Evening Notes: Kane, Motte, Chartier, Ovechkin
Earlier today, The Athletic’s Mark Lazerus wrote a piece comparing and contrasting the position the Chicago Blackhawks are in as compared to the Nashville Predators. Lazerus advocated that Chicago’s position, in the depths of a full-scale rebuild, was more enviable than the Predators, who have several large contracts on the books for years to come, preventing them from building on it, while the team’s core hasn’t had much playoff success. As compelling as Lazerus’ article was, another interesting element was who he chose to talk to on these thoughts: Blackhawks superstar Patrick Kane.
Lazerus discusses the idea with Kane, stating the winger has “‘future general manager’ written all over him.” Kane’s response to that sentiment was rather intriguing as well, telling Lazerus he might be interested in something in the front office down the road, but once retirement comes around, he’d like to focus on being a dad and give his partner, Amanda, a break. That, presumably, is still a ways away for the 34-year-old, who is still playing elite level hockey and is expected to be an expensive asset at this year’s trade deadline, and again on this summer’s free agent market. Should he stick with Chicago and work his way up in their front office, an on-ice legend becoming GM not only wouldn’t be unheard of, but in today’s NHL would put him along some of the best executives in the game, including Joe Sakic and Steve Yzerman.
- The Ottawa Senators enjoyed an exciting game this evening against the Washington Capitals, even if they did wind up losing in overtime, but it unfortunately came at an even greater cost. The team lost forward Tyler Motte in the first period to an upper-body injury, and just moments later, forward Rourke Chartier was forced to leave the game, also with an upper-body injury. Overall, Ottawa did well for itself this evening considering they were forced to play down two men for a majority of the game. Now their attention will towards both injured players moving forward. Motte, a strong two-way player, has nine points through 31 games this season while Chartier was playing in just his sixth NHL game of the season. The Senators will have some extra time to deal with their injuries, tomorrow’s game cancelled amid a poor weather forecast, next playing December 27th.
- Alex Ovechkin has hit another impressive milestone. It wasn’t the one most fans were hoping for this evening, just one goal behind Gordie Howe for second all-time. However, with his sixth shot this evening, the legendary forward passed Hall of Fame defenseman Ray Bourque for most shots-on-goal all-time. Bourque previously held the record with 6,209 shots on goal. Considering Ovechkin is still motoring on as good as he’s ever been, and each shot being a new record, time will merely tell if his final number is a record even remotely breakable.
Washington Capitals Activate Alexander Alexeyev
According to NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti, the Washington Capitals have activated defenseman Alexander Alexeyev off of IR today. The defenseman is listed as a healthy scratch for tonight’s game against the Ottawa Senators. The Capitals haven’t formally announced the transaction, however Alexeyev is listed as healthy on the team’s roster page.
Alexeyev landed on IR back on December 11th with an upper-body injury, the recipient of an illegal hit from Jamie Oleksiak of the Seattle Kraken. Oleksiak was suspended three games for the hit.
The defenseman has played sparingly this season, having dealt with a pair of injuries, opening the season on IR. Alexeyev made his season debut on November 9th. He wouldn’t play again for nearly a month, but played four consecutive games prior to suffering this injury. In five NHL games this year, Alexeyev has one point, an assist, which was the first of his NHL career. The 24-year-old played four AHL games this season as well, recording an assist in the process there too.
Los Angeles Kings Activate Brendan Lemieux
The Los Angeles Kings have gotten a player back from injury, as forward Brendan Lemieux has been activated off of injured reserve.
Lemieux has missed the Kings’ last 23 games with a lower-body injury. Lemieux has played in 15 games this season and scored three points to go along with 28 minutes spent in the box.
Adding Lemieux back to their active roster gives the Kings a player from what now seems to be a dying breed across the NHL. While Lemieux has flashed some offensive touch in the past (he scored 43 points in 51 AHL games in 2017-18) his time playing in the NHL has established him as one of the league’s few pure agitators.
Lemieux’s calling card is getting under his opponent’s skin, disrupting their control over a game, and playing with the sort of energy and physicality that would make any opponent fear facing his line on a shift. As more and more NHL clubs decide they don’t need to devote a roster spot to a player with such a relatively limited package of tools, players like Lemieux are becoming rarer and rarer across the NHL.
But Kings coach Todd McLellan has deemed Lemieux an important piece in the team’s bottom six, and with this activation, Lemieux will have a chance to return to his spot there.
And even while players like Lemieux seem to be becoming more of a rare sight in this modern NHL, the Kings do happen to stand second in the Pacific Division, making it somewhat difficult to criticize McLellan’s decisions regarding his lineup.
Rasmus Sandin Placed On Injured Reserve
After suffering a neck injury in the Toronto Maple Leafs last game, Rasmus Sandin has been moved to injured reserve. Head coach Sheldon Keefe explained yesterday that the team would be re-evaluating him after the Christmas break, meaning a stint on IR doesn’t necessarily mean he will be out long-term. Sandin must miss at least seven days but the Maple Leafs don’t play again until December 27 after today’s afternoon match with the Philadelphia Flyers.
In his place, the team has recalled Mac Hollowell from the minor leagues. The 24-year-old Hollowell played six games with the team earlier this season when they were dealing with a number of injuries on defense, and has been excellent in the minor leagues with 10 points in 13 games for the Toronto Marlies.
Unfortunately for Hollowell, the team also recently activated Jordie Benn, who will slide into Sandin’s spot in the lineup today. The club is still without Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin, Victor Mete, and Carl Dahlstrom, but has still shown a strong defensive ability. Toronto sits second in goals against on the year, having allowed just 79 in 33 games.
Part of that success has been the strong play of Sandin, who has regularly gone over 20 minutes of ice time in the absence of Rielly. The 22-year-old was selected 29th overall in 2018 and has played 121 regular season games so far in his career.
Tim Stutzle Could Return For Ottawa Senators
After missing the last few games with a shoulder injury, Tim Stutzle is expected to return to the Ottawa Senators lineup tonight according to Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia. After practice, head coach D.J. Smith wouldn’t commit and explained that Stutzle will be a game-time decision after taking warm-up. Artem Zub and Joshua Norris were also both on the ice today in non-contact jerseys as they make their way back.
Stutzle, 20, was off to a great start to the season when he went down on December 12 after just four shifts against the Anaheim Ducks. Prior to that, he scored 27 points in 27 games, the start of a breakout campaign for the third-year man. It’s not that Stutzle had been bad as a rookie or sophomore, far from it. But this year he looked like a game-changing presence every night, carrying the play and establishing himself as one of the top young talents in the league.
Given the Senators’ spot in the standings, they could certainly use him. Ottawa is eighth in the Atlantic Division, 11 points behind the Tampa Bay Lightning for that coveted third spot they were hoping to challenge for. Things haven’t gone exactly according to plan, though things are turning around of late.
The Senators are now 6-3-1 in their last ten and should get some more reinforcements next month when Norris is expected to return.
Should he return, Stutzle will jump right back into the middle of the top line between Brady Tkachuk and Claude Giroux to try and crack a two-game losing streak against the Washington Capitals.
Yegor Chinakhov Out Six Weeks
12/21/22: We now have some more clarity on Chinakhov’s injury and the timeline related to his recovery process. The Blue Jackets have announced that Chinakhov suffered a high ankle sprain in Monday’s game against the Dallas Stars, an injury that will cause him to miss approximately six weeks.
Chinakhov, the 21st overall pick at the 2020 draft, had been having a solid sophomore NHL season. While the Blue Jackets in general have struggled mightily, Chinakhov’s 13 points put him just one point behind his total production from last season. This year, though, he has scored those 13 points in 30 games, while last year it took him 62 games to score 14.
Needless to say, this high ankle sprain is an unwelcome development for the Blue Jackets. But the team can, at the very least, be encouraged by his progress on the ice so far this year as they monitor his injury recovery process.
12/20/22: It’s hard to believe just how many Columbus Blue Jackets players have suffered serious injuries this season but the list just keeps getting longer. Today, Yegor Chinakhov was moved to injured reserve with an ankle injury. Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reports that the young forward will get an MRI later today but is expected to be out of the lineup for a while.
Elvis Merzlikins is also dealing with an illness, meaning Jet Greaves has been recalled under emergency conditions and will serve as the backup tonight for Daniil Tarasov.
Chinakhov, 21, joins an injured reserve list that could nearly be a full NHL roster. Jakub Voracek, Boone Jenner, Jake Bean, Joonas Korpisalo, Justin Danforth, Nick Blankenburg, Zach Werenski, and Adam Boqvist are already out, while Cole Sillinger is dealing with a more minor injury.
Already in last place in the Eastern Conference and on a four-game losing streak, the Blue Jackets look like prime contenders for a lottery pick next summer.
Chris Tanev Activated From Injured Reserve
The Calgary Flames are getting a key part of their defensive structure back, activating Chris Tanev from injured reserve after he missed the minimum of seven days. To make room on the roster, Radim Zohorna has been loaned back to the AHL.
Tanev, 33 (today!), was injured blocking a shot against the Montreal Canadiens last week and missed games against the Vancoouver Canucks, St. Louis Blues, and San Jose Sharks. The scary situation saw him fall to the ice motionless when it struck him in the head, before eventually being taken to the hospital. After all of the following tests came back negative, he was cleared return to the team.
The Flames went 1-1-1 in the games he missed and will certainly welcome back their defensive rock to the lineup for the rematch against San Jose this evening.
The veteran hasn’t been quite the player he was last season when he set a career-high with 28 points and received Norris Trophy votes, but Tanev is still a huge part of what head coach Darryl Sutter tries to do. There is no one on the Flames that kills more penalty time than Tanev, who is averaging more than three minutes a night shorthanded.
Calgary’s penalty kill is still ranked ninth in the league but has dropped down without him, as opponents converted on three of the 11 opportunities since he was placed on injured reserve.
The team remains just barely under the salary cap, meaning these short-term injuries can be quite difficult to deal with. Getting Tanev back so quickly was crucial, especially with Dennis Gilbert‘s own injury taking him out of the lineup.
Luke Kunin Undergoes ACL Surgery
The San Jose Sharks will be without Luke Kunin for the rest of the 2022-23 season after he underwent successful ACL repair surgery today. The injury happened a week ago against the Arizona Coyotes. In a statement, the Sharks included an estimated recovery timeline of six to eight months.
San Jose has recalled C.J. Suess from the AHL ahead of tonight’s game against the Calgary Flames.
Kunin, 25, had been good for the Sharks this year, scoring five goals and 13 points while continuing the physical style that he embraced last season.
Signed to a new two-year, $5.5MM contract in the summer, Kunin will at least have some financial security to fall back on now that he heads into a long recovery period. He’ll make $3MM next season and be due an equal qualifying offer in the summer of 2024 as an RFA.
Interestingly, Kunin might actually have been a potential deadline target for clubs looking to add some depth to their lineup. Given his relatively low cap hit of $2.75MM and the fact that the Sharks are going to have to eventually accept a rebuild, he would have been an attractive option. That story will have to wait for next year’s deadline now – if it is told at all.
Evening Notes: White, Subban, Chinakhov
The Anaheim Ducks announced earlier this evening that defenseman Colton White has been sent to the San Diego Gulls, their AHL affiliate, for a conditioning loan. Unlike most conditioning loans in the minors where the player is either too young to be sent to the AHL otherwise (think Shane Wright and Brandt Clarke recently) or where the player is coming off injury, the 25-year-old White is AHL eligible and has been playing, suiting up as recently as Saturday’s game against the Edmonton Oilers.
For White, the defenseman has been playing somewhat sparingly this season, getting into just 16 of 32 games, not spending any time on IR. By going to the AHL, the defenseman should have an opportunity to play regularly and see top-end minutes during each game of the loan. Through those 16 games, White has just one point, an assist. White had spent his entire career in the New Jersey Devils organization before signing a two-year, two-way contract with Anaheim this summer.
- The Montreal Canadiens will be paying homage to one of their greats later this season, honoring the recently-retired P.K. Subban in a pregame ceremony on January 12th before the team takes on another of Subban’s former teams, the Nashville Predators. The former Norris Trophy winner spent his first seven seasons with the Canadiens before an infamous 2016 trade sent him to Nashville in a one-for-one swap with Shea Weber. Three years later, Nashville dealt Subban to the New Jersey Devils where he finished out his career. Subban ultimately retired this summer after hitting the free agent market.
- It would seem as though the injury issues simply couldn’t get any worse for the Columbus Blue Jackets, but on top of this morning’s news that captain Boone Jenner would require surgery, forward Yegor Chinakhov was forced to leave this evening’s game against the Dallas Stars with a lower-body injury. The forward will not return, the team announced. The injury happened early on in the game, Chinakhov colliding with a Stars player and leaving the ice gingerly. At this point, the compounding injuries do little to change things for the reeling Blue Jackets, however the silver lining to them was the ability to get young players like Chinakhov, a 2020 first-round pick, some quality minutes and opportunities. For now, Columbus will have to hold its breath that this injury won’t keep the young forward out for too long.
Buffalo Sabres Activate Ilya Lyubushkin
The Buffalo Sabres are activating defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin ahead of tonight’s game, putting him right into the lineup. Lyubushkin hasn’t played since November 28th while dealing with an undisclosed injury. In a corresponding move, the team announced that defenseman Jeremy Davies has been returned on loan to the Rochester Americans, their AHL affiliate.
A key veteran and quality shutdown defenseman, the Sabres have surely missed Lyubushkin’s steady presence in their lineup. Though Lyubushkin doesn’t play top minutes for the Sabres, averaging just 15:24 time-on-ice this season, his 76% of defensive zone starts show just how much Buffalo trusts him in their own end.
As for Davies, the former New Jersey Devils prospect got into just one game ont his recall, his only NHL contest of the season, which came this Saturday. He’ll return to Rochester where he’s been a steady piece of their blueline amid a season of injuries and recalls affecting the entire Sabres organization. With Rochester, Davies has five points in 19 games to start the season.