Lightning Recall Three Players From AHL
The Tampa Bay Lightning have recalled a trio of players from the AHL. Defenseman Philippe Myers and Maxwell Crozier were both assigned to the Syracuse Crunch just two days ago, making their transactions effectively paper moves. However, forward Waltteri Merelä was the third recall and has been in the AHL since mid-November.
Tampa Bay had a four-day gap between games and opted to return Myers, Crozier, and forward Gage Goncalves to the AHL where they were able to dress for Syracuse in a 5-4 win over the Utica Comets yesterday. With Tampa Bay back in action on Thursday night against the Minnesota Wild, the Lightning have opted to recall the two defensemen and a different forward in Merelä.
Merelä earned his recall after a two-month stretch with the Crunch. He has dressed in 23 games with Syracuse and has six goals and 10 assists during that time. He has been on a heater as of late with four goals and three assists in his last five games. During an NHL stretch earlier in the season, the 25-year-old was held pointless in 14 games but did provide some physicality in Tampa Bay’s bottom six with 18 hits during his recall.
Merelä is in his first season in North America, after playing in his native Finland during the first five years of his professional hockey career. It will be interesting to see what types of adjustments he has made since going to the AHL and if it can translate to the NHL game. Merelä has also had a few more months of living in North America which may also help his comfort level in this NHL recall.
Evening Notes: Barkov, Fleury, Lindstrom
Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice shared that Aleksander Barkov had a lower-body injury that tightened up on him in the third period, leading to Maurice benching the top centerman for the rest of the game. The injury has been labeled as minor but it is expected to hold Barkov out of the team’s Wednesday night game as well.
Barkov is having yet another productive season, ranked second on the Panthers in scoring with 45 points in 39 games. He’s behind only Sam Reinhart, who has 31 goals and 54 points of his own. Barkov is in the second season of an eight-year contract that carries a $10MM cap hit. He’s played in all but three of Florida’s games up to this point.
Other notes from around the league:
- Legendary goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury has officially moved into second on the all-time wins list, winning his 552nd game with a 5-0 shutout over the New York Islanders. Fleury is now sat behind just Martin Brodeur. Unfortunately, Fleury is still a long way off of Brodeur’s crown, needing 141 more wins to take the top spot.
- Top 2024 NHL Draft prospect Cayden Lindstrom is set to miss four-to-six weeks after undergoing surgery. He’s been placed on injured reserve for the Medicine Hat Tigers. Lindstrom is projected to be a top-10 pick by many, boasting 27 goals and 46 points in 32 WHL games, and was recently ranked third among North American skaters in the NHL Central Scouting Service’s midyear rankings.
Elvis Merzļikins Requests Trade Amid Diminishing Role
Columbus Blue Jackets goaltender Elvis Merzļikins told the media after Monday’s game that he has requested a trade away from the team. Monday marks the first game that Merzļikins has played since December 29th – spending the last six games as either a backup or healthy scratch. He made 21 saves en route to a 4-3 shootout victory.
Merzļikins has become the third goaltender on Columbus’ depth chart, with Daniil Tarasov and Spencer Martin both receiving starts over Merzļikins. The Blue Jackets haven’t proven any more successful with the goalie changes, going 1-3-2 in the games Merzļikins sat out. It’s led Columbus to a dismal 13-21-9 start to the season, a record that ranks them 28th in the NHL.
This trade request could mark the end of what has been a heartwarming story for Merzļikins in Columbus. The 29-year-old became just the third Latvian goaltender to be drafted into the NHL when the Blue Jackets took him in the third round of the 2014 NHL Draft – the same round that saw Warren Foegele, Ilya Sorokin, and Brayden Point be selected. Of the two Latvians to be selected before Merzļikins, only one had played significant NHL time: 568-game veteran Artūrs Irbe. Merzļikins, who has played in 173 games since his NHL debut in 2019-20, now ranks second in games played among Latvian netminders behind only Irbe – surpassing undrafted netminder Pēteris Skudra, the only other to play in more than 100 games.
Columbus has allowed more goals than any team other than the San Jose Sharks this season – but despite it, Merzļikins has still found a way to have a productive year, setting an 8-8-6 record and .906 save percentage through 24 games. He’s back to maintaining a save percentage over .900, a feat he managed in each of his first three seasons but lost with a .876 save percentage in 30 games last year. Merzļikins’ rebound back to form sets him up to be an attractive trade option for teams in need of goaltending help but without the assets to acquire a top name like John Gibson or Jacob Markstrom. But any recipient would need to have cap space, as Merzlikins carries a $5.4MM cap hit over the next four seasons, making him the 11th-most expensive goaltender in the league. There’s also the question of what Columbus would want in return for a goaltender who has become the fifth-most frequent in club history. Regardless, this move brings an exciting spark to the looming March 8th Trade Deadline.
Snapshots: Couturier, Drysdale, Red Wings, Nečas
The Philadelphia Flyers will be without Sean Couturier and Jamie Drysdale in their Monday night game against the St. Louis Blues, as they face an undisclosed injury and illness respectively. Both players also sat out of the team’s Saturday night win over the Winnipeg Jets. Bobby Brink and Marc Staal served as the duo’s replacements in Saturday’s 11-forward, seven-defensemen lineup, but the return of Noah Cates will push Staal out of Monday’s lineup.
Drysdale has only played two games with the Flyers since joining the team via trade with the Anaheim Ducks. He’s recorded an assist in both outings with Philadelphia, continuing what’s been a productive season for the third-year pro – with Drysdale boasting seven points in 12 games. The 21-year-old missed 29 games earlier in the season with a shoulder injury. The injury followed complicated contract negotiations with Anaheim, with Drysdale signing a new contract just nine days before the start of the season. He will now spend the three-year, $6.9MM deal with the Flyers.
More notes from around the league:
- The Detroit Red Wings have signed a three-year extension with ECHL affiliate the Toledo Walleye. Toledo began their affiliation with Detroit in the 2009-10 season and have proven productive, only missing the postseason three times since. This includes championship appearances in two of the last three playoffs. Toledo most notably served as the first professional coaching role for current Detroit head coach Derek LaLonde, who coached the Walleye from 2014 to 2016.
- Carolina Hurricanes forward Martin Nečas missed a fifth consecutive game on Monday as he’s recovering from an upper-body injury. He’s been replaced by Brendan Lemieux, who has yet to record a point since Nečas left the lineup. Nečas has 26 points of his own through 38 games.
Afternoon Notes: Bruins, Cates, Senators
The Boston Bruins saw a quartet of players return to practice, including rookie forward Matthew Poitras, defensemen Brandon Carlo and Derek Forbort, and starting goaltender Linus Ullmark. All four players were held out of the team’s Monday afternoon win over the New Jersey Devils. Of the four returnees, Poitras and Ullmark are the two who have avoided an injured reserve placement. Poitras is working his way back from a shoulder injury that’s held him out of the Bruins’ last three games, while Ullmark is coming back from a lower-body injury suffered in Boston’s overtime loss to the Arizona Coyotes one week ago. Carlo is facing an upper-body injury, while Forbort is facing an undisclosed injury that’s troubled him since training camp and earned him a placement on long-term IR in early December.
The Bruins are also missing forward Milan Lucic with injury – but they’ve progressed nicely regardless, going 2-0-1 in the three games they’ve played since losing Ullmark last Tuesday. Roster holes have been plugged by Jesper Boqvist, who is seeing his first NHL action since December, and Brandon Bussi, who is currently backing up Jeremy Swayman and could make his NHL debut if Swayman needs a breather before Ullmark is ready to return. Boqvist has managed two points in seven NHL games this year, while Bussi has operated as the starter for the AHL’s Providence Bruins and managed a .901 save percentage in 20 AHL games.
The Bruins also saw the return of Pavel Zacha on Monday. The 26-year-old missed the team’s Saturday win with illness.
Other notes from around the league:
- Noah Cates is set to return to the Philadelphia Flyers lineup on Monday evening, as the Philadelphia Flyers take on the St. Louis Blues. Cates has been out since November 25th with a foot injury. He was off to a slow start to the season, managing just four points in 21 games – a step down from the 38 points he recorded in 82 games as a rookie last season.
- The Ottawa Senators have promoted Justin Peters to the role of goaltending coach and assigned Zac Bierk to a scouting and development position. Peters is an 83-game veteran of the NHL, setting a career .901 save percentage. He also played in 301 career AHL games and managed a career .907 save percentage. He has been a goalie coach with the AHL’s Belleville Senators since the 2021-22 season.
Valeri Nichushkin Enters NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program
Avalanche winger Valeri Nichushkin has entered the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program and will be out indefinitely, the league announced today (via NHL.com’s Ryan Boulding). Independent Avalanche reporter Adrian Dater reported the news earlier Monday.
Nichushkin will be stepping away from what’s been a very productive season. The 28-year-old currently ranks fourth on the Avalanche in scoring, with 22 goals and 42 points in 40 games. His point-per-game scoring has been shadowed by his linemates, though, with Nathan MacKinnon boasting 69 points, Mikko Rantanen with 55 points, and Cale Makar currently sitting on 48 points. These four, including Nichushkin, lead the Avalanche in average ice time alongside Makar’s defense partner Devon Toews.
Nichushkin is in his fifth season with the Avalanche, managing 189 points in 275 games with the club. That’s a 0.69 points-per-game pace, a large step above the 0.33 points-per-game that Nichushkin averaged in four seasons with the Dallas Stars. Dallas selected Nichushkin 10th overall in the 2013 NHL Draft, only a few picks after now-teammates MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin went in the top-three. Nichushkin made his NHL debut in the following season, scoring 14 goals and 34 points in 79 games as a rookie and ranking 12th in Calder Trophy voting.
But the next few years were inconsistent, as Nichushkin bounced between the Stars’ NHL and AHL lineups. He even left North American hockey altogether for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons, opting instead to play with the KHL’s CSKA Moscow. The winger returned to Dallas for the 2018-19 season but failed to produce, netting only 10 assists and a -4 through 57 games. The Stars opted to buy-out his contract following this slow season, effectively shipping him off to the Avalanche, who signed Nichushkin to a one-year, $850K contract two months later.
Wild To Activate Jonas Brodin Off LTIR
The Wild will activate defenseman Jonas Brodin off long-term injured reserve prior to tonight’s contest against the Islanders, The Athletic’s Michael Russo reports. Brodin, 30, will play for the first time since sustaining an upper-body injury on December 8, ending a 17-game absence.
He is expected to return to his top-pairing role alongside rookie Brock Faber, a role he’s held in all of his 25 appearances this season. His return relieves the immense pressure to shoulder heavy minutes placed on depth defenders like Zach Bogosian and Alex Goligoski, who haven’t been up to the task. Without Brodin in the fold, the Wild went 8-8-1 with a -13 goal differential and now sit squarely in seventh place in the Central Division, five points behind the Blues and Coyotes. Their chances of making the playoffs are now down to 3.4%, per Hockey Reference.
Brodin continues to perform as a premier shutdown defender heading into his 30s. He had logged a goal and eight assists this season before exiting with injury, and his 23:59 average ice time is his highest mark in nine seasons and the second-highest of his career. The Swede has once again controlled the majority of scoring chances at even strength with a 53.6% Corsi share, and his pairing with Faber has controlled 57% of expected goals when on the ice together.
Minnesota remains without one other key piece on their blueline, however. That’s captain Jared Spurgeon, who has re-aggravated his lower-body injury sustained in December and has missed the Wild’s last six games. Russo added that Spurgeon is likely being moved to LTIR in order to free up the cap space to activate Brodin, which would rule him out until January 27 at the earliest, meaning he’ll miss at least six more games.
Brodin has four seasons remaining after this one at a $6MM cap hit. He’ll reach UFA status in 2028.
Pacific Notes: Couture, Burakovsky, Beniers, Dunn, Leason
The Sharks will remain without captain Logan Couture this week as he’s been ruled out for the remainder of their road trip, head coach David Quinn said (via San Jose Hockey Now’s Sheng Peng). Couture is slowly nearing a return from a lower-body injury that’s sidelined him for the whole season to date, and he’s been skating for over a month. However, Quinn has repeatedly preached caution by not rushing him into the lineup and risking re-aggravation of the injury.
Couture’s return won’t have much of an effect on the Sharks’ on-ice fortunes. Their 23 points and .267 points percentage are both the worst in the league this season, coupled with a -90 goal differential that demonstrated little optimism for improvement. They may have some upward mobility into the 31st or 30th places in the league standings, but even that seems unlikely past the halfway point of the season. However, his return to the organization is an important emotional win – the veteran of over 900 games and 14 seasons in a San Jose sweater remains an important locker room presence and provides some more quality depth for youngsters like William Eklund, Henry Thrun and Fabian Zetterlund to skate with.
More from around the Pacific Division:
- The Seattle Times’ Kate Shefte relays that the Kraken are without three major players for today’s tilt against the Penguins: winger André Burakovsky, center Matthew Beniers and star defenseman Vince Dunn. Burakovsky, 28, is out with a lower-body injury sustained early in Saturday’s 7-4 win over the Blue Jackets. It continues an extremely injury-plagued season for the Swedish winger, whose previous upper-body injury had limited him to 13 games on the year. He has one goal and five points after finishing second on the Kraken in points per game last year with 39 points in 49 appearances. The 21-year-old Beniers, meanwhile, sustained an upper-body injury against Columbus after appearing in all 42 Kraken games thus far this season. His sophomore campaign has been rocky after taking home the Calder Trophy last season, posting just six goals and 19 points after notching 57 points last season. His possession numbers remain strong, however, a positive sign that his decline in production likely isn’t permanent. Dunn is out with an undisclosed injury after logging 22 minutes against Columbus on Saturday. The 27-year-old should earn himself a few Norris votes at season’s end, leading the team in scoring with 35 points while playing over 23 minutes per game. He’s in the first season of a four-year, $7.35MM extension.
- Ducks winger Brett Leason is not in the lineup for today’s game against the Panthers after leaving Saturday’s 5-1 loss to the Lightning with an upper-body injury. The 24-year-old has already set a career-high in points with 12 through 36 appearances this year, scoring six goals and posting a -6 rating in bottom six minutes. Entering the game against the Lightning, he had been a healthy scratch in two of the last four games. He hasn’t been given a return timeline by the team yet.
Ducks To Activate Leo Carlsson
The Ducks will activate rookie center Leo Carlsson ahead of this afternoon’s game against the Panthers, according to the team. It’s an ahead-of-schedule return for Carlsson, who was expected to miss four to six weeks after sustaining a right MCL sprain against the Flames on December 21.
Carlsson will return to a top-six role centering a line with Adam Henrique and Troy Terry as he looks to continue his strong pre-injury play. The MCL sprain, plus some load management-related scratches, have limited him to 23 out of 42 games this year, during which he’s scored eight goals and seven assists while averaging over 18 minutes per contest.
The 19-year-old has been a pleasant surprise in terms of how well he’s translated to the NHL in his post-draft season. It wasn’t the most popular choice when Ducks GM Pat Verbeek selected Carlsson over Adam Fantilli at second overall in last year’s draft, but his two-way game has shined with solid production against other teams’ first and second lines. The Ducks’ 2-7-1 record in their last ten games without Carlsson is a solid bit of evidence of how important his minutes are to the team already. More recent injuries to Pavel Mintyukov and Trevor Zegras have exacerbated the team’s struggles, though.
Already 6-foot-3 and 194 pounds, Carlsson has two seasons remaining after this one on his entry-level contract, which carries a $950K cap hit.
Senators Reportedly Entertaining Offers For Jakob Chychrun
A bottom-feeder team with no salary cap flexibility is not a good place to be. It’s a rare situation, but it’s one the Senators find themselves in. They’re 29th in the NHL despite lacking the cap space to carry a full roster all season long.
That unfortunate combination has new Senators GM Steve Staios examining possible trades to finally kickstart the Senators’ rebuild out of low gear while freeing up financial maneuverability in the process. Their internal list of expendable names includes blueliner Jakob Chychrun, according to a report from The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta.
The 25-year-old has been a constant in trade talks over the past few seasons as a member of the Coyotes, but most assumed that would end when Arizona finally pulled the trigger on a deal to send him to Ottawa for three draft picks days before last season’s deadline. Less than 11 months later, though, his name has re-entered trade discourse.
Per Pagnotta, multiple league sources and one anonymous NHL GM have heard Chychrun’s name pop up in recent weeks. No one would go so far as to claim the Senators were actively shopping the 2016 first-round pick, though.
The fact that Chychrun is back on the trade block is not at all a reflection of his play since joining the Senators. He’s put up 31 points in 50 games (a 51-point pace), including last season’s post-deadline stint, all the while playing over 22 minutes per game and logging solid possession metrics. His pairing with sophomore Jake Sanderson is top-ten in the league at limited expected goals against among duos with over 100 minutes together, per MoneyPuck data, seeing tougher competition than most others at the high end of that stat. He’s also logged significant minutes on his off-side with Thomas Chabot this year, controlling 55.3% of expected goals.
This season, he leads Senators defensemen in all scoring categories with seven goals, 19 assists and 26 points in 38 games. Injuries remain a concern and will limit his trade value, having never played more than 70 games in a season since debuting with Arizona in 2016, but he remains a top-pairing caliber defenseman when in the lineup.
Locked into a $4.6MM cap hit through this season and next, that’s tough value to beat. Nearly every contending team looking to add an impact player on defense will ring Staios over the next seven weeks before the March 8 trade deadline if Chychrun’s name remains on the table. Per CapFriendly, Chychrun has a ten-team no-trade clause, so he has some say in any potential deal.