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Avalanche Place Miles Wood On IR, Valeri Nichushkin Cleared To Practice

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The Avalanche announced today that they’ve summoned forwards Ivan Ivan, Nikolai Kovalenko and Nikita Prishchepov back up from AHL Colorado after papering them down yesterday. They only had two open spots on the active roster after activating Artturi Lehkonen from injured reserve, so winger Miles Wood was placed on IR retroactive to Oct. 28 in a corresponding transaction to open the extra spot. Additionally, the team confirmed that Valeri Nichushkin has been cleared to practice with the team as he enters the final few days of his participation in Stage 3 of the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program and corresponding suspension.

Wood would be eligible to come off IR as soon as tomorrow’s game against the Kraken, but that won’t happen. Head coach Jared Bednar said on Oct. 30 that Wood was set to miss around seven to 10 days with the upper-body injury that’s kept him out of Colorado’s last two contests. That pushes his return to the lineup to Thursday against the Jets or the Hurricanes next weekend.

The 29-year-old’s absence adds to a laundry list of injuries at forward for the Avalanche, although they’ll certainly take a swap of him for Lehkonen coming off IR. The checking winger hadn’t been much of a factor for the Avs yet this season, limited to one goal on 19 shots and no assists through 10 games. He had averaged 13:40 per game, one second lower than last season, despite Colorado being without Lehkonen, Nichushkin and Gabriel Landeskog throughout the entire campaign to date.

With Lehkonen back and the aforementioned trio recalled, the Avs may be able to dress 12 forwards tomorrow for the first time since Wood’s injury. Defenseman Oliver Kylington had suited up on the wing in back-to-back games with Wood out and no roster flexibility for an additional recall from the AHL.

Ivan and Kovalenko each have four points through 12 games this season, both their first regular-season contests in the NHL. Ivan had no previous major-league experience, while Kovalenko suited up twice for the Avs in last year’s playoffs. Meanwhile, all signs point to Prishchepov playing his second NHL game tomorrow. The 20-year-old was selected 217th overall just a few months ago in the 2024 draft and logged 13:30 in his debut against the Predators on Saturday, registering two shots and three hits.

For Nichushkin, his being cleared to practice indicates that he’s fulfilled all the requirements of his Stage 3 placement so far. His corresponding six-month suspension was handed out on May 13, 2024, while the Avalanche were amid their Second Round series against the Stars. He’s eligible to return to the lineup on Nov. 13 against the Kings, and with a nine-day run-up to practice, it’s looking likelier than not that he’ll play.

While a separate stint in the Player Assistance Program limited Nichushkin to 54 games last season, he’s coming off the best campaign of his nine-year NHL career. The 6’4″, 210-lb Russian winger notched 28 goals and 53 points for a career-high 0.98 points per game, also averaging a career-high 21:21 per night. Despite the extended absence, he also led the club with 16 power-play goals.

Nichushkin has six years remaining on the eight-year, $49MM extension he signed in 2022 to keep him off the open market. Many speculated the Avs would try and move that contract given Nichushkin’s struggles to stay in the lineup since the deal began (he’s only played in 107 of 164 possible regular-season games). But given their bevy of injuries and correspondingly underwhelming 5-7-0 record, it makes little sense to part ways with a player who’s been an invaluable part of their top six when healthy.

Avalanche Activate Artturi Lehkonen From Injured Reserve

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12:00 PM: Colorado has assigned Prishchepov, Ivan Ivan, and Nikolai Kovalenko to the AHL for salary cap reasons, per Meghan Angley of Guerilla Sports. Angley adds that more roster moves are expected before Colorado hosts Seattle on Tuesday, likely suggesting that some of these transactions are paper moves.

10:30 AM: The Avalanche announced today that they’ve activated winger Artturi Lehkonen from injured reserve. There’s no open spot for him on the active roster, so they’ve assumedly assigned a player to the minors in a corresponding transaction. That’s likely 2024 seventh-round pick Nikita Prishchepov, who made his NHL debut in yesterday’s loss to the Predators.

Lehkonen will likely make his season debut on Tuesday against the Kraken. The 29-year-old had missed Colorado’s first 12 games after undergoing a shoulder procedure early in the offseason. He wasn’t ready for training camp, but there was mild optimism that he could play by the beginning of the regular season. That was quashed when Lehkonen landed on IR when the Avalanche submitted their opening night roster, with head coach Jared Bednar quickly saying Lehkonen would be out through at least Oct. 28 – the date of his next evaluation by team doctors.

Evidently, the evaluation went well, and Lehkonen was cleared to play. He’s been skating in a non-contact jersey for much of the past month, so he won’t be coming into the lineup completely cold. With most of Colorado’s top-nine forward group ravaged by injuries, he’ll be relied upon heavily from the get-go. Lehkonen, Gabriel Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin were unavailable since the start of the season, and he’s the first to return from that group. Since the season opener, Ross Colton and Jonathan Drouin have joined them on IR, while Miles Wood has missed the last two games with an upper-body injury and won’t be back until late this week at the soonest.

Lehkonen has become a fixture in Colorado’s top six since the Avs acquired him from the Canadiens before the 2022 trade deadline. He had 14 points in 20 playoff games en route to the Avalanche winning the Stanley Cup in 2022. While he’s missed 55 games over the following two seasons due to injuries, he’s churned out legitimate top-six offensive production while retaining the excellent defensive and physical game that made him a standout depth piece in Montreal. A neck injury cost him nearly half of last season, but he still managed 16 goals and 34 points in 45 games, a 62-point pace, while averaging 18:28 per game. The Avs controlled 56.9% of shot attempts with Lehkonen on the ice at even strength compared to 52.4% without him.

Whether Lehkonen lines up alongside Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen on the Avalanche’s first line or is deployed in second-line minutes to give Casey Mittelstadt some help remains to be seen, but he’ll indeed be deployed in that same top-six role against Seattle next week. His return couldn’t have come soon enough – the Avalanche have lost three in a row and have fallen to 5-7-0 on the season, placing sixth in the Central Division.

Lehkonen was on IR, not LTIR, so his activation has no negative cap impacts. They’ll actually gain cap space with the move by opening up a roster spot for him.

Islanders Place Mathew Barzal On LTIR, Announce Several Roster Moves

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The Islanders had some injuries in last night’s victory over Buffalo and it has necessitated some roster moves.  The team announced (Twitter link) that blueliners Grant Hutton and Samuel Bolduc were recalled from AHL Bridgeport.  To make room on the roster and to keep the team cap-compliant, Adam Pelech was placed on injured reserve while Mathew Barzal was placed on LTIR.  Meanwhile, blueliners Mike Reilly and Alexander Romanov are listed as day-to-day with upper-body injuries.

Barzal recently sustained an upper-body injury that caused him to leave the team’s current road trip for more evaluation.  That testing has revealed that he’ll miss the next four to six weeks, making him LTIR-eligible as he’ll clearly miss the next ten games and 24 days.  Last year, the 27-year-old recorded his first 80-point season since his rookie campaign but he hasn’t been able to maintain that level of production in the early going this season, notching just two goals and three assists in his first ten outings.  Nonetheless, his absence will still be a significant one for a team that’s already one of the lowest-scoring teams in the NHL through the first month of the season.

Pelech, meanwhile, was injured versus the Sabres and will carry the same timeline as Barzal for his upper-body injury.  With Barzal and his $9.15MM AAV landing on LTIR, there’s no need for them to move Pelech there at this time despite being eligible as they’ll have ample spending room using Barzal’s money.  It’s now the third straight year that the 30-year-old will miss significant time due to injury, hardly the ideal spot for one of New York’s most important blueliners.  Pelech is averaging over 20 minutes per game in the early going, a mark he has reached in each of the last five seasons.  He has four assists, 12 blocks, and 17 hits in 11 outings so far.

As for the recalls, Hutton is in the third and final season of a one-way deal that pays $775K per season.  Despite the NHL salary, he has spent the bulk of this deal in the minors, suiting up just twice with the big club over the past two years.  This season, the 29-year-old has two assists in nine AHL contests.  Bolduc, on the other hand, is more familiar to the coaching staff as he played in 34 games with New York last season but still went unclaimed on waivers last month.  He’s making $800K this season on a one-way deal and has five points in his first nine AHL games of the season.

Reilly was also injured against Buffalo and was in enough distress that a stretcher was brought out.  While he was able to exit the ice with some help without the stretcher, he obviously didn’t return to the game.  Romanov was also banged up in that one but was able to return.  With the recalls, New York now has six healthy defenders on the roster which suggests they’re hopeful that either Reilly or Romanov will be able to return in short order.

Colorado’s Matthew Stienburg Suspended Two Games, Reassigned

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The Colorado Avalanche are losing another player up front, although this time it won’t be for an injury. The NHL’s Department of Player Safety announced they have suspended Avalanche rookie forward Matthew Stienburg for two games for charging Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Erik Černák in last night’s contest. Shortly after the suspension was issued, the Avalanche announced they had reassigned Stienburg to their AHL affiliate, the Colorado Eagles.

The news came roughly seven hours after the Department of Player Safety shared that Stienburg was scheduled for a hearing regarding the incident. The discipline served by the Department of Player Safety is in addition to the on-ice referees giving Stienburg a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct.

In the video shared by the Department of Player Safety, the contributing factor to the suspension was that Stienburg turned his back on the hit and lifted himself off the ice causing the focal point of the hit to be Černák’s head. They also noted that Stienburg’s NHL experience of eight games played a part in the length of the suspension.

He’s been one of Colorado’s most physical players since being recalled from AHL Colorado on October 16th. He’s seventh on the team in hits with 16 despite only being 16th in games played with eight. Consequently, thanks to the illegal hit on Černák yesterday evening, he now sits first on the team in PIMs with 22. According to Evan Rawal of The Denver Gazette, Stienburg must wait to serve his suspension until he’s recalled back to the NHL.

The biggest implication of this suspension and subsequent demotion is that the Avalanche only have 10 healthy forwards and an upcoming game on Saturday against the Nashville Predators. Gabriel Landeskog, Artturi Lehkonen, Valeri Nichushkin, Ross Colton, and Jonathan Drouin are all on the shelf for one reason or another, and Colorado will now have to pull from their organizational depth even further with Stienburg being sent down.

New Jersey’s Curtis Lazar Out Indefinitely After Knee Procedure

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The New Jersey Devils will be without a key bottom-six forward for the foreseeable future. The organization announced that Curtis Lazar is out indefinitely after undergoing a procedure on his left knee.

The team shared that Lazar sustained the injury in Sunday night’s win against the Anaheim Ducks. Expectations are that the Devils will utilize Justin Dowling to replace Lazar in the bottom six as the veteran center tallied one assist in his season debut yesterday.

Lazar has been a solid contributor for New Jersey since the organization acquired him from the Vancouver Canucks during the 2022-23 season. He skated in 71 games for the Devils last year scoring seven goals and 25 points while managing a +10 rating and racking up 179 hits.

His offensive play from last year hasn’t translated to the early part of this season but there are little expectations from a bottom-six forward. New Jersey has historically utilized Lazar for his defensive makeup with 62.1% of his shift starts coming in the defensive zone.

He’s responded well in the defensive zone with a 92.1% on-ice save percentage in all situations through 12 games — a slight uptick compared to his career average. The team will also have to look elsewhere for an experienced penalty killer with Lazar helping the Devils to their current 81.08% kill percentage.

Recovery from knee injuries typically takes a long time but the vagueness of New Jersey’s announcement clouds Lazar’s timeline. The team opted to use the word ’procedure’ rather than ’surgery’ indicating that Lazar didn’t have his knee opened up under the knife which would shorten his time on the shelf.

Frederik Andersen Out Week-To-Week With Lower-Body Injury

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Oct. 31: Andersen will be evaluated weekly while he recovers from a lower-body injury, head coach Rod Brind’Amour told reporters today, including Cory Lavalette of the North State Journal.

Oct. 28: The Carolina Hurricanes made a surprise call-up of netminder Spencer Martin this morning without any additional context regarding their current combination of Frederik Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov. That context has finally come to light with Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reporting that Andersen sustained an injury in the team’s most recent game against the Seattle Kraken.

Seravalli adds that the injury isn’t supposed to be long-term and isn’t connected to Andersen’s blood cot ailment from last year. The Hurricanes couldn’t ask for better timing if there were to be a short-term injury to a rostered player as their six-game road trip concludes tonight against the Vancouver Canucks. The team returns home this Thursday and won’t have to leave Raleigh again until Nov. 9.

That should give the Carolina medical staff enough time to work with Andersen and make for a quicker recovery. Besides securing a victory against the Canucks this evening, it should make for one of the more critical organizational goals for the time being.

Despite solid offensive play from Martin Necas and Sebastian Aho, there is a credible argument that Andersen has been the team’s best player to start the 2024-25 campaign. He’s produced a 3-1-0 record through his first four games with a league-leading .941 save percentage and 1.48 goals-against average. That kind of play in the crease would be a boon for any team, including a Carolina roster that lost several offensive talents up front this past offseason.

Sharks Acquire Timothy Liljegren From Maple Leafs

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The San Jose Sharks have acquired defenseman Timothy Liljegren from the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for defenseman Matt Benning, a 2025 third-round and 2026 sixth-round draft pick. Toronto will get the better of the third-round picks that San Jose previously acquired from the Edmonton Oilers and Colorado Avalanche.

The move ends a tumultuous seven-year run for the 17th overall pick in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft. The Maple Leafs were patient with the 25-year-old, waiting for him to realize the potential that made him a first-round pick. Unfortunately for Toronto, that untapped potential never translated to results, as Liljegren could not crack Toronto’s top four on defense.

Liljegren was re-signed to a two-year $6MM contract back in late June, but despite the new contract, Liljegren quickly lost the trust of new head coach Craig Berube and general manager Brad Treliving. Liljegren has only dressed in one regular season game thus far and struggled mightily, as the Maple Leafs were out-chanced 21-2 while he was on the ice for 12 minutes of even-strength hockey.

Coming back the other way is 30-year-old depth defenseman Matt Benning. The Edmonton Alberta native is in the third year of a four-year $5MM contract, meaning that Toronto will realize a cap savings of $1.75MM in the transaction for this season and next. Benning is a useful defenseman who is just two years removed from his best offensive season as a pro (one goal and 23 assists in 77 games). While Benning will serve as valuable depth for Toronto, he is unlikely to see the kind of ice time he was seeing in San Jose and will most likely be Toronto’s eighth defenseman.

Connor McDavid Out 2-3 Weeks With Ankle Injury

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Oilers superstar Connor McDavid will miss “at least a couple of weeks” with the lower-body injury he sustained Monday against the Blue Jackets, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. It’s not expected to be an overly long-term absence, though, implying they’ve avoided the worst-case scenario of a left foot or lower-leg fracture. The team later confirmed it was an ankle injury and said he’ll be out for two to three weeks.

The Oilers haven’t yet placed McDavid on injured reserve, although with him safely ruled out for the next five days, there’s nothing stopping them from doing so. They had two open roster spots at the time of his injury, which they filled yesterday with the recalls of forwards Drake Caggiula and Noah Philp from AHL Bakersfield. They’re now at a full roster with ample cap flexibility thanks to Evander Kane’s LTIR placement but they could move McDavid to IR to open up another roster spot if necessary.

Still, any McDavid absence isn’t welcome news for Edmonton. They’re on their seemingly yearly tradition of underwhelming starts before going on a late-November or December tear. After being trounced 6-1 by Columbus earlier this week, they’re back below .500 with a 4-5-1 record, and their -13 goal differential is third-worst in the league, ahead of only the Penguins and Sharks. McDavid was caught in the mire, too, off to a slow start by his standards with three goals and 10 points in 10 games. He was still his usual dominant self in possession play, though, with the Oilers controlling 62.8% of shot attempts with McDavid on the ice at even strength.

A two-week timeline from today, which is likely the best-case scenario as outlined by Friedman, puts his earliest potential return on Nov. 14 against the Predators. The Oilers have six games between now and then. In the meantime, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is projected to shift from wing to center on the first line with Zach Hyman, while Jeff Skinner will move up from a middle-six role to ride shotgun with that pair.

Utah Acquires Olli Määttä From Red Wings

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Utah has acquired defenseman Olli Määttä from the Red Wings in a late-night trade, the team announced. They’re sending a 2025 third-round pick, previously acquired from the Rangers, to Detroit to complete the deal.

It’s no surprise to see the first-year franchise swing a deal for a defenseman. They’ll be without a pair of top-four defenders, Sean Durzi and John Marino, for most of the season after they both underwent surgeries in the past couple of weeks. Durzi could miss the rest of the regular season after having a procedure to repair his right shoulder, while Marino will likely be out until the 4 Nations Face-Off in February while recovering from lower back surgery.

Initial reports suggested Utah would likely lean on internal solutions to fill the void. They recalled 2022 first-round pick Maveric Lamoureux from AHL Tucson and have gotten solid hockey out of 24-year-old Michael Kesselring, who’s now averaging over 20 minutes per night and has five points and a team-leading +5 rating through 10 games. But losses have kept piling up for the Utahns, who remain at .500 with a 4-4-2 record after yesterday’s third-period collapse to the Sharks, which resulted in a 5-4 overtime defeat. A report from Pierre LeBrun of TSN last week suggested Utah had at least checked in on the availability of Blue Jackets defender Ivan Provorov, but they’ll end up netting a much cheaper player in Määttä in terms of both contract and acquisition cost.

Määttä, 30, is in the second year of a two-year, $6MM extension he signed with the Wings in 2023. The Finnish stay-at-home defender has called Detroit home since signing there as a free agent in 2022. He’s inexplicably been pushed down the lineup in recent days, sitting as a healthy scratch in two of the Wings’ last four games despite controlling 57.8% of expected goals when he’s on the ice at even strength. That number jumps out in a big way on a Detroit team that’s again struggled to maintain possession at 5-on-5 this year, controlling 42.5% of shot attempts, 43.7% of scoring chances, and 41.9% of high-danger chances. He’d yet to get on the scoresheet this season and was averaging a career-low 15:52 per game, but his 44.4 CF% was second among Wings defenders only to Simon Edvinsson.

Detroit’s loss is Utah’s gain. Määttä should post better results on a Utah club that’s actually been one of the league’s better 5-on-5 teams this season despite their roller-coaster record. He’s a left-shot but has played on the right side frequently throughout his 12-year NHL career, a task he’ll likely be asked to replicate in Salt Lake City. Whether he immediately steps into a top-four role with Durzi and Marino out remains to be seen, but at the very least, he’s a demonstrable upgrade on either of their current third-pairing options, Robert Bortuzzo and Vladislav Kolyachonok. He had 18 points and a +14 rating in 72 appearances for Detroit last season.

For the Wings, it’s the second time in a few months that general manager Steve Yzerman has traded away one of the more effective defenders on a blue line that has struggled to prevent quality scoring chances. He dealt Jake Walman to the Sharks in a somewhat similar cap-dump move back in June, although that transaction required him to offload a second-round pick to get San Jose to take his entire contract. He’s at least receiving an asset back for Määttä here with no salary retention, but it’s still a puzzling move for a team looking to push for a playoff spot.

Detroit does at least free up a roster spot and a fair amount of cap space with the move. They now have a comfortable $3.58MM in current cap space, per PuckPedia. The flurry of paper transactions to conserve cap space and juggle a full roster should now calm down, and the Red Wings do have far more in-season maneuverability to perhaps address other roster weaknesses in a more cost-effective manner.

Blues Extend Alexey Toropchenko

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The Blues have signed forward Alexey Toropchenko to a one-year extension worth $1.7MM, per a team release. The Moscow native was set to become a restricted free agent with arbitration rights next summer.

Toropchenko, 25, has quietly emerged as a full-time fixture in the Blues lineup over the past few seasons. He played in all 82 games last season and hasn’t seen an AHL assignment since heading to Springfield for a conditioning stint early in the 2022-23 campaign. He’ll now stick around in St. Louis for at least one more season, but his future is far less certain past that, as the extension walks him directly to unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2026.

The 2017 fourth-round pick has settled into a fourth-line role, staying there to start 2024-25 even as injuries have taken Mathieu Joseph and Robert Thomas out of the forward lineup. He’s played in seven of St. Louis’ nine games this year, missing a pair of contests earlier in the month due to a lower-body injury. He has one assist, 7 PIMs, and 18 hits while averaging 11:37 per game, down slightly from last season. He’s been deployed heavily in defensive situations at even strength, and as such, the Blues are only controlling 43.5% of shot attempts and 33.3% of expected goals with him on the ice.

2023-24 was a strong showing for Toropchenko, who inked a two-year, $2.5MM contract the prior offseason. He set career-highs in goals (14) and points (21), recording 114 shots on goal and 165 hits while averaging 12:31 per game. He’s likely reached the end of his development track, but he has done enough to prove he can be a useful fourth-line piece due to his size (6’6″, 222 lbs), physicality, and legitimate chance-generation ability.

The Blues now have $86.06MM already dedicated to 20 players for next season. Notable pending free agents still include Radek Faksa, Joel Hofer, Pierre-Olivier Joseph, Kasperi Kapanen, Scott Perunovich, and Ryan Suter.

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