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Senators Recall Leevi Merilainen

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The Senators have added one Black Ace to their roster for the time being.  The team announced (Twitter link) that they’ve recalled Leevi Merilainen from AHL Belleville.  He’ll likely serve as Ottawa’s third-string goaltender for the playoffs.

The 22-year-old certainly impressed in his limited NHL action this season.  When Linus Ullmark and Anton Forsberg were both injured, Merilainen briefly took over as Ottawa’s starter.  Instead of merely holding his own while waiting for Ullmark to come back, Merilainen put up a stellar 1.99 GAA and a .925 SV% in a dozen appearances with Ottawa.  Instead of the team faltering during that stretch, he picked up eight wins which played a crucial role in their making the playoffs this season.

Merilainen spent the rest of the year in the minors with Belleville.  While his numbers weren’t quite as strong there, they were still above average as he posted a 2.36 GAA and a .913 SV% in 35 outings with them.  A restricted free agent this summer, he could be in line for a full-time spot with Ottawa next season as Ullmark’s backup with Forsberg slated to reach unrestricted free agency in July.

Belleville’s season will come to an end tonight after they were eliminated from playoff contention last night.  Accordingly, Ottawa should be bringing up a much bigger group of players as soon as Sunday.

Minor Transactions: 4/18/25

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There will be several small roster moves today as playoff teams recall their required third goalie for practice and emergency backup purposes, and non-playoff teams conduct some end-of-season roster trimming. We’ll cover all those moves here:

  • The Blues announced they’ve recalled goaltender Will Cranley from ECHL Florida to serve as their emergency backup. St. Louis selected the 23-year-old in the sixth round of the 2020 draft. He was previously added to the Blues’ practice roster for a day during the 4 Nations break while Jordan Binnington was traveling back from the tournament. He finished his second professional season with a 2.71 GAA, .896 SV%, two shutouts, and an 11-9-3 record in 23 ECHL games. He also logged a .867 SV% in a pair of appearances for AHL Springfield, the first of his career.
  • The Stars added defensemen Lian Bichsel and Alexander Petrovic back to the active roster after reassigning them to AHL Texas yesterday for cap purposes. They needed the space to activate Tyler Seguin from long-term injured reserve for the final game of the regular season. They’re expected to serve as the third pairing in Game 1 of the first round against the Avalanche tomorrow, per Sam Nestler of DLLS Sports. It’ll be the postseason debut for Bichsel, Dallas’ first-round draft choice in 2022. They also recalled goaltender Ben Kraws from ECHL Idaho as their EBUG. An undrafted free agent signing out of St. Lawrence last year, the 24-year-old impressed with a 2.88 GAA, .910 SV%, five shutouts, and a 23-12-5 record in 40 games for Idaho. He also posted a 3.01 GAA and .889 SV% in three appearances for AHL Texas, logging a 2-1-0 record.
  • Serving as the Avalanche’s EBUG will be Kevin Mandolese, the team announced. The 24-year-old has spent the year as Trent Miner’s backup with AHL Colorado after being acquired from the Senators over the offseason. He has a 2.87 GAA, .903 SV%, 11-6-0 record, and one shutout in 19 games.
  • Since the Wild’s AHL affiliate is one of the few to miss the cut for the Calder Cup Playoffs, they’re going with a higher-profile option for their EBUG. Top prospect Jesper Wallstedt will fill the role for them, according to a club announcement. The 2021 first-rounder is expected to succeed the retiring Marc-André Fleury as Filip Gustavsson’s backup next season, but is coming off a disastrous injury-plagued campaign with Iowa. He finished the year with a 3.59 GAA, .879 SV%, one shutout, and a 9-14-4 record in 27 showings.
  • The Panthers summoned Evan Cormier from ECHL Savannah to be their EBUG, per George Richards of Florida Hockey Now. The 27-year-old struggled with a 3.38 GAA, .887 SV%, one shutout, and a 17-13-4 record in 36 showings in 2024-25. He filled the same duties for the Cats in the first half of last year’s playoff run, signing a two-way deal at the trade deadline for the second season in a row.
  • The Penguins returned forwards Ville Koivunen, Joona Koppanen, Vasiliy Ponomarev, Samuel Poulin, Valtteri Puustinen, and defenseman Filip Král to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton after their late-season call-ups. They’ll aid the Baby Pens as they aim to capture a Calder Cup. Not joining them is top prospect Rutger McGroarty, who sustained a lower-body injury last week and isn’t yet ready to return.
  • The Flames assigned forward Sam Morton and defenseman Hunter Brzustewicz to AHL Calgary after they made their NHL debuts in last night’s regular-season finale. Morton scored his first NHL goal in the outing, while Brzustewicz impressed with a plus-two rating. They’ll join the Wranglers for the postseason.
  • The Toronto Maple Leafs have recalled enforcer Ryan Reaves from the minor leagues. Reaves recently played in his first AHL games since the 2010-11 season. He recorded one goal and, surprisingly, no penalty minutes in three games of play. The 38-year-old also recorded two assists and 28 penalty minutes in 35 NHL games this season. He’ll provide a boost of muscle to the Leafs lineup as they head towards a First Round matchup against the Ottawa Senators.
  • Defenseman Emil Andrae has been reassigned to the minor leagues after holding down a routine role on the Philadelphia Flyers lineup since early March. Andrae split his time between the major and minor rosters this season, with seven points in 42 NHL games and 16 points in 25 AHL games. He was primarily a minor-leaguer last season and managed a stout 32 points, 66 penalty minutes, and minus-10 in 61 games. With the Flyers season over, Andrae will look to again support the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in a late-season push.
  • The Edmonton Oilers have recalled depth forward Derek Ryan from the minor leagues. Ryan split time between the NHL and AHL this year, with one goal and six points in 36 games in the Oilers lineup. He also managed eight points in 13 AHL games. Ryan has played in the Stanley Cup Playoffs on five different occasions, racking up 10 points in 60 games. That includes appearing in 19 games of Edmonton’s run to the Stanley Cup Finals last season. Ryan contributed one assist to the effort. He’ll now be returned to the NHL roster to support another long run.
  • The Rochester Americans are getting a wave of strong recruits, as the Buffalo Sabres have reassigned each of Jiri Kulich, Tyson Kozak, Noah Ostlund, and Isak Rosen back to the minor leagues. Rosen leads Rochester in scoring this season with 28 goals and 55 points in 60 games. Ostlund has 36 points in 44 games, while Kozak has 14 points in 31 games. Kulich has been the only of the bunch to spend the bulk of the season in the NHL. He carved out a top-six role through points of the season. Kulich finished what was his rookie NHL season with 15 goals and 24 points in 62 games.

This page will be updated throughout the day.

Senators Reassign Angus Crookshank

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The Senators loaned winger Angus Crookshank to AHL Belleville on Wednesday, according to a team announcement.

While the move is primarily made with the B-Sens’ Calder Cup Playoff hopes in mind, it does help open the door for captain Brady Tkachuk to return to the lineup in Ottawa’s regular season finale. He’s missed the last eight games with an upper-body injury but is widely expected back for Game 1 of their first-round series against the Maple Leafs at the latest. It’ll likely be up to Tkachuk to decide if he wants a tuneup against the Hurricanes tomorrow before getting into playoff action, head coach Travis Green told Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia.

Crookshank, 25, has been rostered since Tkachuk’s injury at the end of March. He’s played seven of Ottawa’s last nine games and recorded his first point of the season, an assist, on Sunday against the Flyers.

This year didn’t yield as much NHL action for Crookshank as he hoped. The 2018 fifth-rounder made just eight appearances after scoring 2-1–3 in 13 NHL contests last year. The Vancouver native’s still been a force in the minors, tied for the Belleville team lead in goals with 22 in 60 games. Overall, though, his point pace has dragged from last year’s near point-per-game effort in the AHL. He’s added 18 assists for 40 points through his 60 appearances after notching 46 in 50 games last year.

It’ll be curious to see whether Crookshank is part of the Sens’ plans for the future. He was set to be a restricted free agent last summer but signed a one-year, two-way ($775K/$120K) deal to stay with Ottawa before he hit the market. This year, though, the Senators won’t have a qualifying offer as a backup plan to retain his signing rights. His balance of low NHL games played with three years of professional experience means he’s headed for Group VI unrestricted free agency if they don’t re-sign him by July 1.

Brady Tkachuk Remains Out With Injury

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  • Senators star Brady Tkachuk remains out with an upper-body injury, per Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Citizen. Garrioch adds that Tkachuk skated on Saturday, but that there’s a likelihood the power forward doesn’t play until the playoffs. Tkachuk has missed the last eight games since sustaining an upper-body injury in Ottawa’s overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on March 30. He was hit late in the second period from defender Ryan Graves that drew a penalty, and Tkachuk did not return to the game. In 71 games, he has put up 29 goals and 55 points.

Nick Cousins Returns to Senators Lineup

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Ottawa Senators forward Nick Cousins has been activated from LTIR and is in the lineup for today’s afternoon tilt against the Flyers, per TSN’s Bruce Garrioch. It represents his first game action since suffering a knee injury in late January. He is skating on a Sens’ third line alongside center Shane Pinto and Michael Amadio.

Originally expected to miss three months with the injury, GM Steve Staios recently stated the 31-year-old Cousins has been “attacking his rehab,” and he now returns ahead of his recovery timeline and in time to help make an impact in the playoffs. Cousins will provide the Sens with a reliable bottom-six option for their playoff lineup, as well as a trustworthy penalty killer. In his career, Cousins has appeared in 63 playoff contests and helped the Panthers capture the Stanley Cup just last season. In 47 games this season, Cousins has produced five goals, 13 points, 80 hits, and 24 blocked shots while averaging just under 12 minutes of ice time per game.

Coach Travis Green told reporters Saturday that he’s happy to see Cousins return to the lineup but added he will be rusty and that the team will have to get him up to speed.

Garrioch adds that forwards David Perron and Ridly Greig and defenders Nikolas Matinpalo and Nick Jensen are out of the lineup today, while Cousins, Angus Crookshank, Dennis Gilbert and Travis Hamonic are all playing. As Garrioch notes, Jensen has been playing with an unspecified lower-body injury for some time, and with the Sens already locked into a playoff spot, now serves as good time to give the veteran some recovery time. With Jensen and Matinpalo out, the door was opened for Hamonic and Gilbert to return to the lineup. Hamonic, who has played in 56 games this season and recorded six points and -17 rating, is skating on the team’s second pairing with Thomas Chabot, while Gilbert is skating with Tyler Kleven on the team’s third pairing. Gilbert has skated in 26 games this season and has recorded five points.

While the other absences from today’s game don’t appear to be serious in nature, Green noted the team is also not mailing in these final games of the season, per Garrioch. Green added that experienced teams understand that the intensity picks up in the playoffs, so he’ll look for his team to continue to showcase that energy in the final games of the season. It’s also one of the reasons the team recently recalled winger Hayden Hodgson to add some physicality to the lineup.

Senators Recall Hayden Hodgson

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The Ottawa Senators have recalled enforcer Hayden Hodgson from the minor leagues. It is his first call-up this season. Hodgson has amassed 156 penalty minutes in 43 AHL games this season, good for most on the Belleville Senators and second-most in the entire league. He will play in the eighth NHL game of his career, and his first with the Senators, on Friday night.

Hodgson is on the tail end of his first season in the Senators organization. He’s added three goals and 11 points to his lofty penalty minutes, putting him just shy of the scoring pace that earned him 16 points in 49 games last season. But Hodgson’s penalty minutes are a career-high, blowing out his previous high of 116 PIMs recorded in 49 games last season.

Hodgson has worked his way into a full-time role in the AHL over the last four seasons, but he’s made a full turn towards bruiser as of late. He earned an AHL deal in the Philadelphia Flyers for the 2021-22 season, after spending four seasons in the ECHL – and part of one in Slovakia’s Extraliga. Hodgson proceeded to have what appeared to be a breakout season. He scored 19 goals and 31 points in 46 games with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, and stayed true to his style with 70 PIMs. That scoring earned him the first six games of his NHL career in the same year, and Hodgson recorded a modest three points and 11 PIMs. But his scoring saw a spike in 2022-23 – after he posted eight points and 83 PIMs in 44 games. He earned one more NHL appearance but didn’t manage any stat changes – before moving to the Ontario Reign last season and Belleville this year.

Friday’s game will mark Hodgson’s first chance at NHL minutes in two years. He’s a burly six-foot-two, 221-pounds and is often a safe bet to earn at least one penalty per game.

Cousins Skates Thursday, Could Play Friday

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  • Senators winger Nick Cousins was a full participant in practice today and hasn’t been ruled out of Friday’s game against Montreal, relays Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch. Originally expected to miss at least three months after suffering a knee injury in late January, it looks like the 31-year-old will be able to beat that by a couple of weeks at least.  Ottawa will have to make a roster move in order to activate Cousins off LTIR as they don’t have the cap space to add him back to the roster otherwise.  Cousins has 13 points and 80 hits in 47 games this season.

Brady Tkachuk Possibly Out Until Playoffs

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While the Ottawa Senators clinched their spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs last night, they may be without their captain until the playoff begins. According to an NHL release, Brady Tkachuk may not return in the regular season as he continues to deal with an injury.

Tkachuk has been out five games since sustaining an upper-body injury in Ottawa’s overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on March 30. He sustained a hit late in the second period from defender Ryan Graves that drew a penalty, and Tkachuk did not return to the game. Tkachuk has scored 29 goals and 55 points in 71 games on the year, while also dishing out 227 hits and recording 123 penalty minutes. The Sens have gone 3-2 in his absence and currently sit in the first wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.

A fan favorite in Ottawa, Tkachuk, 25, already ranks fourth in team history in goals (191), sixth all-time in points (404), and third in penalty minutes. However, the power forward has never experienced the NHL playoffs. The Senators, who took Tkachuk fourth overall in the 2018 draft, have not qualified for the playoffs since the 2016-17 season. That year, the Senators went on a deep run before eventually losing game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals to the Penguins in double overtime. It’s been 2,876 days since the Sens last playoff appearance.

Asked if Tkachuk could return if the playoffs hypothetically started tomorrow, GM Steve Staios stated, “I would think so, yes. I can’t give you a definitive (answer).” He added that Tkachuk has continued to progress and that it’s natural for teams to mull over these types of decisions. Staios added it’s a balancing act between wanting to get a player back to full health, while also trying to maintain momentum heading into the playoffs.

Staios added that veteran forward Nick Cousins, who has missed 29 games since sustaining a knee injury on Jan. 25, is traveling with the team and close to returning. He said Cousins has been attacking his rehab to expedite his possible return to play. In 47 games on the year, Cousins has recorded five goals and 13 points in a depth role.

Ray Shero Passes Away

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Wild senior advisor and longtime Penguins and Devils general manager Ray Shero has passed away, Minnesota’s public relations department said Wednesday. He was 62 years old.

Shero, a St. Paul native, got his start as a player at St. Lawrence University in upstate New York after attending the New Hampton School in New Hampshire. He played four seasons for the Saints as a center from 1980 to 1985, scoring 58-77–135 in 125 games while serving as captain in his senior season. While drafted by the Kings midway through his collegiate tenure, he never turned pro.

Eight years later, Shero made the NHL in a front-office role. Hired by the Senators as an assistant general manager for the 1993-94 season, their second in franchise history, that move kicked off a lifetime’s worth of executive work at the game’s highest level. The son of Stanley Cup-winning head coach Fred Shero remained in Ottawa until the expansion Predators plucked him to serve in an AGM role in 1998. Working under David Poile in Nashville, the league’s all-time leader in wins overseen by a GM, he got a chance to lead his own staff nearly a decade later when the Penguins named him GM and executive VP of hockey operations ahead of the 2006-07 season.

His task: take a young core in Pittsburgh led by Sidney Crosby, Marc-André Fleury, and Evgeni Malkin to the next level. He accomplished that feat within just two years, swinging a blockbuster deal for star winger Marián Hossa at the 2008 trade deadline to help guide the Pens to the 2008 Stanley Cup Final. While they fell to the Red Wings, they set themselves up for a rematch the year later and emerged victorious. Three years after taking over a team that posted a 22-46-14 record in the season preceding his hiring, Shero was a Stanley Cup champion.

Shero remained in his post through the 2013-14 season, helping the Penguins extend their championship contention window. He was named the league’s General Manager of the Year in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign after helping Pittsburgh capture a regular season conference title and was also an AGM for the United States at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

While the Pens fired Shero following a first-round elimination in the 2014 playoffs, he emerged a year later with the Devils. They brought him in ahead of the 2015-16 season to replace longtime GM Lou Lamoriello. He immediately began one of the most aggressive retools of the 2010s, signing or trading for names like Taylor Hall, Kyle Palmieri, and P.K. Subban while drafting New Jersey’s current core three forwards in Jesper Bratt, Nico Hischier, and Jack Hughes. He was replaced by current GM Tom Fitzgerald midway through the 2019-20 campaign.

Shero had served as a senior advisor to Wild GM Bill Guerin, who he picked up from the Islanders at the 2009 deadline to help the Pens to a Cup, since the 2021-22 season. “Whenever we ran into each other at a rink when he was scouting, it was clear he loved what he was doing and I always marveled at his infectious enthusiasm,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement. “The entire National Hockey League family mourns his passing and sends our deepest condolences to the Shero family and Ray’s many friends throughout the hockey world.”

All of us at PHR extend our condolences to the Shero family and his numerous friends and colleagues throughout the league.

Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire-USPRESSWIRE.

Senators Considering Shutting Down Nick Jensen For Regular Season

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The Senators are mulling shutting down defenseman Nick Jensen for their final few regular season games after clinching a playoff berth last night, general manager Steve Staios told Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia on Wednesday.

Jensen, 34, is still dealing with the mid-to-lower-body injury that’s cost him small stretches of games since late January. He last sat out a quartet of contests in mid-March but has made nine consecutive appearances since then.

Ottawa acquired the veteran righty last summer in the trade that sent Jakob Chychrun to the Capitals. He’s fit well into his usual second-pairing role, spending the season almost exclusively with Thomas Chabot. The duo has been paired in 68 of Jensen’s 69 appearances as a Senator and has controlled 49.2% of expected goals at 5-on-5 while outscoring opponents 44-36, per MoneyPuck.

Removing Jensen from his top-four spot would force either Travis Hamonic or Nikolas Matinpalo into extended minutes alongside Chabot for Ottawa’s final four games of the season before he presumably returns for Game 1 of the first round. With Matinpalo gelling well with Tyler Kleven on the Sens’ third pairing, it’ll likely be the former. Hamonic has arguably been Ottawa’s worst skater this season, resulting in him spending the last eight games in the press box. He’s posted just 1-5–6 in 56 showings with a team-worst -17 rating.

Jensen’s averaged over 20 minutes per game with the Sens, just the second time in his nine-year career he’s done so. The Minnesota native was a fifth-round pick by the Red Wings back in 2009 but didn’t debut with Detroit until the 2016-17 campaign after years of serving as a farmhand. He’s been a full-time NHLer ever since as a dependable two-way piece. He’s churned out 3-17–20 with a +19 rating this year, the second-highest points per game pace of his career (0.29).

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