Crosby, Dumoulin Set To Rejoin Teammates Tomorrow
Though they are technically not yet on the active roster, Sidney Crosby and Brian Dumoulin will be back in the coming days. Both players skated today and are expected to meet the rest of the team in Washington on Sunday, where the Penguins will play the Capitals in the second half of a back-to-back. Crosby and Dumoulin are both going through what the team has deemed the “final stage” of the protocol, though assistant coach Todd Reirden wouldn’t commit to their status for tomorrow’s game.
Reirden himself likely won’t have the final decision, as head coach Mike Sullivan is also set to be back behind the bench tomorrow night. Chad Ruhwedel and Marcus Pettersson, who both exited the protocol for one game only to be unavailable to travel to Canada with the group, would also be technically available. Pettersson also skated today after suffering an injury that took him out of Thursday’s contest.
While Crosby is obviously the most important player for the Penguins, Dumoulin’s return shouldn’t be overlooked. The 30-year-old defenseman is a key part of the team’s defensive structure and logs big minutes in difficult situations. In fact, only John Marino among regular defensemen has started a higher percentage of his shifts in the defensive zone or logged more penalty-killing time than Dumoulin.
It’s been a tough stretch for the Penguins over the past four games, reaching at least overtime in each one. They’ve split those matches, but still sit seventh in the Metropolitan Division with a 5-3-4 record on the year. Crosby meanwhile has only played in a single game, returning to the lineup just briefly before finding himself in the COVID protocol. Getting him back into game action may have to be a slow process, but it’s hard to wait around long for a player of his caliber. In 2020-21, for the 16th season in a row, Crosby scored at a rate higher than a point-per-game, racking up 62 in 55 games. He’ll try to turn that trick for a 17th time this season.
San Jose Sharks Remove Seven Players From COVID Protocol
As suggested by the team’s AHL assignments this morning, the San Jose Sharks have removed seven players from the COVID protocol. Kevin Labanc, Erik Karlsson, Timo Meier, Jacob Middleton, Matthew Nieto, Radim Simek, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic have all been removed from the protocol and added back to the active roster. Head coach Bob Boughner, head trainer Ray Tufts and equipment manager Mike Aldrich have also all been removed from the protocol.
Sasha Chmelevski, Joel Kellman, Artemi Kniazev, John Leonard, Ryan Merkley, Jaycob Megna, and Nicolas Meloche have all been assigned to the AHL. Nicholas Merkley, who had also been recalled with this group, remains with San Jose for the time being.
It’s obviously a huge moment for the Sharks, as they receive a good portion of their regular lineup back in time for tomorrow’s game against the Colorado Avalanche. The team is sitting at 7-5-1 on the season and is still well within striking range of the division playoff spots. Getting back key options like Labanc, Karlsson and Meier will only help them as they try to chase down the teams ahead of them.
Activating the group from the protocol is also a good sign that the team has this outbreak behind them, or at least contained. The activated players were actually able to skate in recent days, though they would not have been able to join the team in Canada given their recent positive tests. They’ll now be able to join the group in Denver, nearly two weeks after originally entering the protocol.
Artem Zub Leaves Game With Upper-Body Injury
Things continue to get worse in terms of the amount of personnel available for the Ottawa Senators. Defenseman Artem Zub left Thursday’s game against Los Angeles with an upper-body injury, and head coach D.J. Smith says there’s “no update” on his status.
Ottawa is already without nine players due to COVID-19 protocol, including defensemen Nikita Zaitsev, Josh Brown, Victor Mete, and Nick Holden. The team is down to just nine healthy defensemen under NHL contracts now, as Jacob Bernard-Docker, Maxence Guenette, and Jonathan Aspirot remain with AHL Belleville.
The team’s depth is stretched extremely thin, as many young players are now getting NHL time sooner than expected. 2019 first-round selection Lassi Thomson made his NHL debut Thursday in place of Zaitsev.
If Zub is to miss any period of time, Bernard-Docker is the obvious choice to come up from Belleville. The 21-year-old right-shot defenseman does not require waivers and got into five games with the Senators at the tail end of last season.
Zub himself was having a great start to the 2021-22 season, notching five assists in 12 games while working his way up to the team’s top pairing with Thomas Chabot. He’s been Ottawa’s most responsible defenseman since joining the team prior to 2020-21, now averaging nearly 23 minutes a night this season.
Snapshots: Rask, Housley, Carrier
TSN’s Chris Johnston notes on Thursday’s edition of Insider Trading that free agent goaltender Tuukka Rask is working his way back after offseason surgery to repair a torn labrum and could be ready to return to game action as soon as January. Johnston notes specifically that Rask could be an option for Team Finland at the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, potentially a huge boost to an already strong Finnish program. While Johnston reports that Rask’s main focus in his “mind and his heart” remains with the Boston Bruins, the door isn’t completely closed on other options, either. Regardless, it’s good to see one of the league’s best goalies of his generation working his way back to health for what could be his last chance at a championship.
More notes from around the league:
- Arizona Coyotes assistant coach Phil Housley has entered the league’s COVID-19 protocol, per the team’s public relations department. He won’t travel with the team on their upcoming road trip. He’ll miss three games, including a back-to-back set against the Chicago Blackhawks and Nashville Predators this Friday and Saturday. Arizona’s next home game is a week from today against the Columbus Blue Jackets, and pending test results, Housley could be available to return then.
- According to the team, Nashville Predators defenseman Alexandre Carrier is out for Thursday night’s game against the St. Louis Blues with an upper-body injury. The Predators note that he’ll be evaluated further when the team returns home. Carrier blocked a shot that hit him up high during Wednesday night’s game against the Dallas Stars and did not return.
Nathan MacKinnon Out Three Weeks With Lower-Body Injury
The Colorado Avalanche will be without their most explosive offensive weapon for the next little while, as head coach Jared Bednar told reporters today that Nathan MacKinnon will be out “give or take three weeks” with a lower-body injury.
MacKinnon suffered the injury against the Columbus Blue Jackets a few days ago but is set to miss around eight games depending on when he’s able to return. That’s another big chunk of what has been a tough season so far for the Hart Trophy finalist, who already sat out two games while in the COVID protocol. When he’s on the ice he’s been as explosive as ever, with ten points in eight games (though only one of those was a goal), but he’ll now face an extended layoff.
This is a brutal blow for the Avalanche, who are already floundering in the early part of the season. At 4-5-1 the team is eight points behind the Central Division-leading St. Louis Blues and six points back of the third-place Winnipeg Jets for a divisional playoff spot. While they have played the fewest games in the division, they’ve also allowed as many goals or more than every team ahead of them in the Central standings.
That’s not to say Colorado can’t compete without MacKinnon, but as arguably the most valuable contract in the entire league, he gives them a huge advantage every night. The 26-year-old is still carrying a cap hit of just $6.3MM, meaning their funds could be allocated to other places like retaining captain Gabriel Landeskog in the offseason. Landeskog is where a lot of the offensive burden will land in MacKinnon’s absence, as he’ll be asked to do even more to keep the Avalanche scoring.
It’s been a heck of a start for the Avalanche, who have had injuries or illnesses affect nearly every one of their key players. With MacKinnon now out for three weeks, their resolve will certainly be tested even further.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Carey Price Returns To Montreal Canadiens
Nov 8: Price is now back with the team, though there is still no timeline on his return to game action. The veteran goaltender was examined by trainers at the practice facility yesterday according to John Lu of TSN, who also notes that his first interaction with teammates is expected to be Tuesday.
Nov 2: The Montreal Canadiens are floundering at the bottom of the Atlantic Division, winning just two of their first ten games. They’ve been working without Carey Price, who last month announced that he was entering the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program. The minimum 30-day period for the program is up at the end of the week, and today Canadiens head coach Dominique Ducharme told reporters including Eric Engels of Sportsnet that they expect their star goaltender back soon.
There’s no exact date for Price’s return, but they could certainly use him. The team has been going with Jake Allen and Sam Montembeault in his absence, a tandem that has combined for a .899 save percentage through ten games. Montembeault in particular has struggled, allowing eight goals in his two appearances.
No team in the league could lose their highest-paid player without struggling, but in Montreal’s case, the absence of Price has only been magnified because of the departure of several other key players from last year’s Stanley Cup runner-up. Shea Weber, the team’s captain, is unlikely to ever play again. Phillip Danault, the team’s former top center, is now in Los Angeles. A Stanley Cup winner in Joel Edmundson has been on the shelf since the start of the year. Even the absence of depth players like Tomas Tatar and Jesperi Kotkaniemi has really hurt Montreal’s lineup, despite the attempt to replace them with names like Mike Hoffman and Christian Dvorak.
Hopefully, Price is ready to return to the team in the coming days and can help them dig out of this early-season hole. Even more, hopefully he has received the help he needed during the month away.
Senators Place Nick Holden And Jack Capuano In COVID Protocol
The Senators have added to their COVID list as the team announced (Twitter link) that defenseman Nick Holden and associate coach Jack Capuano have been placed into COVID protocol. Taking Holden’s place on the roster will be blueliner Erik Brannstrom who has been recalled from AHL Belleville.
Holden is in his first season with Ottawa and has played in all but one of their 11 games so far, recording an assist while averaging 17:35 per game of ice time, primarily on the third pairing. It’s his presence on the roster that played a role in Brannstrom being sent to the minors at the start of the season as having the 22-year-old as a healthy scratch with the Senators would hardly have been ideal from a development perspective. Brannstrom has a goal and two assists in nine games with AHL Belleville so far this season.
Capuano and Holden will join winger Austin Watson in the protocols after Watson was added there back on Friday and will be there for at least ten days. While some teams have had some cap challenges when players are added to the list, that won’t be the case for the Sens who will still have more than $12MM in cap room following Brannstrom’s promotion, per CapFriendly.
Injury Notes: Hayes, Sabres, Raanta
While Philadelphia Flyers forward Kevin Hayes is eligible to come off long-term injured reserve for Philadelphia’s game on Wednesday against the Toronto Maple Leafs, it sounds like the forward isn’t quite ready to return from an injury that’s kept him out all season up until this point. Head coach Alain Vigneault won’t rule it out but says that “Wednesday is an outside chance, more on the outside than on the inside” in terms of Hayes’ availability. If Hayes does return, it will be ahead of schedule. He was expected to miss roughly two months after being placed on injured reserve in late September as he continued to recover from offseason core muscle surgery.
Other injury notes from around the NHL:
- While the Sabres have dealt with some injuries to key players lately, it sounds like there’s good news on the horizon. Forward Victor Olofsson is close to returning, while a day-to-day injury that’s keeping goalie Craig Anderson out of the lineup isn’t serious enough to warrant placing him on injured reserve, per Sabres head coach Don Granato. Olofsson’s been a pleasant surprise, jumping out to lead the team in scoring with nine points in just eight games while playing over 17 minutes a night. The injury looks to be a bump in the road on a real breakout season for the Swedish forward, who’s often been chastised for his lack of production at even-strength.
- Carolina Hurricanes goalie Antti Raanta left Saturday’s game after colliding with Florida Panthers forward Ryan Lomberg, and the team’s public relations team tweeted that he won’t return to the game with an upper-body injury. Raanta’s lengthy injury history gives serious cause for concern here, and it appears as though Frederik Andersen could need to continue shouldering the load for the next little while. Lomberg was assessed a five-minute major penalty on the play.
Blackhawks Fire Jeremy Colliton
The Blackhawks have decided to make a change behind the bench as the team announced that head coach Jeremy Colliton along with assistants Tomas Mitell and Sheldon Brookbank have been relieved of their duties effective immediately. Derek King, who had been coaching with AHL Rockford, will take over as interim head coach while Marc Crawford remains on as an assistant coach. Anders Sorenson, meanwhile, replaces King as the head coach with the IceHogs. Interim GM Kyle Davidson released the following statement:
Our on-ice goal remains the same: to build an elite system of hockey – and we have not delivered on that. The fact is our play and competitiveness must improve. Every game, every shift. Today’s coaching changes are difficult, especially given the incredible personal connections Jeremy and others have made with our players in their development. We appreciate Jeremy’s contributions to the organization over the last three seasons, and we wish him and his family the best.
We appreciate Derek’s willingness to step in behind the bench as we embark on our search for our next permanent head coach. His NHL experience as a player and work with our younger players in Rockford over the last four years gives us great confidence in his ability to lead the Chicago Blackhawks in this interim role.
The dismissal comes three years to the day that Colliton took over from former head coach Joel Quenneville. Over that stretch, Chicago hasn’t really progressed. The team posted a 87-92-26 record with the 36-year-old behind the bench with their only playoff appearance coming in 2019-20 where they lost in five games to Vegas in the first round. That, of course, was the season that the postseason was expected in the summer bubble; their record wouldn’t have been good enough to qualify otherwise.
After a tough showing last season, now-former GM Stan Bowman tried to bolster the roster, adding Seth Jones and Jake McCabe to their back end, Marc-Andre Fleury between the pipes, and Tyler Johnson up front while welcoming Jonathan Toews back to the fold as well. At a minimum, they were expected to be considerably better if not contending for a playoff spot. Instead, they struggled mightily as Chicago has just a 1-9-2 record this season while they’ve allowed the most goals in the league with 47. Clearly, something wasn’t working and Davidson has decided that a fresh voice is needed to try to turn things around.
While King is quite familiar with several players on Chicago’s roster having worked with them with the IceHogs since 2016-17 (including as the head coach since 2018-19), it will be his first coaching role at the NHL level of any kind. That, coupled with the hole they’ve dug themselves in the standings, puts the 54-year-old in a tough situation, not entirely dissimilar to the one Colliton was in when he took over for Quenneville.
The fact that Davidson, himself only in the GM role on an interim basis, was given the green light to make this significant switch is noteworthy. CEO Danny Wirtz indicated in a statement that Davidson has “our full confidence and autonomy to make hockey decisions” which certainly suggests he’ll be given consideration for the full-time GM position. In the meantime, Chicago will be conducting parallel searches with the team looking to determine Bowman’s replacement and Davidson likely heading up the search for the full-time head coach. It’s not too often that a team has both an interim head coach and general manager but that’s the situation that the Blackhawks now find themselves in moving forward.
ESPN’s Emily Kaplan was the first to report that Colliton had been let go with King taking over.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Several San Jose Sharks Placed In COVID Protocol
Nov 1: The Sharks have updated the situation. Dahlen, Karlsson, Middleton, Nieto, Simek, Vlasic, and Boughner remain in the protocol, while Kevin Labanc has been added to it. Cogliano has been removed.
Oct 30: Several members of the San Jose Sharks organization have been placed in the COVID protocol according to Curtis Pashelka of the Mercury News, including five players. Head coach Bob Boughner is also out tonight, leaving the team to assistant John MacLean in his absence. Seven players have been put in the protocol; Andrew Cogliano, Jonathan Dahlen, Erik Karlsson, Jacob Middleton, Matthew Nieto, Radim Simek and Marc-Edouard Vlasic will all not play tonight. Additionally, San Jose Barracuda player Noah Gregor has also been placed in the protocol.
In the meantime, the team has recalled Nicolas Meloche, Ryan Merkley, Nicholas Merkley, John Leonard, and Jaycob Megna to fill out the roster for this evening. Kevin Kurz of The Athletic tweets that there are ongoing discussions with the league, but for now the game is still scheduled to proceed. The game has been delayed 30 minutes, however, to allow for the completion and analysis of further test results.
MacLean, while mostly serving as an assistant throughout his coaching career, does have some experience running a bench. In 2009-10 he was the head coach of the Lowell Devils, and then took over the New Jersey Devils for the 2010-11 season. Unfortunately, his time as head coach of that club didn’t last long, as, after a 9-22-2 start, he was fired during his rookie season with the Devils bringing Jacques Lemaire right back out of retirement to finish the season. It appears he’ll get another (albeit short) chance as a head coach tonight.
As a reminder, being placed in the protocol does not necessarily mean that these players have tested positive for coronavirus. They will not play tonight, but the team has not clarified how long they will be unavailable. Logan Couture, who will also miss the game with an illness, is not in the protocol according to Kurz.