Mason Marchment Fined For Embellishment
The NHL has fined Dallas Stars forward Mason Marchment $2,000 for diving/embellishment following an incident on December 8 against the Ottawa Senators, when Derick Brassard was issued a hooking penalty. The first such incident only results in a warning, meaning this was the second time Marchment had been caught this season.
The original incident was a game against the Colorado Avalanche on November 26.
While a $2,000 fine certainly won’t affect Marchment’s financial standing very much, it should be noted that these punishments escalate and can result in fines for the head coach. If a team is involved in four incidents in a single season, the coach will start having to pay his own penalties. The escalation looks like this:
| Citation # | Player Fine(s) | Head Coach Fine(s)* |
| 1 | Warning | N/A |
| 2 | $2,000 | N/A |
| 3 | $3,000 | N/A |
| 4 | $4,000 | N/A |
| 5 | $5,000 | $2,000 |
| 6 | $5,000 | $3,000 |
| 7 | $5,000 | $4,000 |
| 8 | $5,000 | $5,000 |
*For head coaches, each fine issued to a player on his club counts toward the total.
Costing your coach money certainly isn’t a place most players want to be in, even if you have the security of a multi-year deal.
Axel Rindell Clears Unconditional Waivers
Dec 16: Rindell has cleared and will have his contract terminated. He is expected to join Timra IK for the rest of the season.
Dec 15: The Toronto Maple Leafs have placed Axel Rindell on unconditional waivers for the purpose of a contract termination, according to Chris Johnston of NorthStar Bets. The move would allow Rindell to pursue other opportunities as a free agent, and clear a contract slot for the Maple Leafs, who are currently at the limit of 50.
Rindell, 22, was a sixth-round pick of the Maple Leafs in 2020 that signed his entry-level contract last spring. After three rather successful seasons in Finnish professional hockey, it looked like the team might have had another depth option on their hands.
None of the success that Rindell had overseas has materialized in North America, however, and he was seeing time with the Newfoundland Growlers of the ECHL. In six AHL games, the right-shot defenseman had no points, and will now likely go back to continue his development in Europe.
That doesn’t mean his career is over on this side of the pond, but the contract slot is much more valuable to the Maple Leafs than the potential he was showing.
Toronto has been unable to do things like claim a player off waivers and would have been forced to even up contracts in any trade. Critically, it also would have potentially stopped them from signing a prospect like Matthew Knies at the end of the college season. With that in mind, it is likely that you will see the Maple Leafs clear a few more at some point, whether through deadline deals or additional terminations.
Alex Vlasic Out With Broken Fibula
The Chicago Blackhawks filled up their NHL roster with veteran names this summer so that they could keep top prospects developing in the minor leagues, competing for a Calder Cup championship. Unfortunately, that development only happens if they can stay healthy, and today the Rockford IceHogs announced some bad news. Alex Vlasic will miss six weeks with a right fibula fracture.
Vlasic, 21, is one of the Blackhawks’ top prospects, drafted 43rd overall in 2019. The 6’6″ defenseman spent three seasons at Boston University eliminating the competition’s best players on a nightly basis and didn’t look out of place during a 15-game stint with Chicago at the end of last year This season, the hulking defender had six points in 21 games with the IceHogs and sat second in +/- with a +13 rating. A standout even among a talented young group in Rockford, there are many more NHL games in Vlasic’s future.
He’ll now miss a big chunk of his first full professional season as six weeks will take him out until nearly February. Rockford, 7-1-2 in their last ten, will have to keep up the pace without him, as even with that strong stretch they remain in third place in the Central Division.
Jakub Vrana Enters Follow-Up Phase Of Player Assistance Program
Detroit Red Wings forward Jakub Vrana is now eligible to return to action after moving into the follow-up phase of the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program. According to a press release from the league, his care “continues to be administered” but the dynamic forward’s status has been changed to available.
Vrana entered the program in October and has played just two games this season. He scored 13 goals and 19 points in 26 games in 2021-22, and is on the second season of a three-year, $15.75MM contract with Detroit.
The team has not yet made any statement on when Vrana will be back in the lineup, but given the two months that it has been since he last suited up, it may take some time before he can contribute. The Red Wings are set to play the Ottawa Senators tomorrow afternoon. The team has enough cap space and roster room to activate Vrana if they choose to do so.
Nate Schmidt Placed On Injured Reserve
The Winnipeg Jets have quickly moved Nate Schmidt to injured reserve after he suffered an upper-body injury last night. After the game, head coach Rick Bowness confirmed to Murat Ates of The Athletic that Schmidt had been placed in the concussion protocol. In his place, the team has recalled Ville Heinola under emergency conditions.
Schmidt took a huge hit from Tanner Jeannot and stayed down, while the Nashville Predators forward did not receive a penalty on the play. With him exiting after just 5:30, the Jets leaned heavily on the trio of Josh Morrissey, Neal Pionk, and Brenden Dillon, with the latter even getting some unexpected powerplay time. Morrissey played more than 27 minutes in the overtime win.
It’s a good opportunity for Heinola, even if it does through an injury. The 21-year-old defenseman has been something of a squeaky wheel this season, with his agent publicly acknowledging frustration about how the Jets have used him. The 20th overall pick from 2019 can’t seem to secure any consistent NHL playing time, and has just 27 appearances over parts of four seasons.
Schmidt, meanwhile, had played in 29 games this season, averaging just over 20 minutes a night before exiting last night early.
Edmonton Oilers Looking For Defense
The Edmonton Oilers can score, everyone knew that. Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl rank first and second respectively in league scoring, each well ahead of third-place Tage Thompson. Even Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman are among the league’s best, sitting tied for 13th and 20th in points. The thing they can’t do is keep the puck out of their net.
Last night was a great example. After getting out to a 3-1 lead over the St. Louis Blues halfway through the third period, the ice tilted and the Oilers defense couldn’t handle it. First Robert Thomas, then Vladimir Tarasenko – shorthanded – scored to bring the Blues back and force overtime. A shootout loss and another blown point for Edmonton, who sit fourth in the Pacific Division after 31 games with a 17-13-1 record.
It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, then, when Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic reports that the Oilers have already been doing some due diligence on defensemen that might be available this season. LeBrun lists John Klingberg and Joel Edmundson among the names that the team has already looked into, though those two in particular offer very different skill sets.
The interesting part of any Oilers trade speculation though, is how their cap situation will be affected. The team currently has some wiggle room but that is provided by Evander Kane‘s placement on long-term injured reserve. When he is ready to return, it would seriously complicate things. Adding a difference-making defenseman would be difficult in that scenario, even with salary retention from a rebuilding club.
That reality will only fuel the Jesse Puljujarvi speculation that continues to suggest this will be his last season with Edmonton. If the team is going to cut bait in the summer, they might as well do it a bit early to clear some cap room.
Either way, the Oilers can’t keep letting games slip through their fingers if they want to be a serious contender in the Western Conference. With Philip Broberg not yet ready to elevate the defense corps, they’ll have to look elsewhere for an answer on the back end.
Snapshots: O’Reilly, Edmundson, Schmidt
While the Toronto Maple Leafs have been among the NHL’s most successful regular-season teams for the past half-decade, playoff success has eluded them. One player who had similarly spent an extended period without any playoff success is Ryan O’Reilly, who spent nearly his first decade in the NHL without making it to the second round. In 2019, though, O’Reilly bucked that career trend, leading the St. Louis Blues to a Stanley Cup victory and winning the Conn Smythe Trophy along the way.
The Maple Leafs want to do the same this spring, and it seems that they view O’Reilly as someone who can help them get there. Per Pierre LeBrun in The Athletic’s first 2022-23 trade board, Toronto has “talked about O’Reilly internally,” debating the prospect of acquiring him from the Blues. (subscription link) While O’Reilly’s scoring numbers have slowed down, Toronto could add him to a center corps that already boasts Auston Matthews and John Tavares, forming what would be likely the best trio of centers in the NHL. He remains a player with a sterling reputation as a playoff performer, and as a pending unrestricted free agent acquiring him would pose no long-term financial complications.
For some other notes from across the NHL:
- The Montreal Canadiens have been better than expected this season, as they were the NHL’s worst team last year but have hovered around the .500 mark so far in 2022-23. Despite that, the team is still anticipated to engage other teams as a seller in next year’s trade market, and one of the players reportedly garnering interest from other teams is defenseman Joel Edmundson. On TSN’s Insider Trading segment, LeBrun reported that the Edmonton Oilers had interest in adding Edmundson, a 2019 Stanley Cup champion who has taken an important leadership role on a young Canadiens team.
- The Winnipeg Jets announced tonight that defenseman Nate Schmidt has suffered an upper-body injury, and will not return to their game against the Nashville Predators. Schmidt appeared to suffer the injury after a high hit from Predators forward Tanner Jeannot. The loss of Schmidt costs the Jets one of their top-four defensemen, as he has skated in over 20 minutes per night, including time on the second units of both special teams phases.
Dallas Stars Acquire Oskari Laaksonen
We have a trade to announce. The Dallas Stars have acquired defensive prospect Oskari Laaksonen from the Buffalo Sabres in exchange for another blueliner, Joseph Cecconi. Both teams have officially announced the deal.
Laaksonen, 23, was a third-round pick of the Sabres at the 2017 draft, getting selected 89th overall. He spent three full seasons as a regular defenseman for Ilves Tampere in the Finnish Liiga, before splitting 2020-21 between the Lahti Pelicans and the Rochester Americans.
In Rochester Laaksonen started off very well, scoring 17 points in his first 28 games. In his first full season, which was last year, he had a healthy 34 points in 71 games, good for second-most among Rochester defensemen. He scored those points, though, in somewhat of a sheltered role, and this season Laaksonen has just two points in ten games played.
Close to the end of last season, it seemed the cracks were starting to show in Laaksonen’s standing in Rochester. In a story covering the blueliner’s situation from last spring, the Times Herald’s Bill Hoppe noted that the Americans were sending a “not-so-subtle” message to Laaksonen that he needed to make his game more balanced in order to remain in their plans.
Despite his solid production, Laaksonen sat out the first eight games of the Americans’ Calder Cup playoff run, and after a particularly painful 6-5 triple-overtime loss to the Laval Rocket, Americans coach Seth Appert had the following to say about Laaksonen’s game:
His defensive game has to continue to improve, his commitment to defending and playing with the physical style. He’s never going to be a physical defenseman, but in North America, you have to physically engage to defend.
Those comments indicate that Laaksonen was heading into this year on thin ice in Rochester, and after 23 games (he played in just ten of them) it seems that the team decided Laaksonen needed a change of scenery.
He’ll head to the AHL’s Texas Stars in return for Cecconi, a 25-year-old native of Youngstown, New York, which is just over 30 miles away from Buffalo.
Cecconi was a fifth-round choice of the Stars at the 2015 draft. He had a four-year collegiate career at the University of Michigan before he made the leap to the pro game. For the past four years, Cecconi has been a regular contributor in Texas, mostly in a bottom-pairing capacity.
In his comments on Laaksonen, Appert noted a need to “physically engage” in order to survive on a North American blueline. In acquiring Cecconi, Sabres management has provided their AHL bench boss with a defenseman who is far better suited to play the sort of violent, physical game that the AHL can be known for. Cecconi stands six-foot-three, 215 pounds, and registered 52 penalty minutes last year.
In addition to his physical strengths, Cecconi plays on the second unit of Texas’ AHL-best penalty kill, which is running at an 88.2% rate. By trading for him, not only has Rochester gotten the more physical defenseman they seem to have desired, but they also have attempted to address their weak penalty kill, which is currently killing penalties at just a 70.6% rate.
While this is a deal that is unlikely to be of major consequence to both the Stars and the Sabres, it should make a meaningful difference for both clubs’ AHL affiliates as well as the involved players.
Colorado Avalanche Recall Jonas Johansson
The Colorado Avalanche have announced that goaltender Jonas Johansson has been recalled from the team’s AHL affiliate, the Colorado Eagles.
The move comes after Avalanche backup netminder Pavel Francouz secured his team a 3-2 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers last night. As no corresponding move was announced regarding the Avalanche’s goalies, this recall adds a third name to Colorado’s situation in the crease.
The 27-year-old Johansson earns this recall on the back of his impressive AHL performance so far this season. Through 12 games Johansson has a .929 save percentage and 2.10 goals-against-average.
Over the past two seasons Johansson’s career has had quite the journey. He was traded to the Avalanche from the Buffalo Sabres in 2021, when the Avalanche were in desperate need of a goalie. The team surrendered a sixth-round pick to acquire him, and then lost him on waivers to the Florida Panthers in December of that year.
After a two-game stint in Florida that included a disastrous start against the Montreal Canadiens in their final game of the regular season, where he surrendered ten goals, Johansson hit unrestricted free agency this past summer.
He was signed to a one-year, $750k deal with a hefty $350k AHL salary, with the idea of him playing in a tandem in the AHL with Justus Annunen.
That idea was nearly blown up after the Arizona Coyotes claimed Johansson off of waivers in late September, but nearly two weeks later the Avalanche were able to re-acquire him after he was waived by Arizona.
It’s unclear at this moment if this recall is motivated by any injury developments to either Francouz or Alexandar Georgiev.
New York Islanders Place Adam Pelech On Injured Reserve
The New York Islanders have announced that they have placed defenseman Adam Pelech on injured reserve. Per their announcement, the move is retroactive to December 6th, meaning it’s possible that Pelech misses just one more game.
The move also allows the Islanders to activate Kyle Palmieri off of injured reserve for tomorrow’s game, if they so choose. Palmieri has been out with an upper-body injury.
Pelech is among the most important defensemen on the Islanders’ roster. The 28-year-old veteran is typically partnered with Ryan Pulock, and that pairing forms the duo that eats the most minutes for the Islanders at five-on-five.
In addition to his value at even strength, Pelech, who is an acclaimed shutdown defenseman, spends nearly three minutes per night killing penalties for the Islanders. His success in his own end has helped the uber-talented Ilya Sorokin grow into one of the league’s top netminders.
Pelech’s overall value to coach Lane Lambert and the Islanders’ suffocating defensive structure cannot be overstated, meaning if the Islanders wish to remain in a playoff spot they’ll have to hope that Pelech’s stay on injured reserve is brief.
Pelech suffered this injury after the back of his head slammed into the boards during practice. That’s obviously a scary injury to sustain, so first and foremost getting Pelech’s personal health in order has to be the priority.
But given just how important he is to all of the Islanders’ plans this season, it’s likely that the folks on Long Island will be hoping his return to the ice comes sooner rather than later.