Islanders Fire Lane Lambert, Name Patrick Roy Head Coach
Islanders GM Lou Lamoriello is no stranger to making big in-season changes and he has done so again. The team announced that they have fired head coach Lane Lambert. Taking his place will be Patrick Roy who has been named the full-time bench boss. No assistant coaches have been dismissed.
Lambert was in his second season behind the bench of the Isles after taking over for Barry Trotz who was let go following the 2021-22 campaign. While Lambert had coached alongside Trotz for a significant portion of his career (including four seasons as the associate coach to Trotz with the Islanders), the hope was that he could get the team to be more of a threat offensively while not necessarily losing its defensive structure.
New York got a dozen more goals last season but only moved up from 24th to 23rd in that regard while they were ousted in the first round of the playoffs by Carolina. This year, the Islanders sit 22nd in the NHL in goals scored so the offensive improvement as a team hasn’t been there, even with a resurgent season from Mathew Barzal, a full year with Bo Horvat, and Noah Dobson contributing a point per game from the back end.
While the Islanders sit fifth in the Metropolitan Division and are only two points out of a Wild Card spot, they’ve won just 19 of 45 games so far with 11 overtime or shootout losses helping to keep them within striking distance of a postseason position. Clearly, Lamoriello determined that maintaining the status quo behind the bench wasn’t going to help them gain ground in the second half of the season. Lambert departs with a 61-46-20 record as head coach, good for a .559 points percentage. He’s the fifth bench to lose his job this season, joining Jay Woodcroft (Edmonton), Dean Evason (Minnesota), Craig Berube (St. Louis), and D.J. Smith (Ottawa).
Roy, meanwhile, hasn’t been behind an NHL bench for the better part of a decade. He coached in Colorado from 2013-14 through 2015-16, finishing with a combined record of 130-92-24. He also won the Jack Adams Award in 2013-14 as NHL Coach of the Year. However, he abruptly departed the organization near the start of the 2016-17 season, stating that he didn’t have enough of a “say in the decisions that impact the team’s performance” and that he was no longer on the same page as the organization. It was the second shocking exit of his career going back to his playing days when he informed Montreal’s management in 1995 after being pulled from a game that he had played his last game for the team.
The 58-year-old has spent a lot of his time coaching at the major junior level with two stints behind the bench of the QMJHL’s Quebec Remparts from 2005-06 through 2012-13 and 2018-19 through 2022-23; he served as the team’s GM for most of that time. He stepped down following last season with Eric Veilleux taking over as coach and long-time NHL winger Simon Gagne filling the GM title. Over his junior coaching career, Roy’s teams played to a 524-255-66 record while also picking up a Memorial Cup title.
Roy will now be tasked with getting more out of a veteran group that has a lot of money tied up in defensive or physical players while also dealing with several injuries at the moment including key blueliner Ryan Pulock. In his time with Colorado, Roy had one season where the Avs finished in the top five in goals scored but the team slipped into the bottom ten in that regard in his final two campaigns. He’ll also try to get more out of starting netminder Ilya Sorokin who was stellar over his first three seasons in the NHL but has struggled so far this season, posting a save percentage of .908; while that’s above the NHL average, it’s a far cry below the .924 mark he put up over those first three campaigns.
The Islanders are currently using LTIR for Pulock’s injury and will have limited cap space when he returns. Making the change now will give Lamoriello ample time to assess how the team responds to their new head coach before determining what he might try to do before the March 8th trade deadline. His first game behind the bench will come Sunday against Dallas.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Washington Capitals Sign Aliaksei Protas To Five-Year Extension
The Washington Capitals have announced a five-year, $16.875MM contract extension for centerman Aliaksei Protas. The new deal with carry an annual cap hit of $3.375MM. Protas has appeared in all but one of Washington’s 43 games this season, scoring three goals and 18 points. The 23-year-old has served in a bottom-six role, averaging just 13 minutes of ice time on the season, though he’s beginning to sneak into a larger role with an average of over 15 miuntes in his last five games.
Protas is appearing in just his third NHL season and this extension marks the first deal after his entry-level contract. The 23-year-old was selected by the Capitals in the third round of the 2019 NHL Draft. He’s since played in the most games of any player selected outside that year’s top two rounds, managing 133 career games – scoring 42 points throughout. He was drafted from the WHL’s Prince Albert Raiders, but made his professional debut overseas in the 2020-21 KHL season, scoring 10 goals and 18 points for the KHL’s Minsk Dynamo. He came over to North American pros at the end of Dynamo’s season and made his NHL debut in 2021-22, scoring nine goals in his first 33 games with the Capitals.
Protas satisfies a menagerie of trivia, standing as one of the league’s 10-tallest players and is one of just two Belarusians playing consistently in the NHL this season. In fact, he became just the ninth Belarusian to play 100 NHL games on January 2nd.
Canucks Sign Jim Rutherford To Three-Year Extension
1:04 p.m.: Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini confirmed the team has signed Rutherford to a three-year extension (via The Athletic’s Thomas Drance).
11:08 a.m.: The Canucks will announce a contract extension for president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford today, TSN’s Farhan Lalji reports. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman believes the deal will carry a three-year term, keeping him in his seat with Vancouver through 2027.
If true, it will be the second straight three-year deal for Rutherford after he was brought on as POHO and interim general manager in December 2021. Rutherford held the GM position for nearly two months before settling on Patrik Allvin for the role in late January 2022.
Rutherford, who will be 75 next month, will spend 32 consecutive seasons in an NHL front office if he serves out the extension. The Canucks are his third organization, having previously served as president and GM of the Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes from 1994 to 2014 and GM of the Penguins from 2014 to 2021.
His front office regime has seemingly ended a decade-long rebuild process for the Canucks. He’s kept together his inherited core of Elias Pettersson, J.T. Miller, Brock Boeser, Quinn Hughes, and Thatcher Demko, and will guide the Canucks to their first full-season playoff appearance in nine years this April.
What’s pushed this team back into contention, however, are recent acquisitions made by the Allvin/Rutherford crew. Filip Hronek has continued his ascent into a true top-pairing defender, making his duo with Hughes one of the most dominant in the league. Players like Teddy Blueger and Dakota Joshua have proved to be valuable depth players on cheap UFA deals, giving the Canucks some needed bottom-six scoring punch.
The Canucks’ 98-63-21 record ranks 14th in the league since Rutherford took over. While most of his work has come to fruition this season, it’s been a slow build for Vancouver since choosing to replace Bruce Boudreau with Rick Tocchet behind the bench midway through last season. In 81 games under Tocchet, the Canucks have a sparkling 50-23-8 record.
With the extension, Canucks ownership is entrusting Rutherford’s regime to handle one of the most important contract negotiations in history with Pettersson, who is a pending RFA and will need a long-term deal past this season. He and Allvin will also need a new contract for Hronek, who, like Pettersson, is slated for restricted free agency this summer. They’ve done a good job at getting out of what was an extremely undesirable salary cap situation a few seasons ago, but they’ll need to work even harder to manage the financials over the next few seasons with some big-ticket deals coming down the pike.
Senators Agree To Terms With Shane Pinto To One-Year Contract
The Senators have agreed to terms with RFA center Shane Pinto on a one-year deal worth $775K, the NHL league minimum salary, per a team release.
Pinto, 23, is eligible to make his season debut in Sunday’s game against the Flyers. He will miss tomorrow’s game against the Jets as he serves the final contest of his 41-game suspension for violating the league’s sports wagering rules. His contract cannot be registered with the league until Sunday.
Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch said earlier this week that the team had offered multiple contract options to Pinto as he neared his return, including multiple longer-term deals. While the Senators’ tight salary cap situation prevents them from giving Pinto a significant salary this season, they continue to work on signing a multi-year deal before Pinto reaches RFA status next summer, reports Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. He is eligible to sign an extension at any time before July 1.
Unfortunately for the Senators, their 16-24-0 record puts them in last place in the Eastern Conference at the time of Pinto re-joining the team. Any impact the sophomore center has in his return will likely be immaterial to their end-of-season fortunes, but his play will still be closely eyed as the Senators determine who to keep and who to shed as their rebuild remains stuck in first gear.
The 2019 second-round pick churned out play worthy of a high-end third-line center last year, his first full campaign with the Sens after a shoulder injury limited him to five games in 2021-22. Posting 20-15–35 in all 82 games, Pinto ranked sixth on last year’s team in goals and, despite his -21 rating, graded well in terms of two-way play with a 51.9% Corsi share at even strength.
He still carries top-six potential despite his significant time away from the game over the last two seasons. He’ll at least find himself in a top-nine role when he suits up on Wednesday, especially as Josh Norris remains sidelined down the middle with an upper-body injury. Whether or not he usurps another promising youngster, 21-year-old Ridly Greig, for first-line duties between Brady Tkachuk and Claude Giroux is unclear.
Pinto will earn $387.5K in actual salary this season as a result of his contract being signed with exactly half of Ottawa’s schedule remaining. If he can’t agree to a new deal with Ottawa by the summer, he will not be eligible for salary arbitration. However, unlike last summer, he will be eligible for an offer sheet.
Jared Spurgeon To Undergo Season-Ending Surgery On Back And Hip
The Minnesota Wild have announced that team captain Jared Spurgeon is set to miss the remainder of the season after surgery on his back and hip. Spurgeon has been limited for much of the season, playing in just 16 games this year. He hasn’t played since January 2nd, though, as he’s continuing to struggle with lower-body injuries. This includes an injury suffered in the preseason that forced him to miss the month of October and parts of November.
It’s been a disastrous season for the 34-year-old pro, now in his 14th season with the Minnesota Wild. Spurgeon has managed just five points this year, but recorded an admirable 11 goals and 34 points in 79 games last season. Still, injuries have been consistent in his recent seasons, with the defender failing to appear in 70-or-more games in five of his last seven seasons, including this year.
Spurgeon has become a prolific NHLer despite the injuries. He has appeared in more games than any other defenseman in Wild history, with his 867 career games far ahead of second-place Ryan Suter‘s 656 games with the team. In fact, only one player has appeared in more games for the Wild – former long-term captain Mikko Koivu, who played all 1,028 games of his career in Minnesota. Spurgeon also ranks fourth in all-time scoring for the club, behind only Koivu, Marian Gaborik, and Zach Parise.
The 5’9″ Spurgeon has come a long way since being drafted in the sixth round of the 2008 NHL Draft – the same round that saw Cam Atkinson join the Columbus Blue Jackets. Together, the duo have paved a path for “undersized” players in the NHL, proving just how impactful they can be with the right energy and grit.
It’s safe to assume that Spurgeon’s absence will lead to more minutes for depth defensemen like Dakota Mermis and Daemon Hunt. The Wild will also now be relieved from Spurgeon’s $7.575MM cap hit for the remainder of the year. Whether their depth pieces, or potential acquisitions, will be able to fill in for the team’s top defenseman now becomes an important question to Minnesota’s success for the rest of the season. The Wild currently rank seventh in the Central Division with an 18-20-5 record.
Blackhawks Sign Jason Dickinson To A Two-Year Extension
The Chicago Blackhawks have announced that they’ve signed forward Jason Dickinson to a two-year, $8.5MM contract extension that will keep him with the club through the 2025-26 season. Dickinson was set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1st but opted to remain with the Blackhawks for the next two seasons. The extension comes just four days after the Blackhawks re-signed forward Nick Foligno to a two-year, $9MM contract extension signalling that the Blackhawks have no intention of dealing either player at this year’s NHL trade deadline.
Dickinson is in the third year of a three-year, $7.95MM contract he signed with the Vancouver Canucks back in August of 2021. He was effectively a salary cap dump by the Canucks when they traded him to Chicago in October 2022 alongside a second-round pick for defenseman Riley Stillman. Dickinson then went on to have a career year in Chicago last season with nine goals and 21 assists in 78 games. This season, Dickinson has shattered his career high in goals as he already has 14 on the year in just 43 games fueled by a shooting percentage of 21.2%, which is more than doubled his career average of 10.2%.
The extension for Dickinson is a nice bit of security for the 28-year-old who looked like a buyout candidate just two summers ago. Dickinson has settled into his role in Chicago and could reach 25 goals this season if he continues shooting at his current pace.
For the Blackhawks, this contract is another short-term overpayment, but it’s not likely to hurt the club long-term. Dickinson is a good pro who can help the younger players in the Blackhawks organization get acclimated to the league while providing physicality and a bit of offense.
Valeri Nichushkin Enters NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program
Avalanche winger Valeri Nichushkin has entered the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program and will be out indefinitely, the league announced today (via NHL.com’s Ryan Boulding). Independent Avalanche reporter Adrian Dater reported the news earlier Monday.
Nichushkin will be stepping away from what’s been a very productive season. The 28-year-old currently ranks fourth on the Avalanche in scoring, with 22 goals and 42 points in 40 games. His point-per-game scoring has been shadowed by his linemates, though, with Nathan MacKinnon boasting 69 points, Mikko Rantanen with 55 points, and Cale Makar currently sitting on 48 points. These four, including Nichushkin, lead the Avalanche in average ice time alongside Makar’s defense partner Devon Toews.
Nichushkin is in his fifth season with the Avalanche, managing 189 points in 275 games with the club. That’s a 0.69 points-per-game pace, a large step above the 0.33 points-per-game that Nichushkin averaged in four seasons with the Dallas Stars. Dallas selected Nichushkin 10th overall in the 2013 NHL Draft, only a few picks after now-teammates MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin went in the top-three. Nichushkin made his NHL debut in the following season, scoring 14 goals and 34 points in 79 games as a rookie and ranking 12th in Calder Trophy voting.
But the next few years were inconsistent, as Nichushkin bounced between the Stars’ NHL and AHL lineups. He even left North American hockey altogether for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons, opting instead to play with the KHL’s CSKA Moscow. The winger returned to Dallas for the 2018-19 season but failed to produce, netting only 10 assists and a -4 through 57 games. The Stars opted to buy-out his contract following this slow season, effectively shipping him off to the Avalanche, who signed Nichushkin to a one-year, $850K contract two months later.
Senators Reportedly Entertaining Offers For Jakob Chychrun
A bottom-feeder team with no salary cap flexibility is not a good place to be. It’s a rare situation, but it’s one the Senators find themselves in. They’re 29th in the NHL despite lacking the cap space to carry a full roster all season long.
That unfortunate combination has new Senators GM Steve Staios examining possible trades to finally kickstart the Senators’ rebuild out of low gear while freeing up financial maneuverability in the process. Their internal list of expendable names includes blueliner Jakob Chychrun, according to a report from The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta.
The 25-year-old has been a constant in trade talks over the past few seasons as a member of the Coyotes, but most assumed that would end when Arizona finally pulled the trigger on a deal to send him to Ottawa for three draft picks days before last season’s deadline. Less than 11 months later, though, his name has re-entered trade discourse.
Per Pagnotta, multiple league sources and one anonymous NHL GM have heard Chychrun’s name pop up in recent weeks. No one would go so far as to claim the Senators were actively shopping the 2016 first-round pick, though.
The fact that Chychrun is back on the trade block is not at all a reflection of his play since joining the Senators. He’s put up 31 points in 50 games (a 51-point pace), including last season’s post-deadline stint, all the while playing over 22 minutes per game and logging solid possession metrics. His pairing with sophomore Jake Sanderson is top-ten in the league at limited expected goals against among duos with over 100 minutes together, per MoneyPuck data, seeing tougher competition than most others at the high end of that stat. He’s also logged significant minutes on his off-side with Thomas Chabot this year, controlling 55.3% of expected goals.
This season, he leads Senators defensemen in all scoring categories with seven goals, 19 assists and 26 points in 38 games. Injuries remain a concern and will limit his trade value, having never played more than 70 games in a season since debuting with Arizona in 2016, but he remains a top-pairing caliber defenseman when in the lineup.
Locked into a $4.6MM cap hit through this season and next, that’s tough value to beat. Nearly every contending team looking to add an impact player on defense will ring Staios over the next seven weeks before the March 8 trade deadline if Chychrun’s name remains on the table. Per CapFriendly, Chychrun has a ten-team no-trade clause, so he has some say in any potential deal.
Sam Reinhart To Prioritize Term In Extension Talks With Panthers
In recent memory, few have taken advantage of their pending UFA status like Panthers winger Sam Reinhart. The 28-year-old has exploded in his third season in South Florida, producing at a 61-goal, 106-point pace through his first 42 games. He’ll shatter his previous career highs of 33 goals and 82 points, set during his first campaign with the Panthers in 2021-22.
That production has elevated Reinhart to the title of the league’s best pending UFA, at least with Maple Leafs winger William Nylander off the market. As such, most expected Reinhart’s camp to push for a deal closer to his Toronto counterpart’s eight-year, $92MM deal that carries a $11.5MM AAV. However, in his latest for The Athletic, Pierre LeBrun says that won’t necessarily be the case.
Firstly, he stresses that only preliminary extension discussions between Panthers GM Bill Zito and Reinhart’s agent, Newport Sports’ Craig Oster, have taken place. But, in LeBrun’s words, Reinhart “really, really wants to stay in South Florida,” and that could cause a potential extension to come in below the $10MM-plus AAV mark that some are expecting. While tax advantages in contract signings with certain teams are generally overblown in public discourse, there is a documented history of players taking discounts on market value in no-income-tax states like Florida, Dallas and Tennessee that LeBrun points out.
LeBrun also doesn’t believe Zito would be willing to entertain a deal that stretches into the $10MM range, given the team’s salary structure. The team’s longer-term commitments to their stars are clearly laid out – captain Aleksander Barkov carries a $10MM cap hit through 2030, last season’s team MVP Matthew Tkachuk carries a $9.5MM cap hit for the same length, and starting netminder Sergei Bobrovsky carries a $10MM cap hit through 2026. He won’t be willing to give Reinhart a deal that eclipses any of the above.
However, despite Reinhart being likely to receive offers of $10MM-plus per year from other teams on the open market, LeBrun posits Reinhart may be amicable to Zito’s desires. That’s because he’s likely to prioritize contract length in his discussions, says LeBrun, and it’s easy to see why. While he’s got ten seasons and over 650 NHL games under his belt, he’s never signed a contract longer than three years, and he’s now wrapping up his third deal signed after his entry-level contract expired in 2018.
So, if Zito is willing to go eight years on an extension, that could get Reinhart locked in at a cheaper price than most expected after his breakout year. There’s some recent precedence in terms of team salary structure that could offer insight into what Reinhart’s final extension could look like, too.
Take the Canadiens last summer, who needed an extension for star RFA sniper Cole Caufield after the completion of his entry-level contract. While his 2022-23 campaign was nearly halved due to a shoulder injury, he produced at a 46-goal pace through his 46 appearances. Given he was just in his third NHL season on a rebuilding team, few would have batted an eye if his extension was signed in the $8MM-$9.5MM range per season.
Instead, he took an eight-year deal with a slight discount in the cap hit department at $7.85MM. It was $25K less per season than captain Nick Suzuki, who Canadiens GM Kent Hughes obviously believes should be the team’s highest-paid forward at this stage in their rebuild. While Suzuki and Caufield are a younger duo, it wouldn’t be a far-fetched comparison to project that difference onto the potential difference in cap hits between Reinhart and Tkachuk. Could an eight-year deal worth $9.25MM per season be enough to keep Reinhart from heading to market on July 1?
Zito has a busy few months ahead of him. He also needs to hold extension talks with defensemen Gustav Forsling and Brandon Montour, who are currently locked into a combined bargain price of $6.17MM. Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who leads Panthers defensemen in points at the halfway mark of the season, is also a pending UFA earning only $2.25MM. Getting Reinhart done for seven figures per season would open a precious few thousand dollars to devote to the future of their defense corps.
Wild Activate Kirill Kaprizov Off Injured Reserve
The Wild have activated leading scorer Kirill Kaprizov off injured reserve prior to tonight’s game against the Coyotes, per a team announcement.
Tonight will be Kaprizov’s first game since sustaining an upper-body injury on a cross-check from Jets defenseman Brenden Dillon on December 30th. He re-enters the lineup after missing seven games and two weeks.
Kaprizov isn’t the only big name returning for Minnesota tonight, either. Netminder Filip Gustavsson was activated off IR earlier in the day projects to start for the first time since December 30 as well.
Despite missing a significant chunk of the past few weeks, Kaprizov still leads the team with 34 points. That’s made up of 13 goals, tied for third behind Matt Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek (who each have 15) and 21 assists, which ranks second behind linemate Mats Zuccarello‘s 24.
Without Kaprizov, Gustavsson and even Zuccarello for a stretch of games, the Wild have once again fallen out of the playoff picture in the Western Conference. Including the December 30 game, the Wild are 1-6-1 in their past eight games, dropping to 17-19-5 on the season and seventh in the Central Division. In doing so, they’ve undone nearly all the work done by a hot start under new head coach John Hynes, who replaced former bench boss Dean Evason in mid-November. As such, their playoff chances are down to under six percent, per Hockey Reference.
A small part of the Wild’s struggles has been due to a step back in production from Kaprizov. The fourth-year NHLer produced at a 1.24 point-per-game clip over the past two seasons, but is down to 1.00 points per game this year. He’s also dropped to 0.38 goals per game this season, the lowest per-game rate of his career.
What hasn’t declined is his two-way game. He’s recorded a Corsi share of 54% at even strength, a whopping 4.5% increase from the Wild’s Corsi share without Kaprizov on the ice. As such, he’s still undoubtedly the Wild’s most important skater and makes a huge splash in their chances of turning their season around.