Canadiens, Kings Swap First Round Picks
The Montreal Canadiens have traded up to pick 21 in the 2024 NHL Draft, sending the Los Angeles Kings picks 26, 57, and 198 in return, per Dennis Bernstein of The Fourth Period (Twitter link).
Montreal, who also owns pick five, brings their two day-one selections just hours before they’ll take the podium. And they may not be done, per TSN’s Darren Dreger, who shares that the team is interested in finding another way into the Top 10, even if it means moving down from fifth overall (Twitter link). Dreger also mentions that Montreal is involved in player trade-talks as well, potentially opening the team up to an incredibly eventful day as they’re getting settled in to Vegas.
The 2022 NHL Draft marked the first time that Montreal has had two first-round picks since 2007 when they drafted Ryan McDonagh and Max Pacioretty. The team succeeded those picks with Juraj Slafkovsky and Filip Mesar in 2022 – and is now looking to make the most of the pair of picks in a strong 2024 first round. The class features talents at every spot, with players like Cole Eiserman and Berkly Catton bringing high skill to the wings, Michael Hage and Trevor Connelly standing as high-scoring centers, and Carter Yakemchuk and Anton Silayev potential fallers on defense. Even at five and 21, the Canadiens should have plenty of opportuntiy to bring in impactful lineup pieces.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles builds out their pool of future assets without losing too much stock on day one. It will be L.A.’s first time in the first round since 2021, when they selected Brandt Clarke eighth-overall. The Kings now have six picks in this year’s draft, more than they wielded in either 2021 or 2023, though three of their selections come in the sixth and seventh rounds. The Kings could afford some robust additions to their prospect pool, with little to look at besides Clarke and Jordan Spence. That should set the team up to take the best player available at each of their selections, regardless of positioning, as they look to find players who can quickly support their drive back to the postseason. At 25, they could be within reach of hardy forwards like Emil Hemming, Cole Beaudoin, and Jett Luchanko.
Capitals Acquire Andrew Mangiapane
After adding Pierre-Luc Dubois to shore up their center depth, the Capitals have struck a deal to add an upgrade on the wing. The team announced that they’ve acquired Andrew Mangiapane from the Flames in exchange for Colorado’s 2025 second-round pick (previously acquired).
The 28-year-old had a breakout year in 2021-22, scoring 35 goals after putting up 35 in the previous two seasons combined. Hoping that this was a sign of things to come, Calgary inked Mangiapane to a three-year, $17.4MM contract, buying out his final RFA year plus two more years of club control.
However, Mangiapane hasn’t quite been able to replicate his output from that season. In 2022-23, his output dipped to 17 goals and 26 assists while this season, it went down a bit more as he noted 14 goals and 26 helpers although it’s worth noting that he missed seven games due to injury.
With Calgary committing to a rebuild after being sellers during the season along with moving starting goaltender Jacob Markstrom to New Jersey earlier this month, it makes sense that they were looking to move Mangiapane. They now have two first-round picks and two second-round selections in the 2025 draft while they now sit with just under $29MM in cap room, per CapFriendly. That positions them to be aggressive in free agency or on the trade front if they so desire as only four teams have more space to work with.
Meanwhile, Washington, who is picking up his full salary, was one of the lowest-scoring teams in the league this season and only had three players put up more points than Mangiapane did with the Flames, center Dylan Strome, winger Alex Ovechkin, and defenseman John Carlson. Clearly, GM Brian MacLellan correctly identified that if the Capitals are going to take a step forward and try to push for a top-three spot in the Metropolitan Division, improvements offensively are going to be needed. An expected late second-round pick is a reasonably low enough cost to pay for a short-term upgrade.
With taking on additional salary in the Dubois trade and now adding nearly $6MM with Mangiapane, the Capitals are now technically over next season’s salary cap with just over $90MM in commitments, per CapFriendly. However, with Nicklas Backstrom and his $9.2MM AAV expected to remain on LTIR next season, Washington still has some flexibility to work with although some of that will be needed to re-sign RFA forwards Connor McMichael and Beck Malenstyn at a minimum. T.J. Oshie‘s availability for next season is also in some question and if it’s determined that he won’t be able to play, Washington would be able to add another $5.75MM to its LTIR pool.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Canucks Sign Tyler Myers To Three-Year Extension
Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin continues his slew of moves over the past 24 hours. He’s gotten another one of his pending UFAs locked in, now signing defenseman Tyler Myers to a three-year extension worth $9MM ($3MM cap hit). The deal breaks down as follows, per TSN’s Darren Dreger:
2024-25: $3.8MM base salary, no-move clause
2025-26: $2.9MM base salary, no-move clause
2026-27: $2.3MM base salary, 12-team no-trade list
It’s the third player slated to hit the open market this summer that Vancouver has retained thus far. They’ve also re-upped center Teddy Blueger (two years, $1.8MM AAV) and Dakota Joshua (four years, $3.25MM AAV) to continue boasting solid scoring depth among their bottom six forwards.
Under this deal, Myers will return for his sixth, seventh and eighth seasons in Vancouver. The 34-year-old Texas native joined the Canucks in free agency five years ago, inking a deal that was criticized at the time for its $6MM cap hit. His extension represents a pay cut of 50 percent, but it’s about what his market value would have likely been if he became a free agent next week.
He’s likely best used as a bottom-pairing anchor at this stage of his career. That’s where first-year head coach Rick Tocchet deployed him this season, yielding arguably the best results Myers has put up in a Canucks jersey. The veteran put up 29 points in 77 games, his highest point total since his final season with the Jets in 2018-19, and posted a career-high +16 rating with slightly improved possession metrics in more defense-oriented usage. Correspondingly, it was the first time in his 15-year career that he’d averaged under 20 minutes per game.
Whether Myers will still be worth his new cap hit in the final year of his deal, during which he’ll be turning 37, is a fair question to ask. But with the salary cap expected to jump significant amounts each season as the league is in a strong post-COVID financial state, it shouldn’t be too much of a drag as Allvin continues to try and build out a Cup-contending roster in British Columbia.
Since being selected 12th overall by the Sabres in 2008, the hulking 6’8″ defender has 93 goals, 278 assists, 371 points and a +9 rating in 995 career games. Assuming there’s no freak offseason or early-campaign injuries, he’ll become the 395th (or 396th, looking at Luke Schenn) skater in NHL history to hit 1,000 games played.
After this deal, the Nucks have just over $12MM in projected cap space for next season, per CapFriendly. They have four roster spots to fill, notably those of pending UFAs Elias Lindholm and Nikita Zadorov.
Canucks Sign Dakota Joshua To Four-Year Extension
2:45 p.m.: The breakdown of Joshua’s contract is as follows, per PuckPedia. It includes a 12-team no-trade clause throughout, the same protection that Blueger received last night.
2024-25: $2.25MM base salary, $2MM signing bonus
2025-26: $2MM base salary, $1.5MM signing bonus
2026-27: $2.625MM base salary
2027-28: $1.625MM base salary, $1MM signing bonus
12:29 p.m.: The Canucks have signed pending UFA winger Dakota Joshua to a four-year, $13MM contract, per a team announcement. The deal is good for a $3.25MM cap hit and keeps him from reaching the open market on Monday.
Joshua, 28, is coming off a breakout 2023-24 season in Vancouver. He was limited to 63 games by an upper-body injury but still managed to record career-highs across the board with 18 goals, 14 assists, 32 points and a +19 rating. His 14:23 average time on ice was also a career-high, indicative of the value he provided while sliding into an everyday role in an NHL top nine for the first time. That point total worked out to 0.51 points per game, a major step up from the 0.29 he scored in his first season with the Canucks last year.
Solid depth scoring aside, Joshua is also an impactful checking presence. His 244 hits led the Canucks by a wide margin this season and finished ninth in the league overall. He has some flexibility at center but has played most of his 184 NHL games on the wing.
A fifth-round pick of the Maple Leafs in 2014, Joshua elected not to sign with Toronto when ending his collegiate tenure at Ohio State five years later. His signing rights were dealt to the Blues, where he landed his first NHL contract immediately after being acquired.
Joshua split his first professional season between St. Louis’ AHL and ECHL affiliates before impressing during training camp entering the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season. He spent a good chunk of the campaign on the taxi squad while also earning his first 12 NHL appearances. He didn’t manage to land a full-time role with the Blues the following year, though, and they let him walk as a Group VI UFA in 2022 after he put up nine points in 42 appearances across two seasons.
Vancouver pounced, and he’s now turned into a bonafide third-line talent for them who provided major surplus value for his $825K cap hit last year. Those days are no more, but it’s hard to argue with a $3.25MM AAV if he can repeat last year’s performance. The extension comes in a bit above the $3.173MM AAV Evolving Hockey had projected for Joshua on a four-year deal on the open market, but players of Joshua’s archetype generally land more than models predict when hitting free agency. The deal is shorter but cheaper annually than the similarly-valued Miles Wood, who landed a six-year, $15MM commitment from the Avalanche as a UFA last summer.
Joshua’s extension is the third notable move that general manager Patrik Allvin has made within the last 24 hours. He’s issued a two-year, $3.6MM extension to Latvian pivot Teddy Blueger, who spent a solid chunk of last season as Joshua’s linemate before Elias Lindholm‘s acquisition from the Flames pushed him down the depth chart. He also made a cap-clearing trade with the Blackhawks, sending out all but $712.5K of Ilya Mikheyev‘s $4.75MM cap hit along with the signing rights to pending UFA forward Sam Lafferty and a 2027 second-round pick. After the trio of transactions, Allvin has just north of $15MM in projected cap space next season with five open roster spots.
Sabres, Sharks Swap 2024 First-Round Picks
The Sharks have moved up three spots in tomorrow’s first round of the 2024 NHL Draft, acquiring the 11th overall pick from the Sabres, per a team announcement. They’re sending the 14th overall pick back to Buffalo, which they originally acquired from the Penguins in last year’s Erik Karlsson trade, along with the 42nd overall pick, which was previously acquired from the Devils as part of the return for Timo Meier in February 2023.
San Jose general manager Mike Grier now holds a slightly higher pick that should give him a chance to draft a slightly more impactful talent to develop alongside Boston University standout center Macklin Celebrini, who they’ll be taking with the first overall selection in just over 24 hours. It comes at the expense of a decently positioned second-round choice, although they do still have their own second-rounder in addition to the Lightning’s (No. 53). They picked it up via the Red Wings yesterday, along with defenseman Jake Walman.
Sabres GM Kevyn Adams, meanwhile, had the 11th pick on the block as far back as early this month. Most assumed he’d be leveraging it for some win-now help, which today’s move may actually benefit. The difference in value between No. 11 and No. 14 isn’t terribly large in this year’s deep draft class, and he now owns an additional second-round pick to toss into a trade for a top-six forward. Hurricanes pending RFA Martin Nečas and the Jets’ Nikolaj Ehlers remain attractive options available for acquisition.
Buffalo also still has a deep prospect pool of their own, especially at forward. That made the selection expendable in the eyes of many. Just in the past two years, they’ve used first-round picks on left winger Zach Benson (2023, 13th overall), center Jiri Kulich (2022, 28th overall), center Noah Östlund (2022, 16th overall) and center Matthew Savoie (2022, ninth overall).
There is such a thing as too many prospects, especially with all of them on relatively similar timelines. Roster spots won’t exist for all of them, so it was always a sensical choice for the Sabres to leverage this year’s top selection for other assets.
Oilers Won’t Renew Ken Holland’s Contract
10:32 a.m.: The Oilers won’t be renewing Holland’s contract, CEO of hockey operations Jeff Jackson confirmed. The organization didn’t say when the search for his successor would begin, nor did they name an interim GM ahead of tomorrow’s draft.
8:17 a.m.: Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that the Edmonton Oilers will likely allow general manager Ken Holland’s contract to expire on June 30th. Holland would become a free agent at that point, and the expectation is that multiple teams will pursue him to gauge his interest in hockey operations positions. Holland and the Oilers came within one win of the Stanley Cup, which would have been Holland’s fifth had they been successful.
If the Oilers let Holland walk, they will be without a general manager at the most critical time of the year, and as Friedman points out in his article, they could choose to go without a GM in the interim.
Holland has his detractors and had a very uneven run in Edmonton, signing several questionable contracts with Jack Campbell, Darnell Nurse, and Cody Ceci. However, Edmonton never missed the playoffs during Holland’s five-year run and made two Western Conference Finals appearances and one Stanley Cup Final. Holland also made some very savvy moves, notably the signing of 50-goal scorer Zach Hyman, trading for defenseman Mattias Ekholm, and the trade deadline move for Adam Henrique.
TSN’s Darren Dreger reported earlier this week that Holland would have a role in Edmonton if he wanted it, but it remains to be seen if he will look for new challenges or simply retire. If this is the End for Holland in Edmonton, he will finish his time there with a 220-121-32 record.
Blackhawks Acquire Ilya Mikheyev, Sam Lafferty
11:52 p.m.: The trade was later made official by both clubs, although Seravalli’s report indicating the second-round pick heading from Vancouver to Chicago is in 2025 was inaccurate. It’s a 2027 pick, per the teams.
9:14 p.m.: In what has become a rollercoaster of trade, the Chicago Blackhawks are expected to acquire Ilya Mikheyev, the rights to Sam Lafferty, and a second-round pick in 2025 from the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for a fourth-round pick in 2027. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman confirmed Mikheyev waived his M-NTC to facilitate a deal with the Blackhawks. The deal will shed $4.75MM off the books for the Canucks as they look to retain several pending free agents and bring their expected cap space up to $19MM heading into the offseason.
Much like their acquisition of Jason Dickinson nearly two years ago, the Blackhawks have once again weaponized their cap space to acquire a reclamation project from the Canucks organization. Assuming Chicago can sign Lafferty to an extension — the Blackhawks dramatically improve their bottom six for the cost of a fourth-round pick in a draft three years away.
After becoming disgruntled with the Maple Leafs organization, Mikheyev signed a four-year, $19MM contract in Vancouver during the summer of 2022. Unfortunately, during his first preseason game with the Canucks, Mikheyev tore his anterior cruciate ligament but was courageously able to return rather quickly from the injury on October 18th. Mikheyev provided solid secondary contributions the rest of the way for the Canucks by way of scoring 13 goals and 28 points in 43 games before Vancouver finally shut him down for the season in late January.
This past offseason, Mikheyev underwent surgery to repair the injury and would not make his season debut until October 21st. Starting hot out of the gates, Mikheyev put up nine goals and 16 points through his first 25 games of the regular season but could only manage two goals and 15 points over the last 53 contests. In Chicago, Mikheyev will have access to much more playing time which will give him more than enough opportunity to put his career back on a positive trajectory.
If the Blackhawks can sign Lafferty before he hits the open market on July 1st, it will be his second stint with the organization. During the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, Lafferty spent 97 games in Chicago where the team saw him put up 15 goals and 32 points. Lafferty was originally acquired by the Blackhawks organization from the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for Alexander Nylander before the team shipped him off to the Maple Leafs in the deal that also saw Jake McCabe head to Toronto.
This past season in Vancouver, Lafferty was one of the most reliable bottom-six forwards in the league as he scored 13 goals and 24 points in 73 games while averaging just under 12 minutes of ice time per night. He will likely serve in a similar role with Chicago but he may be able to sneak into the team’s second-line on occasion.
The deal opens up a lot of possibilities for the Canucks, as they were able to offload $4.75MM in salary for a second-round pick only a day after the Detroit Red Wings attached a second-round pick to shed $3.4MM off their books. Vancouver may not be done yet in what is shaping up to be an aggressive offseason for the organization as they look to capitalize on an impressive 2023-24 season.
Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff was the first to report the full trade package.
Seravalli was the first to report which year the draft picks were attributed to.
NHL Announces Rule Changes For 2024-25
The NHL has announced four rule changes and tweaks for next season, all of which were part of eight amendments proposed by league general managers in March. Only these ones have been unanimously approved by the league’s Board of Governors and the NHL/NHLPA Competition Committee, though. The changes are as follows, with wording taken directly from the league:
Rule 38.2 (Situations Subject to Coach’s Challenge)
A coach’s challenge now will be permitted to take down a penalty for puck out of play. This only will apply to delay of game penalties when the puck is determined to have deflected off a player, stick, glass or boards, and not on a judgment call on how the puck left the defensive zone (e.g., batted pucks or if the puck was shot out from the defensive zone). In the event of a failed challenge, another two-minute minor penalty will be assessed (in addition to the existing delay of game penalty).
Rule 63.8 (Line Change Following Dislodged Net)
There will be an adjustment to Rule 63.8 so that the defensive team cannot make a line change in the event its goaltender accidentally dislodges the net (old language applied just to skater).
Rule 76.4 (Face-Off Procedure – Centers)
Following an icing, the offensive center also now will receive one warning (same as the defensive player) for a face-off violation.
Rule 75.3 (Unsportsmanlike Conduct – Player Sitting on Boards)
The referee now will provide the offending team (coach and players) with one warning regarding players sitting on the boards (and will so advise the other team). After one warning in a game, the team precipitating the warning will be issued a bench minor penalty for future violations.
A few notable changes proposed by GMs three months ago weren’t announced as part of today’s modifications. Regarding Rule 63.8, the league stopped short of the GMs’ proposal that a goaltender could be penalized for intentionally dislodging the net. Staying with netminders, they also did not approve a proposal that backup goaltenders could receive a warmup if the starter is pulled out of the game due to injury or concussion.
Additionally, coaches will not be able to challenge a minor high-sticking call in an attempt to show that the infraction was the result of a teammate’s stick, not the offender’s, as proposed.
Red Wings Have Reportedly Discussed John Gibson With Ducks
Former Jennings Trophy winner John Gibson has been in trade talks on an annual basis for the past few summers, but the years-long saga may finally reach its conclusion in the coming days. The Ducks are ramping up their efforts to move the 30-year-old and have engaged in talks with the Red Wings and another unnamed team, David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reports. Detroit is the first team to be firmly connected to Gibson this summer after Anaheim general manager Pat Verbeek acknowledged he was still drawing interest.
Gibson’s 2023-24 season was the worst of his career, continuing a long run of below-average play behind the rest of the Ducks’ rebuilding roster. He made 44 starts and two relief appearances without being significantly hampered by injuries, posting a .888 SV% and allowing 21.2 goals above average, per Hockey Reference.
He’s still carried the reputation of being one of the best up-and-coming netminders in the league in the mid-2010s, and there are many out there who believe he can get back to that level of play. Playing behind one of the most porous defenses in the league over the past five years certainly hasn’t helped his numbers. Even when accounting for the level of quality chances he’s faced, though, the stats aren’t promising. He hasn’t saved more goals than expected since the 2018-19 campaign, according to data from MoneyPuck.
For Anaheim, he’s been made expendable by the emergence of 24-year-old Lukáš Dostál. The 2018 third-round pick outplayed Gibson by every metric this season, posting a .902 SV% and 3.33 GAA with one shutout while making 38 starts and six relief appearances. He allowed 5.3 goals above expected compared to Gibson’s 9.6 over similar workloads, per MoneyPuck.
It’s not like Gibson would be arriving to a team known for its defensive responsibility in Detroit, either. While they had a competitive roster, losing out on their first playoff appearance since 2016 thanks to a regulation win tiebreaker with the Capitals, they were one of the worst teams in the league at controlling play at 5-on-5. They controlled only 46.5% of shot attempts, 45.2% of scoring chances and 43.0% of high-danger chances, according to Hockey Reference.
Goaltending is an area of need for the Wings, though. While Trey Augustine and Sebastian Cossa are both promising prospects long-term, they lack stability at the position entering next season. Gibson would give them a more established name to compete for starts with Ville Husso and Alex Lyon, who are both entering the final season of their contracts. But based on this year’s results, he wouldn’t be a significant upgrade. Lyon was quite serviceable, especially for his $900K cap hit, giving Detroit a solid .904 SV% through 44 appearances.
Any team acquiring Gibson is banking on a return to his 2015-2019 form, but he’ll likely need a strong defensive environment in front of him to make that a reality. If Detroit is intent on making a change to their crease next season, one of the less-established but lower-risk netminders available in free agency is a better bet. For a team on the cusp of playoff contention, adding three years of an uncertain Gibson at a $6.4MM cap hit is questionable.
New Team Rumors Functionality On PHR Mobile Website, Menus Added For Desktop
June 26: For our mobile readers, please note that the Flame menu functionality has been added in the past few weeks! For our desktop readers, please note that we’ve added two additional sidebar menus: “Latest Rumors & News” and “Pro Hockey Rumors Features.” The Latest Rumors & News menu provides quick, easy access for desktop readers to scroll newsfeeds for star players currently in the rumor mill. The Pro Hockey Rumors Features menu now makes access to our ongoing PHR Originals series, as well as draft, free agent, and trade trackers, just one click away from the homepage.
May 1: Last month, the Trade Rumors network of sites rolled out some much-needed improvements to our search functionality. In doing so, we changed some things about how website readers on mobile devices can find team pages on PHR, MLBTR, and our friends over at Pro Football Rumors and Hoops Rumors. The new way to get to the team page is to type a few letters of that team name into the search box. You can start with the city name or the team name. Usually, about three or four letters do the trick:
That’ll bring you to our team archive, with all posts tagged with that club in chronological order:
Based on reader suggestions, we have created two additional ways to access team rumors. The first utilizes the favorite teams you have selected in your PHR/Trade Rumors account. Here’s how to select your favorite teams.
First, create a free commenter account on PHR if you don’t already have one. Then, once you’re logged in (assuming you’re on a mobile device), tap the three lines icon in the upper right, then the dropdown for My Account, and then Choose Your Favorite Teams:
We’re going to make some improvements to simplify the Favorite Team picker, which currently shows NFL teams at the top by default. But for now, on the left, you’ll see NHL, so tap that. Scroll to the team(s) you want and select them. Then hit Save:
After you save your favorite teams, navigate back to prohockeyrumors.com in your browser. In the coming weeks, we plan to add the flame menu to match MLBTR’s functionality for viewing commonly accessed articles, series, lists, and now, the team rumors page of your favorite. This will show up to three favorite teams for a given sport. You can see what that looks like over on MLBTR:
So, there will be two options to reach a team’s rumor page: type it into the search bar or favorite it and access it via the flame menu. We have also brought back the original way: choosing a team from a list of all of them. To do so, go to the three lines icon in the upper right, then hit the dropdown for Teams. You’ll see all 32 teams listed by division, with minimal need for scrolling. Tap a team, and you’ll go to its rumor page.
After you land on a team rumor page, you can also hit your browser’s Back button to return to this list of all 32 and select a different team.
If you’re on the PHR mobile website, you now have two different ways to navigate to a team’s rumor page, with a third coming soon. Enjoy!