Detroit Red Wings Extend Taro Hirose
The Detroit Red Wings have reached an agreement with Taro Hirose on a two-year contract extension, keeping him in the organization and away from unrestricted free agency. The financial details of the deal have not yet been released.
Hirose, 25, would have qualified as a Group VI UFA this summer, after playing just 57 games to this point in his NHL career. Just 15 of those came this season but the young forward showed just how dangerous he could be at the minor league level.
In 59 games for the Grand Rapids Griffins, Hirose had 15 goals and 53 points. He’ll likely spend a good chunk of this new contract in the minor leagues as well, though he’ll have to clear waivers in order to do it.
A highly sought-after undrafted free agent in 2019 out of Michigan State University, Hirose has 20 points in his 57-game NHL career to this point, suggesting that there actually is some upside at that level if he ever gets a more prolonged opportunity. If not, he still represents a strong injury replacement for short-term stints, as he can step into a top-six or powerplay role if necessary.
There’s also always a chance that he catches the eye of the new coaching staff, with Jeff Blashill not returning. That battle will happen in training camp now that the contract negotiations are complete.
Minor Transactions: 05/21/22
Most of the day-to-day roster shuffling is now complete but there have been a handful of moves made. We’ll keep track of those here.
- A day after sending him back down, the Flames have recalled defenseman Juuso Valimaki from AHL Stockton, per the AHL’s transactions log. It’s the third time this week that the 23-year-old has been recalled although he hasn’t seen any game action. With the Heat set to start their next series on Monday, there’s a good chance that Valimaki – who played in just nine games with Calgary this season – will be sent back down soon.
- The Avalanche have brought up goaltender Hunter Miska from AHL Colorado and had him at practice today, relays Peter Baugh of The Athletic (Twitter link). Miska will serve as the emergency goalie for the Avs for the time being although with their next series in the minors starting on Monday (against Calgary’s affiliate), he could be shuffled back and forth over the next few days. At the moment, both Miska and AHL starter Justus Annunen are up with the big club.
- A year after deciding to try his hand overseas, John Quenneville is looking for a new home after Zurich of the Swiss NLA announced in their transactions log that he has been released. The 26-year-old has played in 42 NHL games over parts of four seasons and could be a candidate to return to North America on a two-way deal this summer after a decent season with the Lions that saw him collect 20 goals and 17 assists in 46 games.
Snapshots: Kapanen, Blackhawks, Point
It was a tough year for Penguins winger Kasperi Kapanen. He had just 11 goals in 79 games and managed just two more points than he had in 2020-21 despite playing in 39 fewer contests. However, Dave Molinari of Pittsburgh Hockey Now posits that the 25-year-old may have done enough in the playoffs to convince management to give him one more chance instead of non-tendering him this summer. Kapanen is owed a $3.2MM qualifying offer and also has arbitration eligibility which complicates things as he’s unlikely to be awarded a deal that’s above the walkaway threshold. Molinari suggests Pittsburgh try to offer him a deal with a reduced salary in the hopes that Kapanen opts for that over testing the open market with a non-tender in July. If they can’t agree on a new deal, GM Ron Hextall is going to have a big decision on his hands on whether or not to qualify him.
Elsewhere around the NHL:
- The Blackhawks don’t have a first-round pick this year with theirs going to Columbus as part of the Seth Jones trade but GM Kyle Davidson told NBC Sports Chicago’s Charlie Roumeliotis that acquiring a first-round is “something I’m definitely interested in”. Chicago has committed to a rebuilding process but their challenge might be finding a player they’re willing to trade that is talented enough to command that strong of a return. Brandon Hagel went for two first-rounders at the trade deadline but those are in the 2023 and 2024 drafts.
- Tampa Bay has ruled out Brayden Point for Sunday’s game against Florida, relays Joe Smith of The Athletic (Twitter link). The center has yet to play in the second round after suffering a lower-body injury in the final game of their series against Toronto. Despite missing their top pivot, the Lightning find themselves in good shape with a 2-0 series lead heading into back-to-back games at home on Sunday and Monday.
Flames Sign Ilya Nikolaev
The Flames have agreed to a contract with one of their prospects as agent Dan Milstein of Gold Star announced (Twitter link) that Calgary has signed center Ilya Nikolaev to a three-year, entry-level contract. Financial terms of the deal, which has since been confirmed by the club, were not disclosed.
The 20-year-old was a third-round pick of the Flames back in 2019 (88th overall) out of the Russian junior league. Last season, Nikolaev split the year between Russia’s MHL and VHL, their junior and second-tier pro leagues but he decided to try his hand in North America this year. Undrafted in either the CHL or USHL, he opted to sign with the latter, joining Tri-City. He did quite well at that level this season, recording 23 goals and 49 assists in 58 games and tied for the team lead in playoff scoring with five goals and three helpers in five contests.
Nikolaev will now turn pro with the Flames and will need some time in the minors. Calgary is expected to move their AHL affiliate from Stockton to somewhere in the Calgary area for next season so they’ll have a good opportunity to keep close tabs on Nikolaev’s development over the next three years.
East Notes: Lindblom, Marchment, Korpisalo
Like many teams, the Flyers will be looking to free up some cap space this summer. Charlie O’Connor of The Athletic highlights (subscription link) an under-the-radar option to help accomplish that with a buyout of winger Oskar Lindblom. While his battle to return back from Ewing’s sarcoma and become a regular NHL player again is certainly commendable, he has underachieved offensively with just 20 goals in 129 games since then which isn’t a great return on a $3MM AAV. However, he’d be eligible for a reduced buyout charge of one-third because of his age (25) and the structure of the contract would actually create a cap credit of $333K for next season with a $667K charge the following year. With that credit, the Flyers would effectively save $3.33MM in 2022-23 with a Lindholm buyout, making that option one that GM Chuck Fletcher will likely give some serious consideration to in the coming weeks.
More from the East:
- Panthers winger Mason Marchment is doubtful to play in the next two games of their series against Tampa Bay, relays David Wilson of the Miami Herald. He has now missed the last four games with a lower-body injury and with Florida scuffling in the early going of this round, his secondary scoring and physicality are certainly being missed. Meanwhile, interim head coach Andrew Brunette clarified that Anton Lundell wasn’t injured on Thursday but was merely benched after just over four minutes of ice time.
- Blue Jackets goaltender Joonas Korpisalo told Bailey Johnson of the Columbus Dispatch that his recovery from hip surgery is on track and that he should be ready for the start of training camp. He indicated he had been playing through the injury for the last four seasons with the issue worsening until it was decided that surgery was the best way to go. He’ll get one more opportunity with Columbus after they signed him to a one-year, $1.3MM deal on Friday.
Offseason Checklist: Chicago Blackhawks
The offseason has arrived for half of the league’s teams that aren’t playoff-bound plus some that were eliminated early in the playoffs. It’s time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months. Next up is a look at Chicago.
There were high hopes for the Blackhawks to start this season after a summer that saw them add a new top defender in Seth Jones, a new starting goalie in Marc-Andre Fleury, as well as some extra depth up front. The hope was that these improvements would help get them back into the playoff picture after missing the postseason the year before. It didn’t happen. Instead, mired with off-ice controversy and on-ice struggles, things snowballed in the opposite direction and instead of building for the playoffs, GM Kyle Davidson has committed to going for a rebuild instead. As a result, he has a busy summer ahead of him.
Coaching Decision
After Jeremy Colliton was let go after just a dozen games, Derek King was elevated from coaching with AHL Rockford to fill in on an interim basis for the rest of the season. His record wasn’t stellar by any stretch (27-33-10) but the team was much more competitive under King despite having nothing to play for but pride for most of the season.
Davidson decided that he wants to undergo a full coaching search and one of the questions he’ll have to answer is the type of coach he’s looking for. Is he looking for a long-term fixture to grow with the team or is it someone to take them through this transitional period? If it’s the latter, someone like King – who will interview for the full-time job – becomes a legitimate candidate with how Chicago performed down the stretch. A veteran coach doesn’t seem like a good fit for a rebuilding squad but Davidson has committed to a thorough search so there will undoubtedly be some veteran coaches considered over the coming weeks on top of some first-time options.
On top of hiring a head coach, Davidson and whoever he picks as his bench boss will need to fill a couple of vacancies on the bench after the team dismissed associate coach Marc Crawford and assistant coach Rob Cookson this summer.
Build A Goalie Tandem
In terms of Chicago’s on-ice personnel, there is a lot of work to be done this summer between the pipes. Fleury was moved to Minnesota at the trade deadline while holdovers Kevin Lankinen and Collin Delia are both pending unrestricted free agents. As it stands, the only goalie with professional experience that’s signed for next season is Arvid Soderblom. Suffice it to say, they have some work to do.
After an impressive first NHL season, Lankinen struggled considerably this year with a save percentage of just .891. A year ago, it looked like he could be a sought-after netminder in free agency but now, his market will have cooled considerably. Still, a return to Chicago could be an option in a backup role. Delia is someone that has been around the organization for a while (five years) but never has really emerged beyond being a good AHL netminder that can play a handful of NHL contests when needed. With the Blackhawks wanting to give Soderblom and Jaxson Stauber lots of action with AHL Rockford, Delia seems likely to move on.
Davidson could try to go after a younger free agent goalie in Jack Campbell or Ville Husso with the hope that they’ll still be on the team when they’re ready to try to contend again but that seems like an unlikely scenario. Instead, veterans on short-term contracts that give them some flexibility seems like the smarter way to go for them. They’ll need a couple of them over the next few months.
Rebuild The Rest
There are few core players on Chicago that should be viewed as untouchable. With them appearing to be eyeing a multi-year process, anyone that isn’t signed or under team control through that time could very well be expendable.
Blackhawks GM Kyle Davidson has a very busy offseason ahead of him.The biggest decisions that will need to be made in the short term involve winger Patrick Kane and center Jonathan Toews. Both players have spent their entire careers (14 years for Toews, 15 for Kane) in Chicago and have been on identical contracts since 2010. They’re set to enter the final year of their deals that carry a $10.5MM cap hit. Are they a part of the future plans? Davidson allowed for the possibility that they could stick around but will the veterans be willing to go through several more years of losing? If not, then they will have to give serious consideration to trading their long-time pillars. Are those moves easier to make now when moving salary is a bit easier or closer to the trade deadline when most of the cap hit has been covered already? That, along with the possibility of extensions, will likely have to be jointly explored this summer.
Other veterans will likely be on the move as well to add future assets and try to free up some cap flexibility. Blueliner Jake McCabe and Connor Murphy along with center Tyler Johnson are all potential options either this summer or at some point during the season.
RFA Decisions
Two younger veterans that could fit in the above category as well are Dominik Kubalik and Dylan Strome. Both are restricted free agents this summer with qualifying offers ($4MM for Kubalik, $3.6MM for Strome) that are a bit high relative to their performance in recent years. Kubalik had 30 goals in his rookie season but just 32 in the last two combined. Strome, meanwhile, has been hit or miss since joining Chicago in 2018, at times looking like a capable top-six player and others where he struggled to the point of being a healthy scratch.
Not that long ago, both players were viewed as potential long-term fits for the Blackhawks but that isn’t the case now due to their inconsistency and somewhat recent struggles. Kubalik was available at the trade deadline with minimal interest while Strome has been available off and on going back more than a year although his strong finish (36 points in his last 40 games) could help his chances of sticking around with a one-year, ‘prove it’ type of contract.
Can they keep both? With their cap situation, can they afford to keep both? They can opt for club-elected arbitration which carries a minimum salary of 85% of the qualifying offer but there’s no guarantee the arbitrator will agree with that valuation and there are no walkaway rights with club-elected arbitration. Chicago can try to negotiate a lower-priced deal but there’s no requirement for Kubalik and Strome to agree to something like that. Accordingly, don’t be surprised if both players are in the rumor mill in the coming weeks to see if there’s a trade return that could be palatable if Davidson doesn’t want to pay the cost to keep them.
DeBrincat Extension Talks
One player that Davidson will undoubtedly be willing to pay the cost to keep is winger Alex DeBrincat. He signed a three-year bridge deal back in 2019 and has outperformed it, scoring 73 goals in just 134 games since then, including 41 this season. With his contract coming before the CBA extension, he’s subject to the old qualifying offer rules which means his 2022-23 salary of $9MM represents his qualifying offer next summer.
The 24-year-old will be eligible for an extension once the new league year starts in mid-July. DeBrincat looks like a centerpiece of Chicago’s rebuilding process so locking him up as soon as possible is something that needs to be explored. It wouldn’t be surprising to see discussions on a new agreement begin sooner than later as a result. A deal doesn’t have to be done now but if something isn’t agreed on, he’ll enter next summer a year away from UFA eligibility which always carries some risk. Expect Davidson to try to avoid that if he can.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Salary figures courtesy of CapFriendly.
Scott Walker Won’t Return As Canucks Assistant Coach
When Bruce Boudreau joined Vancouver as their head coach, he brought along Scott Walker as one of his assistants. However, while Boudreau will be sticking around, Walker won’t be as the bench boss indicated on The Bob McCown Podcast (audio link) that Walker won’t be back behind the bench and the team has already started to look for a replacement.
This is now the second time that Walker has left Vancouver in his post-playing days as he had served in a development role for three seasons before departing to be a special assistant to the GM in Arizona in 2019. However, that role was short-lived and he was back to working with OHL Guelph as their President of Hockey Operations last season.
Boudreau and Walker have some history as Walker finished his career playing for Boudreau while Postmedia’s Patrick Johnston mentions Boudreau nearly hired Walker back in 2016 when he was coaching in Minnesota. The two were also set to coach internationally for Canada at the Channel One and Spengler Cups alongside Boudreau but those plans changed when Vancouver came calling. With that working relationship and how well the Canucks performed in the second half of the season, Walker’s departure certainly comes as a bit of a surprise.
There will be plenty of coaches (both head and assistants) changing places in the coming months and Vancouver can now be added to the list of those that will have someone new behind the bench in the fall.
Looking At The Impending Vegas Cap Crunch
To say the 2021-22 season was a gigantic disappointment for the Vegas Golden Knights would also be a massive understatement. After mortgaging a large part of their future to acquire superstar center Jack Eichel, albeit for the long term, the team missed the playoffs for the first time in franchise history and fired head coach Peter DeBoer earlier this week.
Now, general manager Kelly McCrimmon has an arduous offseason to retool the roster and find a new head coach. Both will need significant attention, however, the Knights are already entering free agency with the pressing need to shed cap space. With a roster size of 23, the team is already in a salary deficit of about $500,000, even with the small cap increase to $82.5MM next year (CapFriendly).
While some of those players may be sent to AHL Henderson when the team is fully healthy, the team needs to make a decision on RFAs Nicolas Roy, Brett Howden, Keegan Kolesar, and Nicolas Hague, who have all been extremely valuable to the team in their depth roles. It’s clear that unless the Knights somehow make a move to acquire significant long-term injury relief (Shea Weber?), the team needs to move on from a decent chunk of cash to be comfortable under the cap in 2022-23.
Obviously, the choice that jumps off the page is forward Evgenii Dadonov. Signed just through next season at $5MM, the veteran forward was already involved in a trade intended to dump his salary but was reversed due to his limited no-trade clause. He did hit the 20-goal mark again this year and could do so again if given good support. It’s a low-risk acquisition for teams looking for scoring depth, especially with his contract expiring at the end of the year. However, Vegas has absolutely no leverage in this situation given the failed trade in March. If that incident didn’t happen, the Knights could probably have made a decent deal involving Dadonov this offseason. They’ll likely still be able to make a trade, but it won’t involve much benefit for the team other than cap space.
Another potential option is William Karlsson. Given his offensive upside and defensive acumen, teams would probably like to have a top-six centerman under a $6MM cap hit. With the Eichel acquisition and solid play from the cheaper Chandler Stephenson, there is no longer a pressing need for Karlsson in the lineup. He had a very tough season putting pucks in the net, though, and his 40-goal 2017-18 campaign seems like decades ago for him now. He’s scored just 15, 14, and 12 goals in the past three years, and while he still puts up points, he’s signed through 2027. It would clear a tad more cap space than Dadonov, though, and the wing is more a position of need for the Knights. Yet, the relationship between Dadonov and the Knights must be considered. If the relationship is irreparably severed, the team might have no choice. That’s not to say they still couldn’t entertain the idea of moving Karlsson, however.
Lastly, there’s backup netminder Laurent Brossoit and his $2.3MM cap hit. He’s almost surely gone considering the incredibly strong play of youngster Logan Thompson down the stretch. It’s not much cap relief, though, and the team likely needs a little more wiggle room to adjust the roster as desired.
Update On Barry Trotz
5:14 pm: Chicago Blackhawks beat writer Jay Zawaski reports that the Blackhawks are one of the teams that have inquired about Trotz’s services. However, the team isn’t too optimistic about their chances of landing the free-agent coach, noting that they don’t expect him to want to lead a rebuild. If that’s true, it’s obviously unlikely that he would seriously consider heading to Philadelphia as well.
1:06 pm: One of the hottest free agents in the NHL right now is head coach Barry Trotz, who parted ways with the New York Islanders earlier this month. Trotz had already been linked to the Winnipeg Jets, and recently rumors had emerged that he would interview for the Philadelphia Flyers job on Friday.
It doesn’t appear as though those rumors are true, though Sam Carchidi of Philly Hockey Now tweets that Trotz will meet with Philadelphia brass “soon.” Notably, they weren’t the only teams to reach out, as Nick Kypreos of Sportsnet reports that six to seven teams have already contacted the Trotz camp. Kypreos adds that teams believe the price tag will be in the $6MM range, more than the $4MM he was earning per year with the Islanders. Trotz had one year remaining on his deal when he was relieved of his duties.
Of course, the Flyers are also paying Alain Vigneault $5MM/year through the 2023-24 season, meaning committing to Trotz as well would be an incredibly expensive proposition. When team chairman Dave Scott said that he was giving general manager Chuck Fletcher a “blank check” to fix the group, most expected that to mean spending big on free agent players; perhaps it will also mean on a head coach.
Trotz is one of many experienced bench bosses on the market, and was something of a surprise addition after taking the Islanders to two consecutive Conference Finals, before missing the playoffs this season. Since winning the Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals in 2018, he has generally been regarded as one of the most effective coaches in the league.
Steven Santini Assigned To AHL
With the Springfield Thunderbirds about to start their next Calder Cup playoff series on Sunday, Steven Santini has been assigned back to the AHL.
The St. Louis Blues defenseman played just three minutes in his one NHL playoff appearance this season, game four against the Minnesota Wild. That was just five shifts as the team tried to get through some injuries on defense and ended up dressing an extra body.
Now, Santini can go back to Springfield where he spent most of the season, and help them try to get past the Charlotte Checkers, a team the Thunderbirds have been battling all season long. The two clubs finished with the exact same winning percentage in the Atlantic Division, but Springfield lost the tiebreaker, meaning home ice advantage goes to Charlotte. Because it’s a five-game series, that means things actually start off in Springfield on Sunday afternoon.
Santini, 27, had 24 points in 66 games for Springfield this season and is signed through next year on a two-way contract with the Blues.