Canadiens Notes: Hoffman, Matheson, Gallagher, Monahan
The Canadiens got both some good news and bad news on the injury front today. The team announced (Twitter link) that winger Mike Hoffman will be activated off injured reserve and suit up tonight against Los Angeles. The veteran has five goals and three assists through his first 16 games of the season and will at least give Montreal 12 healthy forwards to use after finishing up their road trip with only 11 healthy ones.
Meanwhile, defenseman Mike Matheson will be unavailable tonight due to an undisclosed injury. He left practice early on Friday and while he took part in the morning skate, he obviously isn’t healthy enough to play. The 28-year-old has six points in his first nine games with Montreal while logging a team-high 24:25 per night on the back end.
More from Montreal:
- To make roster room for Hoffman’s activation, the Canadiens moved winger Brendan Gallagher to injured reserve. The veteran has missed the last four games due to a lower-body injury and is expected to miss at least a few more days before being cleared to return. Montreal was eligible to back-date the placement and if they did so, Gallagher could be activated at any time.
- Center Sean Monahan is still sporting a walking boot, notes Marc-Antoine Godin of The Athletic (Twitter link). He was able to play through his foot injury for a few games but left Monday’s game early and hasn’t skated since then. There’s no timetable for his return. Monahan figures to be one of the more prominent middlemen available at the trade deadline after putting up 17 points in his first 25 games so it’s likely that Montreal will play things safe with the injury and not rush him back.
Nick Robertson To Miss At Least Six Weeks
It has been somewhat of a frustrating year so far for Maple Leafs winger Nick Robertson. Unfortunately for him, the news continues to be bad for him as Sports Illustrated’s David Alter relays that he will miss six to eight weeks due to the shoulder injury that he sustained on Thursday against Los Angeles. However, he won’t need surgery this time around and will simply rehab the injury this time.
This is the third straight season that he has sustained a significant injury. Two years ago, a knee issue limited him to just 27 games between the NHL and AHL and last season, a non-displaced fracture of his right fibula resulted in him suiting up just 38 times. This setback will cost him upwards of 20 contests as well, more if he winds up being out longer than this projected timeline.
Robertson had a very strong showing in the preseason that saw him pick up eight points in five games but he didn’t break camp with the big club. Early injuries that opted up Toronto’s ability to use LTIR landed the 21-year-old on the NHL roster soon after but he has been a frequent healthy scratch and hasn’t seen a lot of action when he has been in the lineup as he’s averaging less than 11 minutes a night over his first 15 appearances even though he has five points in those outings.
Robertson is still waiver-exempt through next season and it stands to reason that he’ll be back with AHL Toronto when he’s cleared to return in order to give him a few games to get back into playing condition. From there, the battle to lock down a regular spot in the lineup for the Maple Leafs will continue at a time when it will be just a few weeks away from the trade deadline in early March.
Jeff Skinner To Have Hearing With Department Of Player Safety
Late in Friday’s game, Sabres winger Jeff Skinner retaliated to a late jab from Jake Guentzel on Craig Anderson as the veteran goalie was freezing the puck. However, the method in which Skinner opted to retaliate was a costly one as he received a match penalty for cross-checking, one that resulted in the Department of Player Safety quickly announcing that he’ll have a disciplinary hearing with them today.
The incident occurred with just 22 seconds left in regulation. Buffalo killed off enough of the five-minute penalty to force overtime but Jeff Carter scored 1:36 into the extra session.
Skinner has been suspended once before although it was quite a while ago as he received a two-game back for a kicking incident late in the 2011-12 season. With the Sabres in action again tonight for a rematch against Pittsburgh, the league will have to rule quickly on what type of supplemental discipline Skinner will receive.
Snapshots: Salary Cap, Senators, Hall Of Fame
There will be a meeting of the Board of Governors next week at which time there will be another update about the projected salary cap for next season. The most recent estimates were that if the escrow debt was repaid, the Upper Limit could jump to $86MM, an increase of $3.5MM from where it is now. Meanwhile, if the debt wasn’t repaid, the increase would once again be limited to $1MM.
However, there could be a third option. As Pierre LeBrun and Darren Dreger detailed in TSN’s latest Insider Trading segment, the NHLPA is polling its membership about their possible interest in smoothing out the cap increases over the next couple of years without affecting escrow. That would likely result in a greater jump than $1MM next season which would allow for a bit more flexibility with so many teams capped out. On the flip side, the anticipated jump once the escrow debt is paid off wouldn’t be as dramatic. At this point, this is strictly a hypothetical scenario and it has not been discussed with the league just yet.
Elsewhere around the hockey world:
- While it’s still unknown who the next owner of the Senators will be, expect actor Ryan Reynolds to be a part of the ownership group. Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that the league is making it clear to all prospective owners that they want Reynolds to be a minority partner in the purchase for whoever winds up buying the team. Reynolds was initially planning to align with one bid but has been instructed by the league to hold off on doing so.
- The IIHF has announced its 2023 Hall of Fame honorees, a list that includes three former NHL players in winger Henrik Zetterberg, defenseman Brian Leetch, and goaltender Cristobal Huet. Zetterberg, the long-time Red Wing, is the 21st member of the IIHF ‘Triple Gold’ club while Leetch suited up in 76 games internationally, including three appearances at the Olympics. As for Huet, he played in 13 World Championships for France along with two Olympics. Jimmy Foster and Caroline Ouellette were the others that will be entering the Hall in the player category.
Valeri Nichushkin Activated Off IR
It has been a rough season when it comes to injuries for the Avalanche to the point where they have been without five of their top six forwards recently. However, they will welcome a key part of their attack back tonight as winger Valeri Nichushkin has been activated off injured reserve. He had missed the last month after undergoing ankle surgery.
The 27-year-old had a breakout year for Colorado last season, setting new career highs across the board offensively and becoming a legitimate impact power forward. The Avs rewarded him with a max-term extension to make sure he didn’t hit the open market as he inked an eight-year, $49MM pact two days before free agency opened up.
With Nichushkin only having that one breakout year, the move appeared to carry some risk but he got off to a blistering start this season before the injury as he had seven goals and five assists in his first seven contests while playing on the top line in Gabriel Landeskog’s absence. With Colorado still dealing with a long list of injuries, he’ll almost certainly be in a similar role right away.
Speaking of that injury list, the Avs are still without defensemen Josh Manson, Bowen Byram, and Kurtis MacDermid while Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon, and Artturi Lehkonen highlight the list of six forwards that are still injured. Of those, Lehkonen is the closest to returning as he’s listed as day-to-day.
East Notes: Kase, Joseph, Clutterbuck
After suffering a concussion in Carolina’s season opener, winger Ondrej Kase has resumed skating, relays team reporter Walt Ruff (Twitter link). While there remains no firm timetable for his return, the fact he has resumed on-ice activities is certainly an important step. That said, with his lengthy concussion history, expect the Hurricanes to proceed very carefully with the 27-year-old. Kase signed a one-year, $1.5MM deal in the offseason to provide Carolina with some secondary scoring, an area in which they’ve had some issues in the early going this season.
More from the East:
- Senators winger Mathieu Joseph’s lower-body injury in last night’s game will keep him out of the lineup for the next two weeks, reports Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch (Twitter link). It has been a tough first full year with the Sens for the 25-year-old; after recording 12 points in 11 games down the stretch last season following his trade from Tampa Bay, Joseph has been limited to just two goals and seven assists in 25 contests despite averaging a career high in ice time. With the holiday break coming a couple of weeks from now, it’s possible that they’ll hold Joseph out until after that pause in the schedule.
- The Islanders welcomed back winger Cal Clutterbuck to their lineup in tonight’s game against New Jersey. The veteran had missed the last three games with an upper-body injury sustained a week and a half ago against Philadelphia. Clutterbuck has just three points in 22 games but is second on the team in hits, averaging just under four per contest. New York didn’t bother placing Clutterbuck on IR when he was injured so they didn’t have to make a corresponding roster move for him to return. He was injured midway through the first period but did return for the second.
Pierre Engvall Suspended One Game
5:50 PM: The NHL Department of Player Safety has announced that Engvall will serve a one-game suspension for his high stick on Durzi.
10:13 AM: Match penalties given for intent to injure come with an automatic review from the league, meaning the NHL has some work to do following the Toronto Maple Leafs-Los Angeles Kings game last night. Pierre Engvall will have a hearing with the Department of Player Safety for his high stick on Sean Durzi, which earned him a five-minute major and an early trip to the showers.
The two players were engaged all over the rink, before meeting again at center ice. After they both raised their sticks to battle, Engvall ended up swinging his down and hitting Durzi in the back of the head and neck. The Kings defenseman did not suffer a major injury, but Engvall may end up missing more than just the remainder of that game.
Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe afterward said that he didn’t think Engvall meant to make such heavy contact, explaining that “you’ve all watched Pierre play for long enough to know he doesn’t play with an intent to injure.” The 6’5″ forward had just six penalty minutes in 27 games before last night, four of which came against the Dallas Stars earlier this week for another high stick, this time on Jason Robertson.
Given the lack of injury and clean record of the 26-year-old, it seems unlikely for him to get a lengthy suspension. But the Maple Leafs should prepare for life without him for tomorrow’s game against the Calgary Flames. With Nick Robertson suffering a shoulder injury, the Maple Leafs could be down two players from last night’s lineup.
What Your Team Is Thankful For: Nashville Predators
With American Thanksgiving now behind us and the holiday season coming up, PHR continues its look at what teams are thankful for in 2022-23. There also might be a few things your team would like down the road. We’ll examine what’s gone well in the early going and what could improve as the season rolls on for the Nashville Predators.
Who are the Predators thankful for?
There isn’t much that instantly stands out from this Predators season for the franchise to be thankful for. While the Predators seemed to cruise to another playoff spot last year, powered by the heroics of Juuse Saros, the early part of this year has been more of a challenge. The Predators are 12-10-2 with 26 points, just a single point behind the Minnesota Wild for the Central Division’s third playoff spot.
That on its own isn’t a bad spot for the Predators to be, but it’s the way they’ve gotten there that’s raised eyebrows. Outside of a core four players who are lugging the Predators to wins each night (Forsberg, Matt Duchene, Roman Josi, and Mikael Granlund), the number of players on the Predators roster who are playing to or above expectations is decidedly slim. Due to those circumstances, then, it gives the Predators all the more reason to be thankful for their leading scorer.
The Predators made a major investment in Forsberg last summer, committing $8.5MM against the cap per year until the summer of 2030. Some questioned that investment in Forsberg seeing that in his platform year he flew past his career highs in production, raising the issue of if his brilliant 2021-22 performance was the exception rather than the rule.
So far this year, Forsberg has been exactly what the Predators wanted him to be when they signed him to that major extension. In 24 games Forsberg leads the team with 23 points, and if he does end up finishing the season around a point-per-game mark, the Predators will surely consider that $8.5MM cap hit money well spent.
What are the Predators thankful for?
Struggling Central Division teams.
While the Predators have had a bit of a slower start than they’d likely have hoped to have, they remain just a single point out of the Central Division’s last playoff spot. Thankfully for Nashville, other teams expected to be their major competition for a Central Division playoff spot have had their own struggles to start the season.
The Minnesota Wild, the current owners of that last playoff spot, have seen major regression from important centers such as Ryan Hartman and Frederick Gaudreau. That, combined with lackluster play from starting netminder Marc-Andre Fleury and some other underperformances have led to their regression from their 2021-22 form, where they were one of the more dominant teams in the NHL.
The St. Louis Blues were also expected to be a Central Division contender, but their season has been a disaster so far. The Blues are 3-7 in their last ten games and have been giving up goals at an alarmingly high rate. The Colorado Avalanche, the defending Stanley Cup champions, were rightly expected to be a powerhouse team but have thus far seen injuries lay waste to their hopes for a dominant regular season.
So while the Predators haven’t had the start they’ve wanted, their competitors have left them room to still find their way to Stanley Cup contention. That’s definitely something to be thankful for.
What would the Predators be even more thankful for?
Better play from Saros.
As previously mentioned, a major factor in the Predators’ run to the playoffs last season was the stellar play they received from Saros, their starting netminder.
In 67 games played Saros had a 38-25-3 record with a .918 save percentage and a 2.64 goals-against-average, a performance that made him a Vezina Trophy finalist.
This season, Saros’ play has been more uneven. In 18 games Saros has a 9-7-2 record, a .905 save percentage, and a 3.05 goals-against-average.
The Predators are still treading water in the Western Conference’s playoff race, but in order to really build positive momentum they’ll need Saros to play a bit better than he’s done so far this year.
What should be on the Predators’ holiday wishlist?
A productive top-six center.
In the press conference announcing Ryan Johansen‘s eight-year, $64MM extension in 2017, Predators general manager David Poile referenced the rarity of number-one centers across the league and the difficulty associated with acquiring one as a major part of the justification for Johansen’s hefty extension. At that point, Johansen was coming off of a season where he scored 61 points, and the Predators had just made a run to the Stanley Cup Final.
A few years later, though, it became clear that Johansen was more of a second-line center than a true top-of-the-lineup pivot. Johansen hasn’t crossed the 70-point mark since 2014-15, and recognizing his team’s need for a truly dynamic center, Poile signed Matt Duchene to a seven-year deal with an AAV identical to Johansen’s.
While Duchene has undoubtedly been productive (he scored 43 goals and 86 points last season) he’s been largely shifted away from the center position in recent years. So, the Predators’ longstanding need for a top-of-the-lineup center has persisted into this year as well. As things currently stand, rookie Juuso Parssinen, with a grand total of ten NHL games to his name, is the Predators’ first-line center.
Poile signed his team’s core to extensions with the idea that the Predators would be trying to compete for the franchise’s first-ever Stanley Cup championship. Unless Parssinen manages to author a rookie season for the ages, the Predators will be in the position of needing to win a Stanley Cup without a true top-line center. That’s an extremely challenging prospect, and the lack of a top centerman is something that has doomed many a Stanley Cup hopeful.
Picture courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Minnesota Wild Recall Sammy Walker
The Minnesota Wild have announced that forward Sammy Walker has been recalled from the team’s AHL affiliate, the Iowa Wild. In a corresponding move, forward Joseph Cramarossa has been sent down.
Walker, 23, has been in the midst of an extremely impressive professional debut this season. After a four-year collegiate career at the University of Minnesota, Walker signed an entry-level contract with the Wild in August.
A 2017 seventh-round pick of the Tampa Bay Lightning, Walker leads AHL Iowa in scoring with 22 points in 21 games, seven points clear of the next-highest scorer, defenseman Joe Hicketts. Walker’s recall puts him in a position to make his NHL debut after just over 20 games of professional action.
It’s a recall that indicates that coach Dean Evason wants to inject some more offensive flair into his team than what Cramarossa is able to provide.
The 30-year-old veteran depth player has scored a goal in four games so far this season but has just 13 points in 68 career NHL games. He’ll head back to Iowa where he has seven points in 15 games.
As the Wild look to increase their separation in the standings from the Colorado Avalanche, Nashville Predators, and St. Louis Blues, they’ll hope that Walker can add to an offense that has been on fire in recent games.
Philadelphia Flyers To Scratch Tony DeAngelo
The Philadelphia Flyers are going to get Cam York into the lineup to the joy of many fans. The way they are doing it, though, will cause some eyebrows to raise around the league. Tony DeAngelo will be a healthy scratch tonight.
DeAngelo, 27, has recorded points in each of his last four games and played nearly 22 minutes on Wednesday night. That is actually much lower than his average on the year, which still sits over 24 minutes, after a number of huge totals earlier on. Twice this year already, DeAngelo has played more than 31 minutes in a game, as head coach John Tortorella tried desperately to find a way to spark his team’s offense.
Now, though, he’ll sit down the veteran defenseman in favor of York, who will be playing in his first NHL game of the season. The 21-year-old has 13 points in 20 minor league games and is one of the team’s top prospects. Selected 14th overall in 2019, he has ten points in 33 career games with the Flyers – nearly all of them coming during the 2021-22 season.
Meanwhile, DeAngelo was signed to a two-year, $10MM contract by the Flyers after sending three draft picks to the Carolina Hurricanes to acquire him (they received a seventh-round pick as well). Moving a second, third, and fourth for a defenseman in his mid-twenties isn’t exactly the kind of deal that a rebuilding club usually pulls off, showing how little interest the front office had in a full teardown in the offseason.
While this almost certainly won’t be the last we see of DeAngelo in the lineup, it does indicate just how hard Tortorella is trying to instill some responsibility in the Flyers group. The high-risk defenseman has never been known for contributing much in his own end, and he has been on for 29 goals again at even strength already this year. That is third worst on the club, behind only Hayes (34) and Ivan Provorov (30).