Offseason Notes: Chychrun, White, Dallas
It’s been a while since we’ve heard Jakob Chychrun‘s name atop trade rumors, especially when considering how he was viewed as one of the hottest commodities ahead of the Trade Deadline. It’s not often an under-25 defenseman with top-pairing pedigree becomes available, but the Arizona Coyotes decided not to move him just yet. That could change, however, as the Columbus Dispatch’s Brian Hedger reports that the Blue Jackets and Coyotes are talking about a deal. While he couldn’t offer Chychrun’s name specifically, he also reminds that Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen has said that the team could move their 12th overall pick at the 2022 draft in exchange for a young NHL player with term.
Chychrun certainly fits that bill, signed at just $4.6MM through 2025. It also matches up with the rumblings that Columbus is looking to add aggressively on defense, as multiple reports suggested they were in discussions with the Tampa Bay Lightning about landing Ryan McDonagh. If Arizona acquired the 12th overall selection, it would give them a jaw-dropping four first-round picks in addition to their five second-round picks.
- There’s significant interest in soon-to-be free agent Colin White after he was placed on waivers for the purpose of a buyout today by the Ottawa Senators. TVA’s Renaud Lavoie reports that up to 14 NHL teams have shown interest in White over the past few months, which could lead to a significant bidding war for his services once free agency opens. TSN’s Darren Dreger specifically names the Montreal Canadiens as a team that could be a fit, as general manager Kent Hughes was his agent prior to getting hired in Montreal.
- The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta says the Dallas Stars are looking to add a significant punch at forward this offseason, specifically to add a jump to a line with Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin. Dallas will reportedly be active on both the trade and free-agent markets, looking to be aggressive and squeeze out whatever this core has left in them to try and win a championship. Neither Benn nor Seguin, who are making above $9MM per season each, cracked the 50-point mark last year.
Matt Moulson Joins Maple Leafs Front Office, Signaling Retirement
Longtime NHL and AHL forward Matt Moulson has joined the Toronto Maple Leafs as a pro scout, per the team’s website. The move to scouting signals that Moulson has retired from hockey after a 16-year professional career that included 605 NHL games.
Moulson hasn’t played in the NHL since 2017-18 with the Buffalo Sabres, but he’s been floating around the AHL with the Ontario Reign and Hershey Bears since then, maintaining a solid professional career, although falling short of a Calder Cup. A three-time 30-goal scorer, Moulson did his best work with the New York Islanders alongside current Maple Leafs captain John Tavares.
The point production burnt out quickly after turning 30, though, notching no more than 14 goals or 41 points in a season during his four NHL seasons spent in Buffalo after departing the Islanders during the 2013-14 season. Waived and loaned to Ontario in 2017-18, Moulson made a home for himself tutoring youngsters in the minors, aiding both Los Angeles’ and Washington’s development systems along the way.
Moulson finished a strong AHL career with 424 games played, 159 goals, and 350 points, including a trio of seasons spent with the Manchester Monarchs early in his career, back when he was the property of the Kings in the mid-2000s. Now 38, Moulson will make a swift transition to scouting with the Leafs.
Prospect Notes: Beck, Nelson, Lucius, Guhle
Hockey Canada has made some changes to their National Junior Team summer development camp roster, from which the organization will select their contingent for the 2023 World Junior Championship in December. In lieu of San Jose Sharks defense prospect Gannon Laroque being unable to participate due to injury, Hockey Canada has added a pair of 2022 draft-eligible prospects in forward Owen Beck and defenseman Ty Nelson to their list.
Beck, ranked 33rd in TSN’s Bob McKenzie’s final scouting poll, netted 51 points in 68 games for the OHL’s Mississauga Steelheads in 2021-22. The public opinion on him is rather skewed, with some listing Beck in the mid-to-late first while some have him deep within the second round. Regardless, he’s one of the better OHLers available in this year’s class. He’ll rely on his strong skating and transitional play to try and improbably work his way onto the final roster. Nelson, who hails from the OHL’s North Bay Battalion, was ranked 50th in McKenzie’s consensus rankings after a 51-point season.
- A second Lucius brother has officially left the University of Minnesota program. 2022-eligible Cruz Lucius, the younger sibling of Winnipeg Jets prospect Chaz Lucius, has switched his college commitment to rival Wisconsin. Cruz’s draft stock was hurt by injury this season, but he still managed eight points in six games for the U.S. at the U18 World Juniors and 25 points in 33 games with the U.S. National Development Team Program. If McKenzie’s consensus rankings are a proper indication, he’s slated to hear his name called in the mid-to-late third round.
- Anaheim Ducks defense prospect Brendan Guhle won’t be staying in North America for 2022-23 after signing a contract with the DEL’s Eisbären Berlin. Guhle, originally selected 51st overall by the Buffalo Sabres in 2015, will still belong to the Ducks organization if they issue the pending restricted free agent a qualifying offer. Guhle has just 65 NHL games to his name at this point, tallying 14 points. He had just seven points in 37 games last season in the AHL with San Diego.
Boston Bruins Sign Nick Wolff, Kyle Keyser
The Boston Bruins have completed some minor league business, signing Nick Wolff and Kyle Keyser to new one-year, two-way contract extensions. The deals both carry NHL salaries of $750K, and will allow them to avoid restricted free agent status this summer.
Signed as an undrafted free agent in 2020, the 25-year-old Wolf has spent the last two seasons playing in Providence, racking up 101 penalty minutes in 56 games. The 6’5″ defenseman has been known to drop the gloves and was quite a feared combatant during his USHL days, when he racked up more than 400 penalty minutes in a little over 100 games.
He’s not just an enforcer for the AHL Bruins though, and will now get a chance to continue his career on a new contract. At the end of it, should Wolff fail to play in 80 games with the NHL club, he’ll be a Group VI unrestricted free agent.
Keyser meanwhile is a bit more of a true prospect. The 23-year-old netminder was also an undrafted free agent signing, this time out of the OHL where he had dominated with the Oshawa Generals. Keyser has bounced up and down from the ECHL to the AHL each of his years as a pro but did have a .908 save percentage in 33 starts for Providence this year.
Given how goaltenders often take a little longer to develop, it was a good sign for his future, and definitely deserving of another contract. Unlike Wolff, Keyser will still be a restricted free agent at the end of this new deal.
Colorado Avalanche Extend Andrew Cogliano
One of the veteran players that finally got a chance to lift the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche this season is coming back for more. The team has signed Andrew Cogliano to a one-year contract for 2022-23, keeping him from the open market. The deal will be worth $1.25MM, according to Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff.
Cogliano, 35, played more than 1,100 regular season games and 100 playoff games before arriving in Denver this season, acquired at the deadline for a 2024 fifth-round pick. He had never won before, despite coming close as recently as 2020 with the Dallas Stars, and it appeared as though he might miss the playoffs entirely after starting the year with the San Jose Sharks.
Instead, he’s now a Stanley Cup champion, and when asked last week explained how it made him want to come back again next season. Speaking with Peter Baugh of The Athletic:
I really think it was a privilege to play for this team, and I still think that hopefully that can be an option moving forward, to be honest. It just felt right, and it was just enjoyable to play the game…When you win, you really get a feeling of some strong confidence, and you start thinking about doing it again and wanting to do it again and doing it with the guys on the team you feel strongly about.
He’ll now get that chance, returning to the defending champs on a reasonably priced one-year deal. The Avalanche are trying to sign some bigger names as well but getting Cogliano back gives them an experienced, versatile, bottom-six option that can be trusted in the most important situations of a game. The veteran forward has long been deployed in a checking role but also managed to add three goals and six points in 16 postseason games this year, including two game-winners.
Not only that but he underwent a hand surgery after the Western Conference Finals against the Edmonton Oilers and still managed to make it back in time to play in five games of the championship series. That kind of commitment is exactly what Cogliano has shown throughout his entire career, playing the first ten seasons without missing a single game and only seeing his iron man streak break due to a suspension in 2018.
The Avalanche will be able to rely on him as they try to complete a title defense, though the roster may not look the same. Even after his deal, the team still has nine roster players scheduled for unrestricted free agency.
Florida Panthers Sign Aleksi Heponiemi
The Florida Panthers have inked Aleksi Heponiemi to a one-year, two-way contract extension for the 2022-23 season. CapFriendly reports that the deal will be worth $750K at the NHL level, $100K at the AHL level, and comes with a minor league guarantee of $175K. The young forward was scheduled for restricted free agency but is still not eligible for salary arbitration.
Heponiemi, 23, was the 40th overall selection in 2017 and has had an interesting route to the NHL. The Tampere, Finland native was picked out of the WHL, where he had come over to play for the Swift Current Broncos, and absolutely dominated that league after going back for his draft+1 season. With 118 points in 57 games (and another 30 in 26 postseason matches) he helped the Broncos win the WHL championship, taking home the CHL Sportsman of the Year award in the process.
The following season he returned to Finland to play at the professional level, and had no problem carrying over his offense to Liiga play. In 50 games for Karpat he scored 16 goals and 46 points, while also attending the World Juniors and winning gold. The next year was spent in the AHL with the Springfield Thunderbirds, before COVID restrictions kept the AHL from playing through the early part of 2020-21. That led to a loan to Sweden where he played for MODO, scoring nearly a point-per-game through the first half.
A recall to North America led to his NHL debut but he wouldn’t stay at that level. In fact, this past season he once again was limited to the AHL–this time scoring 39 points in 56 games for the Charlotte Checkers.
Now, it’s time for Heponiemi to try and make the Panthers on a full-time basis. No longer waiver-exempt he will be risked to the rest of the league if they try to send him to the minor leagues, giving him at least a bit of a head start over some other young prospects. That doesn’t guarantee him a spot though, especially on a team that already has plenty of offensive weapons and might prefer more physical players in the bottom-six.
San Jose Sharks Hire Mike Grier
After news broke yesterday that the San Jose Sharks would be hiring Mike Grier as their next general manager, the official news came today from the club. Grier himself announced the historic hire in a short video for fans:
Really excited to get to work and be back in the Bay area. I know there have been lots of ups and downs but I’m ready to work hard, get at it, and get this thing back on the tracks. We’re going to start winning some games in the Shark Tank and get it going again. See you soon.
Grier, who played three seasons for the Sharks during his long playing career, is the first Black general manager in NHL history. He isn’t the first Grier to hold a sports executive position like this though. His brother, Chris Grier, is currently the general manager of the Miami Dolphins, while his father Bobby Grier worked for years with the New England Patriots in various roles.
Over a career that spanned 1,060 regular season games, Grier registered 162 goals and 383 points, while receiving Selke Trophy votes on five different occasions. The two-way winger retired in 2011 and a few years later was working for the Chicago Blackhawks as a scout, while also coaching at the high school level. In 2018 he was named an assistant coach for the New Jersey Devils, and last season he served as a hockey operations coordinator for the New York Rangers.
Though his front office resume isn’t that long, Grier’s name has been floated in searches for the last few years as his profile as a future general manager grew. Chris Drury, who brought Grier into the Rangers, gave a strong endorsement to Sharks’ president Jonathan Becher during the search, according to Corey Masisak of The Athletic. He’ll now take over a franchise that has had just one full-time GM in nearly two decades. Doug Wilson, who led the team for the past 19 seasons, stepped away to focus on his health, leaving Joe Will there on an interim basis.
Some would also say he’s coming into quite a mess, given the Sharks’ lack of recent success and huge, long-term contracts on the books. Five players carry at least a $7MM cap hit for the club and only one of them (the recently-extended Tomas Hertl) is under the age of 32. Timo Meier is heading into the final year of his current deal and will need a $10MM qualifying offer to be retained as an RFA next summer, and the team hasn’t made the playoffs since 2019.
There are other changes to the front office coming, according to Becher, and one would expect many to the roster and coaching staff as well. Just a few days ago the team fired head coach Bob Boughner, giving Grier “full autonomy” to make the staff. David Quinn, who has a connection to Grier through their shared alma mater of Boston University, has been floated in the early stages as a potential candidate.
The roster though will be more difficult to rearrange. Eight different players hold some sort of trade protection in their contracts, including basically all of the expensive ones. The organization is also dealing with the uncertainty surrounding Evander Kane‘s grievance, which is still not scheduled for another hearing and could take quite a bit of time to resolve.
Grier will have his work cut out for him as he moves into this new position, starting with the team’s first-round pick later this week. The Sharks are scheduled to select 11th overall.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Pittsburgh Penguins Extend Casey DeSmith
The Pittsburgh Penguins have agreed to terms with backup goaltender Casey DeSmith on a new two-year extension, keeping him from hitting the open market. The contract will carry an average annual value of $1.8MM.
DeSmith, 30, has only ever known the Penguins organization and is one of the biggest success stories of the ECHL. Originally signed to a contract by the Wheeling Nailers as an undrafted free agent in 2015, he managed to quickly climb through every level and eventually made his NHL debut in the 2017-18 season. Since then, he’s been quite reliable for Pittsburgh, posting a .916 save percentage over 97 appearances at the highest level.
While he likely won’t be challenging for the starting role anytime soon, DeSmith represents a strong backup for Tristan Jarry and the Penguins, and essentially takes them out of the running for any other free agent goaltenders–at least the ones set to compete for NHL jobs. At just $1.8MM, he also comes in at a very reasonable price, potentially freeing up some space for the team to re-sign more important free agents, including Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang.
Among goaltenders, DeSmith’s cap hit puts him 40th for the 2022-23 season, a ranking that will drop several more places once free agency opens later this month. Given the fact that Jarry carries just a $3.5MM hit, the Penguins will be getting pretty strong goaltending for a relatively low price.
Snapshots: Campbell, Kuemper, Johnson
The Coachella Valley Firebirds have hired Jessica Campbell as an assistant coach, making her the first woman to hold that role at the AHL level. She joins Dan Bylsma’s staff after a year of coaching in Germany with the Nurnberg Ice Tigers of the DEL. Campbell also served as an assistant coach for Germany at the recent men’s IIHF World Championship and medaled for Team Canada at the women’s tournament during her playing days.
Campbell and Bylsma will take the reins of a new AHL franchise in its first year, one that still has plenty of spots to fill. Because they are so new to the league, the Seattle Kraken have yet to populate the system with many draft picks and actually have just 23 players signed to NHL contracts in the entire organization. That’s obviously not enough to give the Firebirds a fighting chance, meaning plenty of work will be needed by Ron Francis and company in the coming weeks and months.
- The Colorado Avalanche might not be looking for a new goaltender after all. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet believes that the Avalanche are working on extensions for Darcy Kuemper and Valeri Nichushkin, noting that there is a “decent chance” the netminder sticks around. If Kuemper does sign with Colorado, it would thin out a very shallow free agent goaltending pool even further, and potentially put even more pressure on the teams without legitimate starting options.
- Friedman also notes that the idea Erik Johnson could retire to create some additional cap room won’t be happening. Peter Baugh of The Athletic even asked the veteran defenseman directly, who explained that he wants to play for a “lot longer.” The Stanley Cup champion is heading into the last season of his seven-year, $42MM deal and carries a cap hit of $6MM for 2022-23.
New York Islanders Hire Doug Houda, Brian Wiseman
The day of hirings continues, this time with the New York Islanders introducing two new assistant coaches. Brian Wiseman and Doug Houda will join Lane Lambert‘s staff for the upcoming season, coming over from the Detroit Red Wings and Edmonton Oilers respectively.
Wiseman, 50, served for three years with the Oilers after nearly a decade with the University of Michigan, and now joins the new Islanders coaching staff that needed to be built from the ground up. With Lambert taking over from the dismissed Barry Trotz, the team is going in a very different direction following their poor performance this season.
It’s Houda that will draw many headlines though, given his connection with the organization. The long-time NHL defenseman played parts of two seasons with the team in the late nineties, racking up 13 points and 146 penalty minutes in 101 games. He served on the Detroit bench for the last six seasons and previously spend more than a decade with the Boston Bruins.
Given the fact that this will be Lambert’s first NHL head coaching gig, he’ll have to rely heavily on his two new assistants in the early going. Adding someone like Houda, that not only comes with a long history in the league but some familiarity–the two were teammates way back in 1985-86–will certainly help.