Snapshots: Blackhawks, Laval, Bunting
The Chicago Blackhawks have concluded the interview phase of their general manager search, with CEO Danny Wirtz announcing that the leadership team will move to the next step in the process. The Blackhawks are known to have interviewed Kyle Davidson, Eric Tulsky, Scott Mellanby, Peter Chiarelli, Jeff Greenberg, and Mathieu Darche for the position, and were also linked to Toronto Raptors executive Teresa Resch.
Davidson has been operating as the team’s interim GM since late October when Stan Bowman left the organization. The team has been transparent throughout the process, though today’s announcement certainly doesn’t provide much of an update on when the next front office leader will actually be hired.
- The AHL will head to Laval for the 2023 All-Star Classic, returning three years after they were supposed to originally host the event. The Rocket were picked to host the 2021 All-Star festivities, which were ultimately canceled. The 2022 event was also going to go back to Laval, before eventually being canceled in December. Hopefully, things will work out this time, and the Rocket will be able to host the best of the minor leagues.
- Toronto Maple Leafs forward Michael Bunting has been fined $2,000 for diving/embellishment, meaning it was the second time he has been flagged this season. The first incident, which the league says occurred on November 16, results in a warning from the league. The latest, February 17 against the Penguins, results in a fine for the player. While embellishment fines never reach more than $5,000 for a player, after the fourth team violation a head coach starts to receive financial penalties. No player wants to be the reason why his coach is out money, meaning Bunting and the rest of the Maple Leafs will have to be a little more cautious when trying to draw penalties down the stretch.
Columbus Blue Jackets Taking Calls On Alexandre Texier
In the Eastern Conference, the playoff picture has looked set in stone for quite some time. Even now, with the Columbus Blue Jackets on an 8-2 run in their last ten, they’re still nine points behind the Boston Bruins for the last wild card position. That’s an impressive feat after struggling to find any consistency through the first half but it still might end up in a missed postseason, regardless of what they do in the coming weeks.
You can understand then, why teams may be calling the Blue Jackets to inquire about some of their players. Today, Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports that the team has been taking calls on Alexandre Texier for the last little while, though the asking price is still quite high. Seravalli notes that to pry Texier out of Columbus, it would take a first-round pick and a roster player.
Selected 45th overall in 2017, Texier is something of an enigma. After lighting up the Finnish league as a teenager, the French forward made the jump to North America and quickly forced his way into the Blue Jackets lineup. In 2019, he played in eight of the team’s ten playoff games at age-19, including the entire four-game sweep of the powerhouse Tampa Bay Lightning. In that deciding game four, Texier opened the scoring on the powerplay and added an empty-net goal to help seal it. He was still 19 at the time.
Since then, things haven’t gone quite as smoothly. Since the start of the 2019-20 season, Texier has ended up on injured reserve three times and has just 48 points in 121 games. There is so much obvious skill in his 6’1″ frame, but his play has been inconsistent even when he’s healthy enough to contribute.
This season, he has doubled his career goal total with 11 tallies in 36 games, but once again finds himself on the shelf due to injury. He has been out since January 26 with a broken finger, and even before that had been held scoreless in his last five games.
The key to any team’s interest in Texier–to go along with oodles of potential–is that he’s also signed for next season at a very reasonable $1.525MM cap hit. If you could add him to a talented lineup and keep him healthy, there’s a very good chance that the 22-year-old vastly outperforms that number. After this contract is finished, Texier will still be an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent, meaning it’s not anywhere near the kind of trade that will see rentals swap teams at the deadline.
Again though, the Blue Jackets are in no rush here. Just as they don’t have to make a decision about Patrik Laine until the offseason–the star sniper is a restricted free agent just one year away from the open market–they also won’t be pressured into a deal for the even-younger Texier. If the asking price is actually as high as Seravalli reports, Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen is making it very clear that he isn’t desperate to move the young forward.
Jared McCann Placed On Injured Reserve
If there’s a player the Seattle Kraken couldn’t afford to lose for an extended period of time, it’s Jared McCann. The 25-year-old forward has been the team’s best offensive player all season, leading the squad in both goals and points so far. Unfortunately, McCann has now landed on injured reserve with an undisclosed injury, with the Kraken recalling Kole Lind from the AHL to replace him on the roster.
McCann is an interesting case study for those who want to know how the Kraken will approach the next few years. A restricted free agent at the end of this season, he’s put himself in prime position for a substantial raise, either through a long-term extension or the arbitration process. The question now becomes whether it’s the Kraken that are the other signatory on that next contract, or if McCann will be sold off for future assets at some point. That could come at the trade deadline or the offseason, depending on what kind of offers come in the next few weeks (and what kind of injury he’s currently dealing with).
There’s a real argument to be made that any extension with McCann would cover years when the Kraken are still not competitive in the Pacific Division, though the same might have been said during the unrestricted free agent period last summer. Instead of holding onto their cap space and building through the draft, general manager Ron Francis signed multi-year contracts with free agents like Philipp Grubauer, Jaden Schwartz, Jamie Oleksiak, Adam Larsson, and Alexander Wennberg, players that were already in their late-twenties and likely aren’t going to experience much improvement over the production they had already shown. It seemed, at least at the time, like the Kraken were targeting a playoff spot in year one, something that hasn’t come to fruition.
So a long-term deal with McCann would certainly be following their previous path, though the wisdom in that strategy is still up for debate. Alternatively, selling him off at some point before UFA status–he’ll reach the open market in the summer of 2023 if not signed–would signal that perhaps those initial moves were mistakes and that it will take quite a bit longer for the Kraken to reach playoff contender status.
There is of course also the possibility that McCann doesn’t want to stay in Seattle at all and an extension isn’t even possible, though with 21 goals and 33 points through 48 games, he’s already having the best season of his career with the improved offensive deployment.
Tony DeAngelo Out Weeks With Upper-Body Injury
The Carolina Hurricanes have had one of the most valuable defensive contracts in the league this season with Tony DeAngelo, signing him to a one-year, $1MM deal after his public exit from the New York Rangers. DeAngelo has been brilliant for the Hurricanes, racking up 40 points in 43 games while averaging close to 20 minutes a night. One of the most effective powerplay quarterbacks in the league, 15 of his 31 assists have come with the man advantage. Carolina will have to find a new player to run PP1, though, as DeAngelo will miss about a month with an injury according to head coach Rod Brind’Amour, who spoke with reporters including Chip Alexander of the Raleigh News & Observer.
For now, DeAngelo’s regular partner Jaccob Slavin has taken over the quarterback duties on the top unit, with Ethan Bear joining the second group. Slavin is a capable player but there should be at least some concern about him taking over the majority of the powerplay time, given how important he is in other areas. There’s no one in the league that has logged more short-handed ice time than Slavin, who has close to 170 minutes on the penalty kill through 48 games this season. Teams have scored just seven goals against the Hurricanes during that time, showing just how effective he is at it.
With that in mind, losing DeAngelo could have a sort of cascade effect on the Carolina blue line, putting players in spots that they aren’t perfectly suited for, or taxing the best defensive players even further. Brett Pesce has joined Slavin on the first pair, while Jalen Chatfield slides in beside Brady Skjei on the second. That’s certainly not a perfect situation, and one that will likely lead to more speculation as the trade deadline approaches. If DeAngelo is out for a month he might miss up to 14 of the team’s remaining 32 games, meaning a defensive addition may be necessary just to shore up the depth.
Of course, Carolina is one of many teams operating in long-term injured reserve relief space–this time afforded by Jake Gardiner‘s chronic back issues–meaning any addition would have to be carefully determined.
AHL Shuffle: 02/24/22
The NHL has eight games on the schedule for this evening, including a battle between Bill Zito’s Florida Panthers and his former employees from the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Panthers lost their last game but still sit atop the Atlantic Division with a 35-11-5 record, while the Blue Jackets are making some noise in the Metropolitan Division with three straight wins and an 8-2 record over their last ten games. It’ll be hard for Patrik Laine and the Blue Jackets to climb all the way up, but they have passed the Detroit Red Wings and are now the closest team to that final wild card spot in the east.
Atlantic Division
- Now that they have some cap space because of Jake Muzzin‘s long-term injured reserve stint, the Toronto Maple Leafs have recalled Kyle Clifford, and–according to CapFriendly—Rasmus Sandin. The team has sent Brennan Menell and Kristians Rubins, two players that were up solely for cap purposes, back to the AHL.
Metropolitan Division
- By moving Elvis Merzlikins onto injured reserve retroactive to February 17, the Blue Jackets were able to add two players to the roster today. Emil Bemstrom and Jake Christiansen have both been recalled from the minor leagues. The team will not have Zach Werenski on this road trip as he deals with an upper-body injury, meaning Gabriel Carlsson will enter the lineup tonight.
- The New York Rangers have recalled Zac Jones to the NHL. Larry Brooks of the New York Post reports that Patrik Nemeth is away from the team expecting the birth of a child. Morgan Barron will also enter the lineup in the place of Filip Chytil, who is ill.
Central Division
Pacific Division
This page will be updated throughout the day
West Notes: Golden Knights, Forsberg, Blackhawks
Much has been made of the Vegas Golden Knights’ salary cap management, with the team playing with fire ever since acquiring Jack Eichel. Now, with the team potentially in a bind if they don’t have enough room to activate healthy players off long-term injured reserve prior to the playoffs, The Athletic’s Jesse Granger suggests a post-Trade Deadline cap-clearing move could potentially be in play. The return dates of Alec Martinez and Mark Stone aren’t certain, and it’s possible both could be healthy before May. If that’s the case, the Golden Knights could potentially move a player after the deadline to a non-playoff team in order to become cap-compliant. There’s no rule preventing this, as the Trade Deadline is legally only relevant because players moved after that date aren’t eligible for playoff games. However, as Granger notes, this could likely significantly reduce the trade value of any player Vegas is looking to move out, considering they’d have no other option to become compliant.
Other rumblings from the Wild West:
- Bally Sports Midwest’s Andy Strickland reports that he’s hearing the Nashville Predators are “actively shopping” Filip Forsberg ahead of the deadline. While the team is a likely playoff lock in the Western Conference at this point, they’re likely not in the Stanley Cup conversation, and Forsberg is a free agent at season’s end. The NHL’s leader in even-strength goals would likely become the deadline’s biggest prize, and any Forsberg deal could reap considerable rewards for Nashville’s future and help replenish a prospect pool that, while it has some nice names, isn’t the strongest. He’s carrying an extremely reasonable $6MM cap hit that most contenders can stomach with some retention.
- According to Scott Powers and Mark Lazerus at The Athletic, if the Chicago Blackhawks and goalie Marc-Andre Fleury agree on a trade, it could potentially net the team a first-round pick. While they do say a second- or third-round selection is probably more realistic, some do believe teams will pay up for last year’s Vezina winner. The team does not have their first-round pick this year after including it in the Seth Jones trade.
Jake Muzzin Placed On Long-Term Injured Reserve
After a series of complicated roster moves earlier in the day, the Toronto Maple Leafs have now placed defenseman Jake Muzzin on long-term injured reserve.
The team made a series of recalls and re-assignments today to get as close to the salary cap as possible, including briefly sending Rasmus Sandin back to the AHL and recalling defensemen Brennan Menell and Kristians Rubins. This permits them to get as much LTIR relief from Muzzin’s $5.625MM cap hit as possible.
Muzzin will be out for at least 10 games and 24 days. But after suffering his second concussion in a short timeframe, Toronto is expected to be cautious with his return.
If Muzzin is healthy before the end of the regular season, Toronto would need to be cap-compliant in order to return him to the active roster. But if Muzzin won’t return until the beginning of the postseason or sometime during it, the Maple Leafs have roughly an additional $5.6MM to throw around at the trade deadline and have those players for the playoffs.
In the meantime, look for Sandin and Timothy Liljegren to see an increased role.
Blue Jackets’ Daniil Tarasov Out For Remainder Of Season
Columbus Blue Jackets netminder Daniil Tarasov will miss the remainder of the season as he recovers from right hip surgery, the team announced today. Tarasov’s recovery timeline is six months.
The news isn’t entirely unexpected. Tarasov has been on the shelf for a little while now, last playing for the Blue Jackets on New Years’ Day after a three-game string in early December.
The 22-year-old, who was drafted 86th overall in 2017 by the team, had a strong showing this year, posting a .937 save percentage despite only being credited with two losses and no wins.
Columbus, for the time being, will need to continue to rely on NHL/AHL tweener veteran Jean-Francois Berube between the pipes. He’s recorded two wins in his past two starts, his first such victories in the NHL since 2018. Their NHL tandem in Elvis Merzlikins and Joonas Korpisalo are both day-to-day with lower-body injuries.
Tarasov should be ready to go for training camp for 2022-23 and stands a chance to win an NHL spot, especially considering Korpisalo’s pending unrestricted free agent status.
Trade Deadline Primer: Florida Panthers
With the All-Star break now behind us, the trade deadline looms large and is now less than a month away. Where does each team stand and what moves should they be looking to make? We continue our look around the league with the Florida Panthers.
After an impressive first season at the helm of the Florida Panthers, GM Bill Zito made moves in the offseason to shore up the Panthers’ roster, adding Sam Reinhart from Buffalo and extending his previous additions in Sam Bennett, Carter Verhaeghe, and Anthony Duclair. Despite some early-season upheaval with the resignation of head coach Joel Quenneville, interim head coach Andrew Brunette has steadied the ship and has the Panthers surging to the top of the league’s standings. This is a very well-constructed team, and their success this season has certainly earned their players the right to expect some reinforcements from the trade market, which is why Zito is expected to be among the buyers during this trade deadline.
Record
35-11-5, 1st in the Atlantic
Deadline Status
Buyer
Deadline Cap Space
$3.845MM today, $3.845MM in full-season space, 0/3 retention slots used, 41/50 contracts used per CapFriendly.
Upcoming Draft Picks
2022: FLA 3rd, FLA 4th, FLA 5th, FLA 6th, CGY 6th, FLA 7th
2023: FLA 1st, FLA 2nd, FLA 3rd, FLA 4th, FLA 5th, FLA 6th, FLA 7th, ARZ 7th
Trade Chips
Given their results this season, the Panthers are not likely to make moves that would send away key components of their NHL lineup. Expecting Zito to trade a player like Anton Lundell, for example, who is currently playing a major role as the team’s third-line center, would be a mistake. Instead, most expect the Panthers to deal from their stable of prospects and draft picks in order to make upgrades. One player attracting attention is winger Owen Tippett. Tippett, 23, was the tenth-overall pick in the 2017 NHL draft and has been so far unable to establish himself as a legitimate NHL-caliber scoring option. After a stretch of 42 games where Tippett registered six goals and 14 points, he found himself a frequent healthy scratch and was recently sent down to the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers, where he now has four assists in two games. Tippett plays an offensive style of hockey that is best suited for one of his team’s scoring lines, but he has not been able to stay on a scoring line in Florida given the team’s significant pre-existing depth at each winger position. Tippett represents a sort of asset that has depreciated in value since his draft season and could be ideal for a team seeking to unlock the upside that made him a top prospect in the first place.
The Panthers’ next first-round choice after Tippett was Russian winger Grigori Denisenko, who they drafted 15th overall in 2018. Denisenko is in a similar position to Tippett, in that he’s a scoring winger who has been so far unable to establish himself in the NHL and is therefore mentioned in trade rumors regarding the Panthers. Denisenko, stylistically speaking, is a bit different from Tippett. Tippett plays an honest, relatively straightforward offensively-oriented game. Denisenko, on the other hand, has a rambunctious, swashbuckling offensive style that can be both endearing and frustrating for fans and coaches alike. He is a genuinely interesting prospect, but one has to question his trajectory given that he has tallied in the fifth-lowest NHL games played of the entire 2018 first round, which plays into why he is listed as a “trade chip” rather than considered an untouchable core prospect.
If a team trading with Florida wants to acquire someone with more NHL experience than either of those prospects, they could opt for winger Frank Vatrano, who has fallen out of his normal place as a regular in the Panthers lineup. Vatrano, 27, is an undrafted player who broke out in the 2018-19 season, when he scored 24 goals and 39 points playing next to Aleksander Barkov. Vatrano followed up that campaign with two seasons where he scored 16 and 18 goals, respectively, and seemed to have solidified his place as a reliable top-nine goal-scorer. But this season has not gone as planned for Vatrano, and he has been a healthy scratch as of recent weeks. He has only eight goals and 14 points in 40 games played, a reduction in his normal offensive production. He is a pending unrestricted free agent with a cap hit of $2.53MM, so it is definitely possible that he is included in trades in order to balance the cap going each way, especially as it seems that he is no longer part of the Panthers’ long-term plans.
Other Potential Trade Chips: F Serron Noel (894k through 2022-23), D Markus Nutivaara ($2.7MM through 2021-2022), F Mackie Samoskevich (unsigned prospect)
Team Needs
1) Top-Four Defenseman (preferably left-handed): The Panthers currently run a top pairing of MacKenzie Weegar and Aaron Ekblad, who are elite together, but they likely would prefer to get Ekblad a different (but still capable) partner so that Weegar could return to playing with Gustav Forsling as he did last season. Being paired with Weegar helped Forsling reach new heights in his career, and while he has been solid this season with a different regular partner it is clear that the team could be best off reuniting the two. Additionally, the Panthers’ sixth defensive spot has rotated between Olli Juolevi and Lucas Carlsson this season. A team would ideally have three solidified defensive pairings going into the playoffs, and adding a proven defenseman would allow the Panthers to have that. In terms of who they may target, the Panthers seem to be interested in shopping for a significant addition to fill their defensive need, as Jeff Marek of Sportsnet has linked the Panthers to Arizona Coyotes star defenseman Jakob Chychrun.
2) Additional Forward Help: As things currently stand, the Panthers are set to play Maxim Mamin as the first-line right winger next to Barkov. Mamin is a player who has scored at decent levels in the KHL (35 points in 55 games for CSKA Moscow in 2020-2021) but has yet to translate that into consistent NHL production. He has only 13 points in his 57 career NHL games, for reference. For a team that rightfully considers itself a legitimate contender to win the Stanley Cup, it is reasonable to expect them to pursue some sort of upgrade along the wings to bolster that section of their lineup.
3) Backup Goaltender: If the Panthers are steadfast in their intent to let Spencer Knight develop with the Checkers in the AHL, backup goaltender could be a need the Panthers address at the trade deadline. Their current backup to Sergei Bobrovsky is Jonas Johansson, who has yet to make an appearance for the team this season. Johansson had a .885 save percentage in 9 games for the Avalanche in 2020-2021 and is unlikely to be someone the Panthers feel confident in, should Bobrovsky become suddenly unavailable down the stretch. Injuries are commonplace given the physical nature of playoff hockey, so in order to prevent one injury from wiping away their playoff dreams, the Panthers could look to upgrade their insurance policy behind Bobrovsky.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Montreal Canadiens Promote John Sedgwick
When new leadership takes over a front office, quite often the staff that has been there for years quickly find themselves looking for new employment. In Montreal, where there is not only a new general manager but a new executive vice president of hockey operations, it would be easy to see the entire front office cleaned out.
Not so for John Sedgwick, who has been with the Canadiens since 2013. Sedgwick was promoted to assistant general manager today, from his previous position as vice president of hockey operations and legal affairs. His duties for Montreal include player contract negotiation and daily management of the salary cap.
In today’s salary cap-driven league, having an expert in that field is incredibly important. Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes obviously agree, and have decided to keep Sedgwick on after a number of other high-level Canadiens staffers were let go or resigned earlier this season.
A few days ago, Eric Engels of Sportsnet wrote how Gorton is tasked with more than just fixing the Canadiens roster, but modernizing the entire organization. The executive told Sportsnet that there was a “bit of an old-school feel” to the Canadiens, something that he is looking to change. Among those changes has been the additions of Vincent Lecavalier and Nick Bobrov to the front office in various capacities, and now includes the promotion of Sedgwick as well.