Snapshots: Byron, Team Canada, Perbix
Paul Byron can’t catch a break. The veteran forward has been limited to just 26 games this season due to injury. While many of these absences came while Byron was recovering from hip surgery, he has continued to be in and out of the lineup ever since he returned. The Montreal Canadiens announced that he was returning to the lineup on Tuesday night – but the return was short-lived. Less than two periods into the game, the Habs revealed that Byron has left the game and would not return due to a lower-body injury. Its unclear if this is another new injury or a reoccurrence of his hip issue. Either way, with just five games remaining in a lost season, it might be time for Montreal to simply shut Byron down for the year. Byron has one year remaining on his contract and will be back with the Canadiens in 2022-23 if he isn’t traded or bought out.
- The Canadian entry into the upcoming IIHF World Championship may look very familiar to the fans of a Canadian NHL team. Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun writes that Senators head coach D.J. Smith, who will be an assistant for Team Canada, has recruited several of his star players to join the tournament. If healthy, Drake Batherson, Connor Brown, and Thomas Chabot will suit up for Canada. Health is a question though; Chabot is currently on the injured reserve with a fractured hand and Batherson and Brown have both missed time due to injury this season and may not rush to play extra games if those issues flare up.
- Another notable name has entered the NCAA Transfer Portal. Defenseman Jack Perbix, an Anaheim Ducks fourth-round pick in 2018, is leaving the University of Minnesota. Most would have expected that if Perbix was leaving the Gophers, it would be for the NHL. Older brother Nick Perbix, a Tampa Bay Lightning prospect, signed his entry level contract last month after four years at St. Cloud State University. Rather than follow suit, Jack will instead stay in college for his senior year but will don a different jersey and have a different name on his degree.
Snapshots: Horvat, Kane, Matthews
The Vancouver Canucks are steaming toward the playoffs, and they’re doing it without captain Bo Horvat, who left a game last week with a lower-body injury. Ruled out for at least two weeks, it seems he only has a chance to return this year if the Canucks do in fact come all the way back and grab a spot in the Western Conference postseason. Even if they are able to do that, his regular season ended with 31 goals in 70 games, a career-high, and a total that sets him up for quite well the summer.
Eligible for an extension in July when the calendar flips from 2021-22 to 2022-23, Horvat has just one year left on his current deal. He would be an unrestricted free agent after that and with the uncertainty surrounding the Canucks after making sweeping changes to the front office, it wasn’t clear if a new contract would be on the table. Today, his agent Pat Morris was on CHEK TV with Rick Dhaliwal, and explained that the Canucks management likes Horvat, and Horvat loves Vancouver and would like to stay. The two sides will “talk when the time is right,” suggesting no negotiations have taken place to this point. While the focus for everyone is on the playoff chase, things in Vancouver will quickly turn to the future if they aren’t able to secure a position in the postseason.
- Evander Kane‘s grievance hearing with the league over his contract termination began this morning, according to Darren Dreger of TSN. The Edmonton Oilers forward is away from the team for a few days while he deals with this grievance, which is fighting the process which the San Jose Sharks used to terminate the more than $22MM that remained on his seven-year contract. The decision is not expected for some time and will likely have no impact on his current contract status with the Oilers, regardless of the outcome.
- The league’s leading goal scorer will have to wait for a chance to chase 60, as Auston Matthews is still not playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs this evening, despite feeling “really good” according to head coach Sheldon Keefe, who spoke with reporters including Mark Masters of TSN. The Maple Leafs are obviously more concerned about their first-round playoff matchup than individual performance records, as they still haven’t advanced in the postseason since 2004. Matthews still leads in the Rocket Richard race, four ahead of Leon Draisaitl in second place.
Jakob Chychrun, Christian Fischer Will Not Return This Season
The Arizona Coyotes have six games remaining in the regular season to secure last place and the top odds for the 2022 draft lottery. They sit two points behind the Montreal Canadiens and have lost seven in a row, though at least part of those struggles has been because of a swathe of injuries. Two more players have now been ruled out for the rest of the year, as Craig Morgan of PHNX Sports tweets that both Jakob Chychrun and Christian Fischer will not return in 2021-22. Among the Coyotes’ injured players, only Antoine Roussel and Liam O’Brien have a chance of returning, according to Morgan.
Chychrun, 24, will once again be a target of headline writers across the hockey world this summer. The young defenseman was on the trading block for most of the year, but the Coyotes decided to hold on after not getting the offers they were looking for. His last game of the season was on March 12, when he exited a match against the Boston Bruins after less than six minutes of ice time.
While there’s not much to play for in the desert and losing is actually arguably more beneficial at the moment, Chychrun’s recent absence will do nothing to change the perception of him as an oft-injured risk. Through six full seasons in the NHL he has played just 337 game, an average of just over 56 per year (two of those seasons have been shortened by COVID-19) and he will finish with just 47 this time around. He actually had been playing the best hockey of the season just before going down, recording five goals and ten points in the six games preceding his injury.
Now he enters an uncertain offseason with three more years on his contract, and an organization that seems committed to a long rebuild. As one of the team’s biggest assets, Chychrun could still bring back a number of future pieces, but it’s unclear who exactly will be willing to pay the high price that general manager Bill Armstrong has set. Earlier this season reporting surfaced that the team was looking for three top assets–obviously, a price that was never met.
Fischer too faces an uncertain future in the desert. The 25-year-old forward has never been able to replicate the 15-goal, 33-point rookie season he had in 2017-18 and finishes this year with just five goals and ten points in 53 appearances. He now has just 43 goals in his 318-game career, and has settled into a depth role in the bottom six. A restricted free agent this offseason he will be eligible for salary arbitration and could be another piece moved out of town, should the team feel as though he’s not part of the long-term future.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Snapshots: Three Stars, Andersen, Smith
The NHL has released its Three Stars for last week, with the top spot belonging to Vladimir Tarasenko of the St. Louis Blues. It’s been an incredible return to form for Tarasenko this season, after multiple shoulder surgeries had clouded his NHL future. After requesting a trade and going unclaimed by the expansion Seattle Kraken, he returned to the Blues with a renewed vigor and has posted the best offensive season of his career, with 76 points in 69 games. That includes 11 points just last week, as he continued what is now a six-game point streak.
Second and third went to Kevin Fiala and Mike Smith respectively, another two players whose futures with their current organizations looked murky not too long ago. The Minnesota Wild forward still might end up pricing himself out of the market given how well his season has gone since Matt Boldy‘s arrival. In his last 46 games, Fiala has 25 goals and 55 points, including ten last week. Smith meanwhile looked at one point like he would be out of the league entirely, but the 40-year-old netminder has turned things around of late, posting consecutive shutouts in his last two games to lengthen a personal win streak to six and raise his season save percentage to .911.
- Just as one veteran netminder turns things around, another may be out for a little while. Frederik Andersen has suffered an injury and will be re-evaluated in a week, according to Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour, who spoke to reporters including Sara Civian of The Athletic. Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic tweets that Andersen’s MRI did come back negative and there is hope he’ll be ready for the playoffs, but a timeline is not clear at this point. Andersen has been one of the league’s very best this season, posting 35 wins and a .922 through 52 appearances.
- Speaking of being back in the playoffs, Vegas Golden Knights head coach Pete DeBoer told reporters including Jesse Granger of The Athletic that if they make the postseason, he would expect Reilly Smith to return at some point. The 31-year-old Smith hasn’t played since early March and was moved to long-term injured reserve a few weeks ago. The Golden Knights, however, are no sure thing to make the playoffs at this point, as they currently sit four points behind the Nashville Predators for the final wild card spot (but only three behind Los Angeles for a divisional position).
Snapshots: Seattle, Kakko, Blues-Coyotes
The Seattle Kraken have added some famous names to their ownership group, adding Marshawn Lynch and Macklemore as minority investors. The two will “lead major Kraken and Climate Pledge Arena initiatives to connect with hockey fans, music lovers, and community members alike.” Though the on-ice results haven’t come yet for the expansion franchise, the ownership group, led by billionaire David Bonderman, have already established a strong connection to the Seattle area.
More from around the league:
- The New York Rangers have ruled Kaapo Kakko out on a week-to-week basis, following his injury against the Detroit Red Wings this weekend. The young forward had only recently returned from an upper-body injury that stole nearly three months of his season. In 41 games so far, Kakko has just 16 points, a career-low, despite averaging more ice time when he is in the lineup. Two of his seven goals came last week against the Philadelphia Flyers, suggesting he was back on the right track; he was injured the following game.
- The St. Louis Blues and Arizona Coyotes will play a preseason game in Witchita, Kansas next season, in the home of the ECHL’s Wichita Thunder. The two squads will do battle on September 24 in the 15,000-seat arena, giving a whole new fanbase a taste of NHL action. The full slate of preseason games will not be released until later this summer.
Auston Matthews, Patrik Laine Out Day-To-Day
Any injury hurts a team and a star player’s injury makes an even greater impact. However, when superstar players are sidelined, it even hurts the league itself as the on-ice product suffers. The NHL was dealt some bad news on Sunday night regarding two high-profile players, but at least their absences seems short-term. The Toronto Maple Leafs were without league-leading goal scorer Auston Matthews as they took the ice, with TSN’s Mark Masters relaying that he was out with an undisclosed “minor” injury. The Columbus Blue Jackets were in the same sport with point-per-game scorer Patrik Laine, announcing that he would miss Sunday’s game with an upper-body injury. Both players, who went No. 1 and No. 2 overall in 2016, are considered “day-to-day”.
Toronto head coach Sheldon Keefe told Masters that Matthews was held out for precautionary reasons, especially as the team played the second of a back-to-back. In fact, it was during Saturday’s game that Matthews suffered the injury. Matthews has been relatively healthy this season, only missing time due to injury for the first three games of the campaign, which has helped him reach his massive 58-goal, 102-point totals for the year. The Maple Leafs are understandably playing it safe surrounding the source of so much of their offense.
While Columbus is out of the playoff picture, the team is still rightfully careful with their skilled winger who has dealt with injury issues. Laine is quietly having a career year, recording 56 points through 56 games thus far. Had he been healthy this whole season, Laine very easily might have been on an 80+ point pace. There is no reason to rush him into action if he is dealing with an ailment, no matter how small, with the season lost. Instead, the Blue Jackets will hold out hope that Laine can stay on the ice next season and produce at the same rate.
Jeremy Lauzon Out Week-To-Week
As the Nashville Predators look to secure their spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, they will be without their major trade deadline acquisition for the near future. The team announced today that defenseman Jeremy Lauzon will not play tonight against St. Louis and is going to be out of the lineup with a lower-body injury on a week-to-week designation.
Lauzon, 24, had arrived in Nashville via a trade deadline deal with the Seattle Kraken, who acquired him from the Boston Bruins in the expansion draft. The Predators paid a second-round pick to acquire Lauzon, an indication of how highly the team valued the young blueliner as part of the team’s plans for this season and beyond. Lauzon has gotten into 13 games for the Predators since the trade, and has scored one goal, logged 14 penalty minutes, and is a +3, all while playing a touch over 17 minutes a night. The Predators are a team with enviable defensive depth and should be able to absorb this loss, but the team paid a decent price to acquire Lauzon so coach John Hynes and the rest of the Predators organization have to be hopeful that Lauzon recovers sooner rather than later.
For Lauzon, this injury is a disappointment as he may miss time in the playoffs, should Nashville make it there. Lauzon’s hard-nosed, physical style plays better in a playoff environment where officiating is less strict, so if this injury costs Lauzon time in the playoffs it will come as a missed opportunity for him. A good playoff run can greatly enhance a physical defenseman’s reputation across the league, (as the Canadiens’ run in 2021 did for Ben Chiarot) so as a pending restricted free agent with arbitration rights this injury could cost Lauzon an opportunity to enhance his case for this summer.
Snapshots: Bordeleau, Megna, Leddy
It has been a season to forget for the San Jose Sharks, but as their campaign winds down their fanbase may be treated to a night to remember. One of the team’s top prospects, Thomas Bordeleau, is set to make his NHL debut tonight in the team’s contest against the Minnesota Wild. According to coach Bob Boughner, Bordeleau will center a line with Rudolfs Balcers and Noah Gregor for his debut game.
Bordeleau, 20, has been one of San Jose’s most talented prospects since he was drafted 38th overall in 2020. As a freshman at the University of Michigan Bordeleau posted 30 points in 24 games, and this season he had 37 points in 37 games on a stacked Wolverines squad. Bordeleau’s professional career has gotten off to a decent start, with three points in two AHL games, and with the Sharks’ offensive issues in recent games Sharks fans have to hope that Bordeleau’s debut can add a spark to their team.
- In another update for the Sharks, defenseman Jaycob Megna will be out for the game against the Wild (and perhaps even longer) after taking a puck to the head in the Sharks’ game against the Stars last night, The Athletic’s Corey Masisiak relays. Megna, 29, has been an NHL-AHL tweener for most of his nine-year professional career, although he has set a career-high in games played this season, getting into 37 ties for the Sharks.
- The St. Louis Blues’ major trade deadline acquisition Nick Leddy had an injury scare on Saturday, leaving the game after being cut under the eye against the Wild. Today, Blues head coach Craig Berube issued an update on his situation, stating that he is “feeling better” but still is unable to play in tonight’s game. The Blues have serious intentions of going on a playoff run, so it will be important for Leddy to return to the lineup. As it stands with this update, it appears that Leddy’s injury will not be a major setback.
Central Notes: Leddy, Wild, Meyers
There was good news and bad news today for the St. Louis Blues. The good news was the team clinched a playoff spot with a 6-5 overtime win over the Minnesota Wild. The bad news was defenseman Nick Leddy taking a high stick near his eye, causing him to leave the game. The Athletic’s Jeremy Rutherford spoke to Blues’ Head Coach Craig Berube, who said that the incident had blurred Leddy’s vision and he is not expected to play tomorrow against the Nashville Predators.
With the Blues clinching today, the need to have Leddy in the lineup is not so pressing, however the team paid a hefty price to acquire the defenseman, who is rich with playoff experience, to use down the stretch and in the playoffs. Berube did not appear to be overly concerned about this injury, however any time an injury involving a player’s vision comes into question, it can be scary, not only for their playing career, but their life away from the rink too.
- The Athletic’s Michael Russo provided several updates on the Minnesota Wild, per Head Coach Dean Evason. Most notably, Tyson Jost, who took a big hit from Pavel Buchnevich earlier today, will not play tomorrow against the San Jose Sharks for precautionary reasons. Evason also notes that defenseman Jon Merrill is still out of the lineup going forward, having not played since March 31st with an upper-body injury. In more positive news for the Wild, Evason says that forward Jordan Greenway has started skating and star defenseman Mathew Dumba is getting closer to return as well.
- The Colorado Avalanche announced that forward Ben Meyers will make his NHL debut tonight as the Avalanche take on the Carolina Hurricanes at home. Colorado signed the undrafted college free agent earlier this week after his season at the University of Minnesota had come to an end at the hands of Minnesota State. A finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, Meyers figures to provide solid scoring depth for a deep, talented Avalanche team as they head into the playoffs. Avalanche Head Coach Jared Bednar said he plans to have Meyers center Andrew Cogliano and Logan O’Connor in tonight’s game.
Snapshots: Orlov, Toropchenko, Athanasiou, LaCombe
6:03 pm: Orlov will be in the lineup tonight for the Capitals.
4:36 pm: According to the Athletic’s Tarik El-Bashir, Washington Capitals defenseman Dmitry Orlov could return to the lineup tonight in Montreal against the Canadiens (Tweet Link). Capitals’ Head Coach Peter Laviolette told El-Bashir that he hopes Orlov will be in the lineup tonight, but did not appear certain on the issue. Orlov has missed two games with a lower-body injury, last playing on April 10th.
Getting the veteran Orlov back in the lineup will certainly be a boost for the Capitals as they look to finish their season strong, and potentially catch the Boston Bruins in the first Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference, or the Pittsburgh Penguins for third place in the Metropolitan Division, five points back of either, and with three games in hand on Pittsburgh. Orlov has long been a staple of Washington’s defense and locker room, and his presence could have a strong impact as the team plays important games from here on.
- As the Capitals may get Orlov back, the Blues are going to be without forward Alexey Toropchenko, at least for today’s game against the Minnesota Wild, reports Tom Timmermann of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Toropchenko was injured Thursday when he took a puck in the leg in the Blues’ game against the Buffalo Sabres. Fortunately for St. Louis, Toropchenko appears only to be day-to-day, so he should be able to return soon for the Blues down the stretch of the season. Forward Dakota Joshua took Toropchenko’s place in the lineup against Minnesota Saturday.
- The Los Angeles Kings announced that they have activated forward Andreas Athanasiou ahead of tonight’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets at home. Athanasiou’s return to the lineup is impactful for the Kings, as they deal with injuries while trying to hang on to playoff position in the Pacific Division. The forward has played in just 22 games this season, dealing with injuries, last playing March 10th, but he does own an impressive nine goals and five assists in that time.
- The University of Minnesota announced that All-American defenseman Jackson LaCombe would be staying with the Gophers for next season, his fourth and final of NCAA eligibility. LaCombe was the Anaheim Ducks second round selection, 39th overall, in 2019, and would be eligible to become a free agent after this coming season if he chooses not to sign with Anaheim. While that is clearly of-note on LaCombe, it’s not yet apparent if that is of concern to Anaheim. LaCombe’s return could easily be a bit of unfinished business with Minnesota, much the same as it is for Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Matthew Knies, who is also returning to the Gophers. Minnesota lost in the semifinals of the Frozen Four to Minnesota State, who was then defeated by the University of Denver in the final. In three years on Minnesota’s blueline, LaCombe has 10 goals and 54 assists in 103 games.