Carolina Hurricanes Assign Pyotr Kochetkov To AHL
Sunday: With Andersen nearing a return, the Hurricanes have returned Kochetkov to Syracuse, CapFriendly reports.
Wednesday: The Carolina Hurricanes announced that the team has recalled Pyotr Kochetkov from the Syracuse Crunch of the American Hockey League. Without a direct affiliate this season, the Hurricanes have most of their minor league depth players sporadically placed throughout the AHL.
Although no distinction was made through the team announcement, this is likely tied to the removal of Frederik Andersen during last night’s game against the San Jose Sharks. After just a few minutes into the game, Andersen would take a shot off the mask, leaving the rest of the game to goaltender Antti Raanta. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the team reporter for the Hurricanes, Walt Ruff, said that Andersen was back practicing with the team today.
With two quality goaltending options already on the roster, it was still a bit of a surprise to see Kochetkov not make the team out of camp, primarily because of the solid season he put together last year. In 23 starts last season, Kochetkov managed a 12-7-5 record, posting a .909SV% and a 2.44 GAA, albeit behind a very solid Carolina defense.
Most teams could do worse than Kochetkov in the case of a third-string goaltender, and the franchise rewarded him with a four-year, $8MM contract extension in the fall of last season. Coming up, the Hurricanes have two tough road games this week against the Seattle Kraken and Colorado Avalanche, respectively, both of which Kochetkov could see some minutes in between the pipes.
Avalanche Recall Corey Schueneman
The Avalanche have decided to bring up some defensive depth as they announced (Twitter link) the recall of blueliner Corey Schueneman from AHL Colorado.
The 27-year-old is in his first season with the Avs after signing a one-year, two-way deal with them in free agency back in July. He has played in two games so far in the minors with the Eagles and has yet to hit the scoresheet. Prior to that, he had an assist in two preseason contests.
Schueneman has seen NHL action in each of the last two seasons, both with Montreal. Between those years, he has suited up 31 times, picking up two goals and five assists while logging a little over 16 minutes per night. He spent the bulk of his time those years in the minors with AHL Laval, notching 34 points in 94 contests.
With the Avalanche viewing Kurtis MacDermid (who can play the back end and on the wing) as a forward, they’ve basically been carrying the minimum of six defensemen so it’s not surprising that they’ve opted to bring up some insurance now as they embark on a three-game road trip. Colorado had two open roster spots so no corresponding move needed to be made to add Schueneman to their roster while they will be dipping into their LTIR pool using Pavel Francouz‘s money to afford him under the salary cap.
Connor McDavid Out With Upper-Body Injury
After last night’s loss to the Winnipeg Jets in overtime, the Edmonton Oilers have even more bad news coming down the pipeline. In an update this afternoon, the team has announced that the captain of the team, Connor McDavid, will miss the next one to two weeks with an upper-body injury.
As one of the favorites to win the Stanley Cup this season, the Oilers have been one of the most disappointing teams to start the 2023-24 NHL season. In five games played, including the loss to Winnipeg last night, the Oilers are the owners of a 1-3-1 record, good for 29th in the league standings as things currently stand.
Nevertheless, the team still has 77 games to correct the dismal start, but the loss of McDavid is about as substantial as possible. Even after only recording one win in the first five games, it is in spite of McDavid getting off to another solid start. In the first handful of games to start the season, McDavid has averaged just over 20 minutes of ice time per night, scoring two goals and six assists, which is good for 12th in the league in scoring to start the year. 
Thankfully for the Oilers, seeing McDavid on the injured reserve has not been a common occurrence during his career in the NHL, he has seemingly only missed time due to injury during his rookie season in 2015-16, as well as towards the end of the 2019-20 season.
In the meantime, even without the injury to McDavid, the Oilers need a wake-up call to most of their team in the early part of the season. Aside from the usual suspects of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Leon Draisaitl, Evan Bouchard, and Zach Hyman, the depth in Edmonton has failed to make a positive on the club so far this season.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Minnesota Wild Recall Vinni Lettieri
After assigning recent callup, Samuel Walker, back to their AHL affiliate, the Iowa Wild, earlier today, the Minnesota Wild have called up a different forward to take his place in the lineup. The team announced that they have recalled Vinni Lettieri, a recent signee of the organization after spending the last two years in Anaheim and Boston, respectively.
An undrafted college free agent coming out of the University of Minnesota after the 2016-17 season, Lettieri would originally sign on with the New York Rangers under a two-year contract. Primarily playing with the Hartford Wolf Pack of the AHL during his three-year run in the Rangers organization, Lettieri would impress at the league’s highest minor league level. However, although garnering solid production at the AHL level, Lettieri would fail to score more than 10 points over 46 games as a Ranger.
Before starting the 2020-21 season, Lettieri would sign a back-to-back one-year contracts with the Anaheim Ducks organization, once again spending much of his time in the AHL. Given the team’s competitiveness at the time, Lettieri was able to play in 31 games for the Ducks during the 2021-22 season, scoring five goals and five assists, the best statistical output he’s had to this day.
After his time in the Ducks organization ended, Lettieri found his most recent landing spot in the Boston Bruins organization on a one-year contract. In 48 games played for the team’s AHL affiliate, the Providence Bruins, Lettieri scored 23 goals and 26 points, which was good for second on the team in scoring even after missing a month of action with a lower-body injury.
Already off to a hot start in Iowa to start this season, Lettieri will once again get the opportunity to prove his worth at the NHL level. However, with Minnesota starting off the season tied for 28th in goals against, Lettieri may have to focus primarily on keeping the puck out of his own net.
Adam Clendening Signs In Finland
According to a team announcement, longtime AHL defenseman Adam Clendening has signed a one-year contract with Ilves Tampere of the Finnish Liiga.
Clendening has yet to make his debut in European professional hockey. He’s spent the past four seasons exclusively in the AHL, including a strong 2021-22 campaign where he scored 42 points in 74 games. Clendening split last season between the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs and Hartford Wolf Pack, before joining the New York Rangers’ training camp on a PTO.
He did not earn a full-time deal with the Rangers, whose minor-league defensive depth chart is crowded with six players on NHL contracts. Rather than potentially return to the AHL, where Clendening has over 500 career games and is a two-time All-Star, he has opted to try his luck in one of Europe’s top professional leagues.
Clendening joins an Ilves team with the opportunity to make an impact on both ends of the ice. The team hasn’t received a ton of offense from blueliners so far this year (their leading scorer from the back end has just six points in 14 games) and despite sitting third in Liiga standings, has surrendered the sixth-most goals in league play.
With Ilves targeting long playoff runs in both the Champions Hockey League and Liiga, getting an experienced defensive reinforcement like Clendening is a major addition. For Clendening, he’ll have the chance to, at 30, begin his overseas career playing in a state-of-the-art arena while competing for some of the continent’s top trophies.
Big Hype Prospects: Roy, Brzustewicz, Stankoven, Lindbom, Iginla
Welcome to PHR’s Big Hype Prospects series. Like the MLB Trade Rumors series of the same name, we’re taking a look at the performances of top prospects from across the hockey world. We’ll look at drafted prospects who are rising, others who are struggling, and prospects for the upcoming draft who are notable.
Five Big Hype Prospects
Joshua Roy, RW, Montreal Canadiens (Laval Rocket, AHL)
5GP 5G 6A 11pts
Perhaps the biggest test NHL prospects face, other than the jump to the NHL itself, is the jump from playing exclusively against one’s peers to playing against men.
The players who oftentimes have years of experience playing professional hockey under their belt present a steep challenge for those prospects who might have been accustomed to using purely physical, skating, or skill-based advantages to success without layering those skills together into a more comprehensive package.
Oftentimes, successful players at the major junior level, for example, will find the tactics that worked for them against their peers to be wholly ineffective against pros. They’ll find their habits need changing, their strategies in need of a tweak, and perhaps their entire identities as players need to be re-examined.
That doesn’t seem to be something Roy, a Canadiens prospect, will have to consider. The 150th overall pick at the 2021 draft, Roy has always been a player of tremendous upside. He was the first overall pick at the 2019 QMJHL Entry Draft, but the struggles of his first two seasons in the QMJHL dramatically decreased his NHL draft stock.
After his fifth-round selection, Roy exploded to score 51 goals and 119 points the very next season. In his final season in the QMJHL, Roy’s production dipped slightly as the player focused his efforts on developing not only the defensive side of his game but also more pro-ready offensive habits.
Those efforts have paid off massively to start the 2023-24 season. As a rookie pro player, Roy currently leads the entire AHL in scoring with five goals and 11 points in just five games. He’s become the genuine offensive centerpiece of the Laval Rocket, and has begun to build chemistry with another top Canadiens forward prospect: Sean Farrell.
The recall of Joel Armia in the place of the injured Kirby Dach indicates that the Canadiens would prefer to keep Roy in the AHL and hopefully have him continue playing like a dominant offensive force.
But if he can keep up his scoring at this kind of level, one has to imagine that an NHL call-up isn’t too far off for the 20-year-old fifth-rounder.
Hunter Brzustewicz, RHD, Vancouver Canucks (Kitchener Rangers, OHL)
10GP 5G 15A 20pts
Looking to revamp their prospect pool at a position of need, the Canucks spent their top two draft choices, including the 11th overall selection, on right-shot defensemen last season. So far, while Tom Willander is certainly performing up to expectations at Boston University, it’s Brzustewicz who has impressed the most to start the season.
The 75th overall pick in the 2023 draft, Brzustewicz has become the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers’ true number-one defenseman. He’s responded to that important role with stellar production, and he currently leads the entire OHL in scoring with 20 points in 10 games.
Brzustewicz has helped the Rangers look like a true offensive powerhouse early this season, with the team currently averaging a whopping 5.1 goals per game.
Although Brzustewicz still has some work to do on the defensive side of things to truly place himself in consideration for an NHL job down the line, his early form this season makes clear that his offensive talent is undeniable.
Logan Stankoven, C/RW, Dallas Stars (Texas Stars, AHL)
4GP 4G 3A 7pts
Although there is always worry that high-scoring junior players will struggle to translate their scoring to the professional level, those worries are typically amplified when a player stands just five feet, eight inches tall.
One of the CHL’s most dynamic scorers over the past two years, Stankoven has long been tagged with concerns from some scouts that the things that made him so prolific for the Kamloops Blazers simply won’t be accessible in a professional environment.
So far, Stankoven has shown that he can, in fact, remain a dynamic offensive scorer in the challenging environment of the AHL.
Stankoven currently leads AHL Texas in scoring through four games, with four goals and seven points in that span.
The truly special aspects of Stankoven’s game seem to have traveled with him to Texas, and the progress he made in his final WHL season in terms of making his offensive approach more pro-ready has shown itself so far this year.
Stankoven has thus far thrived despite the immense physicality of the AHL, and so far his size has not limited his effectiveness in the areas he’s counted on most.
The Stars have a lot of offensive talent at the NHL level, so there may not be room for Stankoven to get an NHL shot this season without injuries.
But regardless of which level he plays in this season, these first few games have shown that Stankoven should be a force to be reckoned with, even at the pro level.
Carl Lindbom, G, Vegas Golden Knights (Färjestad BK, SHL)
7GP 5-2 0.99 GAA .950 sv% 1 shutout
When an NHL team spends a seventh-round pick on a goaltender, the selection is typically motivated more by a desire to retain the exclusive rights to sign that player as he develops rather than any realistic expectation that the goalie will become a big part of his NHL team’s future.
While first-rounders are almost always assured entry-level contracts due to their draft position, no such assurances exist for seventh-rounders. A seventh-round selection allows a team to keep tabs on a player, letting the player’s development guide whether he ultimately receives an NHL contract offer.
This past summer, Lindbom’s stellar development earned him an entry-level deal from the Golden Knights.
In the 2019 and 2020 drafts, the seventh round yielded some elite netminder prospects, namely Devon Levi of the Buffalo Sabres and Dustin Wolf of the Calgary Flames. From the 2021 class, Lindbom appears to have the best chance of continuing that streak.
Picked with the third-to-last selection in the class, Lindbom, 20, is a goalie who relies more on his athleticism and speed than his size. Last season was his first as a regular member of a tandem at the professional level, and he was exceptional. He posted a .930 save percentage and 1.86 goals-against-average in 36 games for Djurgårdens IF in the HockeyAllsvenskan.
This season, Lindbom has moved from Sweden’s second tier to its first-tier (SHL) and has excelled despite the increase in talent level and challenge.
Currently playing in tandem with former Golden Knight Maxime Legace, Lindbom has put up video game numbers. He’s 5-2 through seven games with a 0.99 goals-against-average and a .950 save percentage. His club, Färjestad BK, has given up just 20 goals through 12 games this season, which ranks third-best in the entire SHL.
While it’s fair to question how much a favorable defensive environment in Färjestad has contributed to Lindbom’s early success this season (Legace has also put up strong numbers, after all) it’s clear that the jump from the Allsvenskan to the SHL likely won’t be the source of major issues for Lindbom.
If he can keep up his success from these first few games into the rest of the season, Lindbom could very well find himself playing for the AHL’s Henderson Silver Knights next year, placing him within arm’s reach of the NHL.
Tij Iginla, C, 2024 Draft Prospect (Kelowna Rockets, WHL)
11GP 12G 7A 19pts
As the son of Jarome Iginla, an era-defining NHL superstar, Tij Iginla will always be a player with high expectations following him.
As a top-10 pick of the 2021 WHL Bantam Draft, Iginla was, before this season, viewed as a bit of a disappointment. He struggled to make a dent in an absolutely stacked Seattle Thunderbirds forward corps last season and was not widely considered a top prospect for the 2024 draft.
It’s early, but Iginla’s current form with the Kelowna Rockets is doing wonders to change that narrative. The 17-year-old forward is, despite an August birthday, currently in third place in the entire WHL in goal scoring. He’s tallied 12 goals in 12 games, and his 19 points rank second among the league’s under-18 forwards.
Iginla has already crossed his point total from last season despite playing in 37 fewer games and has formed a deadly partnership with Washington Capitals 2023 second-rounder Andrew Cristall.
While he’s not quite the prototypical power forward his father was, (he’s a little shorter, weighs quite a bit less, and is notably more disciplined) it’s not easy to avoid seeing at least some of Jarome whenever Tij snipes the puck straight past a WHL goalie.
There’s still a lot of the season left to be played, and the 2024 draft class is filled with talented players. But so far, Iginla has done more than most draft prospects in terms of raising his stock in the early part of the season.
Just how far he’s able to climb will be one of the more intriguing storylines in the WHL this season.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Hurricanes Reassign Callahan Burke To AHL
10/22/23: The Hurricanes have reassigned Burke back to the AHL’s Colorado Eagles. He made his Hurricanes debut last night in Denver for the team’s contest against the Colorado Avalanche, registering 7:06 time on ice.
10/21/23: Late last night, the Hurricanes made a roster move, announcing the recall of forward Callahan Burke from AHL Colorado on an emergency basis. It’s unclear at this time which Carolina player’s availability is in question for their game tonight against the Avalanche.
The Hurricanes acquired Burke from the Avs earlier this month in exchange for defenseman Caleb Jones. The swap amounted to a cost-cutting move for the Hurricanes as they moved Jones’ one-way deal for Burke’s two-way pact which only carries a guaranteed salary of $125K.
Burke had his best season at the AHL level in 2022-23, recording 16 goals and 23 assists in 70 games with the Eagles. That also earned the 26-year-old his first taste of NHL action as he got into a pair of games with the Avs. This season, he an assist in two games with the Eagles; Carolina opted to keep him with Colorado’s farm team since they don’t have an AHL affiliate of their own this season. Now, he might get a chance to play against his former team tonight.
Minnesota Wild Reassign Sammy Walker To AHL
The Minnesota Wild have reassigned forward Sammy Walker to the team’s AHL affiliate, the Iowa Wild. The move lands Walker back in the AHL just four days after he was originally recalled.
Walker, 24, played in two games for Minnesota on this most recent call-up. Walker struggled in both contests and saw his ice time decline to just 7:26 last night, despite the game extending into overtime.
As the team has suffered back-to-back losses, it appears Minnesota will likely call up a different forward to fill Walker’s vacated spot on their roster with the hope that a fresh addition can help spark a return to winning ways.
This reassignment will also help out AHL Iowa, who have struggled to start the season. The team is currently 1-3 with a -10 goal differential despite playing just four games. Two of the team’s losses have been genuine blowouts and Iowa’s 11 goals scored rank 21st in the AHL.
Walker was a star rookie for Iowa last season, scoring 27 goals and 48 points in 56 games. The consistent offense he displayed as a Minnesota Golden Gopher seemed to translate to the AHL level, meaning his return to Iowa should give the team a better chance of winning games.
The priority for Minnesota, though, lies at the NHL level where the team is looking to keep pace in what will be a highly competitive Central Division.
In terms of candidates to fill Walker’s vacated role on a line with Joel Eriksson Ek and Marcus Johansson, 336-game NHL veteran Jujhar Khaira could get a shot if the team wants more of a defensive flavor in their call-up, while Nic Petan or prospect Adam Beckman would give more of an offensive touch.
Buffalo Sabres Assign Matt Savoie To AHL On Conditioning Loan
The Buffalo Sabres have sent 2022 eighth-overall pick Matt Savoie to the AHL’s Rochester Americans on a conditioning loan.
Savoie was injured at the team’s prospect tournament and has been on injured reserve to start the season. This loan will allow Savoie to get some games under his belt in the AHL, a league he played two playoff games in at the end of the 2022-23 campaign.
Savoie, who will turn 20 on January 1st, misses the cut-off for automatic AHL eligibility by just one day. The Sabres have reportedly petitioned the WHL to give Savoie an exemption and allow him to play in the AHL, but while Seattle Kraken prospect Shane Wright received one such exemption from the OHL, the Sabres have reportedly not been optimistic about Savoie’s odds of receiving one from the WHL.
That reality means that once Savoie’s conditioning assignment has concluded, he’ll in all likelihood be on his way back to the WHL, where he’ll play for the Wenatchee Wild.
The WHL’s Wild have struggled so far this season without Savoie or Zach Benson, who was a surprise addition to the Sabres’ NHL roster to start the season. Savoie scored 95 points in the WHL last year and would be a massive, difference-making addition for Wenatchee.
There’s also always the chance that Savoie ends up called back to the Sabres’ NHL roster, although that possibility becomes more unlikely if Benson maintains his hold on a spot in head coach Don Granato’s lineup.
Tyler Ennis Signs In Germany
Although 700-game NHL veteran Tyler Ennis was linked to a return to the North American pro circuit after a season spent in Switzerland, a true NHL opportunity never materialized for the 34-year-old forward.
Now, rather than try his luck in North America, Ennis has decided to play another season in Europe. Per a team announcement, Ennis has signed a one-year contract with Adler Mannheim of the German DEL. In Mannheim, Ennis will join with other former NHLers such as Jyrki Jokipakka, Tom Kühnhackl, and Linden Vey.
Having just turned 34 years old, it’s not unreasonable to think Ennis may have merited a chance to compete for an NHL job in training camp and preseason. He had a strong first full season in Europe, scoring 13 goals and 33 points for SC Bern in the Swiss National League.
Ennis has three 20-goal NHL seasons on his resume, although he struggled to the tune of just 24 points in 57 games in his most recent NHL campaign.
Instead of the NHL, Ennis joins a Mannheim team currently sitting second in the DEL standings with a 9-2-1 record. But although the club has had a stellar start, they rank outside the league’s top five in terms of goals scored, so perhaps that motivated club management to add some external offensive reinforcement.
That’s exactly what Ennis is capable of providing. While he’s likely disappointed to not receive the NHL shot he was linked to in September, he has a chance to spend this season as a genuine star forward for one of the best teams in German hockey.