-year deal worth $44.6MM. That’s quite an investment for a player just coming off his ELC but as the Calgary Sun’s Kristen Odland writes, Monahan is already well worth the financial commitment. She points out that he has produced more offense than other pivots comparable in age and who have also recently signed extensions. As good as Monahan is he may not even be the best player on his team. That distinction might belong to winger Johnny Gaudreau, a restricted free agent who remains unsigned. Inevitably the Flames will also get Gaudreau under contract but it will be interesting to see how his contract compares to that of Monahan’s.
Pacific Notes: Calgary Injury Updates, Edmonton Prospect Targets
Flames defenseman Jyrki Jokipakka is on pace in his recovery from offseason hip surgery to be able to suit up for Team Finland at the upcoming World Cup of Hockey, writes Aaron Vickers from the Flames’ official site. Calgary GM Brad Treliving had the following to say about how his treatment is going:
“Based on today and based on the medical opinion, I would say it’s promising to likely that he be ready for that. Everything is looking good. He’s been back here for a little bit of time now and our staff has had a chance to check him out. Everything looks good. He’s been training. He’s been skating. I think there are a couple final checks to do, but everything is looking positive.”
Jokipakka was acquired at the trade deadline from Dallas along with prospect Brett Pollock and a 2016 2nd round pick (Dillon Dube) in exchange for Kris Russell, who happens to be the most prominent remaining unrestricted free agent on the open market. He got into 18 games with the Flames last year, recording six assists while seeing his average ice time increase by over three minutes compared to his playing time with the Stars. He’s likely to play in a third pairing role for Calgary this season.
[Related: Calgary’s Depth Chart]
More from the Pacific:
- In a separate piece from Vickers, center Daniel Pribyl, an offseason signing by the Flames, may not be fully healthy when training camp gets underway. The 23 year old underwent ACL surgery back in May. Pribyl, originally a sixth round draft pick of Montreal back in 2012 (168th overall but went unsigned), averaged a point per game (16 goals and 29 assists in 45 contests) with Sparta Praha of the Czech Extraliga last season which got him back on the NHL radar.
- The Oilers are interested in signing college free agent defenseman Matt Benning, reports Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal. Benning was a sixth round pick (175th overall) of the Bruins in 2012 but went unsigned prior to the August 15th deadline. Benning is the nephew of Vancouver GM Jim Benning (who was Boston’s Assistant GM when he was drafted) which has yielded speculation that the Canucks may be interested in the services of the 22 year old as well. (Update: Edmonton has indeed signed Benning to a two year deal.)
- Also from Matheson, he noted that the Oilers inquired about the availability of Blackhawks prospect Mark McNeill back at the draft in June. McNeill made his NHL debut last season but has spent the bulk of his professional career at the minor league level. The 23 year old former first rounder (18th overall in 2011) has to clear waivers if he doesn’t crack Chicago’s roster in training camp so it’s certainly possible that talks could rekindle closer towards the beginning of the season in mid-October.
World Cup Roster Changes: Keith, Bouwmeester, Kronwall, Lindholm
Earlier today Hockey Canada added St. Louis Blues defenseman Jay Bouwmeester to its World Cup team to replace Chicago blue liner Duncan Keith. Keith is still not 100% as he continues to rehab from a right knee injury suffered last season. Blackhawks team physician, Dr. Michael Terry, had this to say about Keith’s recovery:
“As Duncan continues offseason rehabilitation on the right knee injury that he sustained last season, we understand his decision not to participate in next month’s World Cup of Hockey. We believe it is in his best interests to focus on getting stronger and not risk further injury.”
Bouwmeester joins Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Jake Muzzin as the only left-handed shooters on Canada’s blue line. That’s likely the primary reason Bouwmeester was chosen over right-handed options such as Kris Letang and P.K. Subban. It was also somewhat surprising that Bouwmeester was added over Mark Giordano of the Flames.
Giordano tallied 21 goals and 56 points while playing a full slate of games for Calgary. He has developed into one of the league’s best offensive defenseman over the last three seasons and like Bouweester, is a left-handed shot.
Bouwmeester, conversely, recorded just 19 points and was had a plus-minus rating of -4 in 72 games for the Blues. In all probability, Hockey Canada favored Bouwmeester’s extensive experience representing his home country. He was a part of the 2004 World Cup-winning team and also won a gold with Team Canada at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
This is the second change in as many days to Team Canada’s roster. Yesterday, Logan Couture was added to replace Jamie Benn.
Team Canada is obviously still going to be one of the tournament’s favorites but if there is a weakness, it may well be the team’s blue line.
Elsehwere, Anaheim Ducks defender Hampus Lindholm, currently a RFA, has been named to Team Sweden to replace Niklas Kronwall. Kronwall is still recovering from knee surgery performed in January.
Lindholm, 22, scored 10 goals and 28 points last season for the Ducks and is considered one of the up-and-coming young defensemen in the league. He’ll join an excellent blue line group anchored by Erik Karlsson from Ottawa and Victor Hedman of Tampa Bay.
Sweden is expected, along with Team USA, to be one of the biggest threats to Canada’s chances in this tournament. In addition to an excellent defense corps, Sweden will have Henrik Lundqvist between the pipes. Up front they have plenty of skill led by the Sedin twins, Daniel and Henrik, Filip Forsberg and Nicklas Backstrom. Obviously Sweden boasts a formidable roster with plenty of talent.
Tim Jackman Retires From NHL
According to Elite Prospects, long-time journeyman Tim Jackman has decided to hang up his skates and retire from professional hockey. Jackman played 483 games across parts of twelve seasons, suiting up for the Blue Jackets, Coyotes, Kings, Islanders, Flames and Ducks along the way.
Now 34-years old, Jackman was originally picked in the second round of the 2001 draft, and would contribute 75 points and over 800 penalty minutes across his career. The North Dakota native got into nine playoff games in 2014-15 with the Ducks, his first taste of NHL postseason.
Playing with the San Diego Gulls of the AHL last season, Jackman put up two points (1-1) and 33 penalty minutes in 22 games. Don’t be surprised to see Jackman’s name in a coaching staff in the future, as often tough guys and journeymen find success behind the bench after their playing days are over.
Pacific Division: Remaining RFAs
We’re now in the dying days of August, less than a month away from the start of the World Cup and training camps. However, there are still 15 restricted free agents remaining, and many of them are not who you would expect to be unsigned at this point. Two NHL teams’ leading scorers, four top-four defensemen, and several other high quality players are still looking for new deals.
Let’s break down the remaining RFAs by division, starting out west in the Pacific Division:
Anaheim Ducks – $7.52MM in cap space, according to Cap Friendly – The Ducks have mostly stood pat this summer after bringing back Randy Carlyle to replace the fired Bruce Boudreau. However, the budget-bound Ducks still have some work to do – their best defenseman, Hampus Lindholm, and World Cup-bound center Rickard Rakell still need new contracts. Lindholm logged the most minutes on the Ducks and put up 28 points as a dependable two-way force. Rakell is behind Ryan Getzlaf and Ryan Kesler on the center depth chart, but finished fourth on the Ducks in points with 43. The Ducks would like to get both signed long term, but will need to get creative to fit it all under their self-imposed budget. Cam Fowler has been the subject of trade rumors throughout the summer as the Ducks ready themselves for these two contracts and next summer’s expansion draft.
Arizona Coyotes – $7.85MM in cap space, according to Cap Friendly – Arizona has been locked in tough negotiations with Tobias Rieder all summer. It’s believed the talented scorer and reliable two-way winger is looking for a contract similar to new Coyotes forward Jamie McGinn, who signed a three-year, $10MM contract. However, new GM John Chayka isn’t budging, and Rieder has threatened to head to the KHL if the two sides can’t come to an agreement.
Calgary Flames – $8.59MM in cap space, according to Cap Friendly – The Flames have been in an unenviable situation this summer, with their two top forwards needing new contracts. GM Brad Treliving locked up center Sean Monahan to a seven-year, $44.625MM contract last week, but has yet to sign the team’s leading scorer Johnny Gaudreau. Gaudreau has said he won’t negotiate during the upcoming World Cup, where he’ll suit up for Team North America. Their camp starts on the long weekend, so there’s just two weeks remaining for Gaudreau and the Flames to put pen to paper. The Flames also have to sign Freddie Hamilton, minor league center and brother of Dougie. Hamilton played four NHL games last season, potting a goal and an assist.