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Rangers Promote Jeff Malcolm To Goaltending Coach

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For the first time since 2004, Benoît Allaire won’t be serving as the Rangers’ goaltending coach. He’s transitioning away from day-to-day duties. Jeff Malcolm, previously the goaltending coach of their AHL affiliate, the Hartford Wolf Pack, has been promoted to the NHL bench, per Arthur Staple of The Athletic.

The news ends Allaire’s 20-year run as the Rags’ goalie coach, during which he’s presided over one of the best runs of play between the pipes for any team in league history. Allaire’s arrival in New York coincided with Henrik Lundqvist’s as the league exited the 2004-05 lockout. He played a crucial role in developing one of the best netminders of all time, who started off his career with five Vezina Trophy nominations (one win) in 10 years. Lundqvist, who finished his time in the Big Apple with a 459-310-96 record and .918 SV% in 887 appearances, was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on his first try in 2023.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, King Henrik’s reign in the New York crease has been continued seamlessly by Igor Shesterkin, an established top-five netminder in the league. Allaire has coached the 28-year-old Russian to a .921 SV% through 213 appearances over the past five seasons, good enough for a Vezina win and a Hart nomination in 2021-22.

They’re big shoes for the 35-year-old Malcolm to fill. He’s familiar with the organization, spending three years with the Rangers as a goaltending consultant before being named the Wolf Pack’s goalie coach in 2021. Allaire also oversaw his brief playing career, suiting up in 36 games for Hartford between 2013 and 2017.

Thus far, Malcolm’s biggest impact has been felt in developing 2020 fourth-round pick Dylan Garand. The 22-year-old has struggled in his first two regular seasons with Hartford, but he’s warded off competition and taken over the starter’s crease in the playoffs in back-to-back years. The former Canadian Hockey League Goaltender of the Year has shined with a .927 SV% and 2.21 GAA in 17 AHL postseason appearances.

Staple adds that Brendan Burke will replace Malcolm in the AHL. Burke, the son of former NHL netminder and Golden Knights goaltending director Sean Burke spent last season as the goaltending coach of the Western Hockey League’s Portland Winterhawks.

East Notes: Laine, Makiniemi, Sutter

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Patrik Laine has no reservations about his ability to return to being an impact player following yesterday’s trade to the Canadiens. “I don’t want to come back as a 30-goal-scorer. I want to come back as a 40, 50- (goal-scorer). I’ve done that previously and it’s not by accident,” he told reporters (including NHL.com’s Tracey Myers).

“But it’s not just all about that,” Laine continued. “I want to come in and do whatever it takes to contribute to the team and help the team win, whether it’s me scoring 50 or scoring 20, as long as the team wins. I’m getting to that age, I’m not 19 years old anymore. I just want to win.”

Regardless of what exact number he produces, Laine’s career-average 14.7% shooting rate should be a boon to a Montreal offense that’s finished in the league’s basement the last few years. He’s only hit the 40-goal plateau once in his sophomore season with Winnipeg in 2017-18, but he’s hit or been on pace for 30 goals five other times, often limited by injuries.

Elsewhere from the Eastern Conference:

  • Team official site contributor Bill Meltzer relays that the Flyers are interested in bringing in free-agent netminder Eetu Mäkiniemi for a professional tryout. Philadelphia already has a pair of netminders under contract slated for minor-league action this season in Alexei Kolosov and buried veteran Calvin Petersen. However, the former’s availability is uncertain amid his reported preference to return to Belarus’ Dinamo Minsk on loan. Mäkiniemi, 25, became a Group VI unrestricted free agent this summer after spending the last two seasons in the Sharks organization. He split last year between the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda and the ECHL’s Wichita Thunder, posting a .900 SV% in 18 AHL contests and a .907 SV% in three ECHL games. The Finn was a fourth-round pick of the Hurricanes in 2017 and found his way to San Jose in the 2022 Brent Burns trade.
  • The Rangers have hired Shaun Sutter as an amateur scout, Arthur Staple of The Athletic reports. His familiar last name isn’t a coincidence – he’s the son of former Blues captain Brian Sutter and the nephew of Stanley Cup-winning head coach Darryl Sutter. The 44-year-old has spent the last 13 years with the Red Deer Rebels of the Western Hockey League, including the last 10 as an assistant/associate general manager. He’ll presumably stick to scouting the region he’s developed an innate familiarity with over the past decade-plus.

Blake McLaughlin Signs With AHL Hartford

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  • Forward Blake McLaughlin has inked a one-year deal with AHL Hartford (affiliate of the Rangers), per a team release. The 24-year-old split last season between the AHL and ECHL, notching two assists in 29 games with AHL San Diego but was much more productive with ECHL Tulsa, recording 25 points in 21 appearances but it wasn’t enough to earn a qualifying offer earlier this summer.

Gilles Léger Passes Away At Age 83

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The NHL is mourning the passing of Gilles Léger, a long-time executive who spent time with three organizations in a career spanning from 1979-2020. Outside of his work in the NHL, Léger spent time as a coach and a general manager in the CIAU and WHA.

After the World Hockey Association ceased operations at the end of the 1978-79 season, Léger made his way to the Quebec Nordiques as a director of player development in their first year of operations. Advancing to the role of assistant general manager for the team in 1984-85, Léger helped acquire the likes of Peter Forsberg, Guy Lafleur, Joe Sakic, Peter Stastny, and Mats Sundin to the expansion franchise. Unfortunately, with financial hardships leading to a sale of the Nordiques to COMSAT Entertainment Group after the 1994-95 season, Léger was not brought along with the team in their relocation to Denver, CO.

It would take three years for Léger to pick up another opportunity at the NHL level, this time with the Edmonton Oilers as a pro scout. When legendary general manager Glen Sather left the Oilers to take on the GM vacancy with the New York Rangers, Léger came along as a pro scout. The move to New York ended up being Léger’s last stop along his NHL journey. After two decades serving as a pro scout in the Rangers’ organization, Léger retired at the end of the 2019-20 season at 79 years old.

Léger’s story is of tremendous success as he parlayed a head coaching role with St. Francis Xavier University into four decades of work in the NHL. PHR sends our condolences to the Léger family.

Sam Rosen To Retire At End Of 2024-25 Season

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  • Longtime play-by-play announcer for the New York Rangers, Sam Rosen, is set to retire after the 2024-25 NHL season according to Dan Rosen of the NHL. Rosen began his career as a backup radio host with the Rangers for the 1977-78 season and saw the organization win their first Stanley Cup in over 50 years. The Rangers will have some big shoes to fill when the current longest-serving, Hall of Fame announcer hangs them up at the end of the year.

    [SOURCE LINK]

Sam Rosen To Retire At The End Of The Season

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Calgary Flames defenseman Yan Kuznetsov believes that he will take a big step in his development this upcoming season and is hoping a change to his training will allow him to do so (as per Flames writer Chris Wahl). The 22-year-old was re-signed to a one-year, two-way deal by the Flames yesterday after making his NHL debut last season, dressing in one game for Calgary. The former second-round pick believes that he is entering next season in the best shape of his career and is hoping that by being in tune with his body it will better allow him to use his size to his advantage as he pushes for an NHL roster spot with the Flames.

In other news from around the NHL:

  • Edmonton Oilers announcer Bob Stauffer tweeted about the Oilers’ current offer sheet conundrum with defenseman Philip Broberg and forward Dylan Holloway. The Oilers are currently on the clock after the St. Louis Blues issued a pair of offer sheets and have one week to match the offers or lose the players for draft pick compensation. Stauffer outlines in his tweet that if the Oilers elect to match the lucrative offer sheets, they will have to keep Broberg and Holloway for at least a year, which could be challenging given that they will need to issue lucrative extensions to Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard next summer.
  • The MSG Network has announced that New York Rangers television play-by-play broadcaster Sam Rosen will retire after the upcoming NHL season. The 77-year-old is entering his 40th year calling Rangers games full-time after he began calling New York games on the radio for MSG, filling in for Marv Albert. He then pivoted to becoming MSG’s studio host before moving into his current role as the Rangers’ primary television broadcaster in 1984.
  • Vancouver Canucks general manager Patrick Allvin spoke with Swedish network hockeysverige.se about Nils Åman and the contract extension he gave the center this past season. The 24-year-old signed a two-year deal worth $825K per season and proceeded to post three goals and four assists in 43 NHL games this past year. Allvin mentioned that he was impressed by Åman’s finish to the season and felt that he had become more assertive on the ice and played with more of an edge. Allvin added that he was hopeful that Åman would continue to develop this summer and build off the success he had in the second half.

Snapshots: Draisaitl, Zegras, Lee, Preseason Schedule

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Leon Draisaitl’s recent eligibility to sign a contract extension will be one of the bigger storylines late in the offseason, but it doesn’t appear there’s much of anything new to report since Stan Bowman took over the reins as general manager a couple of weeks ago, the executive said to NHL.com’s Derek Van Diest.

“I had a good conversation (with Draisaitl’s agent Mike Liut) and we’re starting things off and the timing on that will be what it will be,” Bowman said. “I don’t have an update of where it’s going to be or the timing on that, but there is nothing negative to report, certainly.”

The initial contact between Bowman and Draisaitl’s camp reignites extension talks that began back in June with acting GM Jeff Jackson. Draisaitl’s European-based agent, Jiri Poner, told a German news outlet early last month that the ball was in Edmonton’s court to make a competitive offer. Things seem on a slow but positive track for the German superstar, who’s coming off a 41-goal, 106-point campaign in 2023-24.

Here’s more from around the league:

  • Ducks forward Trevor Zegras has continued to draw trade interest from around the league this summer, and some speculated a return to his New York home could be in the cards. That doesn’t appear to be the case, though, as Arthur Staple of The Athletic said in a recent mailbag that he doesn’t “think the Rangers have ever been interested in Zegras, much as the local kid would love to be a Ranger.”
  • There have been questions about Islanders captain Anders Lee’s future with the club after a trying campaign that saw him limited to 20 goals and 37 points in 81 games, his lowest offensive output in a healthy season since 2015-16. But it appears the 34-year-old is here to stay for the final two years of his contract at a $7MM cap hit, GM Lou Lamoriello told Staple. “You’re talking about a consummate pro: high integrity, high character, team first,” Lamoriello said. “I’d say he was one of our better players in the playoffs. That should answer any questions you might have — how he responded to whatever role he was asked to play.”
  • We’re just 46 days away from NHL hockey returning to laptops, radios and TVs. The league announced its complete composite preseason schedule today, which will kick off on Sep. 21 with a trio of games involving the Penguins and Sabres, the Blues and Stars, and the Wild and Jets. The Utah Hockey Club will take the ice for the first time in preseason action the following day, hosting the Blues for a neutral site game in Des Moines, Iowa. The preseason will run for two weeks, drawing to a close on Oct. 5.

Metropolitan Notes: Kolosov, Kakko, Boll

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While a report last weekend indicated that Flyers goaltending prospect Alexei Kolosov told the team he wouldn’t report to AHL Lehigh Valley in the fall, general manager Daniel Brière says the team doesn’t “have any confirmation that he’s not coming back” and expects him to be their third-string netminder this season, he told Sam Carchidi of Philly Hockey Now.

Kolosov, 22, signed his entry-level contract last summer but was returned on loan to Dinamo Minsk of the Kontinental Hockey League. Only after Dinamo’s season ended was Kolosov brought over to North America, where he finished the season with an .885 SV% in only two games for Lehigh Valley.

Last weekend, sources told Tony Androckitis of Inside AHL Hockey that Kolosov felt isolated after arriving in North America, a notion Brière refuted in his interview with Carchidi. “As we know, he’s coming back for camp in September,” the GM said. “He was not left by himself, and we thought everything was going good. If he wants to play hockey, he has to come back over. He’s under contract with us, so that’s why I don’t understand all the fuss. I guess a Russian team could say they’re not going to honor the contract. But he’s under contract with the Flyers and that’s where he’s going to have to play if he wants to play hockey.”

Kolosov, a third-round pick of Philadelphia in 2021, posted a .907 SV%, 2.39 GAA and 22-21-3 record with four shutouts in 47 games for Minsk last season.

Here’s more from the Metropolitan:

  • In a mailbag for The Athletic, Arthur Staple opines that Rangers winger Kaapo Kakko is stuck as a “buy-low” trade candidate after signing a one-year, $2.4MM deal for this season back in June. While Staple says there’s been some amount of documented interest in the 2019 second-overall pick on the trade market, he’s “not a player other teams are coveting.” The Finn averaged a career-low 13:17 per game under head coach Peter Laviolette last year amid the worst offensive showing of his five-year NHL resume, limited to 19 points (13 goals, six assists) in 61 games.
  • While the Blue Jackets settled on their next head coach with the hiring of Dean Evason last month, it didn’t mean the rest of the coaching staff was set in stone. The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline reported a couple of weeks ago that the futures of all three of their assistants, Jared Boll, Steve McCarthy and Mark Recchi, were up in the air pending meetings with Evason. Today, Portzline confirmed that Boll’s job is safe for next season, while McCarthy’s and Recchi’s futures haven’t been decided on. The Blue Jackets were already down an assistant after opting not to renew the contract of Josef Boumedienne.

New York Notes: Wahlstrom, Nelson, Trouba, Barbashev

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Breaking down a variety of Islanders topics in a mailbag published Thursday, Arthur Staple of The Athletic believes a waiver placement is the most likely option for winger Oliver Wahlstrom when training camps wrap up in a couple of months.

The Isles avoided an arbitration hearing with Wahlstrom last month, settling with the RFA on a one-year, $1MM contract. But it was clear at the time that the settlement didn’t necessarily mean he’d be back in an Islanders uniform next season.

Islanders general manager Lou Lamoriello has been shopping the 2018 11th overall pick as far back as the June draft, but Staple believes offers for the winger have “been tepid at best.” He also says that Wahlstrom likely doesn’t have a path to regular bottom-six minutes under head coach Patrick Roy, but that he also “would need to have an incredible camp to secure a top-six spot.” His trade value will remain the same if he sticks in the press box, and the Isles don’t have the cap flexibility to routinely make a seven-figure cap hit player a healthy scratch. For that reason, if Wahlstrom finds his way out of Long Island in the coming weeks, it’ll likely be on the waiver wire.

Here’s more from the New York teams:

  • The Isles have a bevy of crucial pending free agents, namely second-line center Brock Nelson. Staple believes they’d consider shopping Nelson before the trade deadline “if they’re well out of [the playoff race],” but if they opt to work on an extension, it’ll likely result in a long-term deal to keep his cap hit down. The cap-strapped Isles also need to ink star blue liner Noah Dobson to a new deal next summer – he’s a pending RFA. Nelson turns 33 in October, so a seven or eight-year extension would take him into his 40s.
  • Last month, the dust largely settled on a hectic summer for Rangers captain Jacob Trouba with a report that he was likely to remain with the Blueshirts this season after a heavy dose of trade rumors. The 30-year-old, who has two years left on his contract with a hefty $8MM cap hit, told The Athletic’s Peter Baugh that he’s happy to remain with New York and excited for the upcoming campaign. “It’s part of the business,” Trouba said. “I knew that part of my contract turned this year (to a no-trade list), and I submitted a list. That’s what I did. All the other noise was pretty much noise.” The defender also dispelled any notion that there was a rift between he and Rangers GM Chris Drury, saying communication with the entire front office was “great the whole time” throughout the summer.
  • The Rangers no longer own the signing rights to 2022 fifth-round pick Maxim Barbashev, but he’s staying in the organization on a one-year contract with the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack, the team announced today. The 20-year-old winger is coming off a disappointing fourth junior campaign in which he was limited to 35 points in 59 games between the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats and Shawinigan Cataractes. His signing rights lapsed after he wasn’t signed to an entry-level contract by the Blueshirts before June 1, but he’ll now get a bit of runway with Hartford to prove he can adjust to the pro game.

Metropolitan Notes: Rangers, Montgomery, Nadeau, Daws

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The Rangers’ defense core from last season is largely returning, minus Erik Gustafsson, who departed for the Red Wings in free agency. But the big stars and supporting cast are largely back, even down to seventh defenseman Chad Ruhwedel. All that likely means more opportunity for the younger Zachary Jones, who’s spent the last few seasons in a fringe role. But as Peter Baugh of The Athletic writes, that lack of major moves will mean defense takes the top spot on the Rangers’ trade deadline shopping list.

New York’s group of defenders was good enough to get them to another President’s Trophy last season and deep into the Eastern Conference Final, where they lost to the eventual champion Panthers. But it will rely more on youth next season, asking more out of Jones and especially Braden Schneider. Schneider is expected to assume top-four duties on the right side, with captain Jacob Trouba declining into a third-pairing role.

“The type of defenseman Drury pursues could depend on how the team looks through the first half,” Baugh wrote. “If Jones settles in nicely, the Rangers probably could look more at shutdown candidates. If Trouba and Lindgren both rebound from up-and-down 2023-24s, the front office could look to someone more offensive-minded.”

The Blue Jackets’ Ivan Provorov and the Kraken’s William Borgen and Adam Larsson are among some preliminary targets should the Rangers look to pick up a rental blue-liner in March, Baugh opines.

There’s more from the Metropolitan Division:

  • Hurricanes defense prospect Bryce Montgomery is staying in the organization on a two-way AHL/ECHL deal with the Chicago Wolves next season, the team announced yesterday. Montgomery, 21, was a sixth-round pick of the team in 2021 but has yet to sign his entry-level contract. They have until June 1, 2025, to sign him before his exclusive draft rights expire. Montgomery spent last season with the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays, with 14 points and a +4 rating in 42 games.
  • Sticking with Carolina, 2023 first-round pick Bradly Nadeau is fully intent on making the NHL roster out of camp in his first full professional season, he told NHL.com’s Kurt Dusterberg. Nadeau, 19, was drafted out of the British Columbia Hockey League’s Penticton Vees and jumped to NCAA hockey for 2023-24, lighting up the collegiate circuit with 46 points in 37 games for Maine as a freshman. That performance made him a one-and-done player, and he signed his entry-level contract with Carolina to close out last season. “The jump from Penticton (of the BCHL) to the NCAA is honestly probably a bigger jump than what he is going to do next,” Hurricanes assistant general manager Darren Yorke told Dusterberg. “No disrespect to the league he played in previously, but that’s a huge jump.” He could be an impact piece to watch with multiple open spots in Carolina’s forward group.
  • The Devils yesterday re-upped RFA netminder Nico Daws on a two-year contract, which carries a two-way structure in 2024-25 before converting to a one-way deal in 2025-26. Ryan Novozinsky of NJ Advance Media writes that indicates a clear succession plan at backup with veteran Jake Allen entering the final season of his contract. Daws will likely start this season on assignment to AHL Utica, but the 23-year-old should be ready for full-time backup duties behind Jacob Markstrom in 2025-26.

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