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Snapshots: Coyotes’ Coach Search, Nylander, Ak Bars

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With head coaches flying off the market and one of the top available names being the guy they just let go, the Arizona Coyotes’ hunt for a head coach is in an interesting spot. From the get-go, the word was that the ’Yotes and GM Bill Armstrong could be looking for a fresh voice, perhaps even a first-time NHL coach, so they may be unfazed by the recent run on big names. Yet, insider Craig Morgan reports that one of their top candidates is in fact a seasoned veteran. Morgan writes that Dallas Stars assistant Todd Nelson is scheduled to have his third interview for the vacancy, by all accounts the most of any candidate. Nelson has been in the NHL (or AHL) since 2006, including a brief stint as the head coach of the Edmonton Oilers. He has found great success in the minors, winning two Calder Cups, and never really got a fair shake as the bench boss in Edmonton, so in a way he would be somewhat of a first-time NHL head coach. He has picked up experience in Dallas over the past three years under Jim Montgomery and Rick Bowness and could be ready for another shot at the top job.

Morgan considers Nelson’s greatest competition to be Andre Tourigny, the head coach of the OHL’s Ottawa 67’s and most recently an assistant for Canada’s gold medal World Championship entry. Tourigny briefly coached in the NHL as an assistant with the Colorado Avalanche and Ottawa Senators over three years, but has mostly coached at the major junior level and has been the bench boss of Canada’s World Junior team the past two years. Tourigny has found immense success working with young players; he has been named OHL Coach of the Year (twice), QMJHL Coach of the Year, and the overall CHL Coach of the Year, not to mention medals at four World Juniors. Can he translate that ability to the pros and lead a Coyotes team that needs to take a step forward rather than continuing to tread water? That is the question that Armstrong must answer. According to Morgan, he has already decided that St. Louis Blues assistant Mike Van Ryn and AHL Providence head coach Jay Leach are not the men for the job.

  • The Chicago Blackhawks just gained some Expansion Draft flexibility. The Athletic’s Scott Powers reports that Alexander Nylander has been declared exempt from the impending selection process. In order to be eligible for the draft, a player must have three pro service years. Nylander, who has been playing professionally in North America for five seasons, may seem like an impossibility to avoid that label, but somehow he does. Despite playing in 116 AHL games between 2016-17 and 2017-18, he played in only seven combined NHL games and his rookie contract underwent the entry-level slide each season, meaning service time did not accrue. He then played countable NHL season in each of the past two years. However, this season – in what was meant to be his third year of service – Nylander missed the entire campaign due to injury. This means that, again, his service time will not clock. After five years in and out of the NHL, Nylander will be considered a second-year pro and untouchable for the Seattle Kraken. As Powers notes, Nylander was expected to be protected by the Blackhawks next month. Now off the board, it will allow the team to protected another forward that they may not have expected. He suggests deadline addition Adam Gaudette or reliable fourth-liner David Kampf could be the pick, while young, high-upside assets Brandon Hagel and Henrik Borgstrom should now be locks.
  • The KHL’s Ak Bars Kazan has succeeded in keeping a pair of drafted prospects away from their NHL teams for a while longer. The team announced that they have re-signed Columbus’ Dmitri Voronkov and Anaheim’s Artyom Galimov to multi-year extensions. At their age, this is not an NHL career death sentence for either player, but it is likely disheartening to their teams who would like to get them on North American ice as soon as possible. 20-year-old Voronkov, a 2019 fourth-round pick of the Blue Jackets, has signed a two-year deal with Ak Bars after setting career highs across the board in the KHL this season. The impressive youngster has already played two full seasons in the KHL and has been dominant for Russia on the World Junior stage as well. Voronkov’s name carries weight as a prospect and the Jackets undoubtedly hope that he will follow WJC teammate Yegor Chinakhov to Columbus as soon as his new contract expires. There is a bit more cause for pause when it comes to Galimov. The 21-year-old was an overage pick by the Ducks just last year and despite his age has signed a three-year extension with Ak Bars. Galimov is a grassroots product of Kazan and has loyalty to the club, as they do to him after two successful seasons to begin his KHL career. Galimov has actually outpaced Voronkov to this point, showing that he too is a serious NHL prospect. However, Galimov will be 25 years old before he could ever step onto Anaheim ice and will have that much more attachment to Ak Bars. His ability should keep him interested in the NHL and the Ducks in him, but it is not a guarantee.

Dallas Stars Re-Sign Rhett Gardner

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The Dallas Stars have finished some business with one of their pending restricted free agents, signing Rhett Gardner to a new two-year contract that will keep him in the organization through the 2022-23 season. The deal will be a two-way contract in the first year, one-way in the second, and carries an NHL salary of $750K in each.

Gardner, 25, is coming off his entry-level deal with the Stars, signed in 2019 after he finished his four years at the University of North Dakota. The fourth-round pick played in 28 games for the Stars this season, but managed just a single goal and two points. Offense has never really been the calling card of the 6’3″ forward, but he served as a reliable depth checker whenever needed.

Of course, he’ll have to provide a little more scoring to stay in the lineup over the length of this next contract, or at least establish himself as a reliable option on the penalty kill. More likely, Gardner will keep his role as the 13th or 14th forward for the Stars, if not go back to the AHL full-time.

Interestingly, though this kind of deal may appear to be expansion-related, Gardner is actually not even eligible for the upcoming Seattle draft because he has just two years of professional experience. The 11 games he played for the Texas Stars at the end of the 2018-19 season were under an amateur tryout contract, not his entry-level contract, and thus do not make up a year of service time in regards to the draft. Instead, this is simply a move to retain a depth forward that has a little versatility and size.

Blake Comeau Re-Signs With Dallas Stars

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The Dallas Stars are bringing back one of their veteran forwards, re-signing Blake Comeau to a one-year contract. The deal will carry a salary of $1MM for 2021-22 and does not include any performance bonuses.

Comeau would have been eligible for those bonuses because he is signing a one-year deal and is now 35, but instead, he’ll accept a contract just $250K more than the league minimum. The veteran checker doesn’t bring much offense to the table these days, scoring just four goals and 14 points in 51 games for the Stars this season, but is still a valuable member of the penalty kill and adds a good dose of physicality to the bottom-six.

In fact, in the Cinderella-like run for Dallas in the 2019-20 bubble playoffs, Comeau racked up 93 hits, good for ninth in the entire league. His 903-game NHL career has been filled with that kind of bang-and-crash style, which is becoming even more popular with this year’s gritty final four. More and more teams are re-evaluating their dependence on skilled perimeter players, with veteran leadership and physicality getting increased attention.

That’s exactly what Comeau brings, but it certainly can’t be the last move the Stars make if they want to get back to the promised land. The team is set to lose quite a bit of defensive depth with Jamie Oleksiak and Sami Vatanen scheduled for unrestricted free agency, while their top scorer, Joe Pavelski, will turn 37 in a few weeks. A return to full health for Tyler Seguin could perhaps be the most important factor in the Stars success next season.

Importantly, Comeau’s re-signing also gives the Stars another forward that meets the exposure requirements for the upcoming expansion draft. Previously, they had just eight forwards that met the threshold of games played and were signed for next season, meaning at least two of them would have been left unprotected. Now, the team has a little more flexibility as Comeau poses little threat of being selected by the Seattle Kraken–and even if he did, wouldn’t be too hard to replace for the Stars.

Offseason Checklist: Dallas Stars

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The offseason has arrived with roughly half of the league missing the playoffs and several more having since been eliminated.  It’s time to examine what those teams need to accomplish over the coming months.  Next up is a look at Dallas.

Just one season removed from an appearance in the Stanley Cup Final, the Stars wound up missing the playoffs altogether in 2020-21.  Injuries from their run in the bubble certainly contributed to that although they also had several veterans that underachieved.  Nevertheless, with Ben Bishop and Tyler Seguin returning next season, Dallas will be adding a pair of important pieces back to their lineup without needing to make many moves.  However, there are still some items for GM Jim Nill to accomplish this summer.

Add Scoring Winger

With Seguin, Jamie Benn, Joe Pavelski, Roope Hintz, and Radek Faksa, Dallas is pretty well set down the middle for next season.  At least one of them will have to move to the wing and while it may have seemed like it was going to be Benn, it doesn’t appear as if he will be the one doing so.

The Stars also have Alexander Radulov and Jason Robertson and on paper, it’s the makings of a pretty good offense.  However, despite the collection of talented threats, they’re typically a middle of the pack team when it comes to scoring.  And despite paying Benn and Seguin more than $19MM combined, they’re more of a score by committee type of team.

With Andrew Cogliano and Blake Comeau coming off the books, they have $5.65MM in money that could be put towards potentially adding another top-six piece on the wing that will score more than the nine goals those two veterans combined for this season.  (Some of that will also go to their top RFA who will be covered momentarily.)  That coupled with a return to health for Seguin and Radulov should be enough to push them from a team that’s a bit below average offensively to one that’s a bit above average.  That should be worth a few more wins in the standings.

Re-Sign Heiskanen

Generally, a 21-year-old defenseman that averages basically half a point per game, has positive possession stats, and logs nearly 25 minutes a night would be viewed as having a great season.  Yet for Miro Heiskanen, it almost felt like a bit of a letdown considering how dominant he was in the bubble.  By no means was it a bad season – he played quite well – but the expectations were understandably so high that he underachieved a little bit.

It will be interesting to see if that affects Heiskanen’s contract talks as he enters restricted free agency for the first time (he does not have salary arbitration eligibility).  Heading into the year, it felt like he was on a path to earn a max-term eight-year extension that bought out four UFA seasons but still gave him a shot at reaching the open market while being in the prime of his career.

That could ultimately still happen but his step back offensively poses some questions.  Was his performance in the bubble an aberration?  Was his dip this season a one-off or a sign of things to come?  From Heiskanen’s point of view, if he believes he can get back to improving on his numbers in his first couple of seasons, he may be better off waiting a year or two and opting for a bridge deal.  While it would take away some earning power when he reaches UFA eligibility, he’d certainly earn more signing a long-term deal then than he would now with this cap environment.

Meanwhile, Nill should still want to push for as long of a contract as possible.  Even with him not quite living up to the very lofty expectations, he is still undoubtedly their franchise blueliner for years to come so if the opportunity presents itself to lock him up, it’s one they need to take.

If they wind up on a short-term pact instead, they’ll have a bit more flexibility to add a short-term win now piece as well but that’s basically only if they can get something done before the UFA period as it’s harder to add closer to the start of training camp.  There is technically plenty of time to get a deal done between now and the start of next season but if they can get something done in the next six weeks, they’ll be better off for it.

Extension Talks For Klingberg

On top of working on Heiskanen’s file, the Stars will also be eligible to sign John Klingberg to an extension once the calendar flips to the 21-22 campaign in late July.  The 28-year-old has been a fixture on their back end for the past seven years and their gamble in handing him a seven-year contract after his rookie season has panned out better than they could have hoped.  Klingberg has given them plenty of production at a $4.25MM price tag which has wound up being well below market value.

He will be 30 when his next contract begins which presents Klingberg with a tough decision to make.  Locking into a long-term deal now (or next summer with the cap likely still at $81.5MM) isn’t going to give him a higher AAV than if he waits.  However, if he opted for a higher-priced, short-term contract extension, he’d then be too old to command a contract close to the maximum term when that deal came to an end.  What’s better for him, locking in long-term and potentially leaving a bit of money on the table or bank on a cap increase over the next few years and the possibility for a slightly better payday?

In terms of cap planning, it shouldn’t be an issue for Dallas as Radulov and Pavelski ($13.25MM combined) will be coming off the books at the same time.  Those veterans shouldn’t be able to command the same price tags they have now so some of the savings there will be able to go to Klingberg.  With him having another year left, this isn’t something that has to get done but Nill has already indicated he’d like to work on this file this summer.

Add Defensive Upgrades

Between Heiskanen, Klingberg, and Esa Lindell, Dallas has a strong top half defensively.  It falls off fairly quickly after that, however.  Jamie Oleksiak is set to hit the open market this summer and after hovering around the 15 minute per game mark the previous two seasons, he logged over 20 minutes a night this year.  Some of that was him stepping up but some of that was also out of necessity.  Either way, he has positioned himself to earn more than the $2.1375MM he made this season so he’ll need to be brought back or replaced.

In terms of depth, Andrej Sekera is more of a sixth option at this point while Joel Hanley should be seventh or eighth on the depth chart.  Sami Vatanen and Mark Pysyk don’t seem likely to return so this could be an opportunity for Nill to upgrade the third pairing.  If they’re unable to bring in another top-four defender, raising the floor of that third pair will be needed, especially if they want to hedge against injuries.  Thomas Harley could be in the mix at some point next year which would help but he’ll need some more time in the minors first and shouldn’t be counted on to make an immediate impact.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.

Snapshots: Hanley, Marlies, Kirk

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In April, the Dallas Stars decided to hand depth defenseman Joel Hanley a two-year contract extension. At the time, it was clear that the deal had at least some level of expansion draft motivation, given he needed just three more games to fill the exposure requirements for Dallas. He did end up playing those games, finishing with 35 contests on the season, but will now face a long rehab. Hanley underwent successful surgery to repair a core muscle injury today. He is expected to be recovered in time for the 2021-22 season, though these surgeries are notorious for keeping players at less than full strength for some time after they are cleared to return.

Even though that extension was at least partially due to the expansion draft, it’s not like Hanley didn’t deserve it. The 30-year-old has been a perfect extra defenseman for the Stars the last few seasons, coming in and out of the lineup when necessary to provide bottom-pairing minutes. He even played in 12 games during last year’s bubble playoffs, scoring his first NHL goal to open the scoring in game one of the Stanley Cup finals.

  • The Toronto Marlies have signed a pair of forwards, inking Antti Suomela and Ryan Chyzowski to AHL contracts today. Suomela, 27, has played in 51 NHL games, all with the San Jose Sharks and was acquired by the Maple Leafs in a deal for Alexander Barabanov at the deadline. Chyzowski perhaps is the more interesting of the pair, if only because of his age. The 21-year-old undrafted forward has spent the last five seasons with the Medicine Hat Tigers and scored 11 goals and 29 points in the shortened 2020-21 campaign. Chyzowski is on a two-year minor league deal, while Suomela signed for just one.
  • When Liam Kirk was selected by the Arizona Coyotes 189th overall in 2018, he became the first player born and trained in England to be drafted. The Sheffield Steelers product then spent two seasons in the OHL, before heading overseas once again in 2020-21. Just recently, Kirk put the NHL on notice when he scored seven times to tie for the lead at the World Championship, despite his Great Britain team only 13 goals in the whole tournament. Now, as Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports, Kirk has been given permission to speak to other teams around the league despite still being under the control of Arizona. His draft rights will expire next June, so a trade would actually have to happen before he could sign an entry-level contract.

Stephen Johns Announces His Retirement

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It has been a tough past few years for Stars defenseman Stephen Johns as he has battled post-concussion symptoms which limited him to just 17 games over the past three seasons.  He has attempted to come back a few times in that stretch but has decided to call it a career, announcing his retirement on social media.

The 29-year-old was a second-round pick (60th overall) back in 2010 to Chicago but didn’t get his first NHL opportunity until he was traded to Dallas back in the 2015 offseason.  He made his NHL debut the following season and then became more of a regular in 2016-17, playing in 61 games that year and 75 the following campaign, becoming a reliable shutdown defender that played with plenty of physicality.  That helped earn him a well-deserved three-year, $7.05MM extension in 2018 as the Stars appeared to lock up a key defensive presence on their back end.

However, a late-season concussion in 2018 led to post-concussion symptoms that cost him all of 2018-19 and most of 2019-20.  He was able to come back late in the year, suiting up in 17 games while logging over 17 minutes a night.  He even got into the first four games in the bubble before the symptoms returned and unfortunately, they kept him out for all of this season as well.

With his contract coming to an end, Johns has decided to hang up his skates, sort of.  While he won’t be skating on the ice anymore, he will be doing a rollerblading tour across the country.  PHR joins the hockey community in wishing Johns the best of luck in his next adventure.

Jamie Benn Expected To Remain At Center Next Season

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  • The Stars are expected to keep Jamie Benn at center next season, notes Matthew DeFranks of the Dallas Morning News. Dallas moved him there out of necessity late in the season and the veteran did well, notching 17 points in the final 19 games.  Tyler Seguin should be ready to go for next season while Joe Pavelski and Roope Hintz remain in the fold so either one of them is going to shift to the wing or they will be starting next season with an enviable group of centermen which would also allow them to run three scoring lines which would be useful for a team that hasn’t been in the top half of the league in goals scored since 2015-16.

Dallas Stars Sign Evgeniy Oksentyuk

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The Dallas Stars have managed to sign one of their late-round picks, inking Evgeniy Oksentyuk to a three-year entry-level contract according to his agent Dan Milstein of Gold Star Hockey. PuckPedia reports that the deal will carry an average annual value of $828K.

Selected 162nd overall, Oksentyuk is another example of an undersized scoring forward falling in the draft. The 5’8″ winger scored 33 goals and 78 points in his one year of OHL hockey during the 2019-20 season, but ended up going back to Belarus to compete at the pro level when the junior league decided not to play this year. While just six points in 31 games for Minsk isn’t much to write home about, Oksentyuk did add another four goals in the team’s playoff run and has plenty of upside.

Because he signed an extension with his European team for next season, he’ll almost certainly be loaned back overseas for 2021-22. That won’t stop his entry-level deal from burning the first year as he is already 20, but will let him continue to develop at a lower level before he is tested in the AHL.

Injury Notes: Evans, Stastny, Seguin, Rossi

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It was a scary moment at the end of Game One between the Montreal Canadiens and Winnipeg Jets, as the Habs’ Jake Evans had to be stretchered off the ice after receiving a massive hit from the Jets’ Mark Scheifele as the result of a charge. Scheifele was suspended for four games and with Montreal up 2-0 and playing at home the next two games, he may not play again this season. Regardless of the series length though, it seemed certain that Evans would not play again this season. Fortunately, Canadiens head coach Dominique Ducharme did have good news this morning, relaying that Evans is doing better since his trip to the hospital on Wednesday. Ducharme added that there is still no timeline for a return, as one might expect, but it is still good to see improvement from Evans following such a frightening check. Hopefully Evans will make an appearance in the arena to root on his teammates in the near future.

  • The Jets are hoping to stay alive in the series but face an uphill battle down two games and on the road, missing one of their best players in Scheifele. They are hoping to get one player back sooner rather than later though in Paul Stastny. Stastny has missed each of the first two games of the North Division finals with an undisclosed injury, but TSN’s Sara Orlesky spoke with head coach Paul Maurice and confirmed that Stastny made the trip to Montreal. Maurice stopped short of making any claims about his availability for Games Three and Four, but the 35-year-old would not have traveled if he was not at least in consideration for game action. Needing to replace Scheifele down the middle, Stastny would be a major addition to the lineup for Winnipeg if he is able to go. Update: Stastny is IN for Game Three.
  • After returning for the final three games of the regular season, Tyler Seguin is back to work on his rehab this summer. Following hip and knee surgeries last fall, Seguin missed almost all of the season in recovery, but was deemed fit to make a brief return at the end of the year for the Dallas Stars. The goal now is to make sure that his surgically-repaired lower body is completely up to speed for the beginning of next season, writes Matthew DeFranks of the Dallas Morning News. Seguin is now able to train at full strength this summer to get back into game shape, telling DeFranks that his skating was still lacking even when he returned to the lineup at the end of the season. The Stars need Seguin at his best if they want to return to the postseason next year following a disappointing 2020-21 campaign.
  • In a momentous development following a very difficult year, Minnesota Wild prospect Marco Rossi skated for the first time on Saturday after battling Coronavirus complications this season. Rossi was sent home to Austria at the beginning of the season as he endured serious medical side affects related to a COVID diagnosis months earlier and continued that fight throughout the year. Rossi was finally medically cleared last month and NHL.com reports that Wild GM Bill Guerin has been in close contact with his budding young star and is happy with his progress. Guerin states that Rossi is “incredibly healthy” and “looking very good” as he begins his training to get back into game shape. The Wild hope that the 2020 No. 9 overall draft pick and OHL scoring champion will be ready for training camp and can make a difference for the club next season.

2021 Calder Trophy Finalists Announced

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The NHL has continued to release the finalists for their major regular season awards, this time giving us the top Calder Trophy candidates. This award is given to the top first-year player in the league and is voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association.

The finalists are Kirill Kaprizov of the Minnesota Wild, Jason Robertson of the Dallas Stars and Alex Nedeljkovic of the Carolina Hurricanes.

Kaprizov, 24, is the favorite for the award and has been for much of the season after finally agreeing to come over from the KHL. The skilled winger finished the year with 27 goals and 51 points in 55 games, injecting new life and excitement into a franchise that was lacking both. There’s going to always be a debate on whether Kaprizov should be eligible for the Calder, since he completed six seasons in the KHL before coming to North America, but what he did as a first-year player in the NHL shouldn’t be taken for granted. His play was outstanding all year and his Minnesota team was extremely close to upsetting the Vegas Golden Knights and advancing to the second round.

Just because Kaprizov is the favorite though, doesn’t mean Robertson should be forgotten. The 21-year-old Stars forward burst onto the scene with 45 points of his own in 51 games, finishing behind only Joe Pavelski for the team lead in goals and points. The 6’3″ winger was a second-round pick four years ago but just never stopped developing, adding strength and speed to his frame to go with some well-developed puck skills. Robertson looks like the next great Dallas player and a pillar to build around after a disappointing year.

Like many Calder races, there are the skaters and then there is the goalie. It’s difficult to compare the two directly, but the people in Carolina would certainly argue that Nedeljkovic’s contribution was more important this season. The 25-year-old netminder has battled in the minor leagues for years and was even waived at the beginning of this season, but when Petr Mrazek suffered an injury, Nedeljkovic finally got his chance. He never looked back, posting an incredible .932 save percentage through 23 regular season games, winning 15 of them and posting three shutouts. In the shortened season there was a real case for Nedeljkovic getting a Vezina Trophy nominee, given he led the league in save percentage and goals-against average (1.90), but after falling short there he’ll have to settle for being a Calder finalist instead.

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