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Oilers’ James Neal Clears Waivers

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Sunday: As expected, Neal has cleared waivers and can now be assigned to the Oilers’ taxi squad. His $5.75MM cap hit will be reduced to $4.675MM once the move is completed. Edmonton has waived a number of forwards this season who have made their way back to the active roster eventually, as will likely be the case for Neal.

Saturday: It hasn’t been a great season for James Neal and the news got a little tougher for him today as the team announced (Twitter link) that he has been placed on waivers.

The 33-year-old has been a healthy scratch several times already this season and is off to a quiet start with just two goals and an assist in nine games.  Both goals came in the same game and he was out of the lineup for a week after that. With his lineup spot being far from guaranteed, there’s little risk in putting him on the waiver wire.

Neal has failed to live up to the five-year, $28.75MM contract he signed with Calgary back in 2018 and while he had a bit of a bounce-back 19-goal season with Edmonton last year after being acquired for another free agent mistake in Milan Lucic, he still hasn’t come close to being worth his $5.75MM price tag.  With two years left on his deal after this one, it’s a safe bet he will go through unclaimed.

With Edmonton deep into using LTIR, they’re not going to be in a position to free up some cap space by sending Neal to the taxi squad or to AHL Bakersfield.  Instead, what this move does is just give them a bit of extra roster flexibility to be able to shuffle veterans to and from the taxi squad with ease.  They’ve already gone this route with Devin Shore, Tyler Ennis, and Alex Chiasson this season and now Neal will join the group once he goes unclaimed on Sunday.

COVID Protocol Related Absences: 02/13/21

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Each day, the NHL will publicly release the list of players that are unavailable to their respective teams due to being in COVID-19 protocol. On a positive note, no new players have been put on the list, but quite a few have been removed from the list. The Los Angeles Kings list is being put together now, but there has been a report from John Hoven that both Blake Lizotte and Andreas Athanasiou are both off the list:

Arizona – John Hayden
Buffalo – Dylan Cozens, Rasmus Dahlin, Curtis Lazar, Jake McCabe, Casey Mittelstadt, Brandon Montour, Tobias Rieder, Rasmus Ristolainen
Colorado –  Samuel Girard, Tyson Jost, Gabriel Landeskog
Detroit – Calvin Pickard
Los Angeles – TBA
Minnesota –  Nick Bonino, Jonas Brodin, Ian Cole, Brad Hunt, Victor Rask, Carson Soucy, Nico Sturm, Cam Talbot
New Jersey – Nathan Bastian, Jesper Bratt, Connor Carrick, Eric Comrie, Nikita Gusev, Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes, Dmitry Kulikov, Damon Severson, Ty Smith, Matt Tennyson, Sami Vatanen, Travis Zajac
NY Rangers – Filip Chytil
Philadelphia – Justin Braun, Morgan Frost, Claude Giroux, Travis Sanheim, Jakub Voracek, Scott Laughton, Oskar Lindblom*
Tampa Bay – Steven Stamkos
Vegas – Tomas Nosek

As a reminder, inclusion on this list does not mean that a player has tested positive for Coronavirus or even that they have been confirmed as a close contact to another positive person. Included in the NHL’s list of possible reasons for someone being on the list is are the following:

(1) an initial positive test which remains unconfirmed until confirmatory testing is completed pursuant to the Positive Test Protocol; (2) mandated isolation for symptomatic individuals pursuant to the Positive Test Protocol; (3) required quarantine as a high-risk close contact in accordance with the Positive Test Protocol; (4) isolation based on a confirmed positive test result and/or; (5) quarantine for travel or other reasons as outlined in the COVID-19 Protocol

Players removed today: Taylor Hall (Sabres), Ryan Carpenter (Chicago), Andreas Johnsson (Devils), Janne Kuokkanen (Devils), Michael McLeod (Devils), Kyle Palmieri (Devils), Pavel Zacha (Devils); Anthony Duclair (Panthers), Jesse Puljujarvi (Oilers), , Marcus Johansson (Wild), Jared Spurgeon (Wild), Joel Eriksson Ek (Wild), Nick Bjugstad (Wild)

Snapshots: COVID, U18, O’Ree

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The NHL has sent out a memo to its teams detailing further enhanced COVID measures, according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. The memo includes specifically recommended masks, virtual meetings, removing the glass from the penalty box, further recommendations about remaining at home except for practices/games, and, perhaps most importantly, rapid testing on game days.

Vegas Golden Knights forward Mark Stone spoke about the rapid testing change this morning, one that should hit close to home given his team had a player pulled mid-game recently. Tomas Nosek played two periods before his positive test results forced him out of a Golden Knights game, a situation that rapid testing can hopefully help avoid. Today, the Edmonton Oilers-Montreal Canadiens game has been pushed back an hour to give the league more time to process tests after one Edmonton player was added to the COVID protocol.

  • While the NHL continues to try and navigate their season, international events are starting to be planned for later this year. USA Hockey has announced the 2021 IIHF Under-18 Men’s World Championship, to be held in conjunction with the Dallas Stars in Texas. The event is scheduled for April 26-May 6 and will primarily be held in Frisco, Texas at the Comerica Center.
  • The Boston Bruins will postpone their banner raising ceremony for Willie O’Ree until next year, retiring his number 22 on January 18, 2022, instead, in the hopes that he will be able to attend the event in front of a full arena. That date will be 64 years after O’Ree made his debut as the first Black player in the NHL.

Zack Kassian Placed On Long-Term Injured Reserve

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On Monday, Edmonton Oilers head coach Dave Tippett told reporters including Ryan Rishaug of TSN it was an “understatement” that the team wanted to see Zack Kassian get “a bit more engaged” in games this season. The physical forward had just two minor penalties heading into last night’s game but quickly proved to his coach and teammates that he was still willing to drop the mitts. Kassian fought Erik Gudbranson less than two minutes into the game and the team would go on to win 3-1, but Kassian wouldn’t see the ice again.

Leaving after the fight, Kassian played just 33 seconds and this morning Tippett said he would not play in the rematch tonight. The coach described his absence as week-to-week, though he is still undergoing further evaluation. Meanwhile, CapFriendly reports that Kassian has been placed on long-term injured reserve today thanks to some cap gymnastics the Oilers needed to perform, meaning he’ll miss at least ten games.

Kassian did have 29 hits in 12 games before last night, but had scored just a single goal and registered just three points. That isn’t good enough for a player who received another early chance to line up next to Connor McDavid and his ice time had been slashed heavily in recent games because of it. That means his absence won’t be too noticeable, but it does just test the Oilers’ depth even further. The team has recalled Devin Shore from the taxi squad in the meantime.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Edmonton Oilers Activate Mike Smith Off Of LTIR

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The Edmonton Oilers should get a much-needed boost in goal as the team announced they have activated goaltender Mike Smith from long-term injured reserve. The team has played 13 games this season with starter Mikko Koskinen starting 12 of those 13 games. Stuart Skinner, the team’s backup all this time, has appeared in one game and now has been assigned to the Bakersfield Condors of the AHL.

Smith, who has missed the entire season so far with an undisclosed injury, should immediately provide the team a second NHL-caliber goaltender who can help share net duties rather than force Koskinen to play constantly. In the 12 games he’s played, Koskinen has a 5-7 record with a 3.52 GAA and a .889 save percentage — not numbers of a goalentender who should be playing every game.

Of course, the 38-year-old Smith didn’t exactly put up eye-catching numbers last year either. Smith played 39 games last season, posting a 2.95 GAA and a .902 save percentage. Regardless, those numbers would be quite a bit better than what the Oilers have seen so far this season. Smith is expected to start one of the team’s back-to-back games on Monday or Tuesday against Ottawa.

Smith signed a one-year, $1.5MM this offseason.

Kings Claim Troy Grosenick Off Waivers

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After just getting through quarantine protocols, Troy Grosenick is heading back to where his season began.  Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports (Twitter link) that the Kings have claimed the netminder off waivers from Edmonton.

The 31-year-old was originally signed by Los Angeles early in unrestricted free agency in October to serve as their third-string option behind Jonathan Quick and Calvin Petersen.  Once Petersen was cleared shortly after the start of the regular season, Grosenick was waived for the purposes of sending him to the taxi squad but Edmonton claimed him with Mike Smith being injured though Grosenick had to serve a two-week quarantine period before he could suit up as Mikko Koskinen’s backup.

If Los Angeles was the only team to claim Grosenick, they will be able to send him to their taxi squad since they were the team that originally had and waived him.  Otherwise, he’ll have to remain on the NHL roster or go through waivers again if they want to send him down.

The veteran has just two games of NHL experience, both with San Jose back in 2014-15 and has effectively been an AHL starter since then.  Last year, he played in 33 games with AHL Milwaukee, posting a 2.29 GAA with a .920 SV% along with two shutouts which helped him earn a small raise at the AHL level in his one-year, two-way deal worth $700K in the NHL and $350K in the minors.

Meanwhile, Friedman adds in a separate tweet that Jets forward Dominic Toninato went through waivers unclaimed and that there wasn’t anyone placed on waivers today.

Troy Grosenick, Dominic Toninato Placed On Waivers

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The Edmonton Oilers have placed Troy Grosenick on waivers, according to Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic, just a few days after finally activating him. The Oilers claimed Grosenick off waivers on January 16, but he never did play a game for them. Joining Grosenick on waivers is Dominic Toninato of the Winnipeg Jets, who had previously been placed on long-term injured reserve.

This could suggest that Mike Smith is close to returning for the Oilers, who have leaned heavily on Mikko Koskinen in his absence. Koskinen leads the league in games played, shots faced and minutes this season (not to mention losses and goals against) as he operated as the only real NHL-caliber goaltender on the Edmonton roster. Smith’s return would take some of that pressure off, though it is still not certain that the 38-year-old can really contribute much at this point in his career. Smith has a .900 save percentage over his last two seasons, though has gone 42-28-8 in that time.

Toninato meanwhile was put on LTIR just as the season began after he failed his training camp medicals. He too could be approaching a return, though it’s not clear if he has a role on the Jets NHL roster at this point. The 26-year-old forward did play 46 games for the Panthers last season but seems ticketed for the taxi squad or minor leagues (whenever the Manitoba Moose get started, that is) whenever he is healthy enough to do so.

There hasn’t been a skater claimed since the start of the season, but Grosenick perhaps could be claimed once again. The 31-year-old has been a strong minor league option for many years, including posting a .920 in 33 appearances with the Milwaukee Admirals last season. For teams like Toronto, Carolina or Colorado who are dealing with injuries, claiming Grosenick could represent a chance to add some goaltending depth for the next little while.

Snapshots: Three Stars, Bjugstad, Beijing

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It was a western Canada sweep of the NHL’s Three Stars for this week, as young Vancouver Canucks goaltender Thatcher Demko took home the league’s top honors while Edmonton Oilers superstar teammates Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl earned the second and third stars, respectively. Demko, who the Canucks are hoping can establish himself as their starter of the future this season, certainly played the part this week. He won all three of his starts, allowing just three goals total – one per game – on 103 shots. A 1.00 GAA and .971 save percentage are more than worthy enough of first star status. Meanwhile, McDavid and Draisaitl put up monstrous numbers that have somehow become commonplace for both. The duo combined for seven goals and 24 points in just four games. Somehow the Oilers won just two of their four contests.

  • Nick Bjugstad’s wallet is now $5,000 lighter. The NHL Department of Player Safety announced that the Minnesota Wild center has received the maximum fine allowable for cross checking. The incident in question occurred on Sunday against the Colorado Avalanche. Defenseman Ryan Graves was the victim, taking a high cross check early in the second period. While the intent of the check was questionable at best, as Bjugstad battled Graves in front of the net, there is no denying that he delivered the check to Graves’ head area. That was all it took for the big pivot to earn a maximum fine.
  • When the NHL returns to the Winter Olympics next year, they will do so on a more familiar ice surface. TSN’s Pierre LeBrun relays word from IIHF President Rene Fasel that the ice surface that will be used in Beijing will be North American in size. The IIHF has previously discussed using these smaller rink dimensions in competition after exclusively using the international dimensions in the past and the 2022 Winter Olympics will be the debut of this change. This does not imply that all future Olympic competitions will be played on a North American surface, but it does open the door for IIHF competition to be played on varying rink sizes, possibly as decided by the hosts.

Alex Chiasson Clears Waivers

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Feb 2: Chaisson has cleared, according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. The veteran forward can now be assigned to the taxi squad or minor leagues.

Feb 1: The Edmonton Oilers have placed veteran forward Alex Chiasson on waivers, according to Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic. Chiasson has been a healthy scratch at times this season and played just 11 minutes last night in Edmonton’s game against the Ottawa Senators.

It wasn’t so long ago that Chiasson arrived in Edmonton after winning a Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals and put up a career-high 22 goals. During that first year with the Oilers in 2018-19, he played a pivotal role on the powerplay, banging in eight goals and adding another seven assists with the man-advantage. Last season his numbers dropped to just 11 goals and 24 points in 65 games, while his even-strength ice time was also slashed considerably. That trend has continued this season where he currently ranks ahead of only Devin Shore and Jujhar Khaira in average 5-on-5 time.

If he’s not being used, it doesn’t make much sense for the Oilers to keep Chiasson and his $2.15MM contract on the active roster while they deal with a tight cap situation. If moved to the taxi squad or minor leagues, $1.075MM of his cap hit would be buried.

That is of course unless another team takes him, which could be an interesting move for a rebuilding club that has some extra cap room. Chiasson is scheduled become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season, meaning he could potentially be a deadline trade chip that a Cup contender would be interested in. For those like the Ottawa Senators or Detroit Red Wings, who are already likely out of the playoff race after long losing streaks to begin the season, claiming Chiasson with the intention of flipping him down the road could result in an extra asset, even if it’s not a substantial one.

More likely though is that Chiasson clears waivers like every other skater since the start of the season, allowing the Oilers to keep him as some valuable depth.

AHL’s Stockton Heat To Play 2020-21 Season In Calgary

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Jan 28: The AHL has officially announced the move to Calgary, where the Heat will join in the Canadian Division for 2020-21. A revised schedule will be released in the coming days.

Jan 25: In a surprising move, especially given the AHL’s return to action in less than two weeks, the Stockton Heat will not be playing in Stockton in 2021. Scott Linesburgh of The Stockton Record writes this evening that city and county officials have confirmed that the club does not intend to play out of their home city this season. Instead, the Calgary Flames’ affiliate is expected to share a home with their parent club. Linesburgh reports that this is likely just a one-year change related to the Coronavirus pandemic and cross-border logistics, though he does note that this was the final year on the Heat’s current lease at Stockton Arena.

This move will have quite the ripple effect on the AHL just ten days away from the planned start to the season. Stockton’s move north of the border, and the impossibility at this time of playing American opponents as a result, means that the AHL will have to realign on the fly once again. The Heat will be placed in the Canadian Division alongside the Belleville Senators, Laval Rocket, Manitoba Moose, and Toronto Marlies. This will mean that the Pacific Division will drop to six teams this season and the schedule, which was already released on Friday, will need to be amended. The Heat leave behind a 40-game schedule against the numerous AHL clubs in the American Southwest for an unknown slate in the Canadian Division, which has yet to release a schedule and features only one team within 1,600 miles of Calgary.

Of course, for the Flames’ purposes this means a much simpler strategy for moving players to and from the minors this season. Players who cross the border into Canada this season require a mandatory 14-day quarantine period. While the taxi squad has been implemented to offer a small group of stand-ins, any other additions for Calgary from Stockton would have left those players out of commission for two weeks. Now the team will require no wait time at all with their AHL squad expected to be sharing a facility.

The Heat’s move leaves the Edmonton Oilers as the only Canadian NHL team whose AHL affiliate remains in the U.S. or who hasn’t otherwise negotiated an agreement to send players to another AHL team in Canada, such as the Vancouver Canucks’ and Manitoba Moose’ relationship. If the Oilers plan to make such a move, they have limited time before the AHL season begins.

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