Nashville Predators Loan Joakim Kemell To Finnish Team
Joakim Kemell was one of the brightest stars for Team Finland in their silver medal effort at the 2022 World Junior Championship. After the Nashville Predators drafted him 17th overall in 2022 and signed him to his entry-level contract earlier this summer, though, he’ll be headed back to JYP in the Finnish Liiga for another season next year, per the team.
As Kemell wasn’t drafted out of the Canadian Hockey League, he could, in theory, have suited up for the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals next season if Nashville and Kemell believed that was the best solution for him. However, it appears all parties involved believe another season in his home country against some more seasoned players is the better option for Kemell.
An unexpected faller in the 2022 draft, Kemell showed why the teams that passed on him were wrong with 12 points in seven games at the World Juniors earlier this month. He had 23 points in 39 Liiga games last season with JYP as well, and he’ll be expected to play an increased top-six role next season.
Khudobin Should Be Ready For Training Camp
- After undergoing hip surgery back in March, goaltender Anton Khudobin is expected to be ready to participate in training camp, Mike Heika notes on the Stars’ team website. Last year was a tough one for the 36-year-old as he posted a 3.63 GAA and a .879 SV% in nine appearances with Dallas, eventually resulting in him clearing waivers. He has one year left on his contract at $3.33MM and while they would prefer to move that deal out, he’ll also serve as insurance with the team still needing to re-sign RFA goaltender Jake Oettinger.
Minor Transactions: 08/16/22
We’re into the second half of August and things will start to pick up again in the next few weeks. Vacations are ending, players are arriving in cities to start informal workouts, and training camp is right around the corner. As always, we’ll be keeping track of the minor moves that are made to tweak rosters throughout the offseason.
- The Boston Bruins have signed J.D. Greenway to a professional tryout according to CapFriendly, after he split last season between the Providence Bruins and Maine Mariners. He was already signed to an AHL deal for this year but will now get to attend training camp with the rest of the NHL squad. The 24-year-old, 6’6″ defenseman is the younger brother of Minnesota Wild forward Jordan Greenway and was originally selected by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 2016 third round.
- The New York Rangers have officially activated Sammy Blais from injured reserve, nine months after he was placed on it. That suggests he’s healthy enough to start the year after missing nearly the entire season with a torn ACL. Blais was signed to a one-year, $1.525MM contract in June that will leave him an unrestricted free agent next summer.
- The Dallas Stars have signed defenseman Michael Karow to a one-year AHL deal. He turned pro back in March after a five-year college career but it wasn’t with the team that drafted him (Arizona) as Dallas gave him a tryout deal at that time, playing him in 13 games down the stretch. Karow became a free agent earlier this week when the August 15th signing deadline came and went, paving the way for him to return to Texas.
- Although he signed an AHL deal with the Carolina Hurricanes last month, Scott Wilson is off to the KHL as Vityaz announced they’ve signed the winger to a one-year contract. The 30-year-old had 40 points in 71 games with the Checkers last season and is a veteran of 193 career NHL games between Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Buffalo.
This page will be updated throughout the day.
Snapshots: Oettinger, Faber, Tarasenko
The Dallas Stars’ last two outstanding free agent negotiations of this summer are major ones. Two of the team’s young cornerstone talents, Jake Oettinger and Jason Robertson, are restricted free agents. The team would likely prefer to lock both players down to long-term contracts, but their cap situation may prohibit them from doing so. The Stars have $10.3MM in salary cap space remaining, which is more than many other teams can boast but also likely not enough to get both players’ signatures on long-term pacts. The result of this salary cap challenge has been slow-moving talks between Oettinger and the Stars specifically.
Per The Athletic’s Saad Yousuf, talks between the Stars and Oettinger have, per his sources, “gone nowhere.” Oettinger’s camp has reportedly remained entirely flexible on the term he’d be willing to accept, but on the AAV side “won’t settle for something they deem to be unfair relative to the market that has already been set.” As Yousuf mentions (subscription link) the lack of ideal contract comparables has made ironing out a deal difficult. While Oettinger is still overwhelmingly likely to be signed and ready to start for Dallas in time for next season, this development is certainly not an encouraging one.
Now, for some other news from across hockey:
- USA Hockey has announced its captains for the upcoming World Junior Championship. Minnesota Wild prospect Brock Faber, who was acquired by the team as part of the Kevin Fiala trade earlier this summer, was named the team’s captain. Chicago Blackhawks prospect Landon Slaggert and San Jose Sharks prospect Thomas Bordeleau were named alternate captains.
- St. Louis Blues forward Vladimir Tarasenko had a great season last year, scoring 34 goals and 82 points. But despite those strong numbers, he may not be in St. Louis to stay. NHL.com’s Dan Rosen stated in a recent mailbag that he has “no reason” to suspect that Tarasenko’s trade request from last summer was ever rescinded, although he also did state that the Blues have no interest in dealing him. Andy Strickland of Bally Sports Midwest recently reported that the Blues never asked Tarasenko to waive his no-trade protection as part of an offer for Matthew Tkachuk, and despite a possibly still-active trade request it is likely that Tarasenko spends another season in St. Louis.
Snapshots: Laxdal, Clune, Klinkhammer
The OHL’s Oshawa Generals today named Derek Laxdal the 35th head coach in team history via a press release. Laxdal, 56, had spent the last eight seasons in the Dallas Stars organization. Before he was promoted midseason to the Stars’ NHL bench as an assistant coach in 2019-20, Laxdal was the head coach of the AHL’s Texas Stars from 2014-15 to 2019.
The news means that Dallas will indeed undergo a complete overhaul of their core coaching staff from last season. The organization replaced a pair of other assistants this offseason, hiring Alain Nasreddine and Steve Spott to replace Todd Nelson and John Stevens. For Laxdal, the news marks a return to the CHL after eight years, last serving there as the head coach of the WHL’s Edmonton Oil Kings from 2010 to 2014. His resume includes an ECHL Kelly Cup win in 2007 and ECHL Coach of the Year award in 2010 as the head coach of the Idaho Steelheads, a pair of WHL championships with the Oil Kings in 2012 and 2014, and a Memorial Cup championship in 2014.
- The AHL’s Toronto Marlies announced via Twitter today that captain and former NHLer Rich Clune has announced his retirement from professional hockey after 16 seasons, moving to a player development role with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Clune hadn’t played in the NHL since 2015-16 saw him play 19 games with the Maple Leafs, but since then, he’d been an alternate captain or captain for the Marlies, providing an important leadership voice and mentoring the Leafs’ prospects. Clune joins Toronto’s player development department headed by Dr. Hayley Wickenheiser.
- Former NHLer Rob Klinkhammer is returning to the Chicago Blackhawks organization as an assistant coach with the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs, per a team release. The news marks Klinkhammer’s retirement after he spent the last six seasons playing in the KHL. Klinkhammer, an undrafted free agent, played for Rockford from 2008-09 through 2011-12 and made his NHL debut with the Blackhawks in the 2010-11 season.
Michael Raffl Signs In Switzerland
Unrestricted free agent forward Michael Raffl has signed a two-year contract with Lausanne HC of the Swiss National League, per a team release early Thursday morning.
The team’s head coach, John Fust, commented on the signing (translated from French):
Michael has proven his worth as a leader in the NHL and on the Austrian national team. He has a versatile profile, since he can play at center or on the wing. We look forward to having him in our organization for the next two seasons.
At age 33, this is almost certainly the end of Raffl’s nine-season NHL career. Signed by the Philadelphia Flyers as an undrafted free agent out of Leksands IF (then in the second-tier Swedish league, Allsvenskan) in 2013, Raffl immediately became a full-time NHL player at age 25. He would then suit up for 504 games in a Flyers uniform.
In a total of 590 NHL games spent with Philadelphia, the Washington Capitals, and the Dallas Stars, Raffl totaled 89 goals, 90 assists, 179 points, 235 penalty minutes, and a career average ice time of 13:21 per game.
2021-22, his only season spent in Dallas, left something to be desired offensively. Finishing with only seven goals and 16 points on the year in 79 games, it was disappointing production for a player who was given almost 15 minutes per game of ice time. Raffl did have one of the best defensive campaigns of his career, though, so it’s somewhat surprising an NHL team wasn’t willing to bring him on as a defensive specialist in their bottom-six.
Raffl immediately becomes one of Lausanne’s top players, joining former NHLers Miikka Salomaki, Jiri Sekac, and Cory Emmerton at forward. Washington Capitals prospect Damien Riat is also a member of the team.
Stars Sign Jordan Kawaguchi To AHL Deal
- After non-tendering him last month, the Stars have brought back Jordan Kawaguchi on a minor-league deal, their AHL team announced. Dallas signed the 25-year-old winger as an undrafted college free agent in March of 2021 and he had a decent season, collecting 23 points in 49 games. While that wasn’t enough to garner a qualifying offer, Kawaguchi will stick around with Texas for another year.
Bridge Contract Makes Sense For Oettinger
- With Dallas likely only having enough cap space to commit a long-term deal to just one of winger Jason Robertson and goalie Jake Oettinger, both Mike Heika and Bruce LeVine of the Stars’ team website suggest that Oettinger should be the one to receive a bridge deal. The 23-year-old had a strong year with a .914 SV% and a 2.53 GAA in 48 games but there isn’t much history of young goalies bypassing bridge contracts and going straight to a long-term pact. With just 77 career NHL appearances under his belt, a bridge deal certainly makes sense. He has four seasons of RFA eligibility left so there would still be ample time to work out a long-term agreement before Oettinger is eligible to hit the open market.
Dallas Stars Sign Ben Gleason
The Dallas Stars have signed Ben Gleason to a one-year, two-way contract for the 2022-23 season. The young defenseman was a restricted free agent after his previous one-year deal had expired this summer.
Gleason, 24, experienced an outstanding season this year with the Texas Stars, racking up 44 points in 70 games to finish fifth among all AHL defensemen in scoring. Undrafted, he was signed out of the OHL in 2018 and has been an excellent performer for Texas ever since, even getting into four games with Dallas during his first professional season.
While he won’t likely play a big role at the NHL level this year, he certainly warranted bringing back on a two-way contract as he’s an integral part of the minor league depth chart. Perhaps he’ll receive a chance to play a few games but mostly, Texas fans should be ready to watch Gleason rack up points once again in 2022-23.
Yauheni Aksiantsiuk Clears Unconditional Waivers
July 27: After clearing and seeing his contract terminated, Aksiantsiuk has signed with Amur Khabarovsk of the KHL.
July 23: It will be one-and-done for Yauheni Aksiantsiuk‘s time with the Stars as CapFriendly reports (Twitter link) that the Stars have placed the winger on unconditional waivers for the purposes of terminating the remainder of his contract.
The diminutive 21-year-old was a sixth-round pick by Dallas back in 2020 after an impressive season with OHL Flint that saw him put up 33 goals and 45 assists in 58 games. He spent the 2020-21 campaign playing back home in Belarus where he struggled and then decided to return to North America, signing a three-year, entry-level deal back in June of 2021.
Aksiantsiuk spent most of last season with ECHL Idaho, notching 19 goals and 15 assists in 40 games with the Steelheads while adding two goals and two assists in eight AHL contests. Overall, those numbers aren’t terrible but when coupled with his tough showing back home the year before, there were certainly questions about whether or not he’d have much of an NHL future. Aksiantsiuk seems to have the same question as this termination – which can be completed on Sunday once he passes through waivers – will likely be followed up by a contract somewhere overseas.
Dallas won’t have any lingering cap charge from Aksiantsiuk’s termination while they will free up a contract slot, bringing them down to 41 out of the maximum of 50. That number will go up at some point this summer with the Stars having a trio of restricted free agents still to sign, winger Jason Robertson, defenseman Ben Gleason, and goaltender Jake Oettinger.