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Atlantic Notes: St. Louis, Giroux, Senators

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The Montreal Canadiens made waves earlier this season when the most storied franchise in NHL history replaced a head coach that had just guided them to their first Stanley Cup Final appearance in nearly 30 years with someone who had no professional coaching experience to speak of. However, under Laval native Martin St. Louis, the Canadiens, despite being battered and bruised, looked rejuvenated and carried much more of the same energy that had taken them through four rounds in 2021.

Now, it appears that St. Louis has done enough to impress the team’s front office and guide them through what’s likely to be a tumultuous next few seasons in terms of roster construction. TSN’s Darren Dreger reports that he expects the Canadiens to announce an extension for St. Louis “in the near future”, although there’s no timeline given for this. The Canadiens finished the season 14-19-4 under St. Louis, a marked improvement over the team’s abysmal 8-30-7 record under Ducharme.

  • After being swept out of the Second Round by the Tampa Bay Lightning, Claude Giroux expressed interest today in returning to the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Florida Panthers. How the team manages to make that work under the salary cap, though, is a gigantic mystery. While the Panthers don’t have any significant pieces to re-sign aside from Giroux and Mason Marchment, the team is greatly restricted in salary space next year by the combined $6.575MM cap hit from the Keith Yandle and Scott Darling buyouts. With that, the team will have just $4MM in cap space this offseason with depth roster spots to fill. Giroux would need to take a steeply discounted deal, which could be unlikely given the much more rich offers he’ll receive elsewhere. Giroux had 23 points in 18 games down the stretch for the Panthers in the regular season and eight points in 10 playoff games.
  • The Ottawa Senators appear to be ready to take aggressive steps in exiting their rebuild, with general manager Pierre Dorion saying that the team’s seventh overall pick at the 2022 NHL Draft is on the table for trade. Dorion also said that he’s focused on acquiring a top-four defenseman or a high-end forward, if possible. While the Senators do have a strong pool to deal from, they’re also a core that has proven very little with the team staying stagnant in the standings this season. With the team sitting on over $20MM worth of cap space again this offseason, though, they have the roster flexibility to make moves.

Mason Marchment To Miss Next Two Games

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  • Panthers winger Mason Marchment is doubtful to play in the next two games of their series against Tampa Bay, relays David Wilson of the Miami Herald. He has now missed the last four games with a lower-body injury and with Florida scuffling in the early going of this round, his secondary scoring and physicality are certainly being missed.  Meanwhile, interim head coach Andrew Brunette clarified that Anton Lundell wasn’t injured on Thursday but was merely benched after just over four minutes of ice time.

2022 Jack Adams Finalists Announced

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The NHL continues to release the finalists for their major regular season award, this time naming the three men that are in contention for the Jack Adams Award, presented to the coach who has “contributed the most to his team’s success” and voted on by the NHL Broadcasters Association. Last year’s winner was Rod Brind’Amour of the Carolina Hurricanes, but we’ll have a new name engraved this season.

The finalists for the 2021-22 season are Andrew Brunette of the Florida Panthers, Gerard Gallant of the New York Rangers, and Darryl Sutter of the Calgary Flames.

Brunette could win the award without actually even having any job security, as he is still technically only an interim head coach. Taking over from Joel Quenneville, when the Panthers were in first place, he didn’t miss a beat and took the team to an incredible 51-18-6 record under his watch, winning the Presidents’ Trophy. A huge number of Florida players experienced career-best seasons under the rookie head coach, as his high-flying style led to almost unstoppable offensive pressure.

Often, this award goes to the coach who takes a team to the largest gap between expectation and result. That might be the case for Gallant, whose young Rangers were expected to challenge for the playoffs but have become so much more than that. With a 52-24-6 record on the year, New York finished eighth in the entire NHL, their best season since 2014-15. It shouldn’t surprise anyone at this point that Gallant can get outstanding results out of an overlooked roster, after taking the Vegas Golden Knights all the way to the Stanley Cup Final in their inaugural season. Even in that year–when Gallant won the Jack Adams–the Golden Knights had a worse winning percentage than these Rangers.

For all the success that Sutter has had behind the bench, this trophy has eluded him over the years. The two-time Stanley Cup-winning coach has nearly 800 total wins under his belt but has only ever been a finalist for the award once before, way back in 2004 during his first go-round in Calgary. The Flames experienced a huge turnaround under his watch, going from a .491 winning percentage last season, to a .677 and first place in the division this year. Despite having some high-flying offensive talent, it was the buy-in on the defensive end that Sutter is so known for, and resulted in the Flames allowing just 206 goals against, third best in the league.

Tomorrow, the league will continue their announcements with the three finalists for the King Clancy Memorial Trophy.

Ben Chiarot Avoids Suspension, Earns Fine

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The Florida Panthers will still have Ben Chiarot available for their next game, after the Department of Player Safety has decided his headbutt on Tampa Bay Lightning forward Ross Colton will earn a fine, instead of a suspension. Chiarot has been fined $5,000 for the incident.

When the playoffs began, it seemed unlikely that there would be two head-butting incidents in the first handful of games but that is exactly what has happened after Darnell Nurse was suspended in the Edmonton Oilers’ first-round series. While there are some comparisons between the two plays, it seemed clear that Chiarot’s was of a lesser degree. Partway through the second period, he and Colton came together after a whistle, and the Panthers’ defenseman pushed his helmet into his opponent’s visor.

The league has obviously deemed that unacceptable but ruled it did not rise to the level of a suspension. Still, Chiarot will now be under the microscope as the Panthers try to continue their postseason run, and could receive further discipline should he be involved in any other incidents like this.

2022 Selke Trophy Finalists Announced

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The NHL has announced the finalists for yet another of its end-of-year awards, the Frank J. Selke Trophy. Always a hotly-contested and highly-debated award, the Selke Trophy is voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association on the basis of “the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game.”

This year’s finalists are Aleksander Barkov of the Florida Panthers, Elias Lindholm of the Calgary Flames, and Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins.

Barkov took home the award last season after previous top-five finishes and is one of the best two-way players in the league. His offensive numbers took another step forward this season, while his defensive play stayed quite high. Paired at times with rookie Anton Lundell on the penalty kill (a player who might find himself on the Selke ballot eventually), Barkov averaged more than two minutes of short-handed time a night for the Panthers, and was once again one of the most dominant faceoff men in the NHL. His 56.9% win percentage in the dot was the best of his career and continued a five-year trend of improvement in that area.

Lindholm, meanwhile, is a Selke finalist for the first time after anchoring the best even-strength line in the NHL this season. When he was on the ice alongside Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk, the Flames were nearly unstoppable, scoring more than twice as often as the opponents. The trio finished 1-2-3 in +/- rating, with Lindholm dragging his career number back into the black with a +61. While his linemates have a lot of impact on that overall success, the 27-year-old came into his own as a shutdown center, and also logged more short-handed ice time than any other Flames forward.

It always comes back to Bergeron though, who is now a Selke finalist for the 11th season in a row. Now 36, some would have expected his game to take a step backward at some point, but that wasn’t this season. The Bruins captain had one of the (if not the) best defensive seasons of his career, completely smothering the opponent whenever he was on the ice. Winning more than 60% of his draws for the fifth time in his career, dominating possession even more than in previous years, and actually setting a career-high with 78 hits, Bergeron will be tough to beat again this season.

With four Selke wins in the past, Bergeron has a chance to pass Bob Gainey and become the all-time leader with five trophies should he take it home this year. Barkov could become just the tenth player to win more than one.

Mason Marchment Unlikely To Be Available For Start Of Tampa Bay Series

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  • Panthers winger Mason Marchment is unlikely to be available for the start of their series-opener against Tampa Bay, relays David Wilson of the Miami Herald. The 26-year-old had a career year as a secondary scorer, notching 18 goals and 29 assists in just 54 games while also averaging two hits per game which made him a key part of Florida’s bottom six.  He missed the last two games with an unspecified injury and there’s no word on how much longer he might be out.  Meanwhile, interim head coach Andrew Brunette indicated that defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Ben Chiarot will be ready to start the season after being banged up in the final game of the Washington series.

Carter Verhaeghe A Game-Time Decision

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If the Florida Panthers are able to advance to the second round for the first time since 1996 (and only second time ever), Carter Verhaeghe might be the series MVP. The 26-year-old forward has ten points through the first five games, including five in the team’s come-from-behind game five victory. Unfortunately, with the Panthers looking to eliminate the Washington Capitals tonight, Verhaeghe may not be in the lineup. He’s a game-time decision according to head coach Andrew Brunette.

Mason Marchment Out For Game 6 Against Capitals

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  • The Florida Panthers announced, per head coach Andrew Brunette, that forward Mason Marchment will not be available when Florida takes on the Washington Capitals in Game 6 tomorrow night (link). The forward had been dealing with a previous injury and was considered a game-time decision for Game 5, a game that he ultimately did not play in. Seeing Marchment move from a game-time decision for Game 5 to being ruled out a day ahead of Game 6 is surely a concern for Florida, as the 26-year-old has provided excellent secondary scoring with a physical game to go along with it, putting up 18 goals and 29 assists in 54 games this season.

14 Teams Face Bonus Overages For 2022-23

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In the flat cap world, nearly every team in the league is dealing with situations that require every last dollar under the ceiling. More than half the league was using long-term injured reserve relief at some point this season, a decision that sometimes comes with some attached risk. One of those risks is the performance bonuses from entry-level contracts, which can cause overage penalties if achieved by the end of the season, should the team not have the cap space to fit them in. Those penalties are then applied to the following season’s cap, meaning they have less room to work with moving forward.

CapFriendly has calculated the overage penalties for the entire league, finding 14 of 32 teams that will face them next year. Notably, these penalties lower the cap ceiling for a team and therefore cannot be covered up by going into long-term injured relief again. The penalties are as follows:

Carolina Hurricanes: $112,500
Chicago Blackhawks: $237,500
Colorado Avalanche: $25,000
Dallas Stars: $675,000
Edmonton Oilers: $896,000
Florida Panthers: $637,500
Los Angeles Kings: $637,500
Montreal Canadiens: $1,132,500
New York Islanders $245,796
Philadelphia Flyers: $295,000
St. Louis Blues: $1,000,000*
Toronto Maple Leafs: $212,500
Vancouver Canucks: $1,250,000
Washington Capitals: $100,000

*Can still increase

Details on how each number was reached can be found on CapFriendly’s Twitter thread but the vast majority are from Schedule A performance bonuses for time on ice and games played. While some would argue that it is worth the penalty, as it means a young player has been a strong contributor, it can also be quite impactful moving forward. The Oilers, for instance, are facing a cap charge of nearly $900K, significantly more than the league minimum salary. It could very well mean they aren’t able to carry the maximum of 23 skaters for at least parts of next season while they are still trying to compete, thanks to the bonuses owed to Evan Bouchard this year.

It’s the Islanders that are perhaps the most interesting case since they did not finish in LTIR relief and in fact, were more than $2MM under the $81.5MM ceiling at the end of the year. While most of the other bonuses were on entry-level contracts, theirs included games played bonuses for Zach Parise, Zdeno Chara, and Andy Greene. That means despite being well out of the race, the Islanders will have a little less room to work with next season.

The Blues meanwhile could still face an additional overage, as their penalty is based on the bonuses given to Tyler Bozak. He can still earn $100K if the Blues win the first round and another $150K if they win the second round, which each would also be applied to next year’s cap.

Aaron Ekblad To Return For Florida Panthers

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The Florida Panthers kick off their first-round series against the Washington Capitals this evening, and it’s nothing but good news at the morning skate. Head coach Andrew Brunette confirmed to reporters including Katie Gaus of BALLY Sports that Aaron Ekblad will make his long-awaited return to the lineup tonight. Mason Marchment will also be in the lineup after missing the last game of the regular season.

Ekblad, 26, may very well have been in the conversation for the Norris Trophy had he played the entire season. The 2014 first-overall pick put together the best offensive year of his career, scoring 15 goals and 57 points in just 61 games. Those numbers came in nearly 25 minutes a night, as he looked completely recovered from the head and neck injuries that had really hampered his career in years past.

Unfortunately, on his first shift of a game against the Anaheim Ducks in mid-March, Ekblad collided with teammate Aleksander Barkov and was forced to leave with a lower-body injury. He did not return, meaning his chase of 20 goals and a point-per-game season will have to wait.

Now, after more than a month on the shelf, he’ll return just in time for the Panthers.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

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