Jets Sign Nino Niederreiter To Three-Year Extension
The Winnipeg Jets have signed forward Nino Niederreiter to a three-year contract extension. The new deal carries a $4MM annual average value (AAV) and will begin next season. Niederreiter is in his first full season with Winnipeg, after joining the team via a trade with the Nashville Predators last season.
Niederreiter has appeared in 23 games with the Jets this season, recording six goals, 14 points, and a +9. He managed similar stats after joining the Jets last season, appearing in 22 games and scoring six goals and 13 points. He also added four points in five playoff games.
Winnipeg is the fifth franchise that the 31-year-old Niederreiter has played for across his 13-year career. He was originally drafted fifth overall by the New York Islanders in the 2010 NHL Draft and went on to make his NHL debut at the end of the 2010-11 season, joining the Islanders roster after the end of the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks season. His rookie season came in 2011-12, and was marked by a string of challenges, with Niederreiter only recording one goal and a -29 through 55 games. He bounced back from the shaky start, though, going on to record 833 career NHL games and 423 career points. He ranks sixth in the 2010 Draft class in career games.
Niederreiter is averaging just over 15 minutes of ice time this season, providing strong support to Winnipeg’s middle-six. He is one of nine Jets with 10 or more points this season. The roster currently ranks third in the Central Division, with a 13-8-2 record. They also rank 11th in goal-differential, with a +10.
Devils Place Dougie Hamilton On IR With Torn Pectoral Muscle, Tomáš Nosek Undergoes Foot Surgery
The injury news regarding Devils defenseman Dougie Hamilton is worse than initially feared. The team announced Friday that they’ve placed their star defender on injured reserve after a successful surgery to repair a torn pectoral muscle, retroactive to November 28, and there is no timetable for his return. Additionally, center Tomáš Nosek has re-aggravated a right foot injury that’s sidelined him for all but six games this season and has undergone successful surgery to repair the issue. He, too, is out indefinitely.
New Jersey also confirmed the call-up of top defense prospect Šimon Nemec from AHL Utica, as reported earlier today. He will make his NHL debut tonight against the Sharks, playing a third-pairing role alongside veteran Colin Miller.
This is a tough blow for the Devils and Hamilton, who played all 82 games last season and finished sixth in Norris Trophy voting after recording 74 points and a +23 rating. This is his first stint on IR since a broken jaw kept him out for 17 games in the middle of the 2021-22 season.
The 30-year-old right-shot defender was off to a strong start, leading Devils defensemen with five goals and 16 points in 20 contests. He missed Thursday’s contest against the Flyers after sustaining the pectoral tear in Tuesday’s game against the Islanders. Hamilton, who was also boasting a career-high Corsi share of 58.3% at even strength, is in the third season of a seven-year, $63MM deal carrying a $9MM cap hit and, for now, a full no-movement clause.
No team is well-positioned to lose their number-one defenseman, and it makes for tough waters to navigate as the Devils look to rebound from a sluggish start to the campaign. Hamilton’s absence does, however, provide increased opportunities for rookie Luke Hughes. The 20-year-old is now tasked with top pairing duties alongside Jonas Siegenthaler, which will certainly help his case for being a Calder Trophy nominee at season’s end. He’s already off to an impressive start offensively, notching three goals and 14 points through 21 games – not very far behind Hamilton’s production.
Hughes’ possession numbers are similarly strong, albeit in slightly easier minutes. He’ll now be given a prime chance to flash what his ceiling can be – first-pair duties and, expectedly, first power-play unit duties will be quite the test for the youngster, whom the Devils selected fourth overall in the 2021 draft.
Meanwhile, Nosek exited the Devils’ lineup earlier in the month and had already been placed on IR. He last played November 18 against the Rangers and skated just 2:55 in that game, his fourth since returning from the initial injury sustained in mid-October. He, like Hamilton, will presumably be out long-term, although it doesn’t change the picture much for the Devils, given how little he’s played.
Nikita Zadorov Traded To The Vancouver Canucks
The Calgary Flames have traded defenseman Nikita Zadorov to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for a 2024 NHL Draft fifth-round pick and a 2026 NHL Draft third-round pick.
Zadorov’s move to Vancouver comes in response to a formal trade request submitted on November 11th, following a shootout loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Zadorov has appeared in 21 games with the Flames this season, recording six points, 23 penalty minutes, and a -6. He was in his third season with the club after Calgary acquired him through a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks ahead of the 2021-22 season.
Calgary signed Zadorov to two contracts, including a two-year, $7.5MM contract signed in 2022 that Zadorov is in the final year of. The 28-year-old defenseman carries a $3.75MM cap hit through the remainder of the season and is set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1st.
Vancouver will become the fifth team that Zadorov has played for throughout his 11-year career. He was originally drafted 16th overall in the 2013 NHL Draft, making his NHL debut at the end of the 2013-14 season. The defender played his rookie season in 2014-15, notching 15 points, 51 penalty minutes, and a -10 in 60 games. The Sabres traded Zadorov to the Colorado Avalanche in 2015 alongside J.T. Compher and Mikhail Grigorenko, in the trade that brought Ryan O’Reilly to Buffalo.
The deal to Vancouver is the fifth trade that Zadorov has been a part of, including the trading of the draft pick used to select the defenseman – which was swapped between the Minnesota Wild and Buffalo in the deal that sent Jason Pominville to Minnesota. Zadorov has not joined a new team by any other means other than a trade.
Blue Jackets Recall Kent Johnson, Place Damon Severson On IR
The Columbus Blue Jackets brought top forward prospect Kent Johnson back up from the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters on Thursday, per a team release. To make room on the roster, defenseman Damon Severson has been placed on injured reserve. He is one week into a six-week recovery timeline from an oblique injury.
This season started on a rough note for Johnson, Columbus’ fifth-overall pick in the 2021 draft. He was scratched by head coach Pascal Vincent for the team’s season opener and received minimal ice time when reinstated into the lineup, posting three points in eight games while averaging 12:49 per contest.
After being a healthy scratch twice in the Blue Jackets’ first ten games, there was another blow: Columbus opted to send him to the minors for the first time in his career. It was an unexpected move after the 21-year-old notched 16 goals and 40 points in 79 games during his rookie season last year.
The versatile, skillful forward quickly showed he didn’t belong at a lower level of play. Through ten games with the Monsters, Johnson registered five goals and ten assists for 15 points, positioning himself as second on the team in points despite missing seven out of 17 games while on the NHL roster.
In the final season of his entry-level contract, Johnson will make his case to stay on the Blue Jackets roster for the remainder of the season. The pending restricted free agent will not have arbitration rights next summer and is owed a qualifying offer of $874,125.
In his draft year, Elite Prospects labeled Johnson an “artist” with the puck and listed him as the tenth-best prospect available. Dobber Prospects lists Johnson as the second-best forward prospect in the Columbus system behind 2023 third-overall pick Adam Fantilli, who has a respectable ten points in 24 games to kick off his NHL career.
Severson’s recovery remains status quo as he’s not expected to begin skating for a while yet. He remains on track to return to the lineup around New Year’s Day.
Detroit Red Wings Sign Patrick Kane
11/29/23: The Red Wings have now made their signing of Kane official.
11/28/23: According to The Athletic’s Chris Johnston, free agent forward and future Hall of Famer Patrick Kane is signing with the Detroit Red Wings.
Should this report end up accurate, Kane would be landing with a historic rival of his longtime club, the Chicago Blackhawks.
According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, Kane’s deal is a one-year, $2.75MM pact.
It would also mean Kane will have played for half of the league’s original six teams, after spending part of last season with the New York Rangers.
According to ESPN’s Emily Kaplan, Kane “was very impressed” with Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde, and more specifically his “hockey acumen” and “vision for Detroit.”
By signing in Detroit, Kane has re-united himself with one of his favorite former teammates: Alex DeBrincat. DeBrincat, who the Red Wings acquired in the offseason, has had the best seasons of his career on a line with Kane and is currently off to a hot start with 12 goals and 20 points in 20 games.
While DeBrincat has slowed down a bit recently, the arrival of Kane will likely give him a major boost, assuming Kane comes back and plays up to his career standard. That’s far from a guarantee after offseason hip surgery, especially if one considers the impact hip resurfacing surgery had on Nicklas Backstrom.
At the moment, the Red Wings have almost $7MM in cap space to work with according to CapFriendly. As a result, they should be able to comfortably fit the cost of Kane’s contract, assuming the cap hit isn’t excessively expensive.
As for where Kane fits in Detroit’s lineup, one has to assume Lalonde would begin by placing Kane with DeBrincat on the team’s second line, a unit currently centered by J.T. Compher. Doing so would displace Michael Rasmussen, but the 2017 ninth-overall pick’s six points in 20 games is hardly a convincing argument to retain his top-six job over a player like Kane.
Of course, Lalonde could also choose to not immediately go with the DeBrincat/Kane partnership, and instead play Kane on the first line with Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond, replacing Joe Veleno.
In any case, the Red Wings could be getting a significant offensive boost with this signing. Assuming Kane can return to something close to what he was in Chicago and at times on Broadway, Detroit is getting the type of mid-season reinforcement that usually costs teams quality prospects and/or draft picks.
Although Kane’s play in the defensive end has led to questions regarding how much overall value he actually provides, there’s a reason most contending teams would eagerly accept adding Kane to their top-six. He’s one of the defining offensive talents of this most recent era of NHL hockey, and is nearly point-per-game in the postseason across a sample size of nearly 150 games.
The Red Wings are eager to emerge out of their rebuild and return to the playoffs, perhaps making a serious run at the Stanley Cup as well. Adding Kane almost undoubtedly helps them in that pursuit.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Blackhawks Place Corey Perry On Waivers, Intend To Terminate Contract
The Chicago Blackhawks have placed veteran forward Corey Perry on waivers for the purposes of contract termination. He was 16 games into his first year with the club, scoring four goals and nine points. Perry was previously announced as being away from the team for the “foreseeable future”.
Perry has been missing from team activities since the Wednesday before American Thanksgiving after he was a surprising healthy-scratch as the result of an “organizational decision”. He missed the team’s proceeding Thursday practice and the team shared that they’ve decided Perry should take time away soon after.
Perry joined the Hawks via trade in June, with Chicago sending a seventh-round pick to the Tampa Bay Lightning for the veteran. Chicago then inked Perry to a one-year, $4MM contract extension that set him up for a prominent role with the 2023-24 Blackhawks lineup. Chicago even rewarded Perry with an alternate captain role. He served as one of four alternate captains for the Hawks, who have yet to name a successor to the captaincy that Jonathan Toews held since 2008.
Perry, 38, is nearing the end of an electric hockey career that saw him win the Stanley Cup and win Gold at the World Cup, World Juniors, Hlinka Gretzky Cup, World Championship, twice at the Olympics, and plenty more. He’s one of only a handful of hockey players in the coveted Triple Gold club, which comprises players who have won Gold at the Olympics and World Championship, and won a Stanley Cup. Perry’s dazzling career has amounted to 1,273 NHL games and 892 career points. He added 124 points in 196 career playoff games.
It is unknown whether Perry’s contract termination is mutual, although the Blackhawks have claimed that Perry violated his standard player contract, which would provide grounds for termination even if Perry does not agree.
Minnesota Wild Fire Dean Evason, Name John Hynes Head Coach
The Wild have relieved head coach Dean Evason and assistant coach Bob Woods of their duties effective immediately, the team said in a statement Monday evening. Two hours later, they named former Devils and Predators bench boss John Hynes as their new head coach.
Wild GM Bill Guerin gave the following comment on the decision to part with Evason:
Dean did an excellent job during his tenure with the Minnesota Wild, especially as Head Coach of our team. I am very thankful for his hard work and dedication to our organization. I would also like to thank Bob for his hard work during his time as an Assistant Coach with the Wild. I wish Dean, Bob and their families all the best in the future.
Evason had been a member of the Wild organization since he was brought on as an assistant in 2018, while Woods joined the Wild bench one season prior. The 59-year-old Evason began his coaching career with the WHL’s Calgary Hitmen as an assistant in 1998-99 after finishing out his playing career in Germany, working his way up the junior hockey ranks over the next handful of seasons. His first NHL job came courtesy of an assistant role with the Capitals immediately after the 2004-05 lockout, coaching Alex Ovechkin in his first seven NHL seasons.
After departing Washington in 2012, Evason spent the next several seasons working in the Predators organization as the head coach of their AHL affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals. There, he helped guide more than a few future NHL stalwarts – namely Mattias Ekholm, Ryan Ellis, Filip Forsberg, Calle Järnkrok, Viktor Arvidsson, and Kevin Fiala, among many others. After joining the Wild, he earned a promotion to head coach within two seasons when the Wild fired Bruce Boudreau late in the 2019-20 campaign.
Just a couple of years later, Evason had coached the Wild to their best season in franchise history. The 2021-22 campaign saw the Wild break the 50-win mark for the first time since their inception in 2000, nearly sitting atop the Central Division with 113 points. That was in an extremely tough group with the 119-point Stanley Cup champion Avalanche and the 109-point Blues, whom the Wild bowed out to in the first round of the playoffs. The Wild remain without a playoff series victory since the 2015 postseason and have not advanced to a Conference Final since the 2002-03 season.
So with the Wild now far out of the playoff picture with a 5-10-4 record, sitting bottom five in the league in both goals for and against, a change was necessary and expected. Injuries and goaltending have certainly played a factor in their poor play – captain Jared Spurgeon missed the first 13 games of the season, and Filip Gustavsson‘s and Marc-André Fleury‘s combined .878 SV% is near the bottom of the league.
They’ve likely been unlucky, too. The Wild have controlled a slim majority of scoring chances and a strong majority of high-danger chances during 5-on-5 play, a common theme for an organization that’s usually one of the more defensively stout in the league. But the culture around the team is evidently turning sour quickly, Kirill Kaprizov is on pace for a career-low 26 goals and has a team-worst -10 rating, and most of their depth defensemen have been significant liabilities. This roster is not all that different from the one that’s finished top-three in the Central Division for three straight seasons, and it’s certainly one that still has playoff aspirations.
Minnesota has not won since November 7 against the Islanders and is winless in seven straight.
Woods, who had worked on the Capitals’ bench with Evason briefly as an assistant in the early 2010s, is now on the open market after more than six seasons with the Wild. It’s unclear whether the Wild will opt to fill his vacancy.
Hynes, who was let go by the Predators after last season, is technically in the final season of his contract with Nashville. That means the Predators had to grant permission to their divisional rival to speak to their former head coach and that Hynes will be paid by both Minnesota and Nashville this season.
Now behind the bench of his third NHL franchise, he faces an uphill climb to get Minnesota back in the playoff picture. Hynes will suit up behind an NHL bench for a ninth consecutive season, as he was fired by the Devils and hired by Nashville midway through the 2019-20 campaign.
The Wild will certainly get a boost in the standings once Fleury and Gustavsson improve their play between the pipes, a likely scenario given their stellar performance last season. However, they again have the misfortune of being in quite a competitive division. The Avalanche and Stars occupy first and second place as expected powerhouses, while the Blues, Predators and Coyotes all sit at or above the .500 mark and, especially in Nashville’s case, have posted decent underlying numbers.
Hynes’ main job is simply to restore confidence in his group. This roster has the ability to play better – especially Kaprizov, who, despite the okay point production, has looked like a complete non-factor on some nights. The team also hopes a significant change behind the bench can boost their league-worst penalty kill, which is operating at just 66.7%. Penalty killing was an area of strength for Nashville last season, who finished tied for fourth in the NHL with an 82.6% success rate.
The Wild will be on the hook for the remainder of Evason’s contract, which runs through 2024-25 at just under $2MM per season.
The Athletic’s Michael Russo was the first to report the Hynes hire.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Nico Hischier Activated Off IR, On The Ice For Warmups
The home crowd at Saturday night’s New Jersey Devils game was greeted with the surprise return of captain Nico Hischier, who has taken the ice for warmups. No announcement of Hischier’s return was made, although The Athletic’s James Nichols pointed out that he was noted as off of injured reserve on the NHL’s official website earlier today. The website also showed that forward Tomas Nosek was placed on injured reserve.
With no official announcement, it’s unclear if Hischier’s participation in warmups is a test for if he’s ready, or an official indication that he’s in the lineup. If he does play, he’ll be returning against the Buffalo Sabres. Hischier was hurt the last time that New Jersey faced Buffalo, taking a check to the head from Connor Clifton that earned Clifton a two-game suspension.
Hischier has faced a slew of injuries this season, only managing to appear in seven games this season. He’s scored two goals in those matchups, also tallying four penalty minutes and a -2. He’ll look to overcome his injury bug and right his season with a return to the lineup. The 24-year-old captain scored 80 points in 81 games last year.
Nosek’s appearance on injured reserve doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, as he’s missed the team’s last two games. He’ll miss his third on Saturday, as he fights his way back from an upper-body injury. Nosek has no points, four hits, and three blocked shots in six games this season. Nosek is in his first season with the Devils, after spending the last two years with the Boston Bruins, who he totaled 141 games and 35 points with.
Corey Perry To Be Away From Blackhawks For Foreseeable Future
There have been plenty of questions when it comes to Corey Perry’s situation in Chicago. He has missed the last two games due to what head coach Luke Richardson termed an organizational decision although he declined to provide more information than that. Today, GM Kyle Davidson met with reporters including Charlie Roumeliotis of NBC Sports Chicago and said that the veteran would be away from the team for the foreseeable future.
While Davidson failed to provide more specifics than that regarding the nature of Perry’s absence, the GM reiterated that this is a team decision, not Perry’s to be away from the team. When pressed about possible reasons by reporters, he stated that it would be irresponsible to rule anything out so he wouldn’t comment on any scenarios.
However, following the press conference, Perry’s agent Pat Morris of Newport released the following statement to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman (Twitter link):
Corey Perry has stepped away from the Chicago Blackhawks to attend to personal matters. Corey and his family appreciate privacy at this time.
Chicago acquired Perry’s negotiating rights back at the draft from Tampa Bay and quickly signed him to a one-year, $4MM deal. While that’s not a typical move for a rebuilding team to make, the Blackhawks clearly identified that they wanted some quality veterans on a young roster, one that added Connor Bedard with the top pick back in June.
While Perry has been more of a supporting cast type of player in recent years with Tampa Bay and Montreal, the 38-year-old has logged a little under 15 minutes a night so far this season and has been relatively productive, collecting four goals and five assists in his first 16 games. With nine points, he sits fourth on the team in scoring.
With the team already missing Taylor Hall – whose ACL surgery is set for Monday – and Perry, that’s a decent chunk of their scoring depth on a team that’s the third-lowest-scoring group in the league. However, Davidson indicated that going and adding a replacement is not something he is looking into right now, suggesting that there are other teams that are far more aggressive in trying to add to their rosters at the moment. At this point, getting into any sort of bidding war for one of those players wouldn’t make sense for the Blackhawks who are still clearly in a rebuilding situation but now will be without another key veteran in Perry for a while yet at least.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Maple Leafs Place John Klingberg On LTIR, Recall Alex Steeves
The Toronto Maple Leafs have placed defenseman John Klingberg on long-term injured reserve and recalled forward Alex Steeves from the AHL’s Toronto Marlies. Klingberg’s LTIR assignment has been much anticipated, as the defender’s undisclosed injury grew from a small concern, to something that would hold him out of all action this week, to an LTIR designation.
Klingberg is in his first season with the Leafs, signing a one-year, $4.2MM contract with the team on July 1st. He’s performed modestly in his first 14 games with the club, netting five points, eight penalty minutes, and a -7.
Klingberg has moved around a lot in recent years, after spending the first eight years of his career with the Dallas Stars. He signed a one-year, $7MM contract with the Anaheim Ducks ahead of last season and appeared in 50 games with the club, netting 24 points and a -28. Anaheim didn’t stick out the contract, though, dealing him to the Minnesota Wild at last year’s Trade Deadline. Klingberg went on to play in 17 games and record nine points, in Minnesota – adding four points in four playoff games as well.
With the veteran defender on IR, Toronto brings up the Marlies’ leading scorer in Steeves. The 23-year-old forward has 18 points in 14 AHL games this season, a tally that ties him for third in the league in points. Steeves has played three NHL games in each of the last two seasons, totaling one point across the matchups.
Steeves provides depth for Calle Jarnkrok, who is slated to be a game-time decision for the team’s Friday matchup. Jarnkrok is dealing with a lower-body injury after taking an Auston Matthews shot to the leg.