Canucks Place Jack Studnicka On Waivers
The Vancouver Canucks placed forward Jack Studnicka on waivers for the purpose of assignment to the AHL’s Abbotsford Canucks on Monday, general manager Patrik Allvin said in a statement.
Studnicka, 24, has been a healthy scratch in nine out of the last ten contests. The 2017 second-round pick last played on November 2 in the team’s 10-1 drubbing of the San Jose Sharks, logging 17:09 of ice time but failing to get on the scoresheet or record a shot on goal.
This is Studnicka’s second time on the waiver wire this season. He cleared just before the season started but was recalled under emergency conditions after the Canucks’ first game after salary cap constraints forced them to dress only 17 skaters.
Studnicka was placed on the active roster from his emergency exception five days later and has remained with the Canucks since. Since more than 30 days elapsed since his initial recall on October 12, his temporary waiver exception has lapsed, and he must clear again to return to Abbotsford.
In five games with Vancouver this season, Studnicka has one goal, coming in his season debut on October 14 against the Edmonton Oilers. He has averaged 10:11 per game but attempted just eight shots during his time in the lineup, four of which got on goal.
If he clears, Studnicka could make his debut for Abbotsford this week. He has not played for Vancouver’s primary minor-league affiliate since they acquired him from the Boston Bruins in exchange for goalie prospect Michael Dipietro and defense prospect Jonathan Myrenberg early in the 2022-23 season.
In 90 NHL games across five seasons with the Bruins and Canucks, Studnicka has six goals, ten assists, 16 points, and a -16 rating. He’s been much more productive in the AHL since his pro debut in 2018, recording 34 goals and 62 assists for 96 points in 117 contests with the Providence Bruins.
Studnicka is in the final season of a two-year, $1.525MM contract with a $762.5K cap hit. He will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights next summer.
Capitals Notes: Fehervary, Oshie, Pacioretty, Edmundson
Bailey Johnson of The Washington Post is reporting that Washington Capitals defenseman Martin Fehervary didn’t practice this morning and will not play in tomorrow night’s game against the Vegas Golden Knights. Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery also told reporters that Fehervary is a maybe for Saturday night’s game against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Fehervary is currently on injured reserve and wouldn’t have been eligible to return tomorrow even if he was healthy enough to play but is eligible to play Saturday if he can. The 24-year-old has had a decent start to the year and has been very good on the Capitals’ penalty kill. While he has just two assists in 12 games, he has been much more effective at even strength this year despite starting most of his shifts in the defensive zone.
In other Capitals notes:
- Bailey Johnson also reported that Capitals forward T.J. Oshie took a maintenance day today and did not practice with the team. Oshie has had a brutal start to the season with just one assist in 13 games thus far and it appears the Capitals are hoping that some rest can help kickstart some offense for the 36-year-old. Oshie has seen over three minutes of powerplay time per game this season which is about the same average time he saw last year, but even with the work on the first powerplay unit he has been unable to find the back of the net.
- The NHL Network’s Tarik El-Bashir is reporting that Capitals forward Max Pacioretty skated on his own this morning before the team’s practice as he attempts to ramp back up to return to game action. The 34-year-old faces a long battle back after tearing his right Achilles for the second time this past January and there is no timetable for his potential return. Both the Capitals and Pacioretty appear to be very cautious in their approach to a return which makes sense given how difficult the past 15 months have been for the six-time 30-goal scorer.
- Bailey Johnson tweeted that Capitals defenseman Joel Edmundson is getting closer to a return after he was a full participant in practice today. Edmundson is trying to work his way back from a hand injury and was dressed in a non-contact jersey during this morning’s practice. The 30-year-old has yet to make his debut in Washington after he was acquired in July for two draft picks. He injured his hand in preseason and required surgery which has ultimately delayed the start to his Capitals career. A return to action would be good news for Washington as they are currently without defensemen Fehervary and Trevor van Riemsdyk.
Afternoon Notes: Kaprizov, Kelemen, Timmins
Michael Russo of The Athletic tweeted this morning that Minnesota Wild winger Kirill Kaprizov was absent from practice and was replaced in the line rushes by Nic Petan. The Wild are calling it a maintenance day for the 26-year-old as he is banged up at the moment. Kaprizov had an assist in the Wild’s 8-3 drubbing at the hands of the Dallas Stars on Saturday night but played just 16:49, which is a dramatic decrease from the 21:21 in ice time he has been averaging this season.
Kaprizov does have five goals and 10 assists in 15 games this season, but his play has seemed off despite the offensive success. He is -11, and while that number can be misleading, his turnover numbers are not. Kaprizov has turned the puck over in almost every game this season, far outpacing his previous career numbers. He also appears to be struggling when he is deployed against other team’s top star players.
In other afternoon notes:
- The Arizona Coyotes have announced today that they’ve placed forward Jack McBain on injured reserve and in a corresponding move they’ve recalled forward Milos Kelemen from their AHL affiliate the Tucson Roadrunners. The 24-year-old is looking to get into the Coyotes lineup for the first time this season after dressing in 14 games last year. The native of Svolen, Slovakia registered a single goal in the NHL last season but was much more productive in his first AHL season posting 14 goals and 16 assists in 59 games with the Roadrunners. This year, Kelemen is posting offense at about the same pace with two goals and four assists through his first 11 games. Kelemen struggled under poor possession numbers and defensive zone starts in his first run with the Coyotes and will be looking to show he belongs in the NHL if he gets back into the Coyotes lineup.
- TSN’s Mark Masters is reporting that Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Conor Timmins practiced this morning in a normal jersey for the first time since September. The 25-year-old has yet to dress for the Maple Leafs this season after being sidelined with a lower-body injury during what was an impressive preseason as he collected six points in three preseason games and made a case for himself to be in Toronto’s top six. Last season the St. Catherines, Ontario native posted two goals and 12 assists in 27 NHL games.
Injury Notes: Zub, Miller, Vasilevskiy
TSN 1200 out of Ottawa is reporting that Ottawa Senators head coach D.J. Smith told reporters this morning in Sweden that defenseman Artem Zub is day-to-day and didn’t practice with the team. The 28-year-old only just returned from an injury on November 9th in a loss against the Vancouver Canucks. He then dressed in the Senators victory over the Calgary Flames on Saturday night.
Smith said that Zub was more sore today and that was why he didn’t practice. He also added that the team would wait and see how he is for practice on Wednesday as tomorrow is a day off for the group.
Zub has dressed in just six games so far this season for Ottawa and has been very productive in that time with two goals and two assists. The expectations for Zub this season were quite high after he signed a four-year $18.4MM extension last December to remain with the club. Normally a defensive specialist, Zub is almost halfway to last season’s point total of ten in just six games.
In other injury notes:
- New Jersey Devils reporter Amanda Stein is reporting that defenseman Colin Miller was a full participant in team practice this morning after being on the IR since October 19th with an undisclosed injury. Miller has yet to make his debut with the Devils after being acquired on July 1st from the Dallas Stars for a 2025 fifth-round draft pick. Miller practiced on the fourth defensive pairing alongside extra forward Maxwell Willman. No timetable for Miller’s return has been released yet.
- The Tampa Bay Lightning tweeted this morning that star goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy has returned to practice with the team. The news sparked curiosity as to when the former Vezina Trophy winner might return to the lineup. The Lightning have been without Vasilevskiy for the entire first six weeks of the season but have kept their heads above water going 6-5-4 in their first 15 games. The Lightning currently sit tied for fifth in the Atlantic Division but are just two points out of a playoff spot with a lot of season left.
Morning Notes: Oilers Coaching, Hurricanes, Rangers
Elliotte Friedman provided more insight into the Edmonton Oilers’ coaching decision in the most recent episode of the 32 Thoughts podcast, explaining that team CEO Jeff Jackson had been a very big fan of Kris Knoblauch for a while. Friedman also added that the Oilers wanted to make this decision sooner rather than later, in an effort to get the team going for the mid-season, referencing teams like the 2019 St. Louis Blues.
This provides a little more clarity to a coaching decision that came suddenly, albeit not surprisingly. The Oilers are off to an abysmal start to the season, currently ranked second-to-last in the league with a 3-9-1 record. They sit one win ahead of the San Jose Sharks, who have gone 2-12-1 through their first 15 games. They’ll now lean on a rookie NHL head coach in Knoblauch, who most recently led the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack to a 35-26-11 record and a Round 2 playoff loss last season. Knoblauch won two OHL championships in seven years coaching in the league. The first came with a Kootenay Ice team led by Brayden McNabb, Matt Fraser, and Max Reinhart. The second came with the talented 2016-17 Erie Otters roster, which featured Alex Debrincat, Dylan Strome, Anthony Cirelli, and Warren Foegele. Knoblauch also coached Connor McDavid during his three years in juniors – a fact that Friedman said didn’t necessarily weigh into his new role in Edmonton, as the team were fans of Knoblauch separate from that connection.
With the confidence of leadership behind him, Knoblauch could be poised to do something special with an Oilers roster that many expected to shine this season.
More notes from around the league:
- The Carolina Hurricanes have assigned Vasiliy Ponomarev, Domenick Fensore, Griffin Mendel, and Ronan Seeley to the Chicago Wolves of the AHL. Each player had been playing elsewhere to start the season, as Chicago officially opted to disconnect themselves from the Hurricanes earlier in the year. But the Wolves currently find them second-to-last in the AHL, repping a 2-6-1 record, and are now in need of reinforcements from their former NHL affiliate. The latter three assignees have started the early season in the ECHL and are earning a promotion with the move to Chicago.
- The New York Rangers have assigned Louis Domingue and Connor Mackey to the AHL lineup. Both players have bounced back and forth between the major and minor leagues, with both getting assigned to the minors on November 10th, recalled on the 11th, and now reassigned on the 13th.
Colorado Avalanche Recall Sam Malinski
In correspondence with the team’s decision to reassign forward Riley Tufte to their AHL affiliate earlier this morning, the team has announced they have recalled defenseman Sam Malinski from the Colorado Eagles. If Malinski does manage to receive any playing time for the Avalanche during his recall, it will mark his NHL debut as a professional player.
After his NCAA season came to an end last year with Cornell University, Malinski signed a professional tryout agreement with the Eagles for the rest of the season, parlaying that into a two-year, $1.7MM two-way contract signed with the Avalanche this past summer. In 20 games so far with the Eagles, the 25-year-old has scored six goals and five assists from the blue line, also sitting second on defense in scoring through 13 games this season.
Through four years at Cornell, Malinski played in a total of 91 games, scoring 17 goals and 48 assists, earning the captaincy during his senior season last year. Cornell did not crack the NCAA Division I Men’s Ice Hockey tournament until last year, defeating the defending champion Denver University by a score of 2-0. Nevertheless, instead of making their way to the Frozen Four, Cornell would lose to Boston University in the Regional Finals.
Already carrying seven defensemen on their roster after the recall of Caleb Jones, it is more than unlikely that Malinski will find his way into Colorado’s lineup during his callup. However, during the team’s blowout loss to the St.Louis Blues yesterday, a game in which Bowen Byram and Samuel Girard had a -3 rating each, head coach Jared Bednar could send a message to his defensive core by substituting Malinski into the lineup tomorrow night against the Kraken.
Pavel Francouz To Miss Rest Of The Season
Although he has not played in a game since April 9th of the 2022-23 regular season, the Colorado Avalanche have announced that backup goaltender Pavel Francouz will miss the rest of the 2023-24 season with a lower-body injury. In the meantime, Francouz will return to the Czech Republic to be with his family and will be an unrestricted free agent at season’s end.
From the perspective of the Avalanche, Francouz’s status does give the team more long-term clarity on his LTIR relief, meaning the team will be guaranteed that Francouz’s $2MM salary will be off the books come the trade deadline. Unfortunately, the goaltender’s status does create a bit of an issue in the crease for the Stanley Cup contenders moving forward.
Although he has been a part of the team for the last five seasons, signing a one-year, $690 thousand contract out of the KHL before the 2018-19 season, Francouz will forever be a part of Avalanche history after his performance in the 2021-22 season. In 21 games played serving behind Darcy Kuemper, Francouz held a 15-5-1 record, with a .916 SV% and a 2.55 GAA, which are generally considered very solid numbers for a backup goaltender.
In the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs, Francouz had to fill in on several different occasions as the starting netminder, especially during the Western Conference Finals against the Edmonton Oilers. In six games played during those playoffs, Francouz held a 5-0-0 record with a .907 SV%, including a shutout in game two of the team’s series against Edmonton, becoming a fundamental factor in their Stanley Cup victory.
Receiving an adductor surgery after the team’s first-round loss to the Seattle Kraken in last year’s playoffs, Francouz’s groin is still giving him too much trouble to compete at the NHL level. To replace Francouz in the backup spot, the team nabbed Ivan Prosvetov shortly before the start of the regular season on waivers, who had previously played for the Arizona Coyotes.
With Alexandar Georgiev receiving the healthy majority of starts in Colorado’s net, Prosvetov has only managed to squeak into four games, carrying a 1-1-0 record, coupled with a .899 SV% and a 2.90 GAA. The production has not been much better from Georgiev, who has a 7-4-0 record in 11 games but holds a .887 SV% and a 3.29 GAA, showing a stark falloff early in the season from where the Avalanche’s goaltending situation was only a season ago.
Minor Transactions: 11/12/23
The looming presence of the NFL regular season on the sports calendar as well as the European hockey international break means that today’s schedule around the world of hockey is lighter than normal. There are still a few games on the docket, including a contest in the AHL between the Hartford Wolf Pack and Providence Bruins that was the Wolf Pack interim head coach Steve Smith.
Even though today isn’t very busy in terms of game action, the transaction wire remains active as teams around the world add, subtract, and extend players. As always, we’ll keep track of notable moves here.
- Ottawa Senators 2022 third-round pick Tomas Hamara was traded in the OHL, sent to the Brantford Bulldogs from the Kitchener Rangers in exchange for two draft picks. The 19-year-old defenseman, who has represented Czechia at two IIHF World Junior Championships, has scored just three points in 18 games for Kitchener this season and will look for an uptick in production with the Bulldogs.
- 25-year-old Norwegian netminder Jonas Arntzen has signed a three-year contract with his current club, Örebro HK of the SHL. Arntzen is currently in his fourth season as the backup to former NHLer Jhonas Enroth with Örebro, and he even played in 13 playoff games last season as Örebro made a run to the SHL Semifinals. This season, he has played five games and posted a .899 save percentage.
- Journeyman Swedish netminder Robin Rahm has added a seventh country to the list of nations he’s played professional hockey in, signing a one-month contract with Slovenia’s HK Olimpija Ljubljana. The 37-year-old joins the ICEHL side to fill the void left by an injury to starter Lukáš Horák. Rahm has a .901 save percentage in 30 career ICEHL games, all of them from 2018-19 with EC Graz. In addition to that move in net. Ljubljana has also announced that forward Ville Leskinen has had his short-term deal converted to a full-time contract, coming after he scored four goals and five points in 12 games with the club.
- Czech Extraliga club HC Vítkovice have signed forward Marcel Barinka, 22. The former Halifax Mooseheads forward was in the midst of his fourth season in the DEL, having bounced from Cologne to Berlin to Augsburg and then finally to Iserlohn. Barinka has had success playing internationally with Czechia but has struggled to find the scoresheet at the club level. The hope will be that he can unlock some offense with Vítkovice, who rank 1oth out of 14 clubs in the Czech Extraliga in goals scored.
This page may be updated throughout the day.
Ottawa Senators Recall Jacob Larsson
The Ottawa Senators have announced that defenseman Jacob Larsson has been recalled from the team’s AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators.
This recall brings the Senators to a full 23-man roster, and adds a sixth defenseman to their roster under normal conditions. As noted by CapFriendly, Tyler Kleven and Jacob Bernard-Docker are on the Senators’ roster under emergency conditions.
Larsson, 26, is a 2015 first-round pick who has nearly 200 games of NHL experience. While he never quite lived up to the hype as a top prospect for the Anaheim Ducks, Larsson’s strong skating has kept him around in North America. Larsson played in 55 games for AHL Belleville last season, and earned seven NHL games with the Senators. This season, he’s scored two goals in 10 games for Belleville.
With the Senators preparing to head to Sweden for games on November 16th and 18th, this recall not only adds some additional defensive depth to their roster, but also serves as a nice reward for Larsson. Larsson, who is Swedish, has played in both the SHL and HockeyAllsvenskan, and has represented Sweden at IIHF tournaments, including two World Junior Championships.
New Jersey Devils Reassign Max Willman
According to the AHL’s official transactions wire, the New Jersey Devils have reassigned forward Max Willman to their AHL affiliate, the Utica Comets. In a corresponding move, the Comets have reassigned forward Erik Middendorf has been reassigned to the Devils organization’s ECHL affiliate, the Adirondack Thunder.
Willman is a 28-year-old center who signed a one-year, $775k contract with the Devils in the offseason. After his five-year collegiate career ended, Willman, a former Buffalo Sabres draft pick, began his pro career in the ECHL with the Reading Royals. He scored 25 points in just 20 games, earning a quick call-up to the AHL with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
Willman would go on to establish himself as a regular player for the Phantoms over the next few years, even earning a total of 50 NHL games with the Philadelphia Flyers.
He was signed by the Devils over the summer to bolster the organization’s forward depth, and he has played a heightened role for the Comets than what he normally received with Lehigh Valley. He’s responded to getting first-line minutes with production, as he’s posted seven points in seven games.
The Devils rewarded his hot start with an NHL call-up, and he played in two games for the club. He played 11-12 minutes in each contest and even scored a goal against the Chicago Blackhawks before settling in as a healthy scratch.
With the Devils optimistic that Colin Miller will be able to return to the lineup on their two-game road trip, sending down Willman clears a spot on the Devils’ roster that can go to Miller when he is able to be activated off of injured reserve.
With Willman back on Utica’s roster, Middendorf was returned to Adirondack. The 23-year-old former Michigan State Spartan is in his first full season as a professional player, and he has gotten off to a good start for the Thunder. He’s scored three goals and four points in five games, and was rewarded with an AHL call-up. He registered one shot on goal during the Comets’ loss against the Rochester Americans on November 10th, and now he’ll return to the Thunder having gotten a taste of AHL hockey.