Dallas Stars Sign Curtis McKenzie To One-Year Extension
The Stars have completed their expansion draft protection, signing Curtis McKenzie to a one-year, $700K extension. They also have announced a two-year entry-level deal for goaltending prospect Landon Bow. Both contracts will begin during the 2017-18 season. 
As we predicted when the Stars extended Adam Cracknell earlier this week, McKenzie was the obvious choice for the Stars to extend and fulfill their expansion draft requirements up front. While Brett Ritchie or Radek Faksa could have been exposed to cover the requirements, both will likely be protected by the team. They now have Cracknell, McKenzie and Dan Hamhuis as expansion draft fodder that fill the 70/40 requirement.
McKenzie has played 43 games for the team this season, recording 11 points and 67 penalty minutes. His fourth-line role has been expanded slightly of late after the Stars shipped Patrick Eaves and Lauri Korpikoski out of town at the deadline. Whether he continues in that role next season is still to be determined, but he’ll benefit from the expansion draft with some guaranteed money. The 26-year old actually has two game-winning goals this season, and does have a bit of offensive upside to his game.
In his first season of professional hockey in 2013-14, McKenzie broke out with 65 points in 75 AHL contests. He has followed it up with more solid minor league numbers, though his impact at the NHL level has been less noticeable. For a Stars team that will need to reload this offseason and try again while Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin are in their prime, McKenzie and his relatively low cap-hit could come in handy in their bottom-six.
Bow on the other hand is a 21-year old undrafted goaltender that has split time between the ECHL and AHL this season. His numbers while in the American league are poor, but has shown at least enough ability to be an intriguing lottery ticket. Goaltenders often mature much later into their game than other positions, and Bow was exceptional in his final season of junior hockey after already being passed over in the draft. Probably nothing more than organizational filler, he at least is worth an ELC to see what he can do. The Stars need all the goaltending help they can get, as the tandem of Kari Lehtonen and Antti Niemi continue to struggle at the NHL level.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Central Notes: Lehtonen, Blackhawks, MacKinnon
With the Stars struggling and the fact they have the highest paid goaltending tandem in the league, it’s quite possible that netminder Kari Lehtonen could be on another team next season either from a trade or even a potential buyout. He admitted to Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News that the thought of where he may wind up next season has crossed his mind:
“It’s hard sometimes not to think about it, but you have a job to do. It’s part of this sport, and you do best when you concentrate on controlling what you can control.”
Although Lehtonen has the better numbers between himself and Antti Niemi this season, he also has the more expensive cap hit at $5.9MM which could make him the more likely candidate to not return. If the Stars were to buy him out, he’d cost them a cap hit of $2.57MM in 2017-18 and $1.67MM in 2018-19; the higher amount next year coming from the fact his deal is slightly front loaded. (For comparison, a buyout of Niemi’s $4.5MM cap hit would be an even $1.5MM for the next two years.)
More from the Central:
- The back end for the Blackhawks will get a boost tomorrow night against Anaheim. Chris Hine of the Chicago Tribune reports that Niklas Hjalmarsson will return to the lineup after missing the last four games with an upper body injury. The recently re-acquired Johnny Oduya will also suit up for Chicago in what will be his first game in his second stint with the team. There’s a good chance that Michal Kempny and Michal Rozsival will cede their spots on the blueline and be healthy scratches.
- Terry Frei of the Denver Post suggests that GM Joe Sakic would be wise to at least listen to any overtures other teams might have regarding center Nathan MacKinnon this offseason even though just last month he declared the 21 year old as one of only a handful of untouchable players on the team. The former number one overall pick back in 2013 has just 13 goals through 65 games despite averaging over 20 minutes per game for the first time in his career. That’s likely not encouraging for a team that will likely be counting on him even more next season with Matt Duchene and/or Gabriel Landeskog potentially on the move with the team reportedly prioritizing defensive help in a return.
Dallas Stars Sign Adam Cracknell To One-Year Extension
Adam Cracknell will be in Texas for at least one more year, as the Dallas Stars have inked him to a one-year extension worth $675K. The 31-year old forward was set to become an unrestricted free agent in the summer. 
Cracknell made his return to the Stars lineup on Monday after missing three weeks with a leg injury. This season has already seen him suit up for more games than he ever has in a single year, playing in 53 contests for Dallas and contributing 10 points. Playing just over 10 minutes a night he’s provided a physical presence to the Stars’ fourth-line without taking many penalties.
While this is a well deserved deal for a player who has performed well enough this season, it also provides Dallas with a little bit of expansion draft certainty. Cracknell fills one of the required two forwards that are signed through next year and have played at least 40 games this season (or 70 the past two combined). With the Stars likely wanting to protect Tyler Seguin, Antoine Roussel and Cody Eakin, they’ll need to extend another one of their upcoming free agents to fill the exposure requirements. Curtis McKenzie seems like the obvious choice, as though Brett Ritchie and Radek Faksa both would qualify, the pair will likely deserve protection.
Deals like this will be common over the next few months, as teams make sure their rosters are as expansion-proof as possible. With the Stars, they may end up losing a prospect either way as they currently have too many players—likely at forward and defense—to protect. They would be a likely candidate for a deal with Las Vegas to select a certain player from their roster.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
AHL Trade Deadline Transactions
As the AHL trade deadline passes today, we’ll keep you updated on all the moves that have been made.
- Emerson Clark has been traded from the Chicago Wolves to the Utica Comets. The 24-year old winger has spent much of this season in the ECHL, but has four points since coming up to the Wolves. Utica finds themselves in a dogfight for the final playoff spot in the North Division, and have had troubles scoring all season long.
- The Hershey Bears have acquired Mattias Backman from the Texas Stars in exchange for Darren Dietz. While Backman has yet to make it to the NHL since being selected in the fifth round of the 2011 draft, Dietz debuted last year for Montreal playing 13 games for the Canadiens. Both defenseman, this is a swap of styles and handedness for the two squads.
- The Charlotte Checkers have a new netminder, as Thomas McCollum has been loaned to them from the Stockton Heat. McCollum is a former first-round pick who has barely had a sniff of the NHL during his eight years of professional hockey, suiting up just three times for the Detroit Red Wings. He’s played just one game in the AHL this season but generally has success at that level. The Checkers needed a goalie since Michael Leighton is out indefinitely.
- Cal O’Reilly won’t have a chance to play with his brother again this season, as the forward is off to Toronto. The Rochester Americans have loaned him to the Toronto Marlies. O’Reilly was serving as the captain of the Americans and has 42 points in 47 AHL games this season. With 11 games in the NHL this year, the older brother of Sabres’ center Ryan O’Reilly now has 49 points in 144 career games.
Central Notes: Elie, Blackhawks’ Success, Jurco
The Dallas Morning News’ Mike Heika lists a number of quotes from Stars bench boss Lindy Ruff regarding rookie Remi Elie. Out of all the quotes, the one regarding Elie’s staying power with the big club was probably the most telling. Ruff via Heika:
“Well, I look at what we need on the road to be a better team, a harder team to play against. I think that he fits what I think can help us. I thought the line of Eakin, him and Hemsky did a real good job. You look at the number of chances he created, the duress he put their defense under and the fact that he’s a physical player. I think there’s been some situations where we haven’t been hard enough to play against. You take Roussel of our lineup and I think that’s a good replacement to continue down that path where we’re hard to play against.”
The Stars’ second round pick in 2013, Elie has appeared in only two games for the Stars, but from the sound of it, may be lacing up for more. Ruff said more about the rookie, saying that his speed is something Dallas has “missed” in its lineup and that with “more polish” in his game, Elie is the perfect fit for the Stars’ style of play.
- CBS Sports’ Cody Benjamin details how the Chicago Blackhawks have hit their stride later in the season. Calling it “no surprise” that the Hawks are surging in early March, Benjamin points to a couple stalwarts upping their game, Jonathan Toews, and Patrick Kane. Kane has tallied 21 points (14-7) while Toews has added 20 points of his own during Chicago’s 12-1 run. Corey Crawford, according to Benjamin, has been stellar in net while the Hawks have been “resilient” during a season that’s tested them with injuries to key players, and a defense that hasn’t included the dominant pairings of years past. Regardless, Chicago has been one of the better teams in the West this season and is certainly working itself into a good position for the playoffs.
- In other Blackhawks news, newly acquired forward Tomas Jurco is starting to acclimate himself with his new surroundings. Though head coach Joel Quenneville calls him a “work in progress,” CSN Chicago’s Tracey Myers reports that Jurco is “thankful” to have a chance with the Blackhawks and that Jurco isn’t putting a time table on getting comfortable with his new team. Instead, the young forward has the backing of his coach and the front office, who are more than willing to give the promising 24-year-old more than enough time to catch on in Chicago.
Expansion Draft Issues: Post-Trade Deadline
Last month, we looked at several teams facing some tough situations in regards to the upcoming NHL Expansion Draft and offered potential solutions to how they could address their needs for forwards, defensemen and goalies at the NHL Trade Deadline. With March 1st over and done with, many of those squads have solved their problems with signings or acquisitions.
Calgary Flames
Problem: Defense
Status: Solved
The Flames solved their problem of otherwise having to expose Mark Giordano, T.J. Brodie, or Dougie Hamilton with the ingenious signing of Matt Bartkowski, the only defenseman on the planet who was both free to acquire and automatically eligible for exposure in the draft. It’s a good thing they signed him too, since they ended up trading away their best fall-back option, young defenseman Jyrki Jokipakka.
Carolina Hurricanes
Problem: Defense
Status: Unsolved
It was a pretty quiet deadline in Raleigh, as the ‘Canes shipped out Ron Hainsey and Viktor Stalberg and then called it a day. What they didn’t do was acquire another body on the blue line to help solve their lack of a defenseman to expose. Carolina is still facing the problem of All-Star Justin Faulk being the only defenseman on the roster currently meeting the criteria for mandated exposure, due to the majority of their defensemen being too young to be eligible altogether. There is no way that Faulk is there for the taking by Vegas, but GM Ron Francis is left with only two choices: extend impending RFA Klas Dahlbeck or extend impending UFA Matt Tennyson and make sure he plays in seven more games this season, as he’s currently short of the 40-game mark.
Stars Notes: Roussel, Elie, Hemsky
Injuries, a significant factor in the Dallas Stars disappointing season, continue to haunt the club as according to Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News, Antoine Roussel is now expected to miss essentially the rest of the season with a hand injury. The physical winger, who leads the NHL in PIM’s with 115, is in the midst of a career offensive campaign with 12 goals and 27 points in 60 appearances. Given that pace, Roussel would have finished with roughly 16 goals and 37 points had he completed the campaign healthy. Instead it appears as if the Stars will be without another of their key contributors for a lengthy stretch.
The bright side, if it can really be called that, is the Stars now have the opportunity to see what some of their AHL talent can do at the NHL level. First up will be Remi Elie, the team’s second-round draft choice in 2013 who has 25 points in 50 games with the AHL’s Texas Stars. Elie was called up last week but didn’t get into a game. Now it appears he will make his NHL debut after the team recalled him from Texas on an emergency basis.
Heika also reports that forward Adam Cracknell, out since February 18th with a lower-body injury, may be ready to return to the lineup as early as Monday when the Stars travel to Washington to face the Capitals. Cracknell, a veteran of seven NHL campaigns, is having a solid season with a career-high seven goals in 52 games while registering a +10 plus/minus rating.
The news of Roussel’s injury comes on the heels of the long-awaited return of scoring forward Ales Hemsky, who made just his second appearance of the season following surgery to repair a groin injury suffered during the World Cup. In a separate piece for the Dallas Morning News, Heika writes that Hemsky “hopes to make a statement” down the stretch in order to prove that he is once again fully healthy and able to contribute secondary scoring to teams who may be in that market this summer. Hemsky, in the final year of a three-year deal with the Stars, is poised to hit free agency and a strong performance in the season’s final leg would likely position the 33-year-old winger to earn an NHL contract next year despite missing much of the current campaign.
For his part, the veteran of 14 NHL seasons would like to return to Dallas and rekindle the chemistry he shared with Radek Faksa and Roussel in 2015-16. According to Heika, that trio was at times the Stars’ best line for a three-month stretch last year and given the likelihood the team will fancy itself a potential contender next season, bringing back a healthy and productive Hemsky on a short-term deal could prove to be a wise and relatively inexpensive move.
New York Islanders Activate Hamonic, Terminate Emergency Conditions On Ho-Sang
Apparently Josh Ho-Sang did enough to stay with the big club last night, as the team has kept him around even after activating Travis Hamonic from injured reserve. Originally on emergency recall, the Islanders have terminated those conditions and placed him on a regular recall. That means Ho-Sang could last the rest of the season with the Islanders, and why not?
The ridiculously skilled winger played 17 minutes last night alongside Andrew Ladd and Brock Nelson, and didn’t look out of place at the NHL level. After dominating the AHL in his first taste of professional hockey—36 points in 48 games is a good start at any level for a 20-year old—he’ll get a chance to help the Islanders down the stretch and possibly into a playoff spot. The team, desperate for wingers all season has to be excited about the prospect of pairing Ho-Sang’s playmaking ability with John Tavares down the line, even if that will have to wait until next season.
Drafted 28th overall partly because of a belief he was a problem off the ice, the Islanders seem very happy with their newest player. They’ll need all the help they can get tonight against the Chicago Blackhawks, as the team continues a brutal nine game road trip that will see them fly all over the continent. They’re 3-1 on it so far after beating the Dallas Stars last night, but with games against Chicago, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and St. Louis left to go, it will likely decide their playoff fate.
Dallas Stars Recall Remi Elie From AHL
After learning that Antoine Roussel would likely be out for the remainder of the regular season, the Dallas Stars have recalled Remi Elie from the AHL. Though the team release does not specify it, Mark Stepneski of the Stars’ site reports that he is an emergency call-up and doesn’t count against their four remaining recalls.
Elie had been up with the club as recently as Wednesday, hoping to break into the lineup after the trade of Patrick Eaves. He looks like he’ll now get that shot, and should debut tomorrow against the Florida Panthers. The former second-round pick has asserted himself well at the AHL level this season, scoring 25 points in 50 games.
The Stars are amazingly just eight points out of the playoffs, but have all but thrown in the towel on this season. Nothing has gone right for them after they dominated the regular season last year, and will look to reload for 2017-18. Seeing what Elie and other young players like Jason Dickinson and Julius Honka can do at the NHL level is high on the list of priorities.
Snapshots: Subban, Roussel, Rust
Bon retour P.K.! That’s what the Bell Centre’s video board read as the crowd jumped to their feet so salute a former star returning last night. P.K. Subban made his return to Montreal as a member of the Nashville Predators and received quite the ovation from Canadiens fans, standing and cheering him on throughout his video tribute as tears rolled down the defenseman’s face. Arpon Basu of NHL.com writes that those tears are all we saw from the former Norris winner all night, as the Predators fell 2-1 on a last second goal from Paul Byron.
At ESPN, the insiders—including Craig Custance, Scott Burnside and Pierre LeBrun—take a look at the short and long term ramifications of the Subban-Weber trade 60 games in. Weber is signed for another nine seasons in Montreal, while Subban is only under contract through 2021-22.
- The hits just keep on coming for the Dallas Stars, who lost Antoine Roussel last night to injury and likely for the year. Mike Heika of SportsDay reports that head coach Lindy Ruff expects Roussel to be “a while; in all likelihood the rest of the year.” Though the Stars aren’t really competing for a playoff spot any longer, Roussel was having a career year. He was just three points shy of setting a career-high in points, and would likely have broken his goal and assist marks as well with 20 games remaining.
- Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has some good news for Penguins fans, as he spotted Bryan Rust skating before practice. A playoff hero last season, Rust has been a solid contributor to the Penguins run this year. With 25 points in 50 games, he’s giving the team some excellent secondary scoring and is a useful piece up and down the lineup. Molinari also adds that new defenseman Mark Streit will be wearing #32 for the Penguins when he suits up for a game.