Minor Transactions: 05/16/23
For the first time since the playoffs began, we have a break in the NHL schedule. While the four remaining teams won’t start their Conference Final series until Thursday and Friday, offseason activity hasn’t slowed down in other leagues as rosters for 2023-24 take form. As always, we’re keeping tabs on all notable minor transactions from across the hockey world, and we’ll list today’s right here.
- SHL veteran Filip Sandberg signed a one-year extension with Skellefteå AIK today, the team announced. Sandberg, who began his pro career with HV71, was an undrafted free agent signing by the San Jose Sharks in 2017 but played just over one full campaign with the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda before returning to Sweden in November of 2018. After two additional seasons with HV71 and a brief stop in Finland with TPS, Sandberg is now back in his home country, having recorded 11 goals and 27 points in 52 SHL games with Skellefteå last season.
- The SHL’s Frölunda HC and longtime forward fixture Ryan Lasch have agreed to part ways this offseason with a year left on his contract, the team said Tuesday. The 36-year-old American never made much of an impact professionally stateside, mostly due to his 5-foot-7, 157-pound frame, but has excelled overseas in a longstanding pro career. Lasch led the entire SHL in scoring in 2021-22, recording well over a point per game, but lost a step this year with Frölunda, posting just five goals and 24 points in 41 games.
- Former Tampa Bay Lightning netminder Kristers Gudlevskis is extending his stay in Europe with a two-year contract in Germany, signing today with the DEL’s Fischtown Penguins. The 30-year-old Latvian netminder was pivotal last season in earning Swedish club MODO Hockey promotion back to the SHL, recording a .920 save percentage in the regular season, but MODO opted to bolster their crease this offseason by signing pending Anaheim Ducks free agent Olle Eriksson Ek. Gudlevskis now returns to Fischtown, where he played 25 games in the 2019-20 season.
This page will be updated throughout the day…
New Jersey Devils Extend Timur Ibragimov On AHL Contract
New Jersey Devils prospect Timur Ibragimov will be staying in the organization next season on an AHL contract. The Utica Comets announced today they’ve reached a one-year agreement with Ibragimov, who New Jersey acquired from the San Jose Sharks in the Timo Meier trade.
San Jose had selected Ibragimov, 22, in the sixth round of the 2019 NHL Draft. The Russian winger has split the last two seasons between the AHL and ECHL, trying to acclimate his offensive game to North American ice.
Some extended ECHL time with the Wichita Thunder seemed to help Ibragimov this season, recording 32 points in 53 games there. While they aren’t earth-shattering numbers by any means, and likely why he didn’t earn an NHL contract with the Devils this offseason, he did have six points in 15 games with the Comets after the trade from San Jose.
Ibragimov also has two years of professional experience overseas under his belt, with the Russian minor league VHL in 2019-20 and a 51-game loan to TPS in the Finnish Liiga in 2020-21. With TPS, he recorded 14 points in 51 games, eventually losing in the league final.
He boasts decent size at six feet and 201 pounds, but he’ll need to maintain the scoring pace he displayed near the end of the season in Utica to avoid another ECHL demotion, especially as he’s not signed to an NHL contract.
Snapshots: Tempe Arena Vote, Lilja, Korshkov
Today is the day Arizona Coyotes fans have been nervously waiting for. In Tempe, it’s the final day to cast a vote in the local referendum, which determines whether the team can move forward with its plan for a new arena and entertainment district in the city, as NHL insider Frank Seravalli outlines in his latest for Daily Faceoff.
While an already high turnout thanks to lots of mail-in ballots have the Coyotes optimistic about a ‘yes’ result, Seravalli says it’s anything but a sure thing. Seravalli relayed reports from NHL sources that political opposition groups outspent the Coyotes massively on advertising ahead of the election, while the Coyotes management (including general manager Bill Armstrong) has been actively soliciting votes door-to-door in the community.
Results could be announced as soon as 10 p.m. CT tonight, with a ‘no’ vote effectively killing the Coyotes’ future in the state. Further hurdles still need to be cleared in order for the project to move forward if Tempe voters opt to approve the project, such as ongoing legal battles with the City of Phoenix, but regardless, it’s a transformative night for the NHL and its most maligned franchise.
More from around the hockey world today:
- Per reports out of Russia, former Columbus Blue Jackets winger Jakob Lilja could be extending his stay overseas — this time with the NL’s HC Ambrì-Piotta. The 29-year-old Swedish winger played in 37 games with Columbus in 2019-20, his only season in North America to date, recording five points. Since then, he’s had three relatively successful seasons in the KHL with Barys Nur-Sultan (now Barys Astana) and Dynamo Moskva, but he’ll have a bit more ice time available to him in Switzerland. Ambrì-Piotta’s roster for next season already includes former NHLers Tim Heed and Filip Chlapik, as well as Arizona Coyotes center prospect Manix Landry.
- 2016 second-round pick Egor Korshkov has been dealt in the KHL, heading to Amur Khabarovsk after three seasons with Lokomotiv Yaroslavl. The former Toronto Maple Leafs prospect never panned out, only playing one full season in the AHL, but he did score one goal in his only NHL appearance in the 2019-20 season. His player rights have since been traded to the Carolina Hurricanes and, later, the Florida Panthers, where he remains on their reserve list should he ever choose to return to the NHL. Now 26, Korshkov had just four goals in 40 KHL games last season.
Alexander Burmistrov Re-Signs In KHL
Though it may seem like a decade since Alexander Burmistrov last appeared in the NHL, the 2010 first-round pick is actually less than six years removed from his final game with the Vancouver Canucks, an overtime loss in which he received just nine shifts.
The very last first-round pick the Atlanta Thrashers ever made is still only 31, and has signed another one-year contract in the KHL—inking a deal with Spartak Moscow. It comes after a very poor 2022-23, where Burmistrov scored just five points in 42 games split between Ak Bars Kazan and Metallurg Magnitogorsk.
There was real talent in young Russian when Atlanta picked him in 2010. He had just finished a season with the Barrie Colts, scoring 65 points in 62 games during his first taste of North America. He would immediately jump to the NHL, playing 74 games as a teenaged rookie, scoring six goals and 20 points.
The Thrashers would move to Winnipeg, and Burmistrov looked like a true building block for a while. His 13 goals and 28 points in the 2011-12 season, when he was still just 19, were encouraging signs. The forward core also had young Blake Wheeler, Evander Kane, Andrew Ladd, Bryan Little, and Mark Scheifele, suggesting better times were ahead.
Unfortunately, things would quickly go off the rails for Burmistrov, who returned to Russia for two seasons in 2013 and could never get his NHL career back on track following that absence.
While he does have a Gagarin Cup and World Championship gold, it has been a rather disappointing career for Burmistrov, individually. He hasn’t crossed 20 points in any season since returning to Russia in 2017, and is a fringe depth player at this point.
Joseph Woll Returned To AHL
The Toronto Marlies and Rochester Americans will resume the AHL’s North Division Finals on Wednesday evening, with the former receiving quite the reinforcement. Joseph Woll, fresh off taking over the Toronto Maple Leafs net in their second-round series, has been returned to the AHL.
Woll, 24, has been tremendous for the Marlies this season, posting a 16-4-1 record and .927 save percentage. He carried over that strong play to the NHL, where he went 6-1 in the regular season and registered a .915 in four playoff appearances.
The young netminder appears to be on track for a full-time NHL job next season, though nothing about the Maple Leafs looks set in stone at this point. If he does land a spot, it will provide the team with a significant salary cap advantage.
Woll signed a three-year extension in February 2022 that keeps him under contract through 2024-25 at a very affordable $767K cap hit. With uncertainty surrounding the future of Matt Murray, and Ilya Samsonov headed for restricted free agency, Woll could be the answer to some of Toronto’s long-standing goaltending issues.
The team has had trouble developing its own netminding prospects but showed great patience with the 62nd overall pick from 2016. Woll went to college for three years, suffered several injuries early in his pro career, and has generally progressed slowly (as goaltenders sometimes do).
For now, he’ll try to help the Marlies turn around the best-of-five series and stave off elimination, before entering a crucial offseason of training ahead of his big NHL opportunity.
Jonathan Lekkerimaki Will Play In SHL This Season
Despite signing his entry-level contract earlier this month, Vancouver Canucks prospect Jonathan Lekkerimaki won’t play for the organization this season. Orebro HK has announced a contract with the young forward, one that extends through the 2024-25 season.
In the release, the team explains that Lekkerimaki will travel to Vancouver for training camp in the summer but return to Sweden before the season begins. That same process will be repeated the following year, though the Canucks will have the option to put him on the NHL roster if they feel he is ready.
Lekkerimaki will be joined in this exercise by fellow Swedish prospect Elias Pettersson (no, not that Elias Pettersson), who signed his entry-level deal in April. Both players can continue to develop overseas, while their contracts slide forward, maintaining team control.
Selected 15th overall in 2022, the 18-year-old Lekkerimaki has still not found consistent success at the highest level in Sweden. While there were encouraging signs in 2021-22 with Djurgardens IF, the club was relegated the following season, meaning he was limited to Allsvenskan competition.
Now joining Orebro gives him a chance to compete in the SHL once again, challenging his development and preparing him for life in the NHL.
Pittsburgh Penguins Will Hire General Manager And President
Hockey Insider Frank Seravalli stated today on the Daily Faceoff Rundown podcast that he expects the Pittsburgh Penguins to employ the same management structure they had with their previous group and hire a General Manager and a President of Hockey Operations. Previous GM Ron Hextall and President of Hockey Ops Brian Burke were fired after the season ended as they led the Penguins to their first season out of the playoffs in 16 years.
While it comes as no surprise that the Penguins would want to use that structure, some of the names of who they’ve reportedly interviewed are quite surprising. TSN’s Pierre LeBrun is reporting that Pittsburgh spoke with 10-12 candidates in their first round of interviews and included in that list were Marc Bergevin, Eric Tulsky, Jason Karmanos and Peter Chiarelli. LeBrun added that he expects some of those men to be interviewed a second time as the process goes on.
One name that will likely not be interview is Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas. The young GM held a press conference today where he expressed his desire to remain in Toronto while simultaneously stating he didn’t want to look elsewhere at this time after the past season was so difficult for him and his family.
Whoever ultimately lands the Penguins management jobs will be in tough to build around an aging core with multiple bad contracts to try and navigate. Pittsburgh correctly committed to Kris Letang and Evgeni Malkin last summer, as well as Bryan Rust and Rickard Rakell. However, they were saddled with a bottom six that couldn’t get going offensively, and a team that couldn’t find a defensive identity. All of this, coupled with inconsistent goaltending from Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith led to the Penguins missing the playoffs for just the second time in the Sidney Crosby era.
It’ll be a long summer in Pittsburgh; however, it could be the most interesting one they’ve had since Jim Rutherford plucked Phil Kessel from the Toronto Maple Leafs in a 2015 trade and kickstarted a two-year run of brilliance in the steel city. The Penguins still have a very strong top-6 and will have around $20MM in cap space once free agency begins.
Four Groups Submit Bids To Purchase Ottawa Senators
Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia is reporting that there were four binding bids submitted today to purchase the Ottawa Senators. The groups to submit the bids were Michael Andlauer, Jeffrey and Michael Kimel, Steve Apostolopoulos, and Neko Sparks. Garrioch also tweeted that one bid was at the $1B mark. While there is still much to consider and a lot of work to be done, todays bids bring the sale of the franchise one step closer to being completed. The groups that bid are an interesting mix with varying degrees of experience in sports franchise ownership.
Michael Andlauer is a Toronto billionaire who is currently a minority owner of the Montreal Canadiens. Andlauer emerged in late 2022 as an early favorite to land the team as he had the assets and the familiarity with the NHL having already been a minority owner. Andlauer is the founder of the Andlauer Healthcare Group Inc. and was previously the owner of the AHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs, a struggling franchise he purchased in 2002 and turned into a champion. He still currently owns the OHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs. Should Andlauer be successful in his bid to buy the Senators he would have to sell his share in the Canadiens, something he has already reportedly explored.
Jeffrey and Michael Kimel run the Harlo Financial Group and made waves a week ago when music sensation The Weeknd reportedly joined their bid for the Senators. The Kimel’s had previously been minority owners of the Pittsburgh Penguins until the team was sold in 2021. The pair are heavily invested in the entertainment industry and are based in Toronto, making them a good fit to run the Senators should their bid be successful.
Steve Apostolopoulos made an unsuccessful bid recently to purchase the NFL’s Washington Commanders, a bid that lost out to a group that was led by New Jersey Devils owner Josh Harris. Like the Kimel’s and Michael Andlauer, Apostolopoulos is Canadian, he is from Toronto and founded Six Ventures Inc., a private equity venture fund. Apostolopoulos has been linked to bids for multiple sports franchises but has yet to purchase one. He visited the Canadian Tire Center in Ottawa about a month ago, bringing with him former NHLer and hockey analyst Nick Kypreos.
Neko Sparks is a Los Angeles based entrepreneur and film producer whose group also made a lot of noise recently when it was announced that Snoop Dogg would be a part of the bid. More recently they also made headlines for reportedly partnering with First Nations in an arrangement that includes an equity stake in the franchise worth a reported 10%.
The process is sure to get interesting over the next few months as the bids are scrutinized and vetted. Gary Bettman has previously stated that he is hopeful that the Senators will have a new ownership group in place by mid-summer.
Another piece to keep an eye on will be how the Senators approach the draft and free agency. Players might be apprehensive to sign long term in Ottawa until they know who will sign their checks for the foreseeable future. Of note is Alex DeBrincat, who is just 14 months away from unrestricted free agency and has been cautious and coded when talking about his long-term future.
Evening Notes: Räty, Gagnier, Brown
Ian Kennedy of The Hockey News is reporting that decorated netminder Noora Räty is set to sign with the Metropolitan Riveters of the Premier Hockey Federation. The 33-year-old has backstopped Finland to two bronze medals at the Winter Olympics and was named Best Goaltender at the World Championships a whopping five times while leading her country to four bronze medals.
Just this past October, Räty had announced that she was retiring from Finland’s national team, but she left the door open to continuing her hockey career. Now she will do so in America, which must be a big moment for her given that she has advocated for a long time for a professional league in North America that could push women’s hockey forward. Räty put up sparking numbers one again this past season as she posted a .943 save percentage in nine starts for HPK of Naisten Liiga to go along with a 1.56 goals against average.
In other evening notes:
- The Rockford Ice Hogs announced today that they’ve signed center Ryan Gagnier to a one-year AHL contract. The 20-year-old Gagnier spent the last three seasons with the OHL’s Oshawa Generals and was the team’s leading scorer this past season putting up 31 goals and 38 assists in 66 games. The 6-foot, 186-pound Tecumseh native improved dramatically over the course of his junior career and finished with 113 points (53G, 60A) in 189 OHL games. Gagnier was never drafted to the NHL and was somewhat of a late bloomer, he was an excellent penalty killer this past year and finished second in voting for the OHL Eastern Conference’s best penalty killer.
- Team USA has added Ottawa Senators forward Patrick Brown to their 2023 IIHF Men’s World Championship roster. This will be Brown’s first appearance ever at an IIHF world championship as the 30-year-old has never represented the U.S. at any level in these tournaments. Brown was dealt mid-season by the Philadelphia Flyers to the Ottawa Senators and finished the year with four goals and eight assists in 61 NHL games split between the two clubs. The Americans have won their first three games of the tournament and will face Austria on Wednesday in their fourth of seven preliminary round games.
Edmonton Oilers Notes: Staios, Bouchard, Yamamoto
Frank Seravalli had a lengthy discussion on the Daily Faceoff Rundown podcast about the future of the Edmonton Oilers. In the discussion Seravalli said he doesn’t expect huge changes on the ice, but he does believe that there will be changes to the management structure as they attempt to be “protective and proactive with Steve Staios.” Seravalli went on to say that the former Oilers defenseman is regarded in Oilers circles as being their general manager of the future and the club may want to shift their hierarchy to give Staios a bigger voice before another team scoops him up.
What that could look like remains to be seen, but Seravalli went on to say that he wouldn’t be surprised if the Oilers promoted current general manager Ken Holland to President of Hockey Ops which would allow Staios to shift over to Holland’s old job and preserve the teams already thin management group. Whatever management group is in place will have much work to be done this summer. The Oilers window for contention is beginning to close as superstars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl inch closer to unrestricted free agency. Draisaitl has just two years left on his current deal and McDavid has three. If the Oilers don’t get over the hump soon, they could find it difficult to retain the franchise cornerstones.
In other Oilers notes:
- Seravalli also spoke about the next contract for Evan Bouchard saying that he fully expects the Oilers to try and get the defenseman on a bridge contract due to their current salary cap predicament. The 23-year-old is coming off a good season in which he put up eight goals and 40 points in 81 regular season games, however in the playoffs the Oakville native exploded for 17 points in 12 games, including 15 points while quarterbacking the Oilers white hot powerplay. Seravalli wondered if a bridge contract would even be possible given how important Bouchard has been to the team since the mid-season Tyson Barrie trade. The advantage for the Oilers will be that Bouchard has no rights to arbitration at this time.
- Seravalli and Jason Gregor spoke about the Oilers need to upgrade the right wing spot this summer. This was echoed by Daniel Nugent-Bowman of The Athletic who believes that top six winger Kailer Yamamoto’s poor play in the playoffs might have turned him into a trade candidate. Yamamoto is due $3.1MM next season and struggled in the playoffs putting up just a single goal and four points in 12 games despite getting a lot of top six minutes. The Spokane native wasn’t much better in the regular season putting up 25 points in 58 games, a steep drop from his career high of 41 points in 81 games in 2021-22.