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Atlantic Notes: Edmundson, Jokiharju, Beck, Joseph

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After a relatively hot start, the Montreal Canadiens’ season has seemingly gone off the rails. The team is mired in a six-game losing streak, and has lost nine of their last ten games. The team also came in last place in the entire NHL last season, but the difficulties that have hit the Candadiens haven’t stopped some of their players from wanting to remain a member of the NHL’s most storied franchise.

One of those players who’d like to stay is defenseman Joel Edmundson, whose contract is expiring at the end of next season. As reported by The Athletic’s Marc Antoine Godin, Edmundson has communicated a desire to remain in Montreal despite trade rumors featuring his name. (subscription link) The 29-year-old blueliner didn’t have the best season last year, but he remains a crucial member of the team’s leadership group and had an impressive campaign two years ago as the Canadiens made a run to the Stanley Cup final. One does wonder, though, if the Canadiens would be best suited to retain Edmundson beyond the trade deadline and into next season when instead they could potentially trade Edmundson to another team seeking a rental defenseman in order to net a younger player or draft pick.

Some other notes from across the Atlantic Division:

  • Buffalo Sabres coach Don Granato told the media, including the Olean Times Herald’s Bill Hoppe, that defenseman Henri Jokiharju could return to play in a week. The 23-year-old defenseman was placed on injured reserve on December 11th.  Should Jokiharju return at that point, the Sabres will likely need to create room on their roster, as they’re currently running a full roster of 23 players. Since they have seven defensemen currently active, it stands to reason that a depth blueliner such as Kale Clague would be the odd man out.
  • Ottawa Senators forward Mathieu Joseph has made progress in his recovery from a lower-body injury that’s kept him sidelined since early December. Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that Joseph wore a contract jersey during practice this morning, meaning he could be nearing a return to full health. The former Tampa Bay Lightning winger has scored nine points in 25 games this season and has scored 21 points in 36 games in his Senators career.
  • The Sabres have announced that two of the team’s top prospects, Jiri Kulich and Isak Rosen, have been re-assigned to the team’s AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans. Both Kulich and Rosen are returning from the World Junior Championships. Kulich has had a wildly successful year in the AHL so far, scoring 16 points in 24 games as an 18-year-old rookie, while Rosen has been solid, scoring 15 points in 25 games.
  • Canadiens prospect Owen Beck has been traded to another OHL club, sent to the Peterborough Petes as part of a major blockbuster deal. Beck, 18, was drafted 33rd overall by the Canadiens at the 2022 draft and has 40 points in 30 games in the OHL this season.

West Notes: Leddy, Dach, Knyzhov, White

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The Blues will be without defenseman Nick Leddy tonight against Montreal due to an upper-body injury, relays Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Twitter link).  The 31-year-old is in his first full season with St. Louis after being acquired back at the trade deadline from Detroit last year.  While Leddy isn’t putting up the points that he did earlier in his career, he has been a steady presence in the top four, logging more than 21 minutes a night while contributing 11 assists in 39 games.  Head coach Craig Berube indicated that this injury is one that has been lingering for a while for Leddy and that he’s not sure how long the blueliner will be out.  Leddy joins a rapidly growing injured list for the Blues that also includes Ryan O’Reilly, Vladimir Tarasenko, and Torey Krug, among others.

More from the West:

  • Blackhawks prospect Colton Dach is on the move as Seattle of the WHL announced that they’ve acquired the 20-year-old from Kelowna for two players and three draft picks. The center was injured while playing for Canada at the World Juniors but is expected to recover well before the playoffs begin in March.  Dach has already signed his entry-level deal with Chicago and will be able to play in the minors next season making this a pure rental on the part of the Thunderbirds.  Dach has 17 points in 14 games so far this season.
  • Sharks defenseman Nikolai Knyzhov appears to be well ahead of schedule as he works his way back from Achilles surgery, reports Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News. Knyzhov has yet to play in nearly 20 months due to a variety of injuries with this latest one coming in August and carrying a six-month recovery timeline.  The 24-year-old was a regular on San Jose’s blueline when he last played in 2020-21 and while he’ll undoubtedly need some time in the minors to get back up to speed, he has been participating in full practices which suggests that game action could be coming sooner than later.
  • Stars prospect Gavin White is on the move in the OHL as Peterborough announced that they’ve acquired the blueliner as part of a multi-player swap. The 20-year-old was a fourth-round pick by Dallas last year (112th overall) and was quite productive for Hamilton before this move, averaging a point per game in 22 contests.  White, who hasn’t signed yet with Dallas, is eligible to play in the minors next season but could also return for his overage year in junior.

Latest On Shane Wright

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After the Seattle Kraken assigned 2022 fourth-overall pick Shane Wright back to the OHL this morning, it quickly became apparent that he would not remain a member of his current team, the Kingston Frontenacs. They are fifth in the Eastern Conference, but at just two games over .500, OHL championship and Memorial Cup aspirations aren’t in their future this season.

Obviously, both for Wright personally and his development, it makes sense for him to be in a more competitive situation as he finishes out his junior career. The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler today named the Ottawa 67’s, Barrie Colts, Peterborough Petes, and London Knights as “expected players” in a Wright trade, which would need to occur within the next four days. The OHL’s trade deadline is on Tuesday, January 10.

Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek added on, saying he didn’t think a Wright trade was necessarily imminent but that Kingston general manager Kory Cooper would meet with Wright, his family, his agent, and Kraken representatives to discuss trade options. Wright has a no-trade clause in his agreement with Kingston.

Ottawa may make the most sense for Wright, given their situation. The 67’s are first in the OHL, maintaining a spectacular 26-6-1-1 record through 34 games. Their strong suit is defense, surrendering only a league-best 87 goals. Scoring is a needed area of improvement, though. The 2023 draft-eligible Luca Pinelli is tied with the overage Cameron Tolnai for the team lead in scoring, although they both have just 39 points in 34 games. They’re solid totals but not staggering for the junior level.

Wright, who scored four goals in five games with the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds and had seven points in seven games at the World Juniors, should clear the point-per-game mark by a mile. He still managed 94 points in 63 games with Kingston in 2021-22 despite not playing at all the season prior.

He also fits into Ottawa’s game plan as a defensively responsible center and could take some of the load from players like Pinelli to open up their offensive games.

Los Angeles Kings Assign Brandt Clarke To OHL; Place Trevor Moore On IR

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4:01 pm: The Kings have made the move official, announcing Clarke’s loan to the OHL Friday afternoon. In a corresponding transaction, the team also placed forward Trevor Moore on injured reserve after he’d missed the past four games with an upper-body injury. He is still listed as day-to-day and could return at any time.

3:35 pm: Per reports this afternoon from John Hoven at Mayor’s Manor and Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek, the Los Angeles Kings are expected to loan top defense prospect Brandt Clarke back to the OHL’s Barrie Colts.

Clarke is coming off a gold-medal-winning performance at the 2023 World Junior Championships with Team Canada. The eighth overall pick in the 2021 draft led Canadian defensemen with two goals and eight points in seven games.

His professional action this season had been somewhat limited, although a strong training camp permitted him to crack the Kings’ opening night roster. He’d played just 14 games this season aside from the World Juniors, including nine in Los Angeles and five in the AHL with the Ontario Reign on a conditioning stint.

Los Angeles keeping Clarke to under 10 games played in the NHL this season allows them to slide the beginning of his entry-level contract until 2023-24. This is the second and final season Los Angeles can slide Clarke’s contract, which they signed in August of 2021.

Clarke is an absolutely huge get for Barrie, as their former captain notched 59 points in 55 games in 2021-22. With Clarke’s return, an already strong team will get even stronger, and they may not even be done yet. The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler named the Colts as a potential destination for Shane Wright, who was also returned to the OHL today and will inevitably be traded by the Kingston Frontenacs before Tuesday’s OHL trade deadline to a more competitive team.

2023 will be an important step for Clarke’s development, as the Kings hope their top defense prospect develops into a natural successor on the right side behind Drew Doughty as he ages out of the league.

Seattle Kraken Re-Assign Shane Wright To OHL

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Fresh off of leading Team Canada to victory at the World Junior Championships, Shane Wright’s status for the rest of the season has been made clear.

The Seattle Kraken have reassigned the forward to his junior team, the Kingston Frontenacs, meaning he will spend the rest of the season chasing the Memorial Cup. That chase may not take place in Kingston, though, as NorthStar Bets’ Chris Johnston tweets that the expectation is that Wright will be traded to another OHL team.

Kraken general manager Ron Francis issued the following statement regarding Wright’s status:

We’re very proud of Shane’s performance at the World Juniors, helping captain Team Canada to a gold medal. He has a bright NHL career ahead of him with the Kraken and now has an opportunity to lead his junior team as they compete for a Memorial Cup. We look forward to watching him the rest of this season and wish him well.

It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster season for Wright, who somewhat surprisingly fell to the number-four slot at the 2022 draft. The now 19-year-old center began the year with the Kraken, but played sparingly and was frequently a healthy scratch.

The Kraken exploited a little-known feature of the NHL-CHL transfer agreement that allowed Wright to spend two weeks in the AHL. After a successful five-game stretch there where Wright scored four goals, was recalled back to Seattle, played in one game, scored his first NHL goal, and then left to captain Canada’s World Juniors squad.

Now back in the OHL, Wright will look to have a dominant rest of the season and help his team win the Memorial Cup. Wright’s OHL performance last year was seen as somewhat disappointing, as he failed to lead the Frontenacs on a deep playoff run and didn’t post the dominant production many expected.

He’ll now get another chance to have the overwhelmingly productive OHL campaign many were expecting, and with some NHL experience under his belt and a WJC win in his back pocket, he’s in a prime position to succeed.

Snapshots: Domi, Kraken Prospects, Vrana, Wotherspoon

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As soon as Max Domi signed with Chicago just minutes into free agency last summer, the expectation was that he’d be traded at the deadline when there wasn’t much money left on his one-year, $3MM contract.  However, in a recent 32 Thoughts appearance, Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek reports (video link) that it’s not a guarantee that Domi moves.  He’s enjoying a nice bounce-back year with the Blackhawks, collecting 11 goals and 13 assists in 36 games so far, good for second on the team in scoring.  He’s also winning draws at a career-best clip of 56.3%.  If he’s happy in his role and having some success, it may make more sense for Chicago to try to extend the 27-year-old.  That’s a discussion GM Kyle Davidson is expected to have with Domi’s representation in the coming weeks.

Elsewhere around the hockey world:

  • A pair of Kraken prospects are on the move in the CHL. OHL London announced that they’ve acquired forward Ryan Winterton from Hamilton as part of a four-player trade.  The 19-year-old was a third-round pick (67th overall) in 2021 and has 46 points in 37 games so far this season.  Meanwhile, Sherbrooke of the QMJHL announced the acquisition of winger Jacob Melanson from Acadie-Bathurst.  The 19-year-old has 25 goals in just 27 games this season.  Both prospects have already signed their entry-level contracts with Seattle.
  • The Red Wings will extend Jakub Vrana’s conditioning stint by three more games, relays MLive’s Ansar Khan (Twitter link). The 26-year-old has already played in three games and was held off the scoresheet and the team feels he could benefit from a longer stretch in the minors.  This is the only extension that Detroit can give Vrana; he’ll have to be recalled once these three games are up.
  • The Devils announced (Twitter link) that they’ve assigned defenseman Tyler Wotherspoon to AHL Utica. He was recalled last week for his second stint with the big club this season but didn’t get into a game with New Jersey; his last NHL appearance came back in January 2017.  So far this season, the 29-year-old has two goals and seven assists in 23 games with the Comets.

Minor Transactions: 01/01/23

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With the new year now upon us, today features the first slate of games of 2023. With the Winter Classic coming up tomorrow, there’s quite a bit on the calendar for NHL fans to get excited about. As these games go on, teams in minor and overseas leagues are making tweaks to their rosters. We’ll keep track of any notable moves here:

  • 2016 Vancouver Canucks draft pick and established SHL scorer Rodrigo Abols will be changing clubs this summer. The Latvian forward has announced that he will be leaving his current club, Orebro, to sign with Rogle for next season. Abols has 20 points in 27 games this season and last played in North America in 2019-20, scoring 23 points in 36 games for the AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds.
  • Former Montreal Canadiens prospect Martin Reway has parted ways with his current club, EHC Freiburg of the German DEL2. Reway arrived in the German second division after playing last year in the Czech second division. He has scored 23 points in 20 games this year for Freiburg.
  • The Erie Otters have completed a trade with the Niagara IceDogs, landing Pano Fimis, the number-two pick of the 2020 OHL Priority Selection. Fimis, who went undrafted last year, has scored 24 points in 28 games this year. He’ll arrive in Erie likely that this trade can spark increased production and give him a shot at getting drafted in the summer.
  • Tim Soderlund, perhaps best known for being a part of the 2021 trade of Duncan Keith to the Edmonton Oilers, has parted ways with his current club, Djurgardens IF. The 24-year-old winger, a 2017 fourth-round pick of the Chicago Blackhawks, has scored 14 points in 29 HockeyAllsvenskan games this season. He last played in North America in 2021-22, splitting time between the AHL and ECHL before heading to Djurgarden.

Vegas Golden Knights Sign Matyas Sapovaliv

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The Vegas Golden Knights have signed 2022 draft selection Matyas Sapovaliv to a three-year, entry-level contract, according to Sapovaliv’s agent, Dan Milstein. PuckPedia reports Sapovaliv’s contract carries a $860,000 cap hit in all three seasons, with $775,000 paid in NHL salary, $85,000 paid in signing bonuses, and $82,500 paid in minors salary.

Vegas selected Sapovaliv, a natural center, with the 48th overall selection out of the OHL’s Saginaw Spirit. The product of Kladno, Czechia, has 11 goals and 30 points in 30 games with Saginaw in 2022-23 and is on Czechia’s roster for the ongoing World Junior Championships.

Sapovaliv’s style leans heavily on the playmaking side, investing nearly all his offensive IQ into making picture-perfect passes. While he can certainly put the puck in the net, too, he has high point-producing upside if utilized correctly alongside snipers at the NHL level.

He is still just 18 years old, with his birthday coming in February. He’s the second-highest drafted forward in the Vegas system behind 2020 first-round choice Brendan Brisson.

 

Atlantic Notes: Bunting, Heatherington, Harrison

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The Maple Leafs have yet to engage in contract extension talks for pending UFA winger Michael Bunting, Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos reports in his latest Toronto Star column.  The 27-year-old isn’t producing at quite the level he was last season but still has 24 points in 34 games this season, making him quite a bargain as he carries just a $950K AAV.  It stands to reason that he could pass the $4MM mark on the open market in the summer and while that might be more than Toronto can afford, it’s a price tag they’re going to have to know about heading into the trade deadline so they’ll know if they’ll have a chance of being able to keep him beyond this season.  Otherwise, their plans on deadline day could change accordingly.

More from the Atlantic Division:

  • The Ottawa Senators have returned defenseman Dillon Heatherington to AHL Belleville, per the AHL’s transactions log. The assignment allows the Sens to bank a bit more cap room while Heatherington might also get into a game with Belleville even if he is going to eventually be recalled as the lone AHL game on December 26th is Belleville taking on provincial rival Toronto.  Heatherington played 11:28 on Thursday night, his first NHL appearance of the season while he has five points in 19 games in the minors.
  • Mark Divver of the New England Hockey Journal suggests (Twitter link) that there are trade rumors surrounding Bruins prospect Brett Harrison at the OHL level. The 19-year-old was a third-rounder back in 2021 and has already signed his entry-level contract.  Harrison has 29 points in 24 games with Oshawa this season but with the Generals sitting in last in their division (even though they still hold a playoff spot), they’re expected to be sellers prior to the January 10th trade deadline.

Amadeus Lombardi Signs Entry-Level Contract

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1:30 PM: The Red Wings have now officially announced Lombardi’s signing.

12:53 PM: The Detroit Red Wings have provided a prospect with an early Christmas present, signing Amadeus Lombardi to a three-year entry-level contract according to his agent Dan Milstein of Gold Star Hockey.

Lombardi, 19, was the 113th selection in 2022 after going undrafted in his first year of eligibility. Playing for the Flint Firebirds this season (where he will remain), he has scored 44 points in 31 games, already passing his goal total from last season.

An incredibly quick skater, the undersized forward got a late start on his OHL career due to the canceled 2020-21 season, potentially leading to him falling further in the draft than he would have. Earning an entry-level deal is a nice next step, though he still has plenty of work to do before reaching the NHL.

Notably, because he will turn 20 in June, Lombardi will be eligible for the AHL next season. It will be interesting to see if the Red Wings go that route, or potentially send him back for an overage year in junior while he continues to add strength and experience.

Either way, he’s a part of an NHL organization now, and should have even more motivation to play well down the stretch. The Firebirds currently sit sixth in the OHL’s Western Conference and a good bit of that is because of Lombardi’s skill. His 44 points are 15 more than his next closest teammate, Chicago Blackhawks third-round pick Gavin Hayes.

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