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Snapshots: Dave Andrews Retirement, Hub Elimination, Flames, Gritty

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Dave Andrews is serving his final day as President and CEO of the AHL. Congratulations have filtered in throughout the day. Former player and current TV analyst Mike McKenna wrote via Twitter, “…You always had time for the players and considered us in league decisions when possible…then you’d beat us on the tennis court and share a drink after. Enjoy retirement, you’ve earned it!” It’s unfortunate that Andrews has to end his tenure with a season cut short, but it’s a testament to his impact on the game that many people thought first of him when the season was canceled, per Stephen Whyno of the Associated Press. Andrews has served as the President of the AHL since 1994. The longtime executive will remain involved in helping the AHL forge a return-to-play plan. Patrick Williams, AHL beat writer for NHL.com, will be tracking congratulations to Andrews throughout the day. Let’s check-in elsewhere around the hockey world…

  • Los Angeles appears to be out of the running for the NHL’s hub cities, tweets TSN’s Bob McKenzie. It’s unclear if this decision was inspired by the recent uptick of coronavirus cases in Los Angeles and California, though it’s safe to assume it was a factor. Vegas, Chicago, Edmonton, and Toronto are the four remaining options to host the NHL’s 2020 postseason.
  • There will be a new face in camp as the Calgary Flames prepare for their potential Stanley Cup Qualifier with the 9-seeded Winnipeg Jets. The Flames extended an invitation to prospect Adam Ruzicka, who plans to join the club next week, per The Athletic’s Scott Cruickshank. The 21-year-old Slovak was a fourth-round pick of the Flames in 2017. Ruzicka notched 27 points (10 goals) for the Stockton Heat in 2019-2020.
  • In undoubtedly the most important NHL news of the day, Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty has a new look. The notoriously unkempt Philly native received the Queer Eye treatment, per NHL.com. Given the level of global fear amid health concerns and civil unrest, Gritty will perhaps face some criticism for leaning into this public pampering – but with the Queer Eye crew in Philadelphia for their fifth season on Netflix, Gritty found himself nominated for a makeover by none other than his close confidant and mentor, the Philly Phanatic. Luckily, Gritty took the nomination in stride, a testament to his character, given that the 43-year-old Phanatic started dying his hair last year –  a rather embarrassing display of public vanity from the Hall of Fame mascot.

Pacific Notes: Burns, Kings, Coyotes, Flames

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There is plenty of time until the next expansion draft, which is expected to occur at some point after the 2020-21 season (whenever finishes), but teams are paying attention to it and how to avoid a major loss. The San Jose Sharks were well prepared three years ago when the team didn’t give Vegas many options with the Golden Knights eventually selecting defenseman David Schlemko, who them later flipped to Montreal for a 2019 fifth-round pick.

However, this time around, general manager Doug Wilson may have some much tougher decisions to make. The team only has two players that will have no-movement clauses before the expansion draft in Erik Karlsson and, unfortunately, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, who at 33 years old, has six more years at $7MM per year. With cap room challenging in the future, Wilson may have to make a drastic move, and according to The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz (subscription required), the team may opt to expose veteran defenseman Brent Burns to the Seattle franchise.

While Burns’ numbers took a bit of a hit last season and he will be 36 years old when the expansion draft comes about, he still remains a solid top-four defenseman and is a candidate to age well considering his workout history. His salary still carries five more years at $8MM AAV, but he could be a valuable veteran piece for an expansion team and could help out the Sharks as well.

  • After having drafted centers in the first round of the past three drafts, (Gabriel Vilardi, Rasmus Kupari and Alex Turcotte) the Los Angeles Kings are lined up to likely select a fourth center in four years with the No. 2 overall pick, which is expected to be either OHL’s Quinton Byfield or German center Tim Stutzle. Regardless, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman in his most recent 31 Thoughts column, writes that won’t stop general manager Rob Blake from taking a fourth center. “No,” Blake said. “You mention those three, we’ll take four centres like that.”
  • Former Coyotes’ reporter Craig Morgan reports that the Arizona Coyotes are expecting to have their entire roster in town by Monday. Several teams are already trying to get their entire rosters in town with plenty of time to get comfortable before training camp starts for the upcoming 24-team tournament and Arizona will be one of the first.
  • The Calgary Flames are also working on getting their team together as quickly as possible. TSN reported that Flames’ general manager Brad Treliving said that the team already has 18 players in Calgary, although several are still undergoing quarantine. However, the GM also said that he expects the rest of the team to be in Calgary by early next week.

Construction To Begin On New Arena In August 2021

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  • The Flames announced details about the construction of their new facility. We’re still more than a year away from construction getting underway and a target completion date has been set for May 2024.  HOK, a global design firm, is among the groups that will be assisting in the process and they have recent NHL arena construction experience after being involved in the new arenas for Detroit and Edmonton.

Flames Re-Sign Artyom Zagidulin

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Artyom Zagidulin’s first season in North America didn’t see him come close to putting up the numbers he did in the KHL in 2018-19 but he showed enough to convince the Flames to give him another look as they announced that they’ve signed him to a one-year, two-way contract extension.  CapFriendly reports that the deal carries a $700K salary at the NHL level, a $125K salary in the minors, and an overall guarantee of $225K.

The 24-year-old spent this season with Stockton of the AHL in a timeshare with Jon Gillies as each goalie made 30 appearances for the Heat.  Zagidulin’s numbers (3.07 GAA, .898 SV%) weren’t quite as strong as Gillies (2.69 GAA, .907 SV%) but it’s worth noting that Gillies was in his fourth season at the AHL while Zagidulin was in his rookie campaign.

With Gillies slated to become a Group VI unrestricted free agent this offseason, Zagidulin should have a chance for a bigger chunk of the workload in Stockton next season.  Calgary has two other young netminders that are eligible for restricted free agency in Tyler Parsons and Nick Schneider.  Both spent the season with Kansas City of the ECHL and put up rather pedestrian numbers.  Accordingly, it’s possible that one may be non-tendered with the other serving as Zagidulin’s backup in the AHL next season.

Pacific Notes: Markstrom, Vancouver, Calgary

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Without an official start date announced for the expanded NHL postseason, it is nearly impossible to guess when the Stanley Cup might be awarded this year and when the off-season may begin. All that Vancouver Canucks GM Jim Benning cares about is that by the time the off-season does arrive, goaltender Jacob Markstrom is back under contract. “He’s an important guy for us,” Benning told Ben Kuzma of The Province, adding “My intent is to figure out something that works for him and us. I’m hoping to get him signed.” Markstrom is part of a trio of key free agents for Vancouver that includes defenseman Chris Tanev and forward Tyler Toffoli, but the All-Star netminder appears to be Benning’s priority. The GM has been working to extend Markstrom all year, while Markstrom himself has said multiple times that he would like to remain in Vancouver. All that is left is for the two sides to meet on money in the confines of a potential flat salary cap and the Canucks’ hefty payroll. Markstrom enjoyed a career year in 2019-20 and could still boost his stock even further with a strong playoff performance. If the Canucks don’t pay him, someone else undoubtedly will.

  • The city of Vancouver is hoping to have a first-hand look at the coming postseason. The province of British Columbia has put together a formal proposal, designed and approved by its top healthcare professionals, that recommends Vancouver as one of the two “hub cities” for the NHL’s makeshift playoff format. Per the Canadian Press, this proposal will be presented to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for approval and then finally to the NHL. Vancouver was already on the shortlist of possible locations that the league was considering, but are now taking steps to be a front runner for the event. Whether or not the NHL would allow the Canucks to play at home or instead send the Eastern Conference teams to Western Canada remains to be seen.
  • Working against Vancouver’s odds of hosting a postseason tournament is Canada’s continued insistence on a 14-day quarantine for anyone entering the country. If this policy is still in place once the postseason is ready to commence, it would present a holdup that the NHL cannot afford. Before it even reaches that possible breaking point, the quarantine rule is already impacting training camp plans. Calgary Flames GM Brad Treliving tells TSN’s Ryan Rishaug that the organization already has a plan in place to hold their July training camp in the U.S. if the quarantine rule is not lifted or an exception is not made. “I don’t want guys coming back to Calgary and sitting on their butts for two weeks,” Treliving stated, “It may make more sense for us to have camp in the U.S. so we can have guys together quicker and being productive. The quarantine issue is a big one.” There is no word yet on where exactly this fallback training camp would take place, but hockey-centric cities relatively close to Calgary include Spokane, Washington and Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Dustin Wolf Named CHL Goaltender Of The Year

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What a run for Dustin Wolf. The Calgary Flames prospect has now added CHL Goaltender of the Year to his resume, following his previous selections as the top netminder from both the WHL and USA Hockey. Wolf also signed his entry-level contract with the Flames last month.

Wolf, 19, has done nothing but dominate at the junior hockey level, recording a .934 save percentage across three seasons and 127 appearances. His goals-against average during that time was a minuscule 1.85 and he posted an 88-31-6 record in the regular season.

One might expect a goaltender like that to be a top draft pick, especially given he won the CHL Scholastic Player of the Year award in his draft year. Wolf, however, fell all the way to the seventh round before the Flames used the 214th overall pick on him a year ago.

The reason is simple, Wolf stands just 6’0″ 165-lbs, much smaller than the goaltenders that have reached the peak of professional hockey in recent years. In comparison to mammoth netminders like Ben Bishop and Mikko Koskinen—both standing 6’7″—it’s easy to see why teams may hesitate on Wolf’s potential.

Still, the Flames are obviously willing to give him a shot to show what he can do at the professional level. That won’t happen until next year when he is eligible for the AHL, but with a contract in hand and a history of success he’ll be one of the more interesting goaltending prospects to follow.

Previous winners of the CHL award include current NHL goaltenders like Carter Hart (twice), Darcy Kuemper, Jake Allen and Carey Price.

Jakob Pelletier's QMJHL Rights Traded To Val-d'Or

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The QMJHL draft is just underway and already there has been a notable trade agreed upon.  TVA Sports’ Mikael Lalancette (Twitter link) is among those to report that Flames prospect Jakob Pelletier has been dealt from Moncton to Val-d’Or.  RDS’ Stephane Leroux adds (Twitter link) that a pair of first-round picks are among the five picks and a prospect going the other way.

Stretch Run Storylines: Calgary Flames

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As things stand, the NHL is planning to have games resume at some point over the coming weeks.  Assuming the regular season continues (something the league remains hopeful of doing), there will be plenty of things to watch for over the stretch run.  Over the weeks ahead, PHR will examine the top stretch run storylines for each team.  We continue our look at the Pacific Division with Calgary.

The Flames have had a bit of a tumultuous season.  After winning the division last year, Bill Peters was let go early in the season for prior incidents that came to light.  Their top five scorers from 2018-19 are all producing at a lower clip this season.  They’re allowing more goals than a year ago while scoring less per game.  But despite that, they’re still sitting in a playoff spot and are within striking distance for second in the Pacific.  Here’s what to watch for from them down the stretch.

Scoring Races

Despite underachieving considerably compared to last year, Matthew Tkachuk (61 points) and Johnny Gaudreau (58) are in a tight battle for the team lead in scoring.  Both were starting to heat up before the break as well with Gaudreau averaging a point per game over his last 16 contests while Tkachuk had 19 points in that same span.  Neither will come close to their mark from a year ago but it should make for an interesting scoring race over the final few weeks.

There is another scoring race to watch for in Calgary between a current winger in Milan Lucic and their former winger in James Neal.  As part of the offseason trade, a 2020 third-round pick from the Oilers to the Flames was put in it with some rather unique conditions.  For the pick to transfer, Neal has to score at least 21 goals this season and have 10 more tallies than Lucic.

Let’s look at where things stand now.  Neal is at 19 goals so he’s two shy of getting the first half.  Meanwhile, Lucic has rebounded slightly from his goal total a year ago but he only sits at eight.  If Neal picks up a couple over their final stretch, Calgary should net themselves the pick unless Lucic comes back and gets on a hot streak right away.

Rebound From Rittich?

Expectations were high for David Rittich heading into the year.  The goaltender was coming off of a strong 2018-19 campaign and was expected to push for even more playing time this season.  He got off to a strong start as well, posting a .915 save percentage across his first 35 appearances.  That was a little better than a year ago (.911) and it helped him make it to his first All-Star Game when he took the place of Arizona’s Darcy Kuemper.

Things haven’t gone as well since then.  In his last 13 games, his save percentage plummeted all the way down to .883.  In other words, from about NHL average to below-average backup territory.  That’s not the biggest of sample sizes but his struggles and a nagging elbow issue paved the way for Cam Talbot to play more regularly before the pause in the schedule.

Can Rittich rebound after the break or will Talbot, who took a one-year deal last summer to take another run at landing a starting job this coming offseason, continue to cut into his playing time?  This is a potential dual-goalie situation which would be ideal for a compressed stretch run but come playoff time, they’ll likely want to stick with one netminder over a platoon.

Valimaki Ready?

Juuso Valimaki didn’t look out of place in Calgary last season.  The blueliner made the team and held his own early before being sent to the minors.  However, he was recalled late in the year and even saw some playoff action.  That had him in line to push for a regular spot on the back end until he tore his ACL in early September.  He wasn’t expected to play this season but the break in the schedule has made that a legitimate possibility now.

From a short-term standpoint, adding another defenseman would be ideal for a stretch run that will likely be compressed if it gets off the ground.  It’d also certainly be beneficial from a development perspective.

But there is another consideration at play.  If Valimaki plays in a single game in 2019-20, he would become eligible for selection in next summer’s Seattle expansion draft.  But if he doesn’t, he won’t accrue a professional season of service which means he’d fall under the exempt category.  By the way, that applies for any AHL playing time either in the unlikely event that their season resumes.

That presents Calgary with a potentially intriguing decision.  It’s hard to justify sitting someone that could help in a late-season or playoff game but are a handful of games from someone who has been off so long enough to justify making him required to be protected.  Worth noting, Mark Giordano, Noah Hanifin, and Rasmus Andersson will all require protection next summer and teams only have three guaranteed protection slots.  It’d be an interesting decision either way.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Calgary Flames Sign Dustin Wolf

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The Calgary Flames have added another top goaltending prospect to their system, signing Dustin Wolf to a three-year entry-level contract. Wolf recently finished his third season in the WHL with the Everett Silvertips, where he dominated once again, posting a .935 save percentage in 46 games.

If you look at Wolf’s career to date in junior hockey, you might wonder why exactly he fell all the way to the seventh round before the Flames selected him with the 214th pick last year. There’s one simple answer for that—size. Despite being one of the most consistent and outstanding goaltenders in the WHL for three straight seasons, Wolf stands just 6’0″ 165-lbs, numbers that do not inspire confidence at the NHL level.

Still, there’s reason to be excited about Wolf’s future in the professional ranks. His positioning is exquisite and his ability to read the play in front of him and track the puck is nearly unmatched at the junior level. There will obviously be some real challenges in front of him, but at this point all he’s ever done is succeed.

Wolf’s contract will not kick in next season if he plays another year in the WHL, which is almost certain at this point. He is not eligible for the AHL.

Calgary Flames Sign Johannes Kinnvall

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Now that the transfer agreements are in place, teams around the NHL are finalizing their contracts with European free agents. The Calgary Flames were one of those teams waiting to get a deal done and have now announced a two-year entry-level contract for Johannes Kinnvall. The team has already announced that Kinnvall will remain in Sweden for the 2020-21 season before joining the Flames organization in North America for 2021-22.

Kinnvall, 22, exploded offensively this season with HV71, scoring 40 points in 51 games. That was good enough for eighth in the entire SHL and four points more than teammate Linus Sandin, who just signed with the Philadelphia Flyers.

Of course, that is all the more impressive given that Kinnvall is a defenseman. He was the second-highest scoring blueliner in the league and will be an interesting option for the Flames should he be able to bring that offensive production to North America.

That won’t be easy, but he’ll have another year to hone his craft before coming over.

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