Snapshots: Zadina, Byfuglien, Kings
Filip Zadina has had a difficult year. The sixth-overall pick from 2018 has just 11 goals and 23 points with the Grand Rapids Griffins, and was held to just a single assist at the World Juniors, a tournament he dominated last year. Still, that won’t stop the Detroit Red Wings from giving him a taste of the NHL before the end of the season. GM Ken Holland told Ansar Khan of MLive that Zadina will play a few games with the Red Wings before the end of the year, but won’t go over the nine-game threshold that would make his entry-level contract kick in for this season.
Zadina is an extremely skilled player with a deadly accurate shot, and is still just a teenager playing in a professional league with opponents sometimes more than a decade older than him. Struggles maybe were to be expected, but for the Red Wings success he needs to take another step forward next season. Getting him a taste of what it takes to play in the NHL before the summer will give him even more focus this offseason to come to camp ready to compete in September.
- Dustin Byfuglien has been activated from injured reserve by the Winnipeg Jets after a 15-game absence, and should immediately help them on their push to finish at the top of the Western Conference. The Jets are still in the market to make a move at the trade deadline, but getting Byfuglien back at this point should feel like a big addition for the last part of the season. The big, mobile defenseman usually logs some of the highest ice time totals in the league and is a physical force that demands respect all over the rink.
- Los Angeles Kings GM Rob Blake had some snark for the analysts at TSN when speaking with Curtis Zupke of the Los Angeles Times, and explained that there’s not definite time frame on when he’s looking to make moves to improve the club. If there are opportunities like the one he took by trading away Jake Muzzin the Kings will jump all over it, but they’re not rushing to sell off the whole team right away. For what it’s worth, our readership at PHR believes that Tyler Toffoli will be the next player sent packing by the Kings.
Oscar Klefbom Activated From Injured Reserve
If the Edmonton Oilers have any chance of making the playoffs this season, they need to start winning and winning a lot. The team is currently on a five-game losing streak, but somehow are still within striking distance of a wild card spot in the Western Conference thanks to the struggles of several other teams. Today they got some of the best news they could hope for, as Oscar Klefbom has been activated from injured reserve and will return to the lineup tonight against the Chicago Blackhawks.
Klefbom is arguably the most important defenseman on the Oilers, and his injuries this season have had a drastic effect on the team success. The 25-year old hasn’t played since leaving a game against the Colorado Avalanche on December 11th, and the team has gone 6-12-3 without him. Obviously not all of those struggles can be traced back to the absence of the 6’3″ defenseman, but there is a reason that he had been playing more than 25 minutes a game.
If Klefbom can get back up to speed quickly, the Oilers still have a legitimate chance at the playoffs. Improbable as it may be, the team sits just three points behind the Vancouver Canucks for the second wild card spot and five points behind the Minnesota Wild for the first. That’s a difficult gap to cover over the last third of the season, especially given that they’ll need to leap over teams like the Colorado Avalanche, St. Louis Blues and Arizona Coyotes to do it, but not an impossible one. Klefbom may very well be the key to the Oilers play, and if the team can make an addition of some sort at the deadline to give him some help they may not end up wasting another year of Connor McDavid by missing the playoffs entirely.
Alex Chiasson Wants To Re-Sign In Edmonton
The Edmonton Oilers haven’t received much production from the majority of their forward group this season, with a few stark exceptions. Obviously the play of Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has been good enough, but there is another forward who has impressed for most of the year. Alex Chiasson, who signed to a one-year minimum salary contract after settling for a professional tryout in the offseason, has 17 goals in 43 games and has set himself up to land a new deal in the summer. Today, he told Rob Tychkowski of the Edmonton Sun that he hopes that contract comes with the Oilers. Tychkowski notes that Chiasson’s desire to stay will make it “much easier to keep him past the trade deadline.”
Re-signing Chiasson may be a good idea, but the Oilers have to be careful with how they hand out funds. Not only do they not currently have a GM in place—Keith Gretzky is performing the duties in the interim—but the team already has more than $70MM committed to players next season. By re-signing Chiasson and giving out new contracts to restricted free agents like Jesse Puljujarvi and Jujhar Khaira—not to mention a potential extension for Cam Talbot that has apparently been discussed—there won’t be a ton of room for real upgrades to get Edmonton to the next level. Simply put, the group they have right now is not good enough.
Still, there’s something to be said about a winger who has found success with the Oilers top players. While that seems like it should be a role that any halfway decent NHL winger could do, that hasn’t been the case so far. Finding players to line up beside McDavid and Draisaitl has been a struggle, and given that Chiasson will still likely be relatively inexpensive re-signing him may be worth more than trading him at the deadline.
Inexpensive is the key here though, as overpaying for a player like Chiasson is exactly the opposite of progress for the Oilers. The 28-year old is working with a ridiculous 25% shooting percentage on the season and has just 15 even-strength points on the year. It absolutely must be a short-term deal with a low cap hit, or the team will be putting themselves even further from contention.
Andrej Sekera Heading To AHL On Conditioning Assignment
The Edmonton Oilers have sent defenseman Andrej Sekera to the AHL on a conditioning assignment, the last step before activating him from long-term injured reserve. The Oilers, who have been pushed up to the salary cap ceiling all season, don’t actually have room to activate Sekera at the moment, meaning they’ll have to make a transaction of some sort to open up enough space. The defenseman can stay in the minor leagues for up to three games or six days, unless the team applies for an extension—though the end of a conditioning stint doesn’t necessarily immediately result in the player being activated.
Sekera, 32, played just 36 games in 2017-18 and has yet to suit up for the Oilers this season. The smooth skating defenseman was a big part of the Edmonton blue line in his first two years with the team, but now is almost entirely an unknown. Sekera never really got back to his expected level of play last season, and without seeing him on the ice there’s no way to tell whether or not he can help them this year. The Oilers are starved for effective puck-moving defensemen—especially given the injury to Oscar Klefbom—but Sekera’s $5.5MM gives him a high level to perform up to.
Moving out more than $1.23MM in cap space is also easier said than done for the Oilers. The team is already only carrying 22 players on the roster to get to that number, meaning they can’t just bury a few more for the time being. Instead there will likely have to be a trade of some sort for the team, and it’s unclear who that will be. The Oilers only recently acquired Alex Petrovic and Brandon Manning, and have apparently not closed the door on a Cam Talbot extension. All of that makes it tougher to find a quick answer, meaning interim GM Keith Gretzky has his work cut out for him over the next few days.
Edmonton Oilers “Leaving Door Open” On Cam Talbot Extension
The Edmonton Oilers seemingly made a decision on which goaltender they felt would lead them next season when they handed out a three-year extension to Mikko Koskinen just days before firing former GM Peter Chiarelli. Now things aren’t so clear. Frank Seravalli of TSN reports that the Oilers have recently had a conversation with Cam Talbot and are leaving the door open for a possible extension. Talbot is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year. Seravalli does note that the Oilers are facing imminent cap issues with the improving health of Andrej Sekera, and moving Talbot’s $4.17MM cap hit is an obvious way to clear some room.
An extension for Talbot would be a very surprising move, given how he has struggled this season and how much money the team already committed to Koskinen. With $4.5MM already assigned to the big Finnish netminder, Talbot would need to come in much lower than his current price in order to avoid making an extremely expensive duo. The Oilers already have more than $70MM committed to next season, with plenty of work to do to turn around their fate.
It also would be a surprising move given that the team doesn’t have a GM in place at the moment, instead letting Keith Gretzky run the daily operations. The team is taking their search for a new GM slowly, but there are obviously decisions to be made before the trade deadline. It’s hard to imagine the team wouldn’t have a shot at re-signing Talbot in the offseason though even if they did trade him, unless a late-season surge forces whatever acquiring team to retain his services. After posting an .894 save percentage through 27 games this season, it doesn’t seem like that surge is coming.
Somehow though, the Oilers need to clear some cap space in the short-term. Sekera is nearing a return to the ice and with it his $5.5MM cap hit will come off long-term injured reserve. Edmonton doesn’t have enough room for that to happen at the moment, and certainly not if they are hoping to add any pieces at the trade deadline to take a run at the playoffs this season.
“No Rush” In Edmonton Oilers’ GM Search
Even with the trade deadline looming, CEO Bob Nicholson and the Edmonton Oilers are not expected to move quickly in the search for their new general manager. During TSN’s “Insider Trading” segment, Darren Dreger states that there is “no rush” to fill the position and that the team will take their time in vetting all options.
Dreger goes on to say that “the Oilers know that they need to get this one right”, which is a major understatement. Recently-fired GM Peter Chiarelli left the team in a tough salary cap condition and without enough talent on the roster following several poor trade and signing decisions. His predecessors, Craig MacTavish and Steve Tambellini, were at the helm for a near decade-long postseason drought. So long as Connor McDavid is an Oiler, Edmonton will have a chance to make the playoffs year in and year out, but they haven’t helped to improve those odds of late and need to put an end to these wasted years of McDavid’s career. Finally solving the GM problem is the most important step toward pointing this team in the right direction.
In the meantime, interim GM Keith Gretzky is more than capable of handling day-to-day operations for some time. Although there continues to be speculation that the Oilers could be buyers leading up to the deadline, they trail five other teams for the final Western Conference wild card spot and could be a short string of losses away from falling it out of the race completely. Gretzky, whose background is in amateur scouting, would be far more adept at selling off impending free agents for picks and prospects rather than trying to add. He would also be very qualified to handle the college and junior free agent markets later this spring. And, if it reaches that point, Gretzky has run drafts for both the Arizona Coyotes and Boston Bruins in the past and would be a fine option for the Oilers on draft day if his full-time replacement has yet to be found. Gretzky was a wise choice by Nicholson and company as interim GM and should be a solid stopgap for the team as they take their time to make a vital decision for the franchise.
Edmonton Oilers Sign Joel Persson To One-Year Extension
Last spring the Edmonton Oilers executed one of the more interesting transactions in recent history. The team signed Swedish defenseman Joel Persson to a one-year entry-level contract, but immediately assigned him back to the SHL for the 2018-19 season. The team was basically buying his rights moving forward, while leaving Persson to play for his regular team for the duration of the entry-level deal. The 24-year old would become a restricted free agent at the end of this season, but the Oilers would own his exclusive negotiating rights. Now the team has signed Persson to a one-year extension, and Cap Friendly reports the deal is worth $1MM. Despite having never played in the NHL, this contract is not limited by the entry-level salary restrictions.
Persson turned a lot of heads last season when he exploded onto the SHL scene with 34 points in 51 games. That was good enough for second among all defensemen only behind Lawrence Pilut, who then left for the Buffalo Sabres for 2018-19. With Pilut gone, Persson is now king in the SHL and is tied for the league lead among defensemen with 23 points through 36 games. His 19 assists rank sixth among any position.
There is a chance that the offensive defenseman could play some games for the Oilers this season, but an extension like this almost guarantees that he will see North American ice in 2019-20. Whether he can carve out a role on the powerplay with Edmonton is still to be seen, but the young defenseman has all the skills necessary to be a contributor with the man advantage.
The Oilers still have six other defensemen on one-way contracts for next season, but given the injury struggles of players like Andrej Sekera and performance issues by others like Brandon Manning and Matt Benning, there will certainly be an opportunity in Edmonton. Whether Persson is the answer to that won’t be known until he starts playing against NHL competition, but adding a 24-year old defensemen with plenty of offensive skill is never a bad idea. At worst, his cap hit would be completely buried in the minor leagues.
Snapshots: Mock Draft, Arizona State, Jokinen
Itching for the NHL Entry Draft already? Several fan bases are, as many teams are beyond a reasonable shot at the postseason as the unofficial second half of the season begins. After a recent rash of mid-season draft rankings were published, NHL.com writers Adam Kimelman, Mike Morreale, and Guillaume Lepage tried their hands at a mock draft of the first round for the upcoming draft. They did not conduct a lottery simulation nor did they try to predict how the playoffs would unfold, so the mock is strictly the current standings inverse. However, each of the trio made their own selections and interesting trends can already be spotted. Of course, all three had the Colorado Avalanche, using the Ottawa Senators’ first-rounder, taking U.S. National Team Development Program phenom Jack Hughes first overall. Regardless of who picks first, Hughes is the unanimous pick to go No. 1 in any scenario. There was also a consensus for Finnish winger Kaapo Kakko going second to the New Jersey Devils and Russian winger Vasili Podkolzin going third to the Los Angeles Kings. However, there was not much agreement the rest of the way. Western Hockey League centers Dylan Cozens and Kirby Dach and USNTDP forwards Alex Turcotte and Trevor Zegras went early for all three writers, but no two agreed on the fit for any one team. There was also dissent over the first defenseman taken and where, as Kimelman placed Swedish rearguard Philip Broberg at No. 6 to the New Jersey Devils, while Morreale and Lepage had Canadian blue liner Bowen Byram going No. 7 to the Florida Panthers or No. 8 to the Edmonton Oilers, respectively. One of the biggest surprises was Morreale’s selection of wunderkind goaltender Spencer Knight to the Panthers. While many consider Knight to be the best draft-eligible goalie prospect in some time, no keeper has been taken in the top ten since Carey Price in 2005. The other two writers had Knight at No. 14 to Colorado and No. 24 to the Vegas Golden Knights. Later in the round, opinions differed greatly on OHL defenseman Thomas Harley and hyped overage forward Brett Leason as well. There is still a lot to be decided about the upcoming draft board, not to mention the draft order and the impact of trades, but it is interesting to get a good look at this point in the season as the picture becomes more clear for both the teams and prospects.
- Arizona State University continues to make waves this season in college hockey. In just their fourth year of existence as an NCAA program, ASU is currently ranked No. 17 in the country and could push for a spot in the NCAA Tournament. As AZ Central’s Jeff Metcalfe writes, the play of forward Johnny Walker and goalie Joey Daccord is making all of the difference and beginning to draw national attention. After blanking the immensely talented Boston University Terriers 3-0 on Saturday night, Walker’s two tallies put him in the NCAA lead for goal scoring, while Daccord’s shutout was his NCAA-best seventh of the year. Daccord, 22, was a seventh-round pick of the Ottawa Senators back in 2015 out of Cushing Academy and it is beginning to look like the Sens’ late-round waiver on the long-term project could pay off. Daccord is a junior and could be enticed to turn pro this off-season if Ottawa hopes to avoid him becoming a free agent after another year. Walker, 22, went undrafted as a Phoenix native playing in the NAHL and is only a sophomore at ASU. However, that won’t stop NHL teams from trying to pry him away from college to get a look at his near goal-per-game pace at the pro level. A tournament run by Arizona State would only further amplify the status of these unlikely heroes of the collegiate campaign.
- Veteran forward Jussi Jokinen has been unable to find NHL employment this season. The fact is somewhat amazing considering Jokinen played in 14 or more games with four different NHL teams last season. The well-traveled 35-year-old signed a PTO with the Detroit Red Wings this summer, who would have become his tenth different NHL team, but it did not pan out and no one else has come calling. Finally, Jokinen has decided to move on. Finnish reporter Pasi Tuominen reports that Jokinen is set to sign with Karpat of the Liiga in his native Finland for the remainder of the season. Jokinen will be a valued mentor for top NHL prospects like Rasmus Kupari (LAK) and Aleksi Heponiemi (FLA) while with Karpat and may even lead the first-place team to a championship. Regardless, it is highly likely that Jokinen’s days in the NHL are done. The well-liked and respected forward leaves a great legacy behind him in North America, but will surely continue to play overseas for a few years to come.
New York Rangers Almost Traded Ryan McDonagh To Edmonton In 2016
In his most recent 31 Thoughts column earlier this week, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman mentioned that now-former Edmonton Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli was close to making a blockbuster trade back in 2016, just days before he traded Taylor Hall to New Jersey for Adam Larsson. Friedman, however, had no knowledge of the details of that blockbuster. However, New York Post’s Larry Brooks got a confirmation from multiple sources that the trade would have been with the New York Rangers.
Brooks reports that just before pulling the trigger on the Hall-Larsson deal, Chiarelli was close to a deal that would have sent the 2016 fourth-overall pick (used to take Jesse Puljujarvi) to the Rangers for defenseman Ryan McDonagh. The belief is that New York was interested in drafting Clayton Keller of the U.S. National Development Team with the fourth pick to begin the rebuild process then. Brooks adds there were other pieces to the deal, but points out that after the team’s first-round exit to Pittsburgh that year, the team felt it needed to re-tool their team with McDonagh being the most marketable player on the Rangers at the time.
Instead, Chiarelli turned the deal down, took Puljujarvi and sent Hall to New Jersey for Larsson, while the Rangers instead packaged Derick Brassard to Ottawa in a deal to get Mika Zibanejad. The team did discuss McDonagh with other teams at that time, including a deal with Colorado for either Nathan MacKinnon or Gabriel Landeskog, but the Avalanche weren’t that high on McDonagh’s value.
Considering how Puljujarvi has turned out in Edmonton thus far and how successful Hall has been since leaving the Oilers, the trade could have altered the outcome for Edmonton as well as Chiarelli, as McDonagh could have helped stabilize the team’s defense. However, there is no guarantee that Chiarelli still wouldn’t have moved Hall later on anyway.
Of course, the Rangers team may look quite a bit different with Keller on their team now as the 20-year-old put up a 23-goal, 65-point campaign in his rookie season last year and currently has 11 goals and 35 points this year and would have been a great piece to build around. Instead the franchise held onto McDonagh until last year’s trade deadline when they sent him and J.T. Miller to Tampa Bay in exchange for Vladislav Namestnikov, propects Libor Hajek and Brett Howden as well as a 2018 first-round pick (Nils Lundqvist) and a conditional 2019 second-rounder.
Poll: Which Team Is Under The Most Pressure To Make The Playoffs?
When the NHL’s unofficial second half kicks off this week, there will be substantially fewer teams with playoff hopes than when the first half began back in October. Of course, no team has been statistically eliminated yet, but a quick look at the standings can help to rule out more than a handful of the league’s bottom-dwellers. In fact, The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn had seven teams with less than a 5% chance of reaching the playoffs in his latest model: the Ottawa Senators, Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers, New Jersey Devils, Chicago Blackhawks, and Philadelphia Flyers.
On the other hand, there are also quite a few teams whose first-half success has given them near certainty of playing beyond the regular season this year. Luszczszyn’s projections give eleven teams an 85% chance or better of qualifying for the postseason: the Tampa Bay Lightning, Calgary Flames, Winnipeg Jets, Nashville Predators, San Jose Sharks, Toronto Maple Leafs, Vegas Golden Knights, Pittsburgh Penguins, Boston Bruins, Columbus Blue Jackets, and New York Islanders.
This leaves 13 clubs remaining – the “fringe” teams – who are vying for a possible five playoff spots. Eight of these teams will miss out. Who least wants to be part of that group?
Well, the team who has been a member of the early off-season club the longest would certainly like to change things up. The Carolina Hurricanes have gone nine seasons since making a postseason appearance and have come close the last few years but fallen short. The team could crack 90 points this season for the first time in eight years, but it might not be enough in the tight Eastern Conference wild card race. The two other teams who are desperate to get back to the playoffs are the Buffalo Sabres, who are on a seven-year drought, and the Arizona Coyotes, who are six years out from a postseason appearance. The Sabres got off to a hot start this season and looked to be a surprise playoff team, but have regressed recently, with three wins in their past then games, and are now tied with Carolina for ninth place in the East. The Coyotes have been resilient in the deep Western Conference wild card race, battling injuries and inconsistency to stay in the mix, but Arizona has their work cut out for them the rest of the way.
Then there are the teams who have made the playoffs recently but not performed. The Blue Jackets – who have never won a playoff series in franchise history – will almost certainly have another shot this year, but what about the Florida Panthers? Many have dismissed the team this season, but the Panthers have plenty of talent and have fallen short of expectations until recently. They face an uphill battle to make the postseason but if they do, the team would have a chance to snap the league’s longest streak without a playoff series win. Florida has not won a round since 1996, a whopping 21 seasons without postseason success and longer than the Blue Jackets have even existed. That’s a substantial mark on the franchise. It’s been a decade now since the Colorado Avalanche have won a postseason series as well and now that they are armed with one of the league’s best forward lines, have a chance against anyone if they can win a spot. The Avs looked like a legitimate Stanley Cup contender early this season and with some trade deadline reinforcements could be a factor this spring. However, recent struggles have plummeted them into the thick of the wild card race in the West and they are in danger of missing the playoffs entirely.
Then, there are teams that simply entered the 2018-19 campaign with high expectations and need to meet them. The defending champion Washington Capitals are of course part of this group. Among the most likely fringe teams to make the postseason, it is nevertheless hard to ignore the disastrous play of the Capitals of late. Three wins in their past ten games, including a number of blowout losses, has begun “Stanley Cup hangover” talk and has legitimately injured Washington’s playoff odds. The team needs to right the ship soon or risk falling out of the current playoff picture. A team on the opposite trajectory are the Minnesota Wild, who have improved their play of late and have pulled away in the race for the final Central Division berth. Minnesota is another team that entered the season with high expectations and are still searching for the franchise’s first ever Stanley Cup final appearance. With hopes reaching new highs this season, a collapse for the Wild would be devastating.
Unlike the Capitals and Wild, there are also teams with high expectations who don’t have promising playoff outlooks right now. The Edmonton Oilers and the league’s best player, Connor McDavid, sit atop that list. Edmonton is currently in 13th in the Western Conference and in danger of dropping out of the playoff conversation sooner than any fringe team. The organization has already fired their head coach and general manager this season amid another year of disappointing results and face slim odds that this campaign will end any differently. McDavid and company maintain that the Oilers are a playoff-caliber team, but something has to change with this team down the stretch for that that hypothesis to be tested this postseason. The St. Louis Blues and Dallas Stars certainly look like playoff teams on paper, but both have been mediocre at best this season. The Blues, a popular dark horse Stanley Cup pick before the season, have been disappointing in every regard and there has been talk that the team could blow it up this season. A recent improvement paired with the struggles of others in the Western Conference playoff race have revived postseason hopes, but few expected that making the playoffs would be this difficult for St. Louis this season. The same goes for Dallas, who has had highly-publicized feuds between ownership, coaches, and players alike this year as the team continues to fall short of expectations. The Stars currently hold the top spot in the wild card race, but a recent history of late season collapses casts doubt over their ability to hold on to that spot.
There are still many teams whose playoff futures this season remain in question. These franchises all have varying degrees of desperation based on history and expectations. Of the 13 “fringe” teams, which team is under the most pressure to make the playoffs?
Which NHL Team Is Under The Most Pressure To Make The Playoffs?
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Edmonton Oilers 27% (671)
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Washington Capitals 18% (444)
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St. Louis Blues 13% (326)
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Montreal Canadiens 9% (210)
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Buffalo Sabres 8% (197)
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Dallas Stars 7% (183)
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Minnesota Wild 5% (133)
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Carolina Hurricanes 4% (107)
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Colorado Avalanche 2% (60)
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Anaheim Ducks 2% (57)
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Florida Panthers 1% (36)
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Arizona Coyotes 1% (22)
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Vancouver Canucks 1% (17)
Total votes: 2,463
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