Update On Barry Trotz
Barry Trotz, a coach widely regarded to be among the best in hockey, is currently on the open market and entertaining offers for his next job. He has a multitude of suitors, and fans of the teams actively courting him could not be blamed for being nervous about his upcoming decision. His choice could be the sort of one that can reverse the fortunes of a franchise, and his hire likely set the tone of the offseason for whatever team he joins. But according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, we may have to wait a bit for that choice to actually come.
Friedman reports that the coaching cycle has “ground to a bit of a halt” as a result of teams awaiting Trotz’s decision. Friedman relays that Trotz has “let it be known” to teams interested in his services that he’s “not in a hurry to make his choice” and that won’t make his decision until he’s absolutely certain that it’s the right one for himself and his family.
While that is obviously a very reasonable stance for Trotz to take towards his decision, his patience does have wider implications for the league as a whole. There are numerous coaching vacancies across the NHL, and as Friedman notes, many teams are waiting for Trotz to make a decision before truly ramping up their pursuits of other candidates.
Fans of teams with a coaching vacancy may want to see movement from their team on that front sooner rather than later, but the state of the coaching market is such that these searches could drag on through the playoffs and potentially beyond their conclusion. That potentially long wait on Trotz’s choice could have the effect of raising the stakes of his decision as well. For the teams that are fully invested in securing his services but end up ultimately missing out, they could potentially see their second-choice candidate be snapped up by another team less involved in the Trotz sweepstakes.
Regardless of where Trotz ends up coaching next season, it’s clear that his decision will likely have a ripple effect that alters the offseasons of quite a few teams.
Latest On Andrew Copp
Last night, the New York Rangers won a crucial game against the Carolina Hurricanes, keeping their season alive. Andrew Copp, who the Rangers acquired from the Winnipeg Jets at the trade deadline, has been a major reason for the team’s success in these playoffs. Given his status as a pending unrestricted free agent, it’s natural to believe that Copp has earned himself some money on his next deal with how he’s performed in New York. On the 32 Thoughts segment of last night’s Sportsnet broadcast of the Rangers/Hurricanes game, Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek supported that line of thinking, reporting that it “sounds as if” Copp’s market is going to land between the deals signed by two recent comparable unrestricted free agents: Phillip Danault and Zach Hyman.
Danault signed his contract after leading the way on a Canadiens team that to the 2021 Stanley Cup final, inking a six-year, $33MM deal with the Los Angeles Kings. Hyman signed a seven-year, $38.5MM deal with the Oilers after a season where he scored at a 63-point pace. While Copp’s defensive game may not be quite at the level of Danault’s (who is a consistent down-ballot Selke candidate) and his offense may be slightly below where Hyman’s was in his platform year, Copp has proven to be an incredible fit with Artemi Panarin and Ryan Strome and is now producing better than he ever has as a professional.
As a Ranger, including the playoffs, Copp has 28 points in 29 games, showing that in the right fit, he can be a very strong offensive producer to go along with his defensive game. The Rangers also have Strome as a pending unrestricted free agent and could find themselves forced to choose only one of the two to retain after this season, given the constraints of the salary cap. Strome may have a longer and more proven track record of chemistry with Panarin than Copp does, but Copp has outproduced him in these playoffs and offers more versatility, as well as a more well-regarded defensive game. The Rangers’ attempts to retain both or their choice between the two will be one of the Rangers’ top storylines this offseason, and recent reporting indicates that they will be aggressive in their pursuit of Copp.
Copp’s performance also still holds significance for his former team. As part of their trade with the Rangers, the second-round pick the Jets received for Copp was actually conditional, and is upgraded from a 2022 second-rounder to a 2022 first-rounder if the Rangers make it to the Eastern Conference Final (to be decided Monday) and Copp plays in at least 50% of the team’s playoff games. So while two fanbases will see their teams battle to remain alive in the chase for the Stanley Cup, there will be a third fanbase also likely to be deeply invested in the fate of Monday’s high-stakes seventh game.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Calgary Notes: Tkachuk, Injury Updates, Monahan
After the conclusion of the Calgary Flames’ season on Thursday, the team took some time to digest and spoke to the media today in their end-of-season media availability, touching primarily on injury news, some known and some not, as well as topics for this offseason. One of those offseason topics comes with the status of superstar forward Matthew Tkachuk, who is a RFA after finishing a three-year, $21MM contract this season. Tkachuk impressed over the life of the contract, capping it off with an incredible 42 goals and 62 assists in 82 games this season. Keeping the forward in the fold long-term is absolutely a priority for the Flames, however they also have to focus on re-signing superstar Johnny Gaudreau, who is a pending UFA, and give fairly significant raises to forward Andrew Mangiapane and defenseman Oliver Kylington.
Calgary did seem to clear one hurdle today, as Tkachuk himself told the media, when asked about an extension, that he would love to sign a long-term deal with the Flames, expressing his love for the team, the city, and the fanbase. Tkachuk’s sentiment is no small feat for the Flames considering the league has seen a number of superstar players depart their teams in free agency in recent years. Though a RFA, Tkachuk could opt for a shorter-term bridge deal and hit the unrestricted free agent market sooner than later, which would put Calgary in a tough spot, with forwards Tyler Toffoli, Mikael Backlund, and Elias Lindholm, as well as defensemen Noah Hanifin and Chris Tanev all set to become UFAs after the 2023-24 season. All of that before considering what an extension with Gaudreau would include. Keeping Tkachuk long-term won’t ease the burden of his cap hit, but will provide Calgary with the security of knowing a superstar is staying put for a certain salary while they navigate that predictably difficult 2024 offseason and the future of the franchise.
- Sportsnet’s Eric Francis provided injury updates on several Flames players, including Tkachuck, Mangiapane, Tanev, Milan Lucic, and Nikita Zadorov. Lucic, who had struggled to just one assist in 12 playoff games has an AC sprain. Tkachuck had an injured hand and Mangipane a bad wrist. Perhaps most notably, Zadorov, who had done an excellent job shutting down both Edmonton and the Dallas Stars, did so in some part with two broken ribs. Despite the number of injuries for Calgary, it appears that Tanev, who has a torn labrum, separated shoulder, and sprained neck, will be the only one having surgery (link).
- More from the injury front, as The Athletic’s Hailey Salvian also provided an update on forward Sean Monahan, who had hip surgery in the first week of April. Flames GM Brad Treliving told Salvian that Monahan’s recovery was about 5-6 weeks ahead of schedule as compared to where he was with his hip surgery last offseason, and the forward should resume skating in the coming weeks. With opening night over four months away, we will have to wait a while to see Monahan back in the Calgary lineup at full strength. However, the update on Monahan, who has struggled more and more over the past three seasons while dealing with injury, is absolutely encouraging, and getting him back to the form that saw him hit a career-high 82 points in 2018-19 could work as a “free” addition for the Flames, who are currently at-risk of losing Gaudreau in free agency this offseason.
Barclay Goodrow Returns To New York Rangers Lineup
After New York Rangers Head Coach Gerard Gallant told the media yesterday that forwards Barclay Goodrow and Sammy Blais could return to the lineup soon, but not for Game Six against the Carolina Hurricanes, it appears that Goodrow will be making his return to the Rangers lineup tonight (link). Goodrow took warmups in between wingers Tyler Motte and Ryan Reaves for the Rangers tonight in lieu of a noticeably absent Kevin Rooney. As TSN’s Ray Ferraro points out, the Rangers have just 18 skaters on the ice for warmups, meaning that Goodrow is not out there for a test run or a game-time decision. Goodrow last played in Game One of the first round when he suffered a lower-body injury.
The Rangers signed Goodrow this past offseason to a six-year, $21.85MM contract as part of their push to make their team grittier and tougher to play against. As much as he has helped the team in that effort, along with players like Blais and Ryan Reaves, the organization also brought in Goodrow for another reason: his playoff experience and Stanley Cup pedigree, winning the previous two Stanley Cups with the Tampa Bay Lightning. The veteran forward was brought in to help the Rangers be confident and succeed in exactly the type of game he finds himself returning in, that being Game Six of the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals with the Rangers on the brink of elimination.
Thus far, Goodrow has lived up to the billing, notching 13 goals to go with 20 assists on top of a plus-13 rating in 79 games this season for the Rangers. While he only has 12 points in 43 postseason games for the Tampa Bay Lightning (14 points in 66 playoff games overall), Goodrow was a key component of the team that won back-to-back Stanley Cups in Tampa, demonstrating the poise needed of players in those situations. If the Rangers are able to win tonight, and any further in this year’s playoffs, or down the road, one could expect Goodrow to have a lot to do with that success.
Looking At The Boston Bruins Salary Cap Crunch
In a rundown of hockey news today, Matt Porter of the Boston Globe addressed, amongst other things, the Boston Bruins impending salary cap crunch, and speculated on what the organization could do to improve its situation (link). In sum, Porter says that even with Brad Marchand slated to miss time after surgery on both of his hips, presumably landing him on LTIR to start the season, and with Patrice Bergeron either not returning or perhaps taking a steep discount, Boston could still find itself up against the salary cap next season, not even considering any moves the team needs to make to improve.
As of right now, the Bruins are projected to have just $2.84MM in salary cap space next season, which does not factor in making any moves, or creating any additional space, like putting Marchand on LTIR. Though not over the cap, if Boston wants to improve or even return the same quality team to the ice, they will need to spend to do so, but would have to get creative with how they shed salary. One suggestion Porter makes is to buy out the contract of forward Nick Foligno, who has one-year at $3.8MM left on his contract. Doing so would reduce the cap hit to just $1.933MM next season and $930K after. Foligno has been a reliable point producer and excellent leader his entire career, however his production fell off sharply this season with Boston, tallying a mere two goals and 11 assists in 64 games.
Still a tremendous veteran presence for any team, his $3.8MM cap hit is tough to justify on a team as close to the ceiling as Boston. If the organization wants to eliminate his entire cap hit, they will likely find a market for which to trade him, however the veteran will have a 16-team no-trade list and dealing him would likely require the Bruins to send draft pick or prospect compensation with him. It might seem unlikely that Foligno would accept a trade from a perennial contender to, expectedly, a rebuilding team, however a team in the market to absorb Foligno’s salary would likely be able to give him the ice-time and role he might prefer, as well as a chance to be dealt to a competitive team at the trade deadline anyways.
Another suggestion from Porter would be to make a practical trade of a regular, albeit replaceable player, such as forward Craig Smith or defensemen Matt Grzelcyk or Mike Reilly. Smith, who has one more year at $3.1MM, has been a solid contributor for Boston since coming over from the Nashville Predators in free agency prior to the 2020-21 season, putting up a solid 16 goals and 20 assists in 74 games this season. With his solid play and reasonable cap hit, Boston should be able to find a partner in a Smith trade and even receive an asset in return. The Bruins could then replace Smith in-house with young options like Fabian Lysell, Oskar Steen, or Jack Studnicka, as Porter suggests.
As good as Reilly and Grzelcyk have been for the Bruins, Porter adds that they are very similar players, thus making one potentially expendable in the right situation. Both players have two more years remaining on their contracts, Reilly at a cap hit of $3MM and Grzelcyk at just under $3.69MM. In addition to having very similar styles of play, the two have also had remarkably similar production, both tallying 44 points over their previous two seasons, Grzelcyk doing so in 110 games, Reilly in 125. On the left side, the team does also have Derek Forbort under contract at $3MM for the next season, though he is not as remarkably similar to Grzelcyk and Reilly as those two are to one another. Trading any of the three would also not pose a hazard to Boston’s depth, as they also have the recently-acquired-and-extended Hampus Lindholm and 25-year-old Jakub Zboril, who is still awaiting his first job as an NHL-regular.
Finally, a seemingly obvious solution for Boston would be to trade forward Jake DeBrusk, who owns a $4MM cap hit through 2023-24, and notably asked for a trade earlier this season (link). After requesting the trade, DeBrusk continued to play hard, and well, for Boston, ultimately finishing the season with 25 goals and 17 assists in 77 games. For his career, DeBrusk has continually produced similar numbers outside of a poor, outlier 2020-21 season and at age-26 for most of next season, his contract represents solid value for whatever team has him. Trading DeBrusk might seem like a given, but if the winger possibly changed his mind or is willing to play out the remainder of his contract, keeping him may be a prudent decision for Boston considering his value. Though DeBrusk has the highest cap hit of any player discussed, ultimately when trying to build a competitive team under the salary cap, the salary cap hit is less important than the overall value the team is receiving on the deal.
Pacific Notes: Megna, Chiasson, Tanev
Prior to their semi-final game against Finland today, the United States found themselves down another defenseman as it was revealed by Daily Faceoff’s Chris Peters (Twitter link) that Sharks defenseman Jaycob Megna had left the team to tend to a family emergency. That left the Americans with just four healthy defensemen for the game while the team is out of available roster slots which meant they weren’t able to add Montreal blueliner Jordan Harris – who has skated with the team as an extra all tournament – to the roster. Sam Lafferty and Riley Barber, both forwards, comprised the third pairing and will likely do so again on Sunday when they battle Czechia for the bronze while Finland and Canada go for gold.
More from the Pacific:
- Earlier this week, a report surfaced that Canucks winger Alex Chiasson would be heading to Switzerland for next season. However, his agent Pat Morris told Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK and The Athletic (Twitter link) that the pending UFA has no intention of signing in Switzerland and intends to pursue an NHL contract this season with his first choice being to re-sign with Vancouver. Chiasson will have to wait a while for that option to present itself as team president Jim Rutherford recently indicated that they won’t decide on whether or not to keep the 31-year-old until after free agency. Chiasson had 13 goals and nine assists in 67 games this season.
- On Friday, the extent of the injuries for Flames defenseman Chris Tanev was revealed – including a torn labrum and a dislocated shoulder. Today, the veteran told reporters, including Sportsnet 960’s Pat Steinberg (Twitter link) that the recovery time for the labrum surgery he’ll be undergoing next week carries a recovery time of four to six months. If things go well, the 32-year-old would be ready around the start of training camp but if the recovery time is towards the back end of that range, he could miss more than a month of the regular season.
Offseason Checklist: Buffalo Sabres
The offseason has arrived for half of the league’s teams that weren’t playoff-bound plus those that were eliminated early in the postseason. It’s time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months. Next up is a look at Buffalo.
It wasn’t a great year in the standings but things are looking up for the Sabres. The team was much more competitive in Don Granato’s first season behind the bench and several of their young players made promising strides to show that brighter days could soon be on the horizon. With that in mind, Buffalo’s checklist looks a bit different than it has in recent years as they should now begin the process of trying to add talent and emerge from their rebuild.
Sign A Veteran Goalie
At the moment, Buffalo has six goaltenders under contract. Once the calendar flips to the new league year in July, that number drops to zero. GM Kevyn Adams will be busy on that front, to say the least, both in terms of NHL and AHL signings. Let’s look at the NHL situation here.
It’s widely expected that Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen will be promoted from the minors to fill one of the two spots with Buffalo as he continues his development and the team continues to evaluate whether or not he’ll be the goalie of the future for them. But the most games he has played in any of his professional seasons is 44. Between that and the fact he has just 13 NHL appearances under his belt, it’s safe to say that he’s not yet ready to assume the true starting role.
As a result, Adams will be looking for a veteran that is capable of playing more than a typical backup role. A short-term starter would make some sense or failing that, a platoon netminder to split time with Luukkonen would also work. Craig Anderson is among Buffalo’s pending unrestricted free agents and it seems like re-signing the 41-year-old would be their preference as he fit in quite well in his first season with Buffalo. It’s questionable if he can hold up under a higher workload than the 31 games he played in 2021-22 so if he is their choice, a veteran third-stringer to stash at AHL Rochester certainly would make some sense.
Decide Olofsson’s Future
Victor Olofsson has had an up-and-down tenure with Buffalo so far. After a surprise showing in his rookie season that saw him put up 20 goals and 22 assists in just 54 games, the two sides settled on a bridge contract, a reasonable course of action. The first year didn’t go well and for the majority of this season, things weren’t much better. At the end of February, he had just seven goals in 44 games and looked like he could be heading for non-tender territory.
But once March hit, the 26-year-old suddenly rediscovered his scoring touch, potting 13 goals along with 12 assists in the final 28 games. While the usual caveat about reading too much into production when a team is well out of playoff contention certainly applies, Olofsson may have shown enough to warrant another contract.
If that’s the case, what is the right deal? This is Olofsson’s final year of RFA eligibility so it’s not as if they can work out a short-term pact and then re-assess before he’s UFA-eligible. With him being unrestricted no matter what, a one-year contract isn’t ideal from Buffalo’s perspective while finding common ground on a long-term deal could be tricky given the year-to-year variability in his performance.
Olofsson is owed a $3.25MM qualifying offer and has arbitration eligibility this summer. With a little over six weeks until qualifiers are due, Adams will need to make a decision on this front sooner than later.
Add Defensive Help
At the moment, Buffalo has just three defensemen signed for next season that are locks to make the opening roster. They’re all aged 22 or younger in Rasmus Dahlin, Henri Jokiharju, and Owen Power. That’s a solid cluster of young impact blueliners that are going to be around for a little while but they need some veteran support.
This is something that the Sabres haven’t really tried to address in recent years which is understandable with the team clearly more interested in being at the bottom of the standings than the top over that stretch. Doing so allowed Dahlin and Jokiharju to log heavy minutes and play through some mistakes.
However, assuming their plan is to start to push forward with trying to get back to the playoffs after missing the postseason for an 11th straight year, they need some veterans capable of logging heavy minutes to work with these three. In an ideal world, they find three of them, one to partner with each youngster which would allow someone like Mattias Samuelsson to see more AHL action.
That said, adding three impact blueliners would be a tall task for any team, especially since there aren’t a lot of them available in free agency this summer. With more than ample cap space though, this seems like an area where Adams should have the green light to bid aggressively. Three would be perfect, two would be nice, but one is simply a necessity if they want to help their goalies and more importantly, help their young rearguards find another level in their development.
Thompson Extension Talks
The first season of Tage Thompson’s bridge contract didn’t go well as he put up just 14 points in 38 games in 2020-21. Heading into this season, expectations were quite low as a result. If he could lock down a full-time spot and play with some consistency, it likely would have been viewed as a success.
But what the 24-year-old did in 2021-22 was far beyond realistic expectations, likely beyond even the most optimistic projections for Thompson as he put up 38 goals and 30 assists. That goal total put him 19th in the entire league while he also made the transition to playing down the middle. While it took several years, Thompson certainly showed the offensive promise that made him a first-round pick back in 2016.
Thompson’s timing for his offensive outburst was pretty optimal as well as he’s eligible to sign a contract extension once free agency opens up in mid-July and he officially enters the final year of his deal. If Adams and the Sabres believe that Thompson’s performance is a sign of things to come, they will almost certainly try to work out an extension this summer as anything close to a repeat performance in 2022-23 will only drive the asking price higher. Meanwhile, after being a depth player for the first few years of his career, the prospect of a big money, long-term extension might appeal to Thompson. This is something that doesn’t have to happen but it wouldn’t be surprising to see both sides take a run at an extension in the coming months.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson Suffers Fractured Foot At World Championship
It was a disappointing World Championship on a couple of fronts for Vancouver defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Sweden blew a 3-0 lead in the third period to Canada on Thursday before falling in overtime and to add to that frustration, he was also injured as the Canucks announced (Twitter link) that he suffered a foot fracture in the tournament.
The veteran blueliner had a fairly quiet first season in Vancouver after coming over in a trade back at the draft last summer. He picked up 29 points in 79 games, his lowest point per game average since his rookie year back in 2010-11. Regardless, Ekman-Larsson still played over 22 minutes a game, second on the team to only Quinn Hughes while also taking a regular turn on both the power play and penalty kill. He was similarly quiet at the Worlds, collecting just a pair of assists for Sweden in their six games while logging 19:20 per contest, third among their blueliners.
Fortunately for Ekman-Larsson and the Canucks, the recovery time for this injury is four to six weeks which means while his offseason training will be interrupted, he should be fully recovered by the time training camp rolls around in September. Vancouver will likely be icing a similar back end to the one they had this season so they’ll be counting on Ekman-Larsson to have a bounce-back season in 2022-23.
Blues Assign Charlie Lindgren To AHL
While the season has come to an end for the Blues, at least one player will play on for a little while longer as goaltender Charlie Lindgren has been sent back to Springfield of the AHL, per the AHL’s transactions log. He had been serving as the backup to Ville Husso after Jordan Binnington was injured earlier in their second-round series against Colorado.
The 28-year-old had his best professional campaign this season, posting a 2.21 GAA and a .925 SV% in 34 games with the Thunderbirds, both career bests. On top of that, he also impressed in his limited NHL action, putting up a stellar 1.22 GAA with a .958 SV% in five appearances with St. Louis, numbers that had some wondering if the Blues might have considered giving Lindgren a chance against Colorado over sticking with Husso. But with just 29 career NHL games under his belt, sticking with Husso certainly made sense.
Lindgren will now have a chance to reclaim the starting job with the Thunderbirds as they look to make it to the Eastern Conference Finals against his former team in Laval, the affiliate of the Canadiens. With a good finish to his AHL playoffs plus his performance during the regular season, Lindgren should have a strong market this summer in unrestricted free agency as a veteran third-string goaltender that can be called on to make a few NHL starts when injuries arise.
East Notes: Flyers, Ruotsalainen, Beaulieu
The Flyers are expected to interview Jim Montgomery for their vacant head coaching position next week, reports Sam Carchidi of Philly Hockey Now. Montgomery has been an assistant in St. Louis since 2020 and with the Blues being eliminated last night, teams can now talk to him about their coaching vacancies. Montgomery has some NHL head coaching experience under his belt having coached Dallas for parts of two seasons before being let go for unprofessional conduct which he later revealed was related to his battle with alcoholism. John Tortorella and Barry Trotz are among those that are believed to have already interviewed for Philadelphia’s vacant position.
Elsewhere in the East:
- Following Rochester’s elimination in the AHL, Sabres winger Arttu Ruotsalainen told reporters, including Mike Harrington of The Buffalo News, that his intention is to re-sign with Buffalo and not go to the Swiss League as has been previously suggested. Assistant GM Jason Karmanos also stated a desire to keep the 24-year-old in the fold. Ruotsalainen, who will be a restricted free agent with arbitration eligibility this summer, had four points in 18 games with Buffalo this season but was quite productive in the minors, notching 51 points in 57 contests while tying for the team lead in playoff scoring.
- After acquiring Nathan Beaulieu at the trade deadline, Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review suggests it’s likely that the defenseman will leave the Penguins without ever suiting up for them. Pittsburgh picked him for a conditional draft pick that they ultimately retained as the conditions weren’t met. Beaulieu was added as injury insurance for the playoffs and while he was close to suiting up, he wound up being a healthy scratch in the postseason after being activated off LTIR. The 29-year-old will be an unrestricted free agent this summer and after playing in just 24 games with Winnipeg this season while averaging less than 11 minutes a game, it’s unlikely the 2011 first-rounder will be able to command much more than the minimum salary.