Pittsburgh Penguins Sign Raivis Ansons
It’s been a very complicated few days for Pittsburgh Penguins prospect Raivis Ansons. On Friday, he was handed a one-game suspension for a high stick, meaning he missed the last game of the regular season in his final year of QMJHL hockey. Today, he was signed to a three-year entry-level contract with the Penguins. He will remain with the Saint John Seadogs through their QMJHL playoff and Memorial Cup run.
Ansons, 20, has been great for the Sea Dogs after a midseason trade brought him over from the Baie-Comeau Drakkar. The Latvian winger had 12 goals and 36 points in 37 games down the stretch, adding his usual level of physicality to every puck battle. Ansons isn’t a brilliant offensive piece, but his size, strength and skating make him an interesting NHL prospect all the same, even if it will be a limited ceiling for the young forward.
An entry-level contract was the next step toward that ultimate goal, though there is still plenty of work to be done. Selected 149th overall in 2020, he’ll be eligible for the AHL next season, where he’ll try to test himself with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. While his game may translate quickly, the grind and improved defense of that level will be a good indicator of whether he has enough upside to carve out a bottom-six role with Pittsburgh in the future.
For now, the Sea Dogs are not only trying to win a QMJHL championship, but as the host city, they’ll also get an automatic bid to the Memorial Cup. Those high-pressure matchups will certainly be a strong opportunity for growth, as he continues on an encouraging development path.
Nashville Predators Recall Philippe Myers
In an interesting move, the Nashville Predators have recalled defenseman Philippe Myers from the AHL. He’s not coming back from the Milwaukee Admirals though, as Myers had been loaned out to the Toronto Marlies earlier this season. The move appeared to be connected to the Predators’ acquisition of Alex Biega at the deadline, one which cost them nothing more than future considerations. Given that Myers and the Marlies didn’t end up qualifying for the Calder Cup playoffs, however, it makes sense for him to re-join Nashville for the postseason.
Of course, he also could have been sent back to the Admirals, who start their own playoff series on Friday. Perhaps he still will, but for now, he’s with the NHL squad as they prepare for game one tomorrow night against the Colorado Avalanche.
Myers, 25, was one of the two big pieces acquired in the offseason for Ryan Ellis, along with Nolan Patrick (who was then flipped for Cody Glass). Unfortunately, things didn’t work out in Nashville for the big defenseman, who played a total of 27 games with the club before being sent down. He cleared waivers just before the trade deadline, likely because of the contract that he still carries that comes with a cap hit of $2.55MM through the 2022-23 season.
It wasn’t so long ago that Myers looked like a player who could make that deal a bargain. The undrafted, 6’5″ defenseman was a star with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms for two seasons before making his mark as a full-time option for the Philadelphia Flyers. While the multi-year deal was perhaps a bit premature, it still looked like a decent bet on a player who appeared to be a classic late bloomer. Unfortunately, things have gone the opposite direction, and Myers had just four points in those 27 games before his demotion this season.
Now, with a back-loaded contract set to pay him a salary of $3.8MM next season, Myers appeared to be a prime buyout candidate. If the Predators did so, they would actually earn a cap credit of $616,666 next season, before taking a penalty of $633,334 the year after. If the team is giving him a chance to join the group for the playoffs, perhaps he can change that future.
Bruce Boudreau Hoping To Return As Canucks Head Coach
Though it had been trending this way for quite a while, Vancouver Canucks head coach Bruce Boudreau made it very clear what his intentions are for next season. Boudreau has an option in his contract for next season, though it hadn’t been expressly stated that he even wanted to come back. Any debate was put to rest today, as he spoke with reporters during his end-of-year availability:
Listen I told Patrik (Allvin) and Jim (Rutherford) that I wanted to coach here next year. We’re just talking right now. Hopefully things get done, but I think they want me back, and I know I want to be back, so I think it should work out.
While Boudreau failed in his bid to bring the Canucks all the way back to the playoffs, the work that he did do was incredibly impressive. The club was 8-15-2 when he took over in early December, last in the Pacific Division and so far from the playoffs that no one really expected them to even be competitive down the stretch. Then came the 2008 Jack Adams award winner, who found a formula that worked and led the Canucks to a 32-15-10 record. That .649 points percentage would have put the Canucks squarely between the Boston Bruins and Edmonton Oilers league-wide, had it been the pace for the entire season.
That kind of record isn’t anything new for Boudreau either. The veteran coach has routinely led his teams to outstanding regular season success, and he sits right near the top of the all-time list in terms of winning percentage. It is of course the postseason where he has still struggled, with his clubs rarely even progressing past the first round. In 2015, the Boudreau-led Anaheim Ducks came within one game of the Stanley Cup Final, but he hasn’t even sniffed the second round since.
Still, the change in leadership–both behind the bench and in the front office–has breathed new life and optimism into the Canucks organization. Boudreau is a big part of that, and many will see a core that still has the likes of Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson, and Thatcher Demko as a potential playoff candidate once again in the 2023-24 season.
AHL Shuffle: 05/02/22
One might think, given that the NHL season is over and playoffs are about to begin, that most clubs will be finished their minor league shuffling. Well, that quite transaction wire will likely start tomorrow, as today several clubs out of the postseason have sent players back to help with the AHL playoffs. Only players who were on the AHL roster (or quickly sent down and then recalled) at the NHL trade deadline are eligible to join their minor league clubs. As always, we’ll cover those moves right here.
Atlantic Division
- Mathias Brunet of La Presse reports that Mattias Norlinder will join the Laval Rocket for the playoffs, after his Swedish season came to an end. The young defenseman played six games with the Montreal Canadiens and six games with the Rocket before heading overseas, but will return to help chase down a Calder Cup.
Metropolitan Division
Central Division
- The Winnipeg Jets have reassigned Dylan Samberg and Morgan Barron to the Manitoba Moose, giving them two huge pieces for their playoff run. The Moose will go right to the Central Division semi-finals against the Milwaukee Admirals, a series that starts Friday.
- Now that his OHL season is over, Oskar Olausson has been assigned to the AHL’s Colorado Eagles. The 19-year-old first-round pick had 49 points in 55 games during his first (and likely only) OHL season, but was unable to help the Oshawa Generals advance in the playoffs.
Pacific Division
- The Seattle Kraken have sent Dennis Cholowski to the Charlotte Checkers, who won’t know their opponent for another few days after receiving a bye to the second round. Cholowski had 18 points in 31 games for the Checkers this season, the best output of his career.
This page is updated throughout the day
Colorado Avalanche Sign Danila Zhuravlyov
The Colorado Avalanche have joined in on the signing spree, inking one of their own Russian draft picks. The team has announced that Danila Zhuravlyov has signed his two-year entry-level contract.
It’s been four years since the Avalanche selected Zhuravlyov in the fifth round of the NHL draft, but after another full season in the KHL, they’ve finally added him to the organization. The 22-year-old left-shot defenseman had six points in 43 games for Ak Bars Kazan this season in a limited role, but saw that playing time increase significantly in the playoffs.
For a system that is set to lose several minor league veterans–Roland McKeown, Dennis Gilbert, Jordan Gross, and Jacob MacDonald are all scheduled for unrestricted free agency–there perhaps will be an opening for a player like Zhuravlyov to quickly make an impact. Whether his play can translate, or even improve, at the AHL level remains to be seen, though the young defenseman will come with three full seasons of KHL action under his belt.
Washington Capitals Sign Bogdan Trineyev
The Washington Capitals have finished a bit of business before starting their first-round playoff series, signing Bogdan Trineyev to a three-year entry-level contract. The deal will carry an average annual value of $859,167.
Trineyev, 20, was a fourth-round pick of the Avalanche in 2020 and has barely even played at the KHL level. He spent most of this season in the MHL with Dynamo Mosco, scoring 18 points in 21 games. Despite his lack of experience though, he was involved in this year’s KHL playoffs, where he recorded his first point at that level. A member of the 2020 Hlinka-Gretzky team that won gold, it will be interesting to see just what Trineyev can bring to the Capitals system, given how little professional action he has to this point.
There’s plenty of time for him to develop though, as Washington certainly isn’t rushing a prospect like this to NHL minutes. The team already has 13 forwards signed to one-way contracts for next season, with several youngsters in the mix on their entry-level deals. The team is always looking for some additional depth, but a young player like Trineyev will have time to establish himself, should he come to North America next season.
Winnipeg Jets Not Expected To Retain Coaching Staff
The Winnipeg Jets decided that the blame for this season’s collapse was not on general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, or at least not enough to stop them from signing the executive to a three-year extension. It’s a very different story for the coaching staff. Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports that interim head coach Dave Lowry and assistants Jamie Kompon and Charlie Huddy will not return next season. Wade Flaherty, also an assistant, is expected to remain with the team. Speaking to the media today, Cheveldayoff explained that the club will conduct an exhaustive search and that Lowry has at least done enough to earn an interview.
Lowry of course is more than just the interim coach of the team, he’s also the father of Jets’ center Adam Lowry who is currently signed through the 2025-26 season. The coach took over from Paul Maurice when he resigned from the team in December, but posted a record of just 26-22-6 down the stretch, not quite good enough for a team that was expected to be a Stanley Cup contender at the beginning of the year.
There are a lot of questions surrounding the future of the group in Winnipeg, not the least of which is Mark Scheifele, who seemed to suggest at yesterday’s media availability that he could be open to a change of scenery this offseason. That isn’t really in his hands, given the veteran center is signed through 2023-24, something you can say for basically the whole core group in Winnipeg.
The sole outlier is Pierre-Luc Dubois, who is a restricted free agent and could be after quite a big contract this summer. If he is going to commit long-term, or if the team expects Scheifele and others to continue to be interested in the path forward, the coaching staff is obviously a big problem to solve. With Lowry out, Cheveldayoff and company will have to conduct a search to find a suitable replacement, something that he hasn’t had to do for a decade.
Just a few years after Cheveldayoff took over in 2011, he fired Claude Noel and hired Maurice, who then served parts of nine seasons behind the Winnipeg bench. A future Hall of Fame coach, Maurice is one of the most experienced bench bosses in NHL history, having coached nearly 1,700 regular season games. Replacing him was always going to be a difficult job, and especially so for someone like Lowry, who had only ever been an assistant at the NHL level.
Now a more permanent replacement will have to be found, one that is in lockstep with a front office that has several difficult decisions to make. If the Jets don’t believe they can compete with the group they have, it could be a long few years for whoever is brought in.
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Kirill Marchenko Signs With Columbus Blue Jackets
The Columbus Blue Jackets have landed a top prospect, inking Kirill Marchenko to a two-year entry-level contract. Marchenko has spent the last several seasons in the KHL while the Blue Jackets waited patiently for an opportunity to sign him.
Marchenko, 21, was selected 49th overall in 2018, falling to the second round despite an obvious size and skill combination that projected well in professional hockey. He had already made his KHL debut at that point, but was quickly snapped up by the powerhouse SKA St. Petersburg program in 2018 and has been there for the years since.
This season, he scored 12 goals and 20 points in 39 games, before going back down to the VHL for their minor league playoff run. He scored six goals in 12 postseason games with the lower level club, a demotion that suggested his days in Russia could be numbered. Marchenko’s ice time this season was severely reduced from the year prior, when he had scored 15 goals and 28 points in 41 games, often a tactic taken by KHL clubs when a player is heading to North America in the near future.
In Columbus, Marchenko will join a young up-and-coming roster that already has another 21-year-old Russian winger in Yegor Chinakhov. While he might not necessarily jump directly into the NHL, there is plenty of reason to believe that Marchenko will make it there quickly and add another option for the team moving forward. Nearly half the Columbus forward group were on entry-level contracts by the end of the year, suggesting that the team is only going to improve in the years to come. Where he shakes out in the depth chart will be determined by how quickly his game translates to North America, and the moves that general manager Jarmo Kekalainen makes this offseason.
Florida Panthers Agree To Terms With Santtu Kinnunen
The Florida Panthers have another new prospect, agreeing to terms with Santtu Kinnunen on a two-year, entry-level contract. Kinnunen would have become an unrestricted free agent if not signed by June of this year. Instead, he’ll join the Panthers on a deal that will likely start in 2022-23. General manager Bill Zito released a statement:
Santtu is a talented defenseman who has proven himself playing professionally in Finland with Tappara Tampere. We look forward to watching him further his growth and development as he transitions to hockey in North America.
Kinnunen, 23, has been a regular for Tampere the last two seasons, and reached a career-high of 23 points in 54 regular season games this year. The young defenseman has come a long way since being the 207th overall pick in 2018, and was a big part of the club winning the Liiga championship. Whether that’s his last taste of action in Europe isn’t clear, as the Panthers could loan him back for next season given he still has a contract for 2022-23.
Still, there’s also at least some chance that he could show he’s ready to help at the NHL level, given the amount of polish he showed this season and his professional experience to this point. While he’s not a game-changing acquisition for the Panthers, Kinnunen represents a strong depth piece that is much more valuable than the average seventh-rounder.
That’s exactly why he’s been given a contract, and it’s not like the Florida organization has a surplus of defenders for next season. With Ben Chiarot, Robert Hagg, Petteri Lindbohm, Lucas Carlsson, Markus Nutivaara, and Chase Priskie all scheduled for unrestricted free agency, there were only five defensemen signed to one-way contracts for 2022-23, and eight total, including entry-level deals. Kinnunen makes it nine, a number that will certainly have to be increased through the offseason.
Five Key Stories: 4/25/22 – 5/1/22
The regular season has come to an end which has resulted in some notable news from both on and off the ice which is highlighted in our key stories of the week.
Changes For The NHLPA: Late Friday, the NHLPA quietly put out a news release that indicated they have started the process to find a new Executive Director. Don Fehr has been in that role for more than a decade and has headed up the last two CBA negotiations which yielded sizable increases to the minimum salary and the recreation of the World Cup of Hockey, among other things. He will stay on for the time being until the search committee – which consists of Ian Cole, Justin Faulk, Sam Gagner, Zach Hyman, Kyle Okposo, Nate Schmidt, and Kevin Shattenkirk – determines who his successor will be.
Blashill Out In Detroit: The Red Wings were the first team to make a coaching change as they announced that Jeff Blashill’s contract would not be renewed for next season, ending his tenure behind the bench. Blashill had been with Detroit’s organization for over a decade going back to his time with AHL Grand Rapids and had spent the last seven seasons leading the Red Wings. They missed the playoffs in each of the last six seasons and while some young players had strong years including Calder contenders Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond, GM Steve Yzerman determined a change was needed. Blashill’s tenure ends with a 204-271-72 record.
Price’s Future Uncertain: Canadiens goaltender Carey Price missed the majority of this season due to a knee injury and while he was able to suit up for five games down the stretch, the injury remains. Speaking at his end-of-season media conference, the veteran indicated that his playing future is uncertain, stating that if things didn’t improve, he didn’t think he’d be able to continue playing; he even indicated that he prepared for Friday’s game as if it could be his last in the NHL. Price has been the franchise goalie for Montreal for most of his 15-year career and still has four years remaining on his contract with a $10.5MM AAV. If he’s unable to return, the Canadiens could put him on LTIR and then would need to either find a new starter by trade or in free agency.
Saros Injured: In order to get to the playoffs, the Predators had to lean hard on Juuse Saros as he led the NHL in games played this season. Now that they’re there, they may not have his services after he suffered a lower-body injury in the final week of the regular season. While the exact length of his injury wasn’t disclosed (as is basically an automatic at this time of year), missing Saros for any games would make an already difficult task considerably harder as Nashville gets set to take on Colorado in the opening round. Connor Ingram and David Rittich are the tandem if Saros isn’t able to return.
From MLB To The NHL: When Chicago was conducting its GM search, one of the finalists was Jeff Greenberg, someone who had plenty of front office experience but not in the NHL. Ultimately, the spot went to then-interim GM Kyle Davidson but the Blackhawks were able to land Greenberg as well, hiring him as an associate GM. Greenberg had been with the Chicago Cubs since 2012 but will now change sports and look to help the Blackhawks work through what appears to be a fairly sizable rebuilding process.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.