Roster Crunch: Metropolitan Division
We’ve taken a look at three out of the four divisions now, and the decisions they’ll have to make come training camp. The Pacific’s depth on defense, the changes coming up front in the Central, and the mass of young talent set to break through in the Atlantic. Now, we’ll take a look at the what many considered the best division in hockey last year, with four 100-point teams and both the President’s Trophy winner and Stanley Cup Champions.
Washington Capitals – There is probably no team with fewer uncertainties going into the season than the Washington Capitals. After running away with the regular season points lead, the Capitals couldn’t even make it to the Stanley Cup final, but they’ll head into next season with largely the same group. They brought in Lars Eller, whose possession numbers should help the third line, and allowed Jason Chimera and Mike Richards to walk (though the latter remains unsigned). Basically the only battle in camp will be for a fourth line or 13th forward spot; can Brett Connolly do enough to make the squad over Stanislav Galiev? Exciting stuff.
Roster Crunch: Atlantic Division
Over the past few days, we’ve looked at the final few spots on the roster for both the Pacific and Central divisions. This time, we’ll turn our attention to the East starting with the Atlantic. This division will be in turmoil over the next few years, with clubs like the Buffalo Sabres and Toronto Maple Leafs going through slow, deliberate rebuilds, and perennial contending squads like the Detroit Red Wings finally starting to slow down.
Florida Panthers – While the Panthers have pretty much accomplished everything they set out to do this off-season – improving the blueline with Keith Yandle and Jason Demers, getting a capable replacement for Roberto Luongo in James Reimer, and locking up their young core – they failed in one, big $5.5MM way. Dave Bolland failed his physical and therefor couldn’t be bought out. He’ll try to prove he deserves some playing time this season, but may find himself buried in the AHL to make room for Jared McCann, the prize Florida received when they dealt Erik Gudbranson to the Canucks.
Central Notes: Rome, Jets, Toews
According to Sarah Mervosh of the Dallas News, former NHL defenseman Aaron Rome is suing the NHL and his insurance company after suffering a career ending injury in 2014. Rome was bought out at the end of that year after multiple surgeries were needed to try and correct the hip issue.
Rome alleges that “the insurance adjuster assigned to handle his claim was not licensed in Texas and withheld documents he needed to appeal the claim.” Rome never played again in the NHL, and has since retired due to injury. His suit claims that the defendants (the NHL and HCC Life Insurance Co.) “mistreated an athlete who gave his heart and effort to professional hockey only to be betrayed by those who were supposed to help, protect, and provide benefits he undoubtedly deserves.”
- The Jets and NHL announced the rosters for their legends game at the Heritage Classic on October 22nd of this year and presented the throwback jerseys the team will wear, sparking an intense debate about whether or not this franchise should be allowed to use them. This organization, of course, is not the same one that played in Winnipeg from 1972-96; that club was re-located to Phoenix (now Arizona) to become the Coyotes. The Jets were returned when the Atlanta Thrashers, an expansion team, was re-located prior to the 2011-12 season. All of the players on the legendary team played for the first franchise.
- According to Scott Powers of The Athletic, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane may hit the ice next to each other this season. The duo, that is normally split up on two different lines in Chicago, might be forced back together if head coach Joel Quennville makes good on his idea to move Marian Hossa down in the lineup and into more of a checking role alongside Marcus Kruger. Kane, Artem Anisimov and rookie Artemi Panarin formed one of the most explosive lines in the NHL last season, while Toews had a revolving door of wingers skating beside him.
Roster Crunch: Pacific Division
While the NHL season is still more than two months away, it seems as though most teams have finished their free agent shopping and are now focused internally on roster decisions they’ll have to make. We’ll take a look at some of the options teams will have this fall, starting with the Pacific Division.
Anaheim Ducks – 2015-16 division winners Anaheim were discussed at length last weekend, with seemingly way too many bodies than roster spots on their blueline. With between seven and ten players who deserve to be in the NHL next season (depending on how you feel about youngsters Shea Theodore and Andy Welinski), the team is still expected to make a move to shore up their forward group.
Los Angeles Kings – Like the Ducks, the Kings have quite a few options on their back-end after signing Tom Gilbert to a one-year contract. With four spots locked up between Drew Doughty, Jake Muzzin, Alec Martinez and Brayden McNabb, the last two will be some combination of Gilbert, veteran Rob Scuderi and Matt Greene. That’s to say nothing of NCAA transplant Paul LaDue who will figure into the Kings’ plans before long.
San Jose Sharks – It’s said that depth down the middle is a key to success in the NHL, and the Sharks have that in spades. It looks like they’ll go into next season with at least six forwards who are capable of playing center. Often last season the top line was made up of three of them, with Joe Thornton between Tomas Hertl and Joe Pavelski. If the team wants to move the young Hertl back to his natural position (as they did at points last season), they’ll have to find ice-time for him behind Thornton and Logan Couture.
Arizona Coyotes – The crunch has already started to affect Arizona, as the team bought out veteran Antoine Vermette recently to open up a spot for one of their young forwards. With Dylan Strome and Christian Dvorak both leaving junior after huge seasons, they’ll look to make the jump to the NHL this season. The Coyotes may ice one of the youngest lines in the league this year, if Strome ends up between Max Domi and Anthony Duclair like many have speculated. Another spot could open up if RFA Tobias Rieder ends up overseas next season, as has been rumored lately.
Calgary Flames – Will top pick Matthew Tkachuk break camp with the Flames, and where will he play? Many eyes will be focused on the second-generation NHLer this fall, as he tries to force his way onto the Flames roster. Otherwise, the Flames have some decisions to make on the blueline if Ladislav Smid declares himself healthy enough to start the season and Dennis Wideman remains on the roster. Jyrki Jokipakka hopes he did enough last season to deserve a spot, but if both veterans are around when October 12th roles around, he may find himself on the outside looking in.
Vancouver Canucks – The Canucks are one of the hardest teams to figure out in the league, as they seem caught somewhere between rebuilding and trying to contend. Outside of their top-four, it’ll be a battle for the defensemen in camp to lock up a spot. Luca Sbisa has a contract that will probably guarantee him a spot, but his diminished play and injury history makes him a poor choice for the Canucks. If they decide to contend, icing him every night ahead of younger, more effective defensemen seems unwise.
Edmonton Oilers – It’s been long said that the Oilers don’t have any defensemen, and while it may still be figuratively true based on the overall skill, the team actually has too many bodies for their back end under contract. After trading for Adam Larsson, the team has eight defenders worthy of NHL time, including Jordan Oesterle who many believe proved his ability last season. One of them though, former captain Andrew Ference, may be on his own way out as he has stated more than once he’s heading to retirement if the Oilers’ buy him out. They haven’t been able to yet because of Ference’s lingering injury, but the two sides should come to an agreement before camp.
Alex Steen Hoping To Extend Stay With Blues
Alex Steen is still a year away from unrestricted free agency, but according to Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the veteran Swede would like to get a contract extension done with St. Louis prior to the start of the 2016-17 campaign. Rutherford also suggests that the Blues would like a resolution sooner rather than later after watching Troy Brouwer and former team captain David Backes depart as free agents this summer.
Steen is in the final year of a three-year, $17.4MM extension ($5.8MM AAV) the two sides signed in December of 2013. As Rutherford noted, the timing of his previous extension indicates Steen might still be willing to talk about a new deal during the regular season, despite his preference for getting it done prior to its start. But that doesn’t necessarily mean common ground for a new contract will be easy for the parties to find.
Depending on how Steen fares in 2016-17 and whether he is amenable to giving St. Louis a hometown discount, a new contract would still likely cost the Blues $5MM per or more over multiple years. Steen turns 33 next March and is coming off a shoulder injury which caused him to miss 15 games last season and required offseason surgery to fix. Additionally, Steen has never been a stalwart of good health. Only once in his 11-year NHL career has Steen suited up for a full schedule of games and he’s missed at least eight contests in each of his previous seven campaigns.
The Blues were outbid in their attempt to re-sign Backes largely because they were hesitant to guarantee their captain the term or money he was looking for. Ultimately, Backes inked a five-year deal with Boston for $30MM ($6MM AAV) and that’s simply a neighborhood the Blues were not willing to travel into. I find it difficult to believe the Blues would make an exception for Steen when they wouldn’t for their long-time captain.
Still, Steen has been an important two-way contributor for the Blues and one they wouldn’t want to lose. Over the last three seasons, Steen has a points-per-game average of 0.85, which in a full season would prorate out to about 70 points. Only 17 players reached that scoring threshold last season and Steen resides in that company, at least on a rate basis.
Steen is a good driver of puck possession, with his team averaging better than 53% of the shot attempts taken while he is on the ice since joining St. Louis. Steen also positively impacts his team’s odds of scoring goals. With Steen on the ice, the Blues have recorded 55.4% of the goals scored over the last two seasons. Steen adds a lot of value to the Blues roster and it makes sense they’d want to keep him given their position as a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. Now it’s a matter of whether they can find a term and AAV both sides are comfortable with.
Nonetheless, there is plenty of time for the two sides to get something done. The Blues likely will wait to make sure Steen is completely healthy and producing at normal levels before committing to another multiyear deal. And since Steen clearly wants to stay in St. Louis, he might be willing to make enough concessions to accommodate the Blues front office to ensure he has a chance to finish his career in the Gateway city.
Anaheim Ducks’ Defense Crunch
When the Anaheim Ducks were eliminated this spring by the Nashville Predators in seven games, many pointed fingers at the poor performance of some of the top offensive options. Corey Perry had not scored a single goal, registering a -7 rating in the series, completely erased by a stifling Predator defense group. The Ducks’ defense, even in losing, were just as spectacular, keeping the Predators to only 14 goals in the series and moving the puck with relative ease from their end.
It’s this defense group though, that may be giving the Ducks’ front office the most headaches this summer, as there are furiously tough decisions to make in the coming months. Currently, it has seven men deserving of NHL spots, to say nothing of up-and-comers Shea Theodore and Brandon Montour, and NCAA transplant Andy Welinski.
The group consists of Sami Vatanen, Cam Fowler, Kevin Bieksa, Clayton Stoner, Josh Manson, Simon Despres and Hampus Lindholm all solid NHLers, with contracts to prove it. The group, led by Vatanen, is set to earn $20.65MM next season, not even including Lindholm’s yet-to-be-signed deal that could push $6MM AAV.
While every team needs depth on the blueline, not many can afford to put millions of dollars in the press box every night, waiting for an injury to happen. While Fowler’s name has been bandied about since the Ducks were eliminated, nothing concrete has come out about Anaheim’s true desire to move him. Indeed, it would be a tough decision to move any member of the group, as each comes with their own strengths.
With Lindholm and Rickard Rakell still to sign, and under $8.5MM to do it, the Ducks will be tight to the cap if they head into the season with all seven blueliners under contract. They also risk losing one of their prized defensemen next offseason, when the Las Vegas TBAs get to pluck unprotected players from unsuspecting clubs in the expansion draft. Bieksa has a no-movement clause, and will therefor be automatically protected, leaving just two more defense slots (or three, if the Ducks choose to go with the eight-skater option and leave a young forward unprotected).
Fowler still seems like the most likely candidate for trade, but there is little doubt that teams would be more interested in the extremely cheap Josh Manson who, while earning only $825K per season, rates well at both ends of the rink and could become a building block for a new team on the right side.
With the pipeline that Anaheim has created, they would do well to leverage it into some help up front. Their current group is getting older, headlined by Perry, Ryan Getzlaf and Ryan Kesler who will all turn 32 in the next calendar year and are already starting to see cracks form in their production. Rakell and Jakob Silfverberg form a dynamic young duo, but represent the only two threats at forward under 26 years of age for the Ducks going forward.
Arizona Stays Busy, Lock Up Stone To One-Year Deal
Immediately on the heels of the Connor Murphy signing, the Arizona Coyotes have inked fellow blue liner Michael Stone to a one-year, $4MM contract, according to AZSports’ Craig Morgan. Stone and the Coyotes had been scheduled to go to arbitration on August 4th but the two parties obviously found common ground and thus avoided a hearing.
Stone blossomed in his fourth full season in the desert, averaging nearly 22:30 of ice time per game. He ranked second among Arizona defensemen behind Oliver Ekman-Larsson, tallying 36 points in 2015-16. The Coyotes drafted the 26-year-old in the third-round (69th overall) of the 2008 draft.
After accounting for Stone’s deal, Arizona is left with more than $6MM in cap space and only RFA Tobias Rieder left unsigned. That figure is a bit surprising given how busy the Coyotes have been this summer upgrading their roster. In addition to locking up their own RFA’s, Arizona has re-upped with Shane Doan (one-year, $3.88MM), signed UFA winger Jamie McGinn to a multi-year deal worth $10MM over three seasons, and acquired pending free agent Alex Goligoski via trade before extending his contract for five years with an AAV of nearly $5.5MM. That doesn’t even include Pavel Datsyuk‘s $7.5MM cap hit which Arizona absorbed as part of a deal to move up four slots in the first round of the recent draft. To still be $6MM under the cap ceiling is an impressive bit of work from John Chayka.
Given the offseason work and the young talent already on the roster, it’s conceivable the Coyotes could force their way into a playoff spot in 2016-17. That’s especially true if goaltender Mike Smith, who missed three months of action last season due to a core muscle injury, returns to form as a quality netminder.
Atlantic Notes: Kane, Ceci, Leafs
After turning himself in for arrest on July 22nd, Evander Kane was charged with four counts of non-criminal harassment and one count of criminal trespass which, according to Kane’s attorney Paul Cambria, he plans to plead not guilty to. Now, police documents acquired by WKBW Buffalo show (via Deadspin) sworn statements from multiple women and the bouncer at the club which the incident occurred.
“He grabbed my hair. He pulled it so hard he pulled my whole head. It hurt a lot.” claims one of the women, who also says Kane tried to force her to kiss his hand. Another woman claims that this is “how he always treats women. Aggressive and disrespectful.”
Immediately after news of the incident broke, trade speculation surrounding the former fourth-overall pick heated up, with many believing that his hometown of Vancouver would be a natural destination as they look to rebuild their club. Canucks’ beat writer Jason Botchford (The Province) fanned the flames today when he told TSN 1040 “there is no doubt about it. The Vancouver Canucks are going to be in on Evander Kane. Ownership loves Kane. Jim Benning really likes Kane. Trevor (Linden) is maybe a little ambivalent, but he can be won over.” Kane has two seasons remaining at $5.25MM, and scored just 35 points last season.
- The Ottawa Senators addressed one problem today when they re-signed RFA Mike Hoffman to a four-year deal, and will now turn their attention to defenseman Cody Ceci. Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun reports what many have thought, that Ceci is amiably working towards a deal with the Sens and will work something out before camp starts. Garrioch goes on to report that the sides are working on a two-year deal at the moment, though obviously anything can change before ink goes to paper. Ceci scored a career-high 10 goals last season and is a big part of the Senators’ top four.
- Martin Marincin represents the Toronto Maple Leafs’ last remaining arbitration case after re-signing Peter Holland and Frankie Corrado on Monday. While Marincin offers some intrigue to Leaf fans because of his improved play last year as Morgan Rielly‘s partner, there is more to his signing than meets the eye. Three days after Marincin signs (or has the arbitration dispute resolved at his August 2nd hearing), the Leafs will be awarded a second buyout window which they could use to free up some more cap space. With Jared Cowen having filed a grievance over the attempted buyout from the first window (he maintains that he’s still rehabbing an injury sustained during the season, which would make him exempt from any buyout), the team may be waiting until it’s resolved in order to use the second buyout to terminate his contract. Joffrey Lupul, Milan Michalek, Colin Greening and Brooks Laich all remain as other possible options for the second buyout window, should the Maple Leafs choose to use it.
Flyers’ Buyout Candidates For Second Window
After signing Brandon Manning earlier Tuesday morning to a two-year deal, the Philadelphia Flyers have come to agreements with all of their restricted free agents and will now have a 48-hour buyout period (which starts Friday, three days after the final deal was struck) to clear cap room for the upcoming season. The team currently sits less than $500K away from the cap ceiling, offering little room in which to operate.
The team used the first window earlier this summer to rid themselves of R.J. Umberger and his $4.6MM cap hit. He’ll cost them just $1.6MM on the cap this season and $1.5MM next, after contributing just 26 points over the past two years for the Flyers.
While there has been no word from the Flyers on whether they’d take advantage of this new window, there are a couple of under-achievers that could be jettisoned over the weekend to open up some more room for GM Ron Hextall to work.
Matt Read – Two years, $3.625MM AAV: Read signed a four-year, $14.5MM deal in 2013, but has never been able to replicate the 24-goal, 47-point season he put up in his rookie year. After putting up the worst season of his career in 2015-16, and climbing to the wrong side of 30, Read has seen his role with the club diminished greatly and might be the next victim of a buyout.
If he was to be bought out, the Flyers would save $2.75MM in cap space this season, and $2.25MM next. He’d then cost them $1.25MM in space from 2018-20. Each year’s cap-hit broken down:
2016-17: $875K
2017-18: $1.375MM
2018-19: $1.25MM
2019-20: $1.25MM
Andrew MacDonald – Four years, $5MM AAV: The Flyers signed MacDonald to a six-year, $30MM deal in 2014 after he was traded from the New York Islanders mid-season. While MacDonald was coming off a 28-point season in which he logged almost 25 minutes a night, both those marks would prove to be career highs to this point, as a couple of injury-marred seasons has left MacDonald contributing just 20 points in 86 games since.
With the emergence of Shayne Gostisbehere last season, the Flyers have little use of MacDonald and his huge cap-hit going forward, especially if he can’t regain any of his form from years past. Now 29, it’s not unbelievable that he could get some of his skills back, but it looks like he’ll never be worth the $5MM that the Flyers gave him.
If the Flyers did buy him out, they’d save a good amount of cap space for the next four years, ranging between $2.98MM (next year) and $3.98MM (2019-20), though would be paying him until 2023-24. The cap-hit breakdown is as follows:
2016-17: $2.02MM
2017-18: $1.52MM
2018-19: $1.27MM
2019-20: $1.02MM
2020-21: $1.77MM
2021-22: $1.77MM
2022-23: $1.77MM
2023-24: $1.77MM
While both of these options seem like drastic measures, the team has a real chance of competing going forward with their young stars locked up long-term. Claude Giroux, Jakub Voracek, Brayden Schenn, Sean Couturier and Gostisbehere are all under contract or team control until at least 2019-20, with many stretching far beyond that. If the team is looking to push deep into the playoffs, it may need to rid itself of some of the weighty contracts it’s given out in the past.
We’ll continue to watch Hextall’s moves carefully, and follow the Flyers depth charts both here and on Roster Resource.
Flyers Sign Jordan Weal To One-Year Deal
After filing for arbitration last week, Philadelphia Flyers forward Jordan Weal has come to terms with the team on a one-year, two-way deal, according to Tim Wharnsby of CBC. The deal will see him paid $650K at the NHL level, and $200K if he remains in the AHL.
Weal made his NHL debut last season for the Los Angeles Kings before being involved in the trade that brought Vincent Lecavalier and Luke Schenn out west. Weal is a small framed center, capable of putting up a ton of points at the AHL level, including back to back twenty-goal seasons in 2013-15.
Last season the 24-year old only got into 14 total games, as injury and waiver limbo kept him in the NHL all season. After being acquired by Philadelphia, the former Calder Cup MVP spent many games watching from the press box, as the team was unwilling to expose him to waivers to send him down. Now he’ll try to crack the Philadelphia top-6, and prove that he can carry over that scoring prowess to the next level.