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Afternoon Notes: Ullmark, Sergachev, Fleury, Kochetkov

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NHL.com reports that Boston Bruins netminder Linus Ullmark is set to return in a backup capacity when the Bruins take on the Colorado Avalanche this evening. Ullmark hasn’t played since a 4-3 overtime loss to the Arizona Coyotes on January 9 as he has been dealing with a lower-body injury. Ullmark will backup starter Jeremy Swayman who has been excellent in his absence. Swayman had a 31-save shutout on Monday over the New Jersey Devils and continues to put up terrific numbers. Ullmark on the other hand had cooled off in early December but was able to finish off 2023 strong capping off a historic year for the 30-year-old. No word yet on when Ullmark is expected to start again, but given that he is backing up Swayman this evening one would think it should be soon.

Other notes from around the league:

  • Both Haydn Fleury and Mikhail Sergachev are likely to miss a few more weeks, as Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper shares that neither are expected back before the break for February 3rd’s All-Star Weekend. Both players are on long-term injured reserve, as Fleury deals with a hand injury and would be eligible to return as soon as January 25th, though he hasn’t recovered fully just yet, while Sergachev nurses a lower-body injury that’s already held him out of 11 games.
  • Carolina Hurricanes fan-favorite Pyotr Kochetkov is getting better from his concussion, returning to team practices for one-on-one work with the team’s goalie coach, shares team reporter Walt Ruff. But despite the return to the ice, Ruff shares that there is still no timetable for Kochetkov’s return to the lineup. Kochetkov last played in January 11th’s matchup against the Anaheim Ducks, saving 10 of 13 shots before leaving the game early. Ducks goaltender John Gibson also left that game early with injury.

Hurricanes Prospect Noah Gunler Linked To SHL

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The Hurricanes have several prospects playing on loans overseas this season, a by-product of them not having their own AHL affiliate.  One of those is winger Noah Gunler who is currently playing in Finland.  However, it appears he’s close to heading back home as Henrik Sjoberg of HockeyNews SE reports that Gunler is close to signing with SHL Lulea for the remainder of the season.

The 22-year-old was regarded by some as a first-round pick back in 2020 but ultimately slid to the second round, going 41st overall.  Since then, Gunler has bounced around a bit, spending time in Sweden, the AHL, and Finland.

This season, Gunler has posted five goals and three assists with Karpat while averaging 15 minutes a night.  But a move to Lulea would allow him to rejoin his hometown team, one he spent time with as recently as the 2020-21 campaign.

Gunler is signed with Carolina through the 2024-25 season and assuming the Hurricanes are able to find a more stable AHL situation, he should be back in North America to play the final year of his entry-level contract.

Snapshots: Couturier, Drysdale, Red Wings, Nečas

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The Philadelphia Flyers will be without Sean Couturier and Jamie Drysdale in their Monday night game against the St. Louis Blues, as they face an undisclosed injury and illness respectively. Both players also sat out of the team’s Saturday night win over the Winnipeg Jets. Bobby Brink and Marc Staal served as the duo’s replacements in Saturday’s 11-forward, seven-defensemen lineup, but the return of Noah Cates will push Staal out of Monday’s lineup.

Drysdale has only played two games with the Flyers since joining the team via trade with the Anaheim Ducks. He’s recorded an assist in both outings with Philadelphia, continuing what’s been a productive season for the third-year pro – with Drysdale boasting seven points in 12 games. The 21-year-old missed 29 games earlier in the season with a shoulder injury. The injury followed complicated contract negotiations with Anaheim, with Drysdale signing a new contract just nine days before the start of the season. He will now spend the three-year, $6.9MM deal with the Flyers.

More notes from around the league:

  • The Detroit Red Wings have signed a three-year extension with ECHL affiliate the Toledo Walleye. Toledo began their affiliation with Detroit in the 2009-10 season and have proven productive, only missing the postseason three times since. This includes championship appearances in two of the last three playoffs. Toledo most notably served as the first professional coaching role for current Detroit head coach Derek LaLonde, who coached the Walleye from 2014 to 2016.
  • Carolina Hurricanes forward Martin Nečas missed a fifth consecutive game on Monday as he’s recovering from an upper-body injury. He’s been replaced by Brendan Lemieux, who has yet to record a point since Nečas left the lineup. Nečas has 26 points of his own through 38 games.

Pyotr Kochetkov In Concussion Protocol; Hurricanes Recall Yaniv Perets

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The Hurricanes will be without another goalie for the foreseeable future as the team announced that Pyotr Kochetkov is in concussion protocol, meaning he is out indefinitely.  In a subsequent move, the team announced the recall of Yaniv Perets from ECHL Norfolk.

Kochetkov suffered the concussion in last night’s game against Anaheim, leaving in the second period.  The timing of it certainly isn’t ideal as the 24-year-old was in the midst of a nice run, posting a .924 SV% in his last ten games, giving Carolina some much-needed stability between the pipes.  He joins Frederik Andersen (blood clots) as netminders who are out of the lineup.

This means that veteran Antti Raanta will take over the number one role for the time being.  It has been a rough year for the 34-year-old as his early struggles eventually resulted in him passing through waivers unclaimed last month before being recalled after two AHL games.  Raanta has a 3.27 GAA with a save percentage of just .862 in 17 games this season.

He’ll be joined by Perets, the only recallable option the Hurricanes have.  The 23-year-old is in his first professional season after a stellar college career with Quinnipiac where he had a 1.34 GAA and a .935 SV% over three seasons with them.  This season, he has played exclusively in the ECHL (since Carolina doesn’t have a direct AHL affiliate), posting a 2.62 GAA with a .906 SV% in 15 games.

The Hurricanes have been speculatively linked to a handful of goaltenders in recent weeks but with Kochetkov playing well lately, that speculation had started to cool off.  However, if the young netminder is set to miss extended time, GM Don Waddell may have no choice but to seriously explore what options might be out there.

Injury Notes: Gibson, Kochetkov, Forsberg

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Anaheim Ducks goaltender John Gibson left the team’s Thursday night game with an upper-body injury, being replaced by backup Lukas Dostal. Gibson has missed time for a variety of reasons this season, being placed on the non-active list earlier in the year for the birth of his child, missing one game due to illness, and now nursing an injury that could limit him further. The absences have kept Gibson to just 26 appearances this season, with the former William Jennings Trophy-winner recording a 7-17-0 record and .900 save percentage on the season. He leads the league in losses.

While Dostal has shown promise, his stat line doesn’t fair much better than Gibson’s, with the 23-year-old goaltender setting a 7-9-1 record and .903 save percentage in 19 games this season. Dostal entered the season with just 23 NHL games under his belt, setting a combined .902 save percentage since making his debut in the 2021-22 season. The Ducks acquired Dostal in the third round of the 2018 NHL Draft. He was the sixth goalie to be taken that year and currently carries the most games played of any goalie in the class.

Other injury notes:

  • The Carolina Hurricanes also lost their goaltender, with Pyotr Kochetkov leaving the team’s game after a collision with Anaheim’s Isac Lundestrom. Kochetkov was hit in the head but seemed to get his leg awkwardly stretched, making it hard to speculate what injury he could be facing. The 24-year-old has played in 23 games this season, goin 11-7-3 and setting a .900 save percentage.
  • Ottawa Senators’ goaltender Anton Forsberg also joined the long list of injuries to occur on Thursday, leaving the team’s game after apparently tweaking something in his groin. The 31-year-old has managed 16 games, a 7-8-0 record, and a .889 save percentage this season.

Latest On Martin Nečas

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  • Carolina Hurricanes team reporter Walt Ruff has provided updates from head coach Rod Brind’Amour, who says that forward Martin Nečas’ upper-body injury “isn’t too serious,” though it may keep him out of the lineup tomorrow. Necas last played in Carolina’s December 2nd win against the New York Rangers, before getting injured. After scoring 28 goals and 71 points last season Necas is scoring at a 20-goal, 56-point pace this season.

Carolina Hurricanes Reassign Vasily Ponomarev

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01/07/23: The Hurricanes have sent Ponomarev back down to the Wolves. He played in a total of two games in Carolina, the first two of his career. He registered a goal and an assist on just over 10 minutes of ice time in the team’s 6-2 victory over Washington, and then was more anonymous in nine minutes of ice time last night against the Blues.

Ponomarev played an important offensive role with the Wolves before his recall, scoring 20 points in 20 games. He’s likely to resume that role now that he’s headed back there.

01/05/23: Before their game against the Washington Capitals tonight, the Carolina Hurricanes have recalled forward Vasily Ponomarev from the Chicago Wolves of the AHL, per a team announcement. It will mark Ponomarev’s second call-up of his career, with the last time coming in late April of 2023.

With Martin Necas out with an upper-body injury, and Stefan Noesen out with an illness, it is more than likely that Ponomarev will make his NHL debut tonight (X Link).

Drafted 53rd overall by the Hurricanes organization in the 2020 NHL Draft, it would take Ponomarev only two years to make it to North America, joining the Wolves for an 11-game stretch during the 2021-22 AHL season. Even in that small time frame, Ponomarev impressed right out of the gates, scoring three goals and 10 points to finish off the year.

Last year, spending his first full season in Chicago, the native of Russia once again showed true offensive prowess at the minor league level, scoring 24 goals and 46 points in 64 games, finishing second on the team in scoring. Now without a direct AHL affiliate this season, the Hurricanes once again chose to place Ponomarev with the Wolves organization, where he has scored six goals and 20 points to start the year.

Shining brightly on the offensive side of the puck, there are plenty of concerns about Ponomarev in the defensive zone. He has shown tremendous talent in backchecking and has an aggressive motor, but has shown an inability to truly shut down an opposing team’s offense in his own zone up to this point.

At the very least, if he does make his NHL debut this evening, Ponomarev will provide another scoring threat to a Hurricanes offense that has averaged an impressive four goals per game in their last nine contests. Suffering through a four-game losing streak early on in December, Carolina has produced a 7-1-3 record since December 12th, climbing to second place in the Metropolitan Division entering play tonight.

Aaron Dell Signs PTO With AHL Ontario

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Last month, the Hurricanes signed veteran goaltender Aaron Dell to a tryout agreement, loaning him out to Canada’s Spengler Cup entry a few days later.  While there hasn’t been an announcement from Carolina about him since then, it appears Dell was released as he has already found a new team. Per the AHL’s transactions log, the netminder has signed a tryout agreement with AHL Ontario, the affiliate of the Kings.

The 34-year-old has yet to play this season beyond his stint at the Spengler Cup where he had a 2.59 GAA and a .906 SV% in four games while losing in the semi-final.  Last season, Dell spent most of the year with AHL San Jose, posting a 3.14 GAA with a .898 SV% in 38 contests.  He also got into four games with the Sharks, extending his streak of years with an appearance at the top level to seven.  Dell had a 2.71 GAA and a .913 SV% in those outings, both better than his career averages of 2.92 and .905 respectively.

With Pheonix Copley on LTIR, David Rittich is currently up with the Kings so Dell figures to serve as the veteran backup to prospect Erik Portillo with the Reign.  Meanwhile, with Los Angeles being speculated to be searching for a veteran third-stringer, this signing could take them out of the trade market on that front with Dell being well-suited to fill that role for the time being.

Latest On Jesper Fast

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  • Carolina Hurricanes forward Jesper Fast will be out of the lineup for the team’s next game, according to Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour. Fast was on the receiving end of a hit to the head from Toronto Maple Leafs forward Noah Gregor on December 30th, a hit that knocked him out of the game. The 32-year-old veteran winger has 11 points in 37 games this season, skating in his usual bottom-six defensive role.

Hurricanes Have Received Interest In Michael Bunting

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With Carolina believed to be among the teams shopping around the goalie market, there’s a possibility that they might need to clear out some money to bring out an impact netminder.  To that end, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports (video link) that some teams have called the Hurricanes regarding the potential availability of Michael Bunting.

The 28-year-old is in his first season with Carolina after signing a three-year, $13.5MM contract with them in free agency this past summer.  Suffice it to say, moving a $4.5MM cap charge off their books would certainly open up plenty of flexibility to go after a goalie if that’s a route they decide they want to go.

However, moving Bunting would also take a player of note from their lineup.  While his playing time is down a bit compared to last season at just under 15 minutes a night, he has been a capable secondary contributor offensively, chipping in with eight goals and 17 assists so far in 36 games while taking a regular turn on their top power play unit.  Taking him out of their lineup would create a fair-sized hole to try to fill up front so it would be surprising to see them go in that direction.

As things stand, Carolina has a little over $3MM in spending room today, an amount that jumps past $8MM at the trade deadline, per CapFriendly.  Accordingly, if the Hurricanes stay healthy, they might not necessarily have to clear out a sizable contract to bring in help between the pipes.

In the meantime, GM Don Waddell is likely still working on moving blueliner Tony DeAngelo, a player whose usage has been quite limited in his second go-round with the team.  DeAngelo is on an expiring deal with a $1.675MM salary and cap hit so even moving out that contract might be enough to give the Hurricanes the flexibility they desire should the opportunity to bring in an impact netminder present itself.

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