Atlantic Division Transactions/Injuries
The Buffalo Sabres, already without two of their top defensemen, will now also be without veteran blue liner Josh Gorges for what head coach Dan Bylsma says will be “weeks,” tweets Joe Yerdon of NHL.com. Gorges suffered a non-displaced fracture in his foot and according to Yerdon was seen in a walking boot yesterday.
The Sabres have been without the services of Zach Bogosian and Dmitry Kulikov since early November, weakening a blue line not considered to be particularly deep to begin with. Bogosian has missed a month with a sprained MCL while Kulikov has been out for three weeks due to an undisclosed injury. However, Yerdon reports that Kulikov is now considered day-to-day, suggesting he could return to the lineup relatively soon.
The Sabres are calling Taylor Fedun questionable for tomorrow’s game and if he can’t go, the team will have to call up a defender from Rochester of the AHL. Speculatively, Casey Nelson, who already has made eight appearances for Buffalo this season, could be the choice if a recall is necessarily.
(Buffalo Depth Cart – courtesy of Roster Resource)
- The Florida Panthers announced that they have recalled forward Paul Thompson from Springfield of the AHL. Thompson leads Springfield in several offensive categories including: goals (six); assists (nine); points (15); power play goals (three) and; shots on goal (64). He has appeared in 20 contests so far this season for the Thunderbirds. Thompson, 28, has just three NHL games of experience under his belt, all coming last season with New Jersey, and has yet to record a point. George Richards of the Miami Herald reports that Thompson’s recall was necessitated by an injury to Jonathan Marchessault last night in Ottawa.
Avalanche Lose Erik Johnson For 6 – 8 Weeks
It appears to be going from bad to worse in Denver as the Colorado Avalanche, already dead last in the league with just 19 points, will now have to manage without their best defenseman for 6 – 8 weeks, writes Rick Sadowski of NHL.com. Erik Johnson suffered a broken fibula during the second period of the team’s 3 – 0 shutout loss to Dallas Saturday night.
Johnson, the top overall draft selection in the 2006 draft, has tallied 11 points in 23 games for the Avalanche this season. He is tied with Tyson Barrie for the scoring lead among the team’s blue line core while his 10 helpers lead the club. Johnson also ranks just behind Barrie in ice time, averaging over 22 minutes per game.
First-year bench boss Jared Bednar had been using the nine-year veteran defender on the team’s top pairing with Fedor Tyutin, according to Sadowski. However Tyutin missed Saturday’s game with a lower-body injury and is questionable to play in the team’s next game.
Avalanche GM Joe Sakic has already been dealing with questions regarding the logic of keeping his core group of players together and now has to address how best to replace his #1 defenseman. With just $1.3MM in available cap space, it’s unlikely he’ll be able to add a significant player via trade, even if one was available this early in the season. It’s possible the team will have to manage with internal options for the time being, further dampening their postseason chances.
It’s possible the team will recall Cody Goloubef from San Antonio of the AHL. Goloubef was acquired last week in a deal with Columbus involving fellow blue liner Ryan Stanton. Like Johnson, Goloubef is a right-handed shot and he also brings 96 games of NHL experience to the table.
Metro Division Snapshots: Williams, Calvert, Di Pauli
Now in the midst of his 16th NHL campaign, Washington Capitals winger Justin Williams has carved out a solid career as an excellent two-way player that excels at driving possession and one who is a proven playoff performer. In more than 1,000 regular season contests, Williams has tallied 251 goals with 387 assists while compiling a Corsi For % of better than 57%. Despite his past success, Williams finds himself mired in a deep slump this season, though as Isabelle Khurshudyan writes, the three-time Stanley Cup winner is trying to stay positive.
On the season, Williams has potted just two goals and four points in 22 games for the Capitals; a scoring pace which if maintained would result in the lowest full-season output of his career. But even at 35, it’s likely Williams still has enough gas in the tank to turn his season around. Last year, Williams tallied 22 goals and 52 points, totals which suggest there should be plenty of quality hockey left.
Khurdshudyan notes that Williams’ season to date can be summarized by a sequence during the Capitals recent tilt against the Islanders. Late in the first frame, Williams appeared to cash in on a cross-ice feed from Evgeny Kuznetsov but replays showed the puck crossed the line just after time expired in the period.
Williams’ struggles can be attributed at least in part to a shooting percentage well off his career rate. For his career, Williams has found the back of the net on 9.3% of his shots on goal. To this point in the campaign his success rate is just 4.1%. Williams is still generating shots near his career average – 2.64 per to 2.22 – which reinforces the belief that it’s likely just a matter of time before the veteran winger starts putting the biscuit in the basket again with regular frequency.
Elsewhere in the Metro Division:
- The Columbus Blue Jackets announced that they have activated veteran checking winger Matt Calvert from IR. Calvert, who had missed the past five contests with an upper-body injury, has two goals and three points in 17 appearances for the Blue Jackets this season. Rob Mixer, who covers the Jackets for the team’s official website, adds that Calvert is likely going to be in the lineup tomorrow night when Columbus travels to Arizona to take on the Coyotes.
- Pittsburgh Penguins prospect Thomas Di Pauli underwent back surgery today and is expected to miss up to 12 weeks, according to a tweet from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins official Twitter account. Di Pauli signed with the club as a college free agent this summer, spurning overtures by the Washington Capitals, the team that originally drafted the young center in the fourth-round of the 2012 draft. In his first pro campaign, Di Pauli has just one point, a goal, in eight games.
Atlantic Division Snapshots: Yzerman, Beleskey, Bjugstad, Bibeau
The Tampa Bay Lightning entered the 2016-17 campaign as a popular pick to emerge from the Eastern Conference to compete for the Stanley Cup championship. While it’s still relatively early, Lightning GM Steve Yzerman is concerned with the team’s inconsistent play, though as Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times writes, that concern is tempered by calm.
Entering tonight’s home contest against Washington, the Lightning boast a record of just 13 – 11 – 1 through their first 25 games and currently reside in fourth place in the Atlantic, seven points behind first place Montreal. If the postseason was to start today, Tampa would be on the outside looking in, one point behind the Capitals for the final wild card spot though Washington has played three fewer games. Despite their standing and the fact the team has lost four in a row, Yzerman is not interested in making a move simply to “shake things up.”
“If there’s an opportunity to make us a better team, I’m certainly willing to explore it. But I like our team. I like the character of our players. We’re very careful of the type of person we bring in and which players we move out. That isn’t going to change.”
The trouble of late, according to Yzerman, has been the team’s lackluster play in their own zone. As Smith notes, Tampa Bay has given up 19 goals over the last four games; a figure which could have been higher if not for the quality play of the team’s net minders.
It’s easy to understand Yzerman’s hesitation to try to solve the team’s problems via the trade market. At this point so few teams have the available salary cap space necessary to make more than minor deals.
If they do decide a deal is in order either at or near the trade deadline, the Lightning do have an appealing asset to market in goaltender Ben Bishop. Bishop, who has been a Vezina Trophy finalist twice in the last three seasons, is in the final year of his contract. With Andrei Vasilevskiy inking a three-year contract extension over the summer and presumably the team’s future starter, the Lightning could move Bishop to address other areas of need.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic Division:
- Matt Beleskey of the Boston Bruins was knocked out of this afternoon’s game against Buffalo after absorbing a heavy hit from Sabres blue liner Taylor Fedun, writes Joe Haggerty of CSNNE. Beleskey suffered the lower-body injury late in the first period and his return was ruled out by the team soon thereafter. The gritty forward was a big-ticket free agent signing in the summer of 2015, inking a five-year, $19MM pact with Boston. This season he has struggled, scoring just two goals in 23 games for the Bruins.
- Struggling to find their way on the ice and having already relieved head coach Gerard Gallant of his duties, the Florida Panthers, under new bench boss Tom Rowe continue to tinker with the lineup in an effort to find some consistency. With Nick Bjugstad returning recently from injury, the team tried lining him up on the right side, instead of at his customary pivot position, to try to ease him back into the lineup. But after five games – and zero points for the 6-foot-6 center – Bjugstad is moving back to the middle, where Rowe feels he will be “more comfortable,” as Harvey Fialkov writes. Currently two points behind Washington for the second wild card slot in the East, Florida needs to improve their play if they want to qualify for the postseason for the second consecutive campaign and a return to normal production from Bjugstad would be a big help in that regard.
- Finally, with starting net minder Frederik Andersen battling an undisclosed illness and unable to practice yesterday, the Toronto Maple Leafs have recalled Antoine Bibeau from the AHL on an emergency basis, according to Mike Augello (Twitter link). Elliotte Friedman adds that while Andersen is still expected to play, the team wanted certainty just in case, and with the Leafs in Vancouver to play the Canucks tonight, Toronto acted early as a precaution. Bibeau has yet to make his NHL debut and it appears unlikely he will do so tonight. While he has no big league experience, the 22-year-old goalie has appeared in 87 contests over the last three seasons with the Marlies.
Stars Place Patrick Sharp On IR
The Dallas Stars, who have battled injuries to key contributors throughout the 206-17 campaign, lost Patrick Sharp for the second time this season. The club announced today, via their official Twitter account, that they have placed the 34-year-old winger on IR retroactive to December first.
Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News adds the Stars head coach Lindy Ruff has said that Sharp is back in the concussion protocol. Sharp missed a month earlier this season with the initial head injury. In 11 games this year, Sharp has tallied just a single goal and two points while averaging better than 16:30 of ice time per game.
Now in his 14th NHL season, Sharp has netted 270 goals and 583 points in 832 NHL games. He is scheduled to be an unrestricted free agent this summer after completing the final season of a five-year deal he originally inked with Chicago. He carries a cap hit of $5.9MM and has a modified NTC which allows Sharp to block trades to 10 teams.
Ruff also said that Curtis McKenzie and Adam Cracknell will draw into the lineup tonight, tweets Heika. Cracknell has three points in 23 appearances on the campaign and hasn’t played since November 28th. He’s been a healthy scratch the last two games for Dallas. McKenzie, himself a healthy scratch for Dallas’ 6 – 2 loss to Pittsburgh on Thursday, has one goal and three points in 16 games this season.
The Stars have also been without forwards Ales Hemsky, Jiri Hudler and Mattias Janmark, among others, for much of the season to date. Veteran defenseman Johnny Oduya has spent the last two weeks on IR as well.
Oilers Place Nurse On IR, Recall Simpson
The Edmonton Oilers have placed defenseman Darnell Nurse on Injured Reserve (IR) and recalled Dillon Simpson from their AHL affiliate in Bakersfield.
It’s not clear what is wrong with Nurse, who hasn’t missed a game all season. Coach Todd McLellan told the media Nurse will be out long-term with a lower-body injury suffered in the Oilers last game, a 6-3 win in Winnipeg. McLellan said GM Peter Chiarelli will update Nurse’s condition in the coming days, as is the Oilers custom with serious injuries.
Nurse played 70 seconds more than his average time-on-ice in Winnipeg. He’s been much improved this season, and has five points in 25 games. Nurse struggled last season when he was forced to play top-minutes as a rookie.
Because of Nurse’s injury, the Oilers have switched up their defense pairings for tonight’s game against Anaheim. Andrej Sekera will pair with rookie Matt Benning; Oscar Klefbom and Mark Fayne will form the second pair; Kris Russell and Adam Larsson the other pair (pairs per Bob Stauffer). Simpson will serve as the seventh defenseman, with Nurse, Brandon Davidson, and Eric Gryba all on IR.
Simpson has yet to play an NHL game, but has already been called up once this season as insurance for an injured player. He has one goal in 12 games with the Condors this season. The 2011 fourth-round pick is considered an all-round player who doesn’t have one standout skill, but is just good enough at each part of the game. The Edmonton-native is the son of former Oiler and Hockey Night in Canada commentator Craig Simpson.
Corey Crawford Ill, Blackhawks To Dress Emergency Backup
12:04pm: Corey Crawford is undergoing an appendectomy at a Philadelphia hospital. Team physician Dr. Michael Terry said Crawford “presented this morning with acute appendicitis.”
The team is expecting a full recovery and return to action, and will update Crawford’s status when more is known.
11:19am: Less than an hour away from puck drop, the Blackhawks have signed Eric Semborski to an ATO. He’ll back up Scott Darling against the Flyers. The 23-year-old Semborski previously played club hockey at Temple U.
Because of the tight turnaround, Semborski will wear number 50, which is usually worn by the goalie that he’s replacing.
10:30am: The Blackhawks will be without their captain and their starting goalie when they take on the Flyers on Saturday afternoon.
Just a day after placing Jonathan Toews on IR, coach Joel Quenneville announced that Corey Crawford is ill and will miss the game. Crawford is not only too sick to start, but he’s also unable to serve as backup for Scott Darling.
With the Blackhawks on the road and the game starting at noon, their options are slim. Chris Hine of the Chicago Tribune suggests goaltending coach Jimmy Waite. Waite played 11 seasons in the NHL (eight with the Blackhawks) as a backup goalie. Waite has previously filled in at morning skates if the team is down a goalie.
The Blackhawks also play tomorrow evening at home to the Winnipeg Jets.
Red Wings Recall Nosek, Lashoff
With Justin Abdelkader sidelined for the next 2-4 weeks, the Detroit Red Wings have recalled big-bodied forward Tomas Nosek from the Grand Rapids Griffins of the AHL.
The Red Wings have also recalled defenseman Brian Lashoff, according to MLive’s Ansar Khan. Neither Nosek nor Lashoff are expected to play Saturday night in Pittsburgh. It appears Drew Miller will take Abdelkader’s spot in the lineup against the defending champs. Miller has played 17 games with the Red Wings this season, and has two goals to show for it.
To make room on the roster, the Red Wings placed Abdelkader on injured reserve (IR). They have also moved Andreas Athanasiou from IR to long-term injured reserve (LTIR), retroactive to November 11.
[Related: Red Wings’ depth chart]
The 6’3, 209 lbs Nosek is hovering near a point-per-game this season in the AHL after back-to-back seasons with 30-plus points. Nosek was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Red Wings back in 2014. He’s been held pointless in six NHL games so far in his career, all played last season.
Should Lashoff get into the lineup during this recall, it will be his first NHL game since 2014-15, when he played 11 games for the Red Wings. The 6’3, 220 lbs defenseman has 13 points in 117 NHL games in his career, all with Detroit.
Neither player will count for much against the salary cap. Lashoff is the higher-earner of the two, making $650K at the NHL level. Nosek is in the first year of a two-year extension signed in May and makes $613K at the NHL level.
Blackhawks To Place Toews On IR
It’s not a serious injury for Captain Serious, but Jonathan Toews is likely heading for injured reserve.
Toews has missed four games with a back injury, and is set to miss a fifth on Saturday night. CSN Chicago’s Tracey Myers reported Toews is feeling better, but will not play in Philadelphia.
Chicago Sun-Times writer Mark Lazerus quoted Toews as saying this is the kind of injury he’d “suck it up” and play through in the playoffs. But with defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk coming off IR after being out for the past five weeks, Lazerus speculates that the Blackhawks will place Toews on IR retroactive to last week to delay making another roster move.
[Related: Blackhawks Depth Chart]
Toews told Myers that he aggravated a prior injury in his last game, which was on November 23 in San Jose. The Blackhawks are 3-0-1 without Toews so far.
Senators Notes: Injury Updates, Searching For Depth
The Ottawa Senators have placed winger Bobby Ryan on Injured Reserve, retroactive to November 29.
Ryan broke his finger two weeks ago, but only missed two games before returning. It appears he’s aggravated the injury in some way. Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that it’s not clear whether Ryan will go with the Senators on their upcoming road trip, as he’s not eligible to return until next Thursday in San Jose.
It’s been a tough year for Ryan, who has just 8 points in 21 games. With a price tag of $7.25MM, the Senators will be expecting better production when Ryan returns from injury.
Meanwhile, Ducks forward Jakob Silfverberg has double Ryan’s points in just three more games. Silfverberg was the main piece acquired by the Ducks in the 2013 trade that sent Ryan to Ottawa.
- Marc Methot is nearly ready to return to the Senators lineup. In an interview on TSN 1200, GM Pierre Dorion said Erik Karlsson‘s preferred defensive partner could return as soon as Saturday.
- The Senators have recalled Max McCormick from Binghamton and assigned Andreas Englund and Buddy Robinson.
- When winger Clarke MacArthur was concussed early in training camp, some analysts wondered if his career was over. MacArthur missed all but four games in 2015-16 with a concussion. However, Dorion said MacArthur has been making progress and “will play this year.”
- With Ryan and MacArthur out of the lineup, the Senators search for forward depth is picking up. Dorion said he’s “very” active in searching for scoring depth, though Garrioch doesn’t believe he’s close to making any deals.