Latest On Connor Hellebuyck Trade Rumors
One of the highest-profile trade candidates who hasn’t yet been dealt to another team, outside of Norris trophy winner Erik Karlsson, is Winnipeg Jets starter Connor Hellebuyck. The 30-year-old is considered by many to be of the few “franchise goalies” left in the NHL, a netminder who a team can build around and consistently count on to post high-end numbers.
But the Michigan native is a pending unrestricted free agent who reportedly wants a contract extension at a $9.5MM AAV, which would put him among the highest-paid goalies in the NHL.
This has led to questions regarding whether the Jets would deal Hellebuyck to another team this summer, rather than risk entering next season with an expiring asset and potentially lose Hellebuyck to the open market in a year’s time.
They traded star center Pierre-Luc Dubois under these same circumstances, though it seems Hellebuyck could be more challenging to move.
Although Hellebuyck is undoubtedly a better goalie than Dubois is a forward, Dubois has the advantage of being younger and being a center. Teams are generally far more comfortable giving productive centers in their mid-twenties long-term, pricey extensions rather than netminders older than 30.
Additionally, the success of the Vegas Golden Knights, who won the Stanley Cup backstopped by Adin Hill (who hasn’t yet played more than 27 games in a single season) has led some to believe that investing in a costly goalie isn’t a wise use of scarce cap space. All of those factors have contributed to there being a lack of movement at the top of the goalie market.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that this lack of movement could even extend to Hellebuyck, saying to NHL Network that he has been spoken to sources who “wouldn’t be surprised if Hellebuyck starts the year in Winnipeg.”
Friedman cites the Jets’ desire to remain competitive despite trading away Dubois and losing Blake Wheeler as a factor complicating the likelihood Hellebuyck gets dealt. The Jets don’t want to take a step back into a rebuild, meaning they aren’t in a position to trade Hellebuyck for just picks and/or prospects, similar to when the Arizona Coyotes traded Darcy Kuemper to the Colorado Avalanche.
The Avalanche sent two draft picks and defensive prospect Conor Timmins, at the time a relatively recent 32nd overall draft choice, to get Kuemper, who like Hellebuyck had one year of team control remaining. Although Hellebuyck’s more impressive resume lends to the belief that he’d require more assets to acquire than Kuemper, contending teams likely won’t be able to send a quality prospect or two and some draft choices to acquire Hellebuyck.
The Jets are likely to want young, NHL-ready, or near-NHL-ready players similar to the crop they received in exchange for Dubois, a package headlined by 2022-23 breakout talent Gabriel Vilardi. But the relatively short list of contending teams looking to add an elite netminder likely has significant overlap with the list of clubs looking to subtract futures to add to their roster, rather than trade away roster players they were counting on for 2023-24.
One team that’s long been speculated as a potential landing spot for Hellebuyck is the New Jersey Devils. Although they lost Damon Severson and Ryan Graves, the Devils added Tyler Toffoli to their forward corps and could see top prospects Simon Nemec and Luke Hughes replace their two defensive losses. The one thing the Devils are missing is an elite goalie, and Hellebuyck fits the bill, though he might not fit into their cap sheet long-term.
The Devils have looked at the possibility of acquiring Hellebuyck, according to Friedman. The team could offer Vitek Vanecek as part of the trade, for example, which could allay the Jets’ fears of being left without a capable goalie to help them reach the playoffs.
But with the Devils potentially unable to afford a pricey long-term extension for the 2019-20 Vezina Trophy winner, they might not be willing to offer up the sort of assets the Jets would want in exchange for Hellebuyck, as he could very well end up a one-year rental if he’s traded to New Jersey.
In any case, despite how strong Hellebuyck’s play has been (he had a .920 save percentage in 64 games for the Jets this past season, second-best among goalies with 50 or more starts) he could be an extraordinarily difficult player to move this offseason.
His value to the Jets could exceed what another team would be willing to trade for him with just one year left on his deal, which could leave the Jets in the dangerous position of attempting to make noise in the Stanley Cup playoffs with a key pillar of the franchise precariously close to an exit on the free agent market.
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Update On Erik Karlsson To Pittsburgh Rumblings
Rob Rossi of The Athletic wrote a column today with regard to the Erik Karlsson trade saga. While many of the updates offered were hardly surprising, there were a few pieces of information that gave some insights into how the Pittsburgh Penguins became involved in the trade talks. Pittsburgh always seemed like a team that couldn’t squeeze a player with Karlsson’s cap number into their lineup, but based on the recent reporting it appears that they are the front-runner.
Rossi begins the article by dropping the news that Kyle Dubas reportedly identified Erik Karlsson as a trade target while he was in the interview process with Penguins ownership. Now, aside from the Tristan Jarry extension to this point much of Dubas’ work has been to tinker around the edges of the Penguins lineup. But it does appear that he’s built up the club’s depth in the bottom six and their defense core for the possibility that some players could be shipped out very soon.
Another newer piece of information that Rossi mentions is that Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang have reportedly endorsed the potential Karlsson acquisition and in Letang’s case, he’s even agreed to make changes to his own role within the Penguins lineup. If a potential trade were to go through, Letang would remain as Pittsburgh’s number one defenseman, however, Letang would change his powerplay role to allow Karlsson to quarterback the Penguin’s powerplay.
San Jose was also reportedly interested in defenseman Marcus Pettersson being part of a potential blockbuster, however, Dubas has squashed that notion thus far as head coach Mike Sullivan sees Pettersson and newly acquired defender Ryan Graves as the top two options for the left side of Pittsburgh’s defensive group. Pettersson was terrific for Pittsburgh last season after seeing his name all over trade rumors boards for much of the summer of 2022.
Lastly, Dubas apparently wants to put top-5 protection on any first-round pick he trades in a Karlsson deal and has reportedly floated the idea of putting other conditions such as home-ice advantage on lower-round draft picks that could be involved in the deal.
While it appears that the Penguins are still the front-runner to land the reigning Norris Trophy winner, it doesn’t appear that a trade is imminent anytime soon. Pittsburgh would have to navigate an awful lot of moving parts to push the trade through, however, as we’ve seen in the past these trades can come together quickly when teams are motivated to make the move happen. Regardless of the outcome, it does look like Dubas has plans to continue his makeover of the Penguins roster before the start of the 2023-24 season.
Minor Transactions: 7/20/23
We are well into the dog days of summer as many NHL management groups and broadcasters are turning their attention to arbitration cases and summer holidays. While things are typically slow this time of year there have been several signings today from around the hockey world:
- Former Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Dmitri Korobov has signed a contract with Dinamo Minsk of the KHL. No terms of the contract have been released. Korobov has spent the last two years with Dinamo and posted three goals and four assists in 49 games this past season. His NHL career was a short one as he dressed in just three games and posted a single assist with the Lightning in a short call-up during the 2013-14 season. The 34-year-old spent two seasons in the AHL with Tampa Bay’s AHL affiliate the Syracuse Crunch, dressing in 136 games and scoring six goals and 42 assists.
- The Utica Comets have announced that they’ve signed defenseman Will MacKinnon to a two-way AHL contract for the 2023-24 season. The 23-year-old Plymouth, Michigan native will be getting his first opportunity in the AHL as he spent the past two seasons playing in the ECHL with the Reading Royals where he posted seven goals and 20 assists in 88 games. MacKinnon has never posted much in the way of offense dating all the way back to his NCAA days but did put up 26 points last season in 71 ECHL games which has earned him a look in the AHL for the upcoming year.
- Colorado Avalanche AHL affiliate the Colorado Eagles have signed defenseman Michael Underwood to a one-year AHL extension. Underwood signed a PTO with the Eagles back in March of this year and dressed in three AHL games with the franchise where he was held scoreless. The 25-year-old has been a defensive defenseman throughout his professional and college career never topping seven points in any one season. In five NCAA seasons with Clarkson University and Michigan State University, Underwood had a total of six goals and 17 assists in 167 games.
- Nolan Moyle, the captain of the Michigan Wolverines last season, has found where he’ll be beginning his professional career: China. Moyle has signed with the KHL’s Kunlun Red Star, landing there after playing five seasons at Michigan. A defense-first right winger, Moyle didn’t score much as a Wolverine (just 46 points in 164 career games) but now has a chance to hold down a defensive role in one of the world’s more competitive professional leagues.
- The ECHL’s Orlando Solar Bears have made a significant addition, signing 26-year-old Aaron Luchuk on a one-year contract. Luchuk had been with the Solar Bears for two seasons before this past season trying his luck in Europe. Luchuck played for three teams across two leagues and couldn’t quite find his footing in 2022-23, so now he returns to the league he led in scoring in 2020-21. Luchuk has 187 points in 181 career ECHL games and is likely to be a major help to the franchise as they look to return to the Kelly Cup playoffs.
- Another college hockey captain has selected where he’ll be starting his pro career. Notre Dame captain Nick Leivermann has signed a contract with the Hershey Bears, the defending Calder Cup champions. The 24-year-old Minnesota native played five seasons with Notre Dame and has had two consecutive productive campaigns. He scored 20 points in 29 games last season and had 27 points in 32 games this season. While the Bears are likely to have a competitive blueline as they defend their Calder Cup title, Leivermann’s success in his collegiate career suggests he could end up a factor in the AHL sooner rather than later.
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Derek Grant Signs In Switzerland
Just one season removed from scoring a career-high 15 goals and 29 points in the NHL, veteran center Derek Grant is continuing his career in Europe. Grant has signed a one-year deal with the ZSC Lions of the Swiss National League.
The addition of Grant adds 427 games of NHL experience to a team bursting at the seams with players who either recently played in the NHL or saw significant time in the league in the past. He joins former NHLers Yannick Weber, Dean Kukan, Sven Andrighetto, Jesper Froden, Mikko Lehtonen, Denis Malgin, and Juho Lammikko in Zurich, as well as 2022 Montreal Canadiens third-round pick Vinzenz Rohrer.
Seeing as Grant is 33 years old, it’s fair to wonder if Grant has played his final NHL game now that he’s headed overseas.
Although he didn’t have the best season, Grant’s most recent season gave reason to believe he was still a capable NHLer.
Grant won a whopping 55.2% of his draws, scored at a 32-point 82-game pace, and ranked third among Ducks forwards in average short-handed ice time per game with 2:24.
Sure, there were some cracks under the hood, such as the fact that with Grant as a regular contributor, the Ducks’ penalty kill was the NHL’s second-worst with a 72.1% kill rate, and Grant himself only managed to play in 46 games, his fewest in any unshortened NHL season since 2016-17. But seeing as he was genuinely quite a valuable bottom-sixer in 2021-22, seeing him leave the NHL entirely is a bit of a surprise.
Switzerland is an exceptional country to play in, of course, and Grant wouldn’t be the first veteran player to prefer spending the later years of his career there rather than on two-way deals in North America. But with how many teams could use a versatile, experienced bottom-sixer at an affordable price, this move to Switzerland is certainly unexpected, though certainly not unreasonable.
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Gemel Smith Signs In KHL
Although 29-year-old forward Gemel Smith scored 53 points in 54 AHL games, this past season was Smith’s first campaign in over a half-decade that he did not feature in any NHL games.
Now, the veteran of 356 AHL games and 91 games in the NHL is headed to play for an overseas club for the first time in his pro career. According to a team announcement, Smith has signed with Dynamo Minsk in the KHL.
Smith joins 2015 first-round pick Nick Merkley, Calder Cup Champion Sam Anas, former AHL blueliner Kodie Curran, and former Cornell University star Yanni Kaldis as an overseas professional rostered by Belarus’ KHL club.
Seeing as he has been a prolific AHL scorer in recent seasons and brings genuine NHL experience, Smith is likely to be expected to be among Minsk’s top scorers for next season. While the NHL door is certainly not closed moving forward as Smith isn’t even 30 years old yet, he’ll want to have as productive a season as possible with Minsk if he hopes on returning to the world’s top league in the future.
Considering Smith’s resume, it’s possible he could get a two-way contract as soon as next summer, though he’ll likely need to put up some numbers next to Merkley and Minsk’s other offensive players in order to do so.
Washington Capitals Hire Kirk Muller, Kenny McCudden
The Washington Capitals have added two experienced names to first-year head coach Spencer Carbery’s staff: former Calgary Flames assistant coach Kirk Muller and longtime Columbus Blue Jackets assistant Kenny McCudden.
Muller, 57, played in over 1,300 games during his NHL career and was a star two-way center for both the Montreal Canadiens and New Jersey Devils. He won the Stanley Cup with the Canadiens in 1993 and began his coaching career in Montreal in 2006. He spent a half-decade on the Canadiens’ bench as an assistant before trying his hand at head coaching with the Milwaukee Admirals in the AHL.
Muller lasted only 17 games with the Admirals before being promoted to NHL head coach with the Carolina Hurricanes, replacing Paul Maurice mid-season. While Muller didn’t quite succeed in Carolina, he returned to being an assistant coach and did quite well in that role. He coached two seasons with the St. Louis Blues before returning to Montreal, where he helped the Canadiens through a re-tooling process.
After he was fired from the Canadiens alongside Claude Julien, Muller moved to the Calgary Flames, where he joined the staff of Darryl Sutter. Sutter won the Jack Adams award for coach of the year in 2021-22 and led the Flames to an impressive regular season.
Although Sutter was fired earlier this summer and Muller departed as well, Muller’s work in both Calgary and Montreal lends to the impression that he is a capable, experienced assistant coach.
For a relatively inexperienced head coach like Carbery, who hasn’t yet run the bench of an NHL team, adding such an experienced name like Muller is an easy choice to understand. Same with McCudden, who was a longtime skills coach before joining Columbus alongside John Tortorella.
At Tortorella’s side, McCudden contributed to the most successful and winningest era of hockey in Blue Jackets history, including their famous 2019 upset of the Tampa Bay Lightning, a team coming off of a historically good regular season.
The Capitals are looking to make a push for one more Stanley Cup during what remains of Alex Ovechkin‘s career, and have selected Carbery as the man to lead them there. Now, Carbery has added two high-level assistant coaches to help him begin what he likely hopes will be a long career as an NHL head coach.
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Nate Thompson Retires
Nate Thompson, a longtime bottom-six forward who played 844 games in the NHL, announced his retirement from the game on social media yesterday. Thompson, set to turn 39 in October, last played in the NHL in 2021-22, scoring three points in 33 games for the Philadelphia Flyers.
For much of his career, Thompson gave NHL clubs exactly what they would hope to receive out of a player occupying their fourth-line center role.
He brought leadership: Thompson wore a letter on his jersey with three different teams across his pro career, as early as 2006-07 with the Providence Bruins in the AHL and as late as 2019-20 with the Montreal Canadiens.
He brought defensive ability: Thompson often put his body on the line on the penalty kill and even landed on the Selke Trophy ballot in 2013. And he brought prowess at the faceoff dot, winning nearly 53% of his draws across his career.
Although Thompson’s career-high in points production was just 25, set all the way back in 2010-11, Thompson remained an NHL regular throughout his career. As Sportsnet’s Eric Engels noted, after breaking into the NHL Thompson only played five more games in the AHL before his final professional season, and all of those games were on conditioning stints. Engels wrote: “We’re talking about a guy who never came to training camp with a secure job, a career grinder who always managed to earn his spot for 17 straight seasons!”
That’s an extremely impressive feat, and underscores for just how long Thompson was considered an indispensable fourth-line forward. Thompson’s career highlights also include representing the United States at two IIHF Men’s World Championships, the 2012 and 2013 games played in Finland and Stockholm. Thompson wore a letter both years and led the Americans to a bronze medal in 2013.
All things considered, the Anchorage, Alaska native leaves behind a highly successful playing career and will now transition to the off-ice phase of his life and work.
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Toronto Maple Leafs Hire Guy Boucher, Mike Van Ryn
The Toronto Maple Leafs have hired two coaches to head coach Sheldon Keefe‘s staff: former Ottawa Senators and Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Guy Boucher, and former St. Louis Blues assistant coach Mike Van Ryn.
In Boucher, the Maple Leafs have added a coach with significant experience running an NHL bench. Although Boucher never coached a fourth season in any of his stops as a bench boss, even at the junior level, he could be considered a serial winner who managed to go on a long playoff run in every place he coached.
In his final season in the QMJHL, Boucher won 54 of 68 games with the Drummondville Voltigeurs and a league title. In his one season with the AHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs, Boucher went 52-17-11 and got to the third round of the Calder Cup playoffs.
In the NHL, Boucher’s Lightning team nearly beat the eventual champion Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference Final, falling just short in a Game Seven.
Boucher’s SC Bern team in 2014-15 made it to the second round of the Swiss NL playoffs, and then Boucher’s Ottawa Senators went on a miracle run in his very first season there, coming one goal short of dethroning the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins and reaching the Senators’ first cup final since 2007.
Sure, it must be noted that at each of Boucher’s NHL stops, the wheels fell off almost immediately after he went on his initial long playoff run. And given how much Boucher relied on his signature 1-3-1 defensive system, something he is highly unlikely to be able to deploy as Keefe’s assistant, one wonders if he’s going to be at his most valuable in this role. But seeing as Toronto is desperate to immediately go on the type of long playoff run Boucher has specialized in, it’s easy to see why they’ve targeted him.
As for Van Ryn, he’s also got the type of playoff experience behind the bench the Maple Leafs are hoping will translate to their own on-ice results. Van Ryn won a Stanley Cup with St. Louis in his very first season there, and does have prior experience coaching in Ontario as he spent three seasons with the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers, including one as head coach.
Per The Hockey News’ David Alter, Boucher will run the Maple Leafs’ power play while Van Ryn runs the team’s defense, with assistance from Dean Chynoweth, who will be in charge of the penalty kill.
The hiring of the two men completes Keefe’s coaching staff, which already boasts assistants Chynoweth and Manny Malhotra, goaltending coach Curtis Sanford, and video coaches Jordan Bean and Sam Kim.
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Minor Transactions: 07/19/23
NHL teams have been hard at work in advance of upcoming arbitration cases, looking to find the sort of common ground on new contracts that leads to signings and avoids the arbitration process. Just as those top teams have been working to sign players for next season (the Vegas Golden Knights worked especially hard today, signing two players) professional hockey clubs around the world are also signing players and tweaking the teams they’ll bring into the next campaign. Here, we’ll keep track of notable moves that are made.
- The Coachella Valley Firebirds, the AHL affiliate of the Seattle Kraken, have re-signed forward Ian McKinnon for the 2023-24 campaign. Although the Firebirds as a team ended the season heartbroken (they lost the Calder Cup championship in overtime of Game Seven at home) McKinnon personally had his strongest season as a professional. The six-foot-two bruiser only scored three points, to be sure, but he played in a career-high 36 AHL games and didn’t play a single game in the ECHL for the first time in his pro career. Now, he’s earned another year with the Firebirds where he’ll add some muscle to the bottom of their lineup and be a contender to rack up triple-digit penalty minutes once again.
- Hayden Verbeek, a former Montreal Canadiens prospect and the nephew of Anaheim Ducks GM Pat Verbeek, has signed with the Crimmitschau Ice Pirates of Germany’s second-tier DEL2. Verbeek, 25, was a top-six forward for the Soo Greyhounds late in his OHL career and has become quite the journeyman recently. He has 26 points in 31 career ECHL games for three different teams and has also skated in AHL games for both the Laval Rocket and Grand Rapids Griffins. He spent last season in the Slovak league, where he scored 33 points in 44 games for HK Spisska Nova Ves. A capable all-around player, Verbeek led the Slovak league in short-handed goals and now moves to Germany to make a push for promotion to the DEL.
- Although former San Jose Sharks prospect Marcus Vela played a helpful role in getting MoDo Hockey Ornskoldsvik promoted to the SHL in the spring, he won’t be joining the club for their return season in Sweden’s top league. Although Vela’s contract was automatically extended when the team defeated Djurgarden and won promotion, the player and club mutually agreed on a contract termination. 2022-23 was the 26-year-old Canadian’s first campaign overseas, and he played well across two HockeyAllsvenskan teams, totaling 29 points in 46 games. He could now opt to return to the ECHL, where he has in the past been productive for the Toledo Walleye, or could continue playing overseas.
- 29-year-old minor league netminder Adam Carlson is retiring from playing the game, according to an announcement from his club, the ECHL’s Rapid City Rush. Carlson is leaving to take up goalie coaching roles in his home state of Minnesota, and ends his career having played nearly 200 games in the ECHL and eight in the AHL. Carlson was a member of the Rush organization for a combined four years, four of the strongest of his professional career. Carlson’s best year came in 2018-19, when he played in 45 games and posted a .916 save percentage, and he has started for other clubs including the Hershey Bears and Manitoba Moose.
- Former ECHL All-Star Jalen Smereck has signed a contract extension to remain with the ECHL’s Cincinnati Cyclones. Smereck is coming off of an exceptional two-season run playing in both Germany and Cincinnati. He scored 34 points in 46 games for the Bietigheim Steelers in the DEL in 2021-22, and without him this season the Steelers won just 14 games out of 56 and were relegated to the DEL2. This past season, Smereck scored 50 points in 53 games, the highest points-per-game scoring rate of any ECHL defenseman playing on a full-time basis. An elite defenseman in the ECHL, Smereck will now play a second season in Cincinnati and hope to earn an AHL call-up.
- Nolan Volcan, the former captain of the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds, is beginning his professional career after three seasons at the University of Alberta. He’s signed an ECHL deal with the Fort Wayne Komets. The five-foot-nine 25-year-old forward scored 58 points in 76 games in Alberta and tallied 231 points in 321 WHL games. Volcan won a WHL championship with the Thunderbirds and now joins an ECHL club hoping to make some noise in the playoffs after a first-round exit last year.
- The ECHL’s Maine Mariners have poached one of the league’s top young scorers from the Wheeling Nailers: Brooklyn Kalmikov. A QMJHL champion in 2020-21, the 22-year-old finished his junior career by scoring 34 goals and 72 points in 62 games. He turned pro this past season and skated in 66 games for the Nailers. He ranked second on the team in scoring, potting 23 goals and 52 points. Kalmikov even earned an AHL call-up to the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins, and though he went scoreless in three games he’ll likely get another chance if he can produce as well in Maine as he did in West Virginia.
- Former Detroit Red Wing Jan Mursak signed with Klagenfurt in the ICEHL, according to a team announcement. The 2006 sixth-round pick was just the second Slovenian-born player to skate in the NHL (behind Los Angeles Kings captain Anze Kopitar) and ended up playing 45 games for the Red Wings across three seasons. Mursak was at one point Slovenia’s captain for international competitions, including the 2018 Winter Olympics, and has spent the last three seasons with Frolunda in the SHL. Now, he heads to Austria hoping to help Klagenfurt return to the Champions Hockey League and top of the ICEHL.
- 2018-19 ECHL First-Team All-Star Matt Petgrave and 185-game Liiga veteran Niklas Nevalainen have both re-signed with their club of last season, the EIHL’s Sheffield Steelers. Petgrave excelled in his first season in England, scoring 48 points in 54 games and showcasing all-situations value on the powerplay and penalty kill. Although he only managed two points in four playoff games, he’ll likely be among the Steelers’ top scorers next season. Nevalainen, 30, is a former everyday defenseman in the top league of his native Finland, though he hasn’t played there since 2020-21. He spent 2021-22 playing in Norway and now seems to have found a home in England, where he scored 23 points last season.
Vegas Golden Knights Re-Sign Pavel Dorofeyev
The Vegas Golden Knights have re-signed forward Pavel Dorofeyev to a one-year, $825k AAV contract. Vegas also re-signed RFA forward Brett Howden earlier several hours ago, meaning the club’s front office has today concluded all of its outstanding business with restricted free agents.
Dorofeyev, 22, is a Russian winger who was drafted 79th overall by the Golden Knights at the 2019 draft. Dorofeyev was a divisive draft prospect, as he was NHL Central Scouting’s 12th-ranked European skater but was ranked 82nd in Bob McKenzie’s draft ranking for TSN.
Seeing as fewer members of a team’s front office or scouting staff are typically able to see Russian prospects in person compared to, say, an OHLer, it’s not exactly a surprise that there was this divide with Dorofeyev.
So far, it’s fair to say that Dorofeyev has outperformed his middle-of-the-third-round draft slot.
After he was selected by Vegas, Dorofeyev spent an additional season in the KHL, scoring seven points in 48 games with limited ice time for Metallurg Magnitogorsk.
After that year, he crossed the Atlantic and played 24 games in the AHL for the Henderson Silver Knights, scoring 13 points.
In 2021-22, Dorofeyev’s adjustment to the smaller North American ice surfaces became more permanent, and he truly excelled for Henderson. Dorofeyev led the Silver Knights in scoring with 27 goals and 53 points in 63 games, scoring 11 points more than the next-highest scorer. It was that year that Dorofeyev earned his first NHL games, skating in two with Vegas.
This past season, Dorofeyev stood a decent chance of making the Golden Knights out of camp, but ultimately was sent to the AHL. Vegas didn’t have an opening on a scoring line and preferred the more versatile skillset Paul Cotter offered to their bottom-six forward group. Dorofeyev wasn’t as productive in the AHL, but thanks to injuries he earned his first extended NHL call-up in March and really impressed.
Dorofeyev began his call-up by scoring seven points in his first seven games. While his production cooled off a little after that, he still had his moments. His two-goal performance against the Minnesota Wild included a crucial game-tying marker and helped Vegas earn two points. In total, he finished with seven goals and nine points in 18 games, suggesting he could be capable of playing as an NHL regular next season.
Dorofeyev no longer has Reilly Smith or Phil Kessel to compete with for a role on one of Vegas’ scoring lines, and he may battle with today’s other signing, Howden, for a spot next to Mark Stone and Chandler Stephenson.
Should he earn a role there, expect Dorofeyev to be a real breakout candidate to watch for next season. At the $825k cap hit secured by this contract signing, Dorofeyev could provide real surplus value to the Golden Knights.
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