Waivers: 10/8/22
With Monday’s season-opening roster deadline quickly approaching, the activity on the waiver wire is likely to pick up as teams get closer to making their final cuts. We’ll keep track of today’s waiver placements here.
Buffalo Sabres
D Kale Clague
D Jeremy Davies
D Chase Priskie
Calgary Flames
D Dennis Gilbert
D Juuso Valimaki
F Radim Zohorna
Colorado Avalanche
Detroit Red Wings
F Austin Czarnik
D Steven Kampfer
F Matt Luff
Edmonton Oilers
Pittsburgh Penguins
Toronto Maple Leafs
F Joey Anderson
D Mac Hollowell
Seattle Kraken
G Joey Daccord
F Alexander True
Vancouver Canucks
F Sheldon Dries
D Christian Wolanin
With the exception of Winnipeg’s Johnathan Kovacevic (claimed by Montreal), all other players from Friday’s group passed through unclaimed.
Flames Sign Darryl Sutter To A Two-Year Extension
Darryl Sutter’s second stint with the Flames will be lasting a little while longer as the team announced that they’ve signed their bench boss to a two-year contract extension.
Sutter spent parts of nine seasons with Calgary in the early 2000s as both their head coach and general manager. He somewhat surprisingly returned to the team in the 2020-21 campaign as he took over for Geoff Ward. The 64-year- signed a three-year deal at that time with the final season of that deal coming in 2022-23.
While Sutter’s return may have been surprising, this particular news shouldn’t be. Calgary has thrived with Sutter behind the bench with the team posting a 65-36-11 record under his tutelage. On top of that, the Flames won the Pacific Division last season with a points percentage of .677, the second-best in franchise history. That helped Sutter take home the Jack Adams Award as Coach of the Year for 2021-22.
Sutter will be at the helm of a team that has undergone some significant changes this summer, ones that often aren’t seen from a reigning division winner. Long-time core players Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk have moved on while Jonathan Huberdeau, Nazem Kadri, and MacKenzie Weegar all came to town and inked long-term deals in recent weeks. As a result, there could be some early-season struggles as those players adapt to his system but Calgary still projects to be one of the top teams in the West this season. Sutter currently sits 11th in NHL history for victories (699) and will only be going up on that list over the next few years.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Training Camp Cuts: 10/8/22
With the deadline for opening rosters just a couple of days away, many teams will be trimming down their rosters this weekend. We’ll keep track of today’s cuts here.
Buffalo Sabres (via team release)
F Sean Malone (to Rochester, AHL)
Dallas Stars (via team release)
G Anton Khudobin (to Texas, AHL)
Detroit Red Wings (via team release)
G Sebastian Cossa (to Grand Rapids, AHL)
Edmonton Oilers (via team release)
F Brad Malone* (to Bakersfield, AHL)
D Markus Niemelainen (to Bakersfield, AHL)
Pittsburgh Penguins (via team release)
D Mark Friedman (to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, AHL) (via separate team release; has cleared waivers)
G Filip Lindberg (to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, AHL)
F Samuel Poulin (to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, AHL)
St. Louis Blues (via team release)
F Martin Frk (to Springfield, AHL)
F Matthew Highmore (to Springfield, AHL)
F Klim Kostin (to Springfield, AHL)
Toronto Maple Leafs (via team release)
F Nick Abruzzese (to Toronto, AHL)
F Joey Anderson* (to Toronto, AHL)
F Semyon Der-Arguchintsev (to Toronto, AHL)
G Dylan Ferguson (to Toronto, AHL)
D Mac Hollowell* (to Toronto, AHL)
G Erik Kallgren (to Toronto, AHL)
D Mikko Kokkonen (to Toronto, AHL)
F Bobby McMann (to Toronto, AHL)
D Marshall Rifai (to Toronto, AHL)
F Alex Steeves (to Toronto, AHL)
*-pending waivers
This post will be updated throughout the day.
Canucks Notes: DiPietro, Dermott, Di Giuseppe
Back in the offseason, it was revealed that Canucks prospect Michael DiPietro had requested a trade. To this point, there hasn’t been a move made but as president Jim Rutherford told Ben Kuzma of the Vancouver Province (Twitter link), it wasn’t for a lack of effort on their end:
We were open to it and when a player like that requests it, Patrik made teams aware that we would be willing to give him a chance (with) someone else, but nothing came along.
DiPietro was once a fairly highly-touted goalie prospect after a strong junior career but that has yet to translate into much success in the pros. Last year, he posted a .901 SV% along with a 2.95 GAA in 34 games with AHL Abbotsford, numbers that don’t scream NHL-ready by any stretch. He accepted his qualifying offer this summer and he’ll be battling for the backup job in the minors as things stand this season.
More from Vancouver:
- Tyler Myers isn’t the only Vancouver defender dealing with an injury as Travis Dermott has been out of the lineup recently as well. As Patrick Johnston of the Vancouver Province relays, the team has now acknowledged that Dermott is dealing with a concussion which means he’s out indefinitely. It feels like a make-or-break year for the 25-year-old. He’s in the final year of his contract and has had a limited role the last few seasons with limited offensive production (seven points in 60 games last year). Owed a $1.75MM qualifying offer next summer, that might be a bit pricey for a depth defender but Dermott will have to wait for a little while now to start making his case.
- GM Patrik Allvin told reporters including Harman Dayal of The Athletic (Twitter link) that winger Phillip Di Giuseppe is expected to miss two-to-four weeks with a lower-body injury. The 28-year-old had a nice season with Abbotsford in 2021-22, collecting 36 points in 42 games. Injured players can’t be waived so he’ll start the year on season-opening injured reserve and then be waived for assignment when he’s cleared to return.
Vancouver Canucks Acquire Riley Stillman
We have a trade to announce. Per a team release, the Vancouver Canucks are trading center Jason Dickinson and a 2024 second-round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks for defenseman Riley Stillman. The Canucks have also announced the deal.
From both the Canucks’ side of the trade and the Blackhawks’, the deal makes a lot of sense. From Chicago’s point of view, this swap fits their overarching organizational vision. The Blackhawks are undergoing a full-scale rebuild, and this whole past offseason they proved they would leave no stone unturned in their quest to accumulate as many draft picks and prospects as possible.
At a time when the value of cap space is at an absolute premium, the Blackhawks, by acquiring Dickinson, (who has a $2.65MM cap hit for the next two seasons) have cashed in some of their cap space in order to land a valuable draft pick from another club.
Additionally, the acquisition of Dickinson fits in with some of their other additions from this offseason, in the sense that he is a player whose value has declined from previous seasons and has room to rebound. In the summer of 2021, the Canucks thought highly enough of Dickinson to surrender a third-round pick for his services, and now after just one season he’s relegated to being a negative-value asset in a cap-shedding trade.
While Dickinson’s lone season in Vancouver was admittedly a poor one, the Blackhawks are now hoping that he will respond well to greater opportunity on their team and rehabilitate his value enough to possibly be flipped for even more draft picks either at this trade deadline season or this summer.
Dickinson, 27, was a 2013 first-round pick and has at times shown the ability to be a quality defensive center. But in Vancouver his offense almost completely dried up, meaning improving Dickinson’s play offensively will likely be the first priority for head coach Luke Richardson and his staff.
From Vancouver’s perspective, this deal seems less about acquiring Stillman and more about clearing Dickinson’s contract off their books. Just a few hours ago, we covered how 22-year-old Swedish import Nils Aman was in pole position to seize the Canucks’ fourth-line center role, a development that, prior to this trade, would have left Dickinson either without a regular spot in the lineup or perhaps even on waivers and headed to AHL Abbotsford. Now, the Canucks’ roster decision-making process will be a lot simpler.
While clearing Dickinson’s deal off the cap-strapped Canucks’ books was likely the main purpose of this trade, acquiring Stillman is not without its usefulness as well. Today we learned that Tyler Myers would be out with an injury for the start of the regular season, so perhaps Stillman was acquired in part to help the team make up for his absence.
Stillman, 24, played 52 games last season in Chicago and scored 12 points. The former Oshawa General is a defense-first, physical defenseman who saw some time on the Blackhawks’ penalty kill as well. While it’s unlikely that he’ll climb the Canucks’ competitive defensive depth chart, he’ll be a useful reinforcement as Vancouver looks to pick up where they left off under Bruce Boudreau last year.
Pictures courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Minor Transactions: 10/07/22
The NHL regular season began today, and while the world’s top league is just getting going, there are teams in minor/overseas leagues that are still making tweaks to their rosters. We’ll recap all of today’s minor league/foreign league moves here.
- Former Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Andrew Nielsen, signed a contract with the ECHL’s Utah Grizzlies today, per the league’s official transactions page. Nielsen, 25, was the 65th overall pick of the 2015 draft and played 36 games last season with the Grizzlies, scoring 27 points. The defenseman has extensive experience in the AHL and should be a major addition to the Grizzlies’ blueline.
- The Coachella Valley Firebirds signed Nick Pastujov and Hugo Roy to contracts in late September, and now it seems that they won’t be with the Firebirds to start their seasons. The ECHL’s Kansas City Mavericks announced today that both Pastujov and Roy have been reassigned to their club, meaning both players will likely begin the year in Kansas City and hope to play well enough to earn a call-up to Dan Bylsma’s Firebirds squad.
- The Idaho Steelheads made a big move today, signing three-time ECHL defenseman of the year Matthew Register to a one-year contract. Register spent last season with the Cardiff Devils of the EIHL, the United Kingdom’s top professional league, and will re-enter the ECHL as a defenseman capable of putting up elite production.
- Kevin Lohan, the captain of the ECHL’s Orlando Solar Bears, announced his retirement today via a letter posted to the team’s website. Lohan spent the past four seasons with the Solar Bears and earned his first AHL recalls this past season, skating in games for both the Syracuse Crunch and Ontario Reign.
- The ECHL’s Greenville Swamp Rabbits made two signings today, adding forwards Jake Elmer and Carter Souch. Elmer, scored 32 points in 50 ECHL games last season and should bolster their offensive attack. Souch is perhaps the more intriguing name here as he will be making his professional debut after an impressive finish to his WHL career. Souch scored 71 points in 68 regular-season games for the Edmonton Oil Kings and also scored 21 points in 19 playoff games, helping lead Edmonton to a WHL championship. He’ll look to begin a climb up the North American pro hockey ladder in Greenville.
Snapshots: Phillips, Aman, Janmark
The Chicago Blackhawks’ 2022-23 season is unlikely going to be one where the team is focused intensely on winning games, but instead one where player development is the main goal. To that end, the lack of established talent on the Blackhawks’ roster means that younger players might have more of an opportunity to see NHL time in Chicago than they would have on other teams. One of the players who might benefit from that opportunity is Isaak Phillips, a 2020 fifth-round pick who was just called up by Chicago for their final preseason game.
The Blackhawks’ new coach Luke Richardson said, as relayed by The Athletic’s Mark Lazerus, that he thinks that Phillips will ultimately begin the season with the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs and play as a top-pairing shutdown defenseman there. The 21-year-old Phillips played in four NHL games last season and this call-up suggests Phillips could be near the front of the line for a regular-season recall should the Blackhawks end up needing another defenseman on their roster.
Now, for some other notes from across the NHL:
- The Colorado Avalanche drafted Swedish forward Nils Aman in the sixth round of the 2020 draft, but didn’t sign him to an entry-level deal, letting his rights expire. The Vancouver Canucks scooped him up in June on an entry-level deal, and now it’s beginning to look like that was a savvy move on the part of GM Patrik Allvin and his front office. Thomas Drance and Rick Dhaliwal of The Athletic report (subscription link) that there is “increasing industry buzz” that Aman has done enough to cement himself as the Canucks’ opening-night fourth-line center. If that ends up being the route the team chooses to go, it will be a major step forward for the 22-year-old, as he has no experience in North American pro hockey. Aman spent the last two seasons as a full-time player for Leksands in the SHL, scoring 14 points in a limited role.
- Veteran forward Mattias Janmark was waived by the Edmonton Oilers today, and while he’s just one of the several notable NHLers to hit waivers today, he may be one of the few who actually get claimed by another team. Sportsnet’s Ken Wiebe speculates that the Winnipeg Jets could be a team that possibly files a claim for Janmark. Wiebe notes that Jets are currently trying to figure out who will play in their bottom six, and since Janmark has a connection with new coach Rick Bowness, (Janmark played for Bowness as a member of the Dallas Stars) it’s possible that the Jets attempt to add him to their roster. Janmark signed a one-year, $1.25MM deal with the Oilers this summer and had 25 points in 67 games last season.
West Notes: Milano, Robertson, Hague
Forward Sonny Milano turned some heads when he signed a PTO with the Calgary Flames this fall, in part because many believed that the former Anaheim Duck would receive a full NHL contract offer from a team. Last season Milano set career highs in production, scoring 14 goals and 34 points in 66 games, but that contract offer never materialized.
Milano was recently released from his PTO after an underwhelming preseason, but that may not mean the end of his NHL journey. Per Thomas Drance and Rick Dhaliwal of The Athletic, (subscription link) the Vancouver Canucks invited Milano to their training camp before he ultimately chose to go to Calgary, and they “still like” Milano as a player. But given the complex roster and cap situation that the Canucks’ front office will need to manage in the coming days, Drance and Dhaliwal do state that the team isn’t able to acquire Milano at this moment. The bottom line, though, is that despite how rapidly his stock seemed to decline over the course of this summer and preseason, there still are teams who believe Milano can contribute in the NHL.
Now, for some other notes from the Western Conference:
- One of the biggest contract sagas of this offseason reached its conclusion this week, as Dallas Stars forward Jason Robertson signed a four-year contract to remain in victory green. In order to get there, it seems some compromise was required. Today, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet speculated on the 32 Thoughts Podcast that Robertson’s camp had been eyeing an AAV “in the tens” on any max-term deal. Due a $9.3MM qualifying offer after his new contract expires, Robertson seems to have set himself up nicely to break into that range once this current deal expires.
- While Robertson’s contract saga came to an end earlier this week, the contract standoff between the Vegas Golden Knights and restricted free agent defenseman Nicolas Hague is still ongoing. Per Friedman on 32 Thoughts, the Golden Knights’ desire to maximize the cap benefits they gain from long-term injured reserve is not considered to be a barrier to getting Hague’s deal done. The 23-year-old former Mississauga Steelhead had a breakout season of sorts in 2021-22, seeing time with Alex Pietrangelo on the team’s top pairing, and it looks like the main obstacle to getting a deal done is based more on value disagreements than anything related to the Golden Knights’ cap management.
Tyler Myers Out 2-4 Weeks With Lower-Body Injury
The Vancouver Canucks will be without another one of their key players for the start of the season, as Tyler Myers has been ruled out for the next two to four weeks. Myers is dealing with a lower-body injury according to head coach Bruce Boudreau.
The Canucks are already without Brock Boeser and Ilya Mikheyev, though there was some optimism surrounding both players when Boudreau spoke with the media. Harman Dayal of The Athletic relays that both will be with the team on the season-opening road trip and that Boeser could practice in full contact as soon as Sunday.
While Myers continues to be a source of frustration for Canucks fans, given his performance since arriving in Vancouver, there’s no denying his place in the lineup. The 6’8″ defenseman carries a huge amount of responsibility, averaging 22 minutes a night including more short-handed time than anyone else.
Without him (and Travis Dermott, while he continues to work back from his own injury) the team is currently working with a less-than-ideal defense group that likely includes Quinn Hughes, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Kyle Burroughs, Tucker Poolman, Luke Schenn, Christian Wolanin, and Jack Rathbone on opening day.
That is of course unless another move is made in the days ahead. If Myers were sure to miss four weeks, the team could place him on long-term injured reserve and gain some extra flexibility to add a defenseman off waivers – today’s group includes several interesting names – or the free agent market.
Either way, Myers won’t be in the lineup for a while.
Waivers: 10/07/22
It’s an important day for waivers as the regular season approaches, and several potential targets are available. With the preseason wrapping up, teams will try to sneak players through at the last second and keep them in the organization for the time being.
Many of these placements are due to salary cap restrictions or LTIR machinations to give teams maximum flexibility as the season begins. Everyone from yesterday’s list cleared.
Here is today’s group of waiver additions:
Carolina Hurricanes
Dallas Stars
Edmonton Oilers
Mattias Janmark
Dmitri Samorukov
Minnesota Wild
New Jersey Devils
Philadelphia Flyers
Kevin Connauton
Troy Grosenick
St. Louis Blues
Martin Frk
Klim Kostin
Matthew Highmore
Vancouver Canucks
Winnipeg Jets