Blue Jackets Make Patrik Laine A Healthy Scratch
After benching star players Johnny Gaudreau and Patrik Laine in several games, the head coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets, Pascal Vincent, has made Laine a healthy scratch in the team’s game tonight against the Philadelphia Flyers (X Link). In nine games played this year, Laine has two goals and one assist, as well as a -6 rating.
Columbus has certainly struggled to generate offense from their star players at the forward position this year, as Boone Jenner leads the way with 10 points in 18 games. Before tonight’s game against the Flyers, defensemen Ivan Provorov and Zach Werenski lead the team in points with 11 each on the year.
Spending a combined $18.45MM on both Gaudreau and Laine (22% of their entire cap space), the two have only combined for 10 points in 27 games played, hardly what the Blue Jackets should be expecting at that dollar value. Although the bad start to the year is not solely on the shoulders of Gaudreau and Laine, this is a decision that has appeared to be brewing for quite some time.
In a report from Brian Hedger of the Columbus Dispatch, Vincent was quoted as saying, “It was a hard conversation … but nobody is bigger than the Blue Jackets“. Understandably, Laine is reportedly unhappy with the decision made by his new coach, but Vincent is adamant about sending a message to the entirety of the team about the lack of offense.
After being acquired by Columbus back in the 2020-21 season, even though Laine has scored 60 goals and 72 assists in 165 games as a Blue Jacket, he has historically been known to go through streaks as a player. Notably, from mid-December to mid-February last year, Laine would only score five goals in 22 games, before scoring eight goals in 16 games to end the season.
Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how Laine’s situation in Columbus continues to play out, as being a healthy scratch for the first time in his career may cause his frustrations to boil over.
Panthers “Could” Place Aleksander Barkov On IR
The Panthers may place captain Aleksander Barkov on injured reserve to create space on the 23-man roster for a recall, head coach Paul Maurice told George Richards of Florida Hockey Now. Barkov is out with a knee injury sustained in Friday night’s game against the Ducks and did not practice with the team this morning. The Panthers confirmed earlier Sunday that he’s listed as day-to-day and won’t be in the lineup Monday against the Oilers.
Barkov was injured on a hit from rookie defenseman Jackson LaCombe in the third period of Friday’s game. The team spent the past 36 hours evaluating him and determined that while he’ll need to miss time, it luckily won’t be a long-term absence. If Barkov is placed on IR, it will be backdated to Friday, ruling him out of the team’s next two games. He could return Friday against the Jets.
The 28-year-old is off to a strong start this year, posting six goals, 11 assists and 17 points through 16 appearances in 2023-24. He’s averaging north of 20 minutes per game for the seventh consecutive season, and his +14 rating is tied with Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes for the league lead. The 2013 second-overall pick continues to enshrine himself as the best forward in franchise history and is on pace for his fourth straight season above a point-per-game pace.
How much longer Barkov could miss beyond the seven-day period required by an IR placement remains unclear. Given his day-to-day designation, though, it would be surprising to see him out of the lineup by the time the calendar flips to December.
With Barkov out, another future high-flying Finnish centerman, Anton Lundell, will slide into his spot on the top line. The 22-year-old has a goal and seven assists in 17 contests this season and is averaging 15:32 per game. The 2020 12th-overall pick is in the third and final season of his entry-level contract, which costs $925K against the salary cap.
Ottawa Senators Reassign Mads Søgaard
Nov. 19: The Senators returned Søgaard to Belleville early this morning after their trip to Sweden concluded, per a team release.
Nov. 18: The Ottawa Senators have recalled netminder Mads Søgaard from their AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators. With Joonas Korpisalo out due to a minor day-to-day injury, it will be Søgaard who serves as a backup to starter Anton Forsberg in Sweden.
Søgaard, 22, is a big six-foot-seven netminder is a native of Aalborg, Denmark, and has played in a total of 21 career NHL games. He’s had a strong start to the season, posting a .923 save percentage and inspiring confidence in those who predict him to be the Senators’ “goalie of the future.”
Søgaard will likely return to Belleville after the Senators’ trip in order to resume his role as a tandem goalie there. With a big season in the AHL, Søgaard could push Forsberg for the backup/1B role in Ottawa.
After this season, Forsberg will have just one year and $2.75MM remaining on his deal, although Søgaard will still be ineligible for waivers so the Senators will be in no rush to make a change.
Florida Notes: Barkov, Cirelli, Glendening
The Panthers lost superstar center and team captain Aleksander Barkov to an apparent knee injury Friday after he was on the receiving end of a hit from Ducks defenseman Jackson LaCombe. Today’s initial news regarding his status wasn’t positive – Barkov was a non-participant in practice today, per George Richards of Florida Hockey Now, and David Dwork of The Hockey News believes the team will issue a further update on Barkov’s status later today.
Barkov has been invaluable to the Panthers, notching 17 points in 16 games and leading the team with a +14 rating. Missing him for any length of time is a tough blow, especially for a squad that just reached near-total health with the returns of Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour on defense. Barkov already missed one contest this season, an October 24 contest against the Sharks, with an illness. The Panthers won that game 3-1 to reach a 3-3-0 record on the season – a pace they’ve obliterated since and now sit second in the Atlantic Division.
Florida will struggle to replace his offense if he misses significant time, as their secondary scoring outside of Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Reinhart has struggled to keep up. Outside of Evan Rodrigues, who has 13 points in 17 contests, mainly playing with Barkov, few Panthers have played up to expectations. That applies mostly to Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen, who have scored just one goal each through 17 games after strong showings in the Panthers’ run to the 2023 Stanley Cup Final. Lundell slid up to the first line between Reinhart and Verhaeghe at practice today in Barkov’s absence, Richards said.
The latest on some other storylines in the Sunshine State:
- The Lightning saw center Anthony Cirelli return to practice today in a full-contact jersey, Chris Krenn of the team’s official site relayed. Cirelli played less than six minutes in Thursday’s win over the Blackhawks and missed Saturday’s win over the Oilers with an undisclosed injury. Winger Tyler Motte moved to center the team’s third line in Cirelli’s absence. In the first season of an eight-year, $50MM extension signed in the summer of 2022, Cirelli has posted two goals, seven points and a -1 rating in 17 contests. The 26-year-old has continued to maintain a stellar defensive profile despite the mediocre plus-minus rating, as his line with Tanner Jeannot and Michael Eyssimont has a team-high expected goals share of 78.9%, per MoneyPuck. He’s also sporting a career-high faceoff win percentage of 56.4%.
- Staying with Tampa Bay, Krenn also reports that center Luke Glendening is absent from practice today with what the team labeled “body maintenance.” Glendening, 34, logged a season-high 15:52 and scored the game-winning goal against the Oilers yesterday. The veteran shutdown man has logged two goals, no assists and a -3 rating in 18 contests with the Bolts this year after signing a two-year, $1.6MM deal in free agency last summer.
Blackhawks Activate Nikita Zaitsev, Send Filip Roos To AHL
The Chicago Blackhawks have activated Nikita Zaitsev from the non-roster status and reassigned Filip Roos to the AHL. Zaitsev has been out of action since Thursday, stepping away from the team for personal reasons. He missed two games in that span. The rookie defenseman Roos was a healthy scratch for both games, serving as the team’s seventh defenseman.
Zaitsev has only appeared in five games this season, serving as a healthy scratch for the other eight games that he was active for. He’s scored a lone goal in those appearances, adding two penalty minutes and a +4. It’s Zaitsev’s first full season in Chicago, after joining the Hawks via trade last February. He had previously spent four seasons with the Ottawa Senators, appearing in 203 games, scoring 45 points, and recording a -33 with the club. The 32-year-old defenseman originally moved to the NHL in 2016, when he was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Toronto Maple Leafs. He had previously played in 317 games in the KHL, Russia’s top league, including 136 games with CSKA Moscow. Zaitsev scored 36 points in his rookie season, a mark that remains his career-high.
The Hawks will likely bump Zaitsev right back into the lineup, as their third pairing is currently comprised of two left-shot rookie defenders in Isaak Phillips and Wyatt Kaiser. The duo were two of four rookies on the Hawks’ blue line this weekend, alongside Kevin Korchinski and extra-man Filip Roos. The team also iced the 22-year-old Alex Vlasic, giving their defense an average age of 23.8 over their last two games. Zaitsev will bring some veteran experience back into the fold for the team’s Sunday night matchup against the Buffalo Sabres.
East Notes: Hughes, Meier, Harvey-Pinard, Carter
Devils superstar center Jack Hughes has officially returned to the lineup tonight against the Rangers after missing five games with an injury to his right shoulder. It’s about right on schedule for the 22-year-old, who sustained the injury on November 3 against the Blues and was subsequently listed as week-to-week. Already with a goal and assist in tonight’s contest at the time of writing, Hughes now resumes his quest for the Art Ross and Hart Trophies – both honors he was in strong contention for when he exited the lineup earlier this month. Despite the absence, Hughes’ 20 points in ten games entering tonight still tie for 15th in the league, and he’s only seven back of the league lead, a deficit he made significant headway in closing tonight despite skating on a rather odd line with Erik Haula and Curtis Lazar. Hughes is in the second season of an eight-year, $64MM extension signed with the Devils in November 2021 that already looks like quite the bargain.
Elsewhere in the Eastern Conference tonight:
- Staying in New Jersey, the injury designation surrounding winger Timo Meier isn’t as positive as Hughes’. He remains sidelined with a lower-body injury and is not in tonight’s contest, missing his second straight game with the injury after serving as a scratch Thursday night against the Penguins. Head coach Lindy Ruff had no update on Meier’s status when asked by reporters pre-game, and he remains sidelined on a day-to-day basis. He was off to a decent start on the scoresheet with 11 points in 14 contests but carries a team-low -12 rating.
- Canadiens winger Rafaël Harvey-Pinard is also absent from action tonight, sitting out his second straight game with a lower-body injury against the Bruins. Harvey-Pinard sustained a lower-body injury earlier in the month in a November 2 contest against the Coyotes but missed only three games before returning to action just over a week later. After a three-game stint back in the lineup, however, Harvey-Pinard was not able to participate in the team’s loss to the Golden Knights on Thursday. The 24-year-old has cooled down from his strong point output last season, notching only four assists through 13 contests.
- Penguins veteran center Jeff Carter is sidelined for tonight’s contest against the Hurricanes and has now missed two games with a lower-body injury. He’s actually not played since logging 7:28 on November 9 against the Kings and was a healthy scratch for their following game against Buffalo, but sustained an injury outside of game action in the interim. The 38-year-old has failed to record a point in ten appearances this season.
Sharks Notes: Gushchin, Lindblom, Benning, MacDonald
When the Sharks returned high-ceiling winger prospect Daniil Gushchin to the minors yesterday, most thought he would be back up quickly after getting some playing time over the weekend. However, head coach David Quinn told Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now that Gushchin’s demotion is of a more permanent nature.
Gushchin, 21, was the 76th overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft. Quinn called the second of two games on Gushchin’s recent call-up “a little bit of a hard game for him” and thought he got “overwhelmed defensively.” While he would likely provide a bit more offensive punch than many currently on the Sharks’ roster, the organization obviously believes in playing the long game with Gushchin and thinks dominating the AHL, where he has 13 points in 11 games with the San Jose Barracuda, is better for his development at this stage.
Elsewhere around the Sharks conversation today:
- Also, speaking to Peng earlier today, Quinn said forward Oskar Lindblom‘s recovery timeline from his lower-body injury is week-to-week. Lindblom landed on IR five days ago after a recent call-up, playing just one game before sustaining the injury – which prompted Gushchin’s initial recall. The former Flyers winger, who recovered from a diagnosis of Ewing’s sarcoma in 2020, did not get on the scoresheet in his lone appearance and has just two points in eight games with the Barracuda this season.
- Quinn also confirmed that a pair of injured Sharks defenders, Matt Benning and Jacob MacDonald, are close to returning to the lineup and will likely travel with the team on their upcoming road trip. The veteran pair have played just a combined ten games this season and are likely to return within the next week, while the Sharks have two games against more northern Pacific Division neighbors. MacDonald has taken line rushes as a forward in his return to practice with the team and will likely suit up in a fourth-line role when he does play, while Benning, in the second season of a four-year deal, could be slated for a top-four role on a very fluid Sharks backend. No corresponding moves will need to be made to activate them while center Nico Sturm, who carries a non-roster designation while on personal leave, is away from the team.
Penguins Reassign Jansen Harkins
6:05 p.m.: In what may be an NHL record, the Penguins have returned Harkins to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton less than two hours after recalling him. It’s unclear why they opted to bring him up to the NHL in the first place, but this may be part of the moves Pittsburgh needs to make to take Nedeljkovic off LTIR.
4:19 p.m.: The Penguins announced the recall of winger Jansen Harkins from the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on Saturday afternoon. In a corresponding transaction, defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph was moved to IR as he remains out with a lower-body injury.
Head coach Mike Sullivan informed reporters earlier today that Joseph has been dealing with a nagging injury, explaining his absence from the lineup in ten out of the team’s last 11 contests. Joseph last played in the team’s 10-2 drubbing of the Sharks on November 4, logging an assist and a +1 rating in 18 minutes of ice time.
Meanwhile, Harkins finds himself back on the NHL roster after clearing waivers almost one month ago. It was Harkins’ second time on the waiver wire this season, the first of which resulted in the Penguins claiming him and the second season of his $850K one-way contract from the Jets. Harkins played in four games for the Penguins, registering a -1 rating and four shots on goal in less than ten minutes of average ice time before ending up on waivers a second time.
After clearing, Harkins headed to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, where he’s continued his long history of solid minor-league production with four goals and nine points in 11 games. It’s a tad lower than the precedent he set for himself over his last two outings with the Jets’ affiliate in Manitoba, where he averaged over a point per game.
Now, Harkins gets another shot to prove himself as a potential contributor to the Penguins’ bottom six. He’ll look to work his way into the lineup and potentially provide more scoring punch than Noel Acciari or Matthew Nieto, both of whom have just one point this season despite playing in all 15 games.
The moves leave Pittsburgh with very limited space in their LTIR pool – just $15K, to be precise. They’ll likely need to send two players to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton in order to activate netminder Alex Nedeljkovic and his $1.5MM cap hit off LTIR, which should happen soon after he was recalled from a conditioning stint to the AHL Penguins today.
Kings Notes: Dubois, Kaliyev, Moverare
Kings offseason addition Pierre-Luc Dubois hasn’t missed any of the team’s 15 games this season, a trend that will continue tonight against the Blues. Head coach Todd McLellan told reporters earlier today that Dubois will stay in the lineup tonight after the Québec-born center took an awkward fall into the post during the team’s last game and did not participate in practice Friday.
The Kings are largely on a roll with a 9-3-3 record that puts them third in the Pacific Division and fourth in the Western Conference. However, Dubois hasn’t lived up to expectations yet in Hollywood, especially considering the assets they gave up to acquire him in a sign-and-trade deal from the Jets over the summer. Owed $9MM in actual money this year in the first season of an eight-year, $68MM contract, Dubois is averaging a respectable 16:37 per game but has just four goals and eight points, an underwhelming offensive clip of 0.53 points per game. He’d averaged 0.80 points per game over the last two seasons with Winnipeg, including a career-high 36 assists and 63 points in 73 games last year. His defensive game has been lacking, too, barely staying above a 50% Corsi share at even strength on a team that’s dominated the stat.
Other notes on the Kings today:
- Los Angeles will lose the ability to send winger Arthur Kaliyev to the minors without needing waivers after tonight’s game, CapFriendly notes. It’s hard to imagine a universe where the Kings would want to send the 22-year-old sniper down to AHL Ontario, however. After being on pace for 41 points over an 82-game season last year, Kaliyev is again producing at a respectable clip this year with seven points in 13 games. The Kings did assign him to the minors earlier this season, but that was a paper move to stay cap-compliant while Kaliyev was serving a four-game suspension assessed during preseason play. Kaliyev was the 33rd overall pick in the 2019 NHL Draft.
- On another transaction-related note, the Kings have again recalled defenseman Jacob Moverare to serve as a healthy scratch for tonight’s contest, per a team announcement. This is Moverare’s second recall in the past three days, and he was returned to AHL Ontario briefly yesterday. The 25-year-old does not currently require waivers after clearing them during the preseason, but he will if he remains on the NHL roster for 30 total days and plays more than 10 NHL games. He’s yet to make an appearance for the Kings this season, but he does have four assists and a +1 rating in 13 contests for Ontario.
Metropolitan Notes: Joseph, Nedeljkovic, Ruff, Del Bel Belluz
While it had been believed that defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph has been a frequent healthy scratch lately, it turns out that isn’t exactly the case. Head coach Mike Sullivan told reporters including Dave Molinari of Pittsburgh Hockey Now that he’d have liked to reinsert the blueliner in their lineup tonight against Carolina but Joseph is dealing with a lower-body injury. It’s an issue that he has been dealing with for a little while which helps explain why he hasn’t played over the last couple of weeks. The 24-year-old has played in five games so far this season, picking up an assist while averaging a little over 13 minutes a night.
More from the Metropolitan:
- Still with the Penguins, Mark Divver of the New England Hockey Journal reports (Twitter link) that Alex Nedeljkovic has been recalled from his LTIR conditioning stint. The 27-year-old is working his way back from a lower-body injury and stopped 17 of 19 shots in a victory on Friday night. Nedeljkovic also scored an empty-netter in that game, making him the first goalie in AHL history to have scored two career goals.
- While Lindy Ruff has done well behind the bench in New Jersey, he nearly didn’t get the opportunity to coach there. Ryan Novozinsky of The Star-Ledger notes that Ruff was not on GM Tom Fitzgerald’s original shortlist of eight candidates to take over the head coach position back in 2020 but one of Fitzgerald’s friends encouraged him to interview Ruff. The Devils set a franchise record for points last season, helping earn him a multi-year contract extension last month.
- The OHL rights to Blue Jackets prospect Luca Del Bel Belluz have been acquired by Saginaw, per a team release. The 20-year-old is in his first professional season with AHL Cleveland and has fared well in his limited action so far, collecting two goals and three assists in six games. Saginaw is hosting the Memorial Cup this year and if Columbus decides that they want Del Bel Belluz to go back and get top-line minutes, they’ll be sending him to a team that’s loading up for what should be a long playoff run.