Pacific Notes: Golden Knights, Henrique, Pitlick, Oilers, Brisebois
The Golden Knights could be down several key regulars for tomorrow game against Los Angeles. Jesse Granger of The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that wingers Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone along with goaltender Robin Lehner all missed practice today due to what’s being termed as bumps and bruises and are all listed as game-time decisions for tomorrow. Pacioretty sits second on Vegas in goals despite missing more than half the season while Stone joins Pacioretty in being the only Golden Knights averaging more than a point per game so far. Lehner missed last Tuesday’s contest with an undisclosed issue so his injury has lingered for a little bit. Vegas will, however, have defenceman Nicolas Hague back after missing last Tuesday’s game.
More from the Pacific Division:
- While the Ducks were hoping at one point that Adam Henrique could return before the holiday break, the center hasn’t yet resumed skating, relays Elliott Teaford of the Orange County Register (Twitter link). The veteran suffered a lower-body injury three weeks ago, derailing what had been a strong start to his season with 16 points in 24 games.
- It was almost a full group of players for the Flames at practice today as all of their players that were in COVID protocol have returned. However, Sportsnet’s Eric Francis notes that winger Tyler Pitlick cleared protocol but is dealing with an undisclosed injury that kept him off the ice today. The 30-year-old has two assists in 21 games in his first season with Calgary after being acquired from Seattle following their expansion draft.
- The Oilers could be getting some help on the injury front soon as Postmedia’s Jim Matheson mentions that goaltender Mike Smith is likely to go on their upcoming three-game road trip. The 40-year-old has missed more than two months with a lower-body injury and would be a welcome addition to a goalie group that has had some ups and downs in the first two months of the season. Meanwhile, defenseman Duncan Keith is expected to practice and could return on Wednesday against St. Louis. He has missed a little more than a month due to a back injury.
- The Canucks announced (Twitter link) that defenseman Guillaume Brisebois has been placed on injured reserve. The placement is effective as of today which means he’ll miss at least the next 10 days. The 24-year-old made his NHL season debut back on December 16th but also has suited up in six games for AHL Abbotsford.
2021 Year In Review: February
2021 has certainly been another eventful year, both on and off the rink. Over the coming days, PHR will take a look back at the top stories from around the game on a month-by-month basis. Next up is a look at February.
New Front Office For Penguins: When Jim Rutherford resigned in January, the expectation was that Pittsburgh would hire a replacement GM and that would be that. Instead, they went a step beyond that, bringing in a new team president as well. That resulted in Ron Hextall being appointed as GM and Brian Burke taking over as president. Hextall made a name for himself with their cross-town rival in Philadelphia both on and off the ice having been their goalie and GM in the past and his patient approach is a stark contrast to Rutherford’s previous wheeling and dealing style. Burke, meanwhile, had last worked in the presidency role with Calgary in 2018 and had worked in the media since then.
Koivu Retires: After Minnesota opted to not retain long-time captain Mikko Koivu, the center signed with Columbus in free agency. However, after struggling early on with the Blue Jackets, he decided that the time was right to hang up his skates, announcing his retirement. He played in 1,035 games over parts of 17 NHL seasons with all but seven of those contests coming with the Wild. He holds Minnesota’s franchise record for games played, assists, points, shots on goal, and plus/minus. Aside from that last one, the other four records should stand for a while.
Julien Fired: After a hot start to the season, the Canadiens started to struggle and then-GM Marc Bergevin decided to make a change behind the bench, firing head coach Claude Julien and associate coach Kirk Muller. Julien’s second stint with Montreal lasted parts of five seasons with the team posting a 129-113-35 record over 277 games with him at the helm. Julien’s contract runs through the end of this season with the team paying him $5MM not to coach for them. Meanwhile, Muller was also in his second stint with the team after joining them in 2016 and he has since moved on to Calgary. Dominique Ducharme was promoted to head coach on an interim basis for the rest of the season.
Babcock’s New Coaching Job: Mike Babcock found his next coaching job but it’s not a route many NHL coaches decide to take. Instead of coaching in the minors or in the NCAA, Babcock went back to where he once played, joining the University of Saskatchewan as their head coach on a volunteer basis. The veteran bench boss is still under contract with Toronto through the end of next season and is still receiving his full salary not to work for them. The Huskies have a 9-3-0 record this season, good for third place in U Sports’ Canada West conference.
Panarin Leave Of Absence: Rangers star Artemi Panarin took a leave of absence from the team following allegations that he beat up an 18-year-old girl back in 2011. Those allegations came from former NHL tough guy Andrei Nazarov who was Panarin’s coach back in Russia at the time. Many felt there was a political element to the allegation given Panarin’s public support of opposition leader Alexi Navalny. Panarin vehemently denied the report and former teammates stepped forward to state that there was nothing to Nazarov’s claims. While it was termed as an indefinite leave, the winger was able to return to the lineup two weeks later and finished with 41 assists and 58 points in 42 games.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Predators Place Three In COVID Protocol, Activate Eight
There was plenty of COVID-related activity for the Predators on Monday. The team announced that defenseman Roman Josi, center Tommy Novak, and winger Colton Sissons have all been placed in COVID protocol. However, they also got several players back from protocol in wingers Nick Cousins and Philip Tomasino, center Mikael Granlund and Ryan Johansen, and defensemen Mark Borowiecki and Ben Harpur. Josi, Novak, and Sissons will be out for at least the next ten days as a result; today’s announcement from the CDC that cuts the quarantine period from ten days to five doesn’t automatically apply to the NHL.
Josi is easily the biggest loss of the three for the Predators as he’s their leading scorer with 29 points in 30 games while averaging just shy of 25 minutes per game. Sissons isn’t a minor loss either as he’s logging nearly 16 minutes a night on the wing while chipping in with 13 points in 29 contests.
The returns of Granlund and Johansen should certainly help Nashville’s offense. Granlund is averaging just shy of a point per game with 27 in 28 games, sitting second behind Josi in team scoring. As for Johansen, he is having a nice bounce-back campaign with 24 points in 27 contests.
On top of these moves, the Predators assigned wingers Matt Luff and Michael McCarron to the taxi squad. Both players had been up in recent weeks to cover for injuries and absences before hitting COVID protocol themselves but with more players returning than leaving today, there wasn’t room on the NHL roster for them to be placed back there.
NHL Prospects Moved At The 2021 KHL Trade Deadline
The NHL’s trade deadline is still nearly three months away but in the KHL, the deadline for player movement was today. There were several deals completed including a few involving players whose rights are held by NHL teams. Here’s a rundown of those moves.
- Senators RFA winger Vitali Abramov was moved from Traktor Chelyabinsk to CSKA Moscow. The 23-year-old has five career NHL games under his belt but opted to head back home in the summer. He has 17 points in 41 KHL contests this season and his contract overseas runs through the 2022-23 season. Ottawa retains his RFA rights through the 2024-25 season.
- Blackhawks goaltender Ivan Nalimov is on the move from Admiral Vladivostok to Metallurg Magnitogorsk. The 27-year-old came to North America for the first time last season, getting in five games with AHL Rockford down the stretch on an AHL deal before returning to Russia this season. The 2014 sixth-rounder has a 3.50 GAA along with a .891 SV% in 10 games this season and Chicago holds his rights indefinitely since he never signed an NHL contract and there is no transfer agreement in place between Russia and the NHL.
- Golden Knights center prospect Ivan Morozov was dealt to HC Sochi from SKA St. Petersburg. The 21-year-old was a second-round pick (61st overall) back in 2018 but after spending all of last season in the KHL, he split this season between that league and their lower-tier VHL. The swap should allow him to play a larger role with Sochi. Vegas also holds Morozov’s rights indefinitely.
Other names of some note that were on the move were former Stars defenseman Julius Honka who went from Dinamo Minsk to Ak Bars Kazan, former Maple Leafs and Canadiens blueliner Rinat Valiev who went the other way in the Honka trade. Former Bruins prospect Pavel Shen was moved from HK Sochi to Admiral Vladivostok; his NHL deal was terminated back in May while former Jets winger J.C. Lipon was dealt from Sochi to Sibir Novosibirsk.
What Your Team Is Thankful For: New York Rangers
In the spirit of the holiday season, PHR will take a look at what teams are thankful for as the season passes the one-quarter mark. There also might be a few things your team would like down the road. We’ll examine what’s gone well in the early going and what could improve as the season rolls on for the New York Rangers.
What are the Rangers thankful for?
Youth.
The Rangers are a legitimate playoff contender this season, sitting in third place in the Metropolitan Division but just one point behind the two teams ahead of them. They may not be considered a Stanley Cup favorite by many, but given how young their core still is that could change quickly. On defense, 27-year-old Jacob Trouba is the old hand, leading a group that includes Adam Fox (23), Ryan Lindgren (23), K’Andre Miller (21), and Nils Lundkvist (21). Even Patrik Nemeth, considered a grandfather by Rangers standards, is only 29.
Upfront, the ancient Chris Kreider will turn 31 in April and Artemi Panarin will do the same a few months after that. Otherwise, the only other regular who has crossed the 30-year-old threshold is Ryan Reaves, a player who averages only barely over 10 minutes a night anyway.
While not every player develops at the same rate, there’s a good chance that this group will be even better in a year or two without making any substantial changes. The rebuild that was committed to by management with that infamous 2018 letter seems to be coming together quite nicely.
Who are the Rangers thankful for?
Even though there are great signs of development all throughout the roster, there’s been one player more responsible than any other for the Rangers’ current success. The 25-year-old Shesterkin has an eye-popping .937 save percentage through 18 games this season, which is tied with Jack Campbell for the league lead. It puts him squarely in the Vezina Trophy race and makes that four-year, $22.67MM contract extension–one that was the largest second contract ever signed by a goaltender–look like a bargain at this point.
This shouldn’t be that surprising, given his history. In each of his three full KHL seasons, Shesterkin posted a save percentage of at least .933. In his final year, he went 24-4 with a .953, allowing just 31 goals in 28 games. When he arrived in North America, things barely changed, as Shesterkin put up a .934 in 25 games with the Hartford Wolf Pack. In fact, among goaltenders with at least 50 appearances at the NHL level, his .925 career save percentage is the best in history.
What would the Rangers be even more thankful for?
The emergence of Kaapo Kakko or Alexis Lafreniere.
There have been flashes, including a stretch of solid play earlier this month by the former, but Kakko and Lafreniere have still not lived up to their draft status. The fact that Barclay Goodrow, an undrafted depth player with a career-high of 24 points has outscored both young players this season is a problem, regardless of the difference in ice time or linemates. Lafreniere and Kakko have combined for only 11 goals and 18 points in 56 appearances, numbers that aren’t indicative of the first and second overall picks that the team used on them.
These are two 20-year-old players, meaning it’s far from time to label them a bust or give up on their development, but if the Rangers want to take the next step from playoff team to Stanley Cup favorite, this is where it will come from. In fact, the Rangers being as good as they are without Kakko or Lafreniere developing into star players is a testament to how successful the rest of the build has gone.
What should be on the Rangers’ Holiday Wish list?
A Ryan Strome extension (or trade).
Trading a top-six center that has obvious chemistry with your best forward is certainly not what any contending team is usually considering, but if the Rangers can’t get close to an extension with Strome they will have to. The 28-year-old is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent in the offseason and it is still too early in the rebuild for the team to watch him walk for nothing. An extension should be first on the to-do list, but if it looks like it will be impossible to complete before the deadline or too cost-prohibitive moving forward, trading him for other assets would be prudent.
Strome has developed into a heck of a player in New York after some early-career inconsistency. Over his last three seasons he has 129 points in 152 games while averaging nearly 19 minutes a night. That’s a player a lot of teams would want to add, especially if they’re trying to contend for a Stanley Cup this spring, and it could result in even more talent that can grow with the young New York core.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Armstrong, Guerin Among Staff No Longer Involved In Olympic Selections
Dec 27: As expected, Quinn will take over the head coaching duties of Team USA. John Vanbiesbrouck, assistant executive director of USA Hockey, will serve as general manager–a position he already holds for the National Junior Team that is currently competing in Alberta. Without NHL participation, several members of that junior group could find themselves on the Olympic team in a few months.
Dec 22: The NHL isn’t going to the Olympics, and that doesn’t mean just Sidney Crosby and Patrick Kane. The active NHL executives and coaches that had previously been announced will also be pulled out, meaning, for instance, that Bill Guerin is no longer the general manager of Team USA and Doug Armstrong is no longer with Team Canada.
For the U.S. the announcement that the managers and coaches will no longer be involved was made this morning, though no direct replacements have been officially named. David Quinn, formerly of the New York Rangers, has been linked to the head coaching position by several reports, including Chris Peters of Daily Faceoff. The U.S. management group is expected to name the final roster–one that will now be made up of players from college, the minor leagues, and European leagues–by mid-January. Peters projected a potential “Plan B” roster earlier this month.
For Canada, Armstrong confirmed to Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic that he will step down as general manager. He’s handing the reins to Hockey Canada’s Scott Salmond who will now have to find a roster outside the NHL to compete at the Games, one that doesn’t have the luxury of the Spengler Cup later this month to prepare. In LeBrun’s interview with Armstrong, the St. Louis Blues manager confirms that Crosby would have been the team’s captain, something that was decided very early on. He also explained that they had already locked in “three full forward lines and two sets of D” with January 12 the date they would reveal the entire group.
The managers and coaches involved will all now have to focus on their own NHL schedules–ones that are currently on hold and seemingly changing by the hour.
Snapshots: Jets, Zucker, Sourdif
The Winnipeg Jets have had their next home game postponed and then are headed out for a four-game road trip, but when they return they’ll be coming back to an empty rink. The province of Manitoba has instituted a 250-person limit on attendance and the Jets responded by announcing that there will be no fans permitted at Canada Life Centre until at least January 11.
That would affect at least two games, January 8 and 10 against the Seattle Kraken and Minnesota Wild. Just as Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic suggested about the Montreal Canadiens, the Jets could potentially petition the NHL to allow them to reschedule those home games for later in the season, trying to avoid lost revenue.
- The Pittsburgh Penguins have given Jason Zucker maintenance days throughout the season, so when he was absent from today’s practice it didn’t seem out of place. But when practice ended, head coach Mike Sullivan explained to reporters including Mike DeFabo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Zucker will be out on a week-to-week basis with a nagging lower-body injury. That’s a disappointing result, given the team is also dealing with several COVID-related absences right now, but Zucker hasn’t been very effective even when he is in the lineup. With just four goals and 11 points in 30 games, he’s off to a disappointing start to the season. Perhaps some time getting fully healthy will allow him to produce more regularly down the stretch.
- Justin Sourdif was skating as the extra forward today at Team Canada World Junior practice, and Mark Masters of TSN suggests that it might be because of a hit he threw in yesterday’s game that could result in a suspension. Sourdif, a Florida Panthers third-round pick, was given a two-minute minor for the hit in Canada’s 6-3 win over Czechia.
Adin Hill Enters COVID Protocol; Brent Burns Exits
For the San Jose Sharks, things are set to resume tomorrow night against the Arizona Coyotes. They are expected to have Brent Burns back in the lineup for that game, keeping his games played streak intact after he exited the COVID protocol today. It wasn’t all good news though, as Adin Hill has been added to the protocol, forcing the club to recall Zachary Sawchenko to serve as the backup goaltender. Nicholas Merkley has also been recalled to the taxi squad.
Hill joins Jonathan Dahlen and Tomas Hertl, who remain in the protocol for the time being but should be eligible to return soon. They both entered on December 21 and have been experiencing only mild symptoms.
Burns’ return is an important one, given his role on the team, but Hill’s absence is going to put even more pressure on James Reimer. The veteran netminder is having a career year with a .936 save percentage through 16 appearances but hasn’t logged more than 36 in a single season since 2017-18. Even then, Reimer has never really been a workhorse, never playing more than 43 games in a single year. Hill won’t be able to give him a break anytime soon, and Sawchenko certainly doesn’t appear ready for NHL action.
The 23-year-old undrafted netminder has an .859 save percentage in nine appearances for the San Jose Barracuda this season. Alexei Melnichuk would likely be the preferred recall, but he is also currently in the protocol along with several other Barracuda players.
Brandon Tanev Suffers Season-Ending ACL Injury; Mason Appleton Enters COVID Protocol
The Seattle Kraken will be without Brandon Tanev for the rest of the season, after the speedy forward suffered an ACL injury in the team’s game on December 18. Tanev will undergo season-ending surgery soon.
Like he did previously in Winnipeg and Pittsburgh, Tanev had quickly become a fan favorite in Seattle thanks to his all-out hustle and endless energy. The 29-year-old forward had nine goals and 15 points in 30 games, a career-best offensive pace despite playing around the same number of minutes. Three of those nine goals had been game-winners, an impressive achievement on a team that only has ten wins on the entire season.
Now on the shelf for the rest of the season, Tanev won’t be able to add to that total or help the Kraken turn around their inaugural season. The expansion team will have to find someone else to take over his role on the penalty kill, though it will be difficult to replace Tanev’s fearless nature. He led all Kraken forwards in blocked shots, led the entire team in hits, and actually ranked fifth in shots on goal.
The team also announced that Mason Appleton has entered the COVID protocol, robbing them of another important forward for the time being. Appleton had been playing more recently, averaging more than 16 minutes a night since the start of December.
NHL Postpones Three More Games
The NHL has announced three more postponements, including two that involve the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars. The following games will have to be rescheduled later in the season:
- Chicago Blackhawks @ Winnipeg Jets, December 29
- Dallas Stars @ Colorado Avalanche, December 29
- Colorado Avalanche @ Dallas Stars, December 31
There have now been 70 games postponed this season, most of them coming since December 13. As of now, the three other games scheduled for tomorrow are still on, though the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning both had players enter the COVID protocol earlier today.
For the Avalanche, Blackhawks, and Stars, this means they will not play again until the new year. Winnipeg still has a game scheduled on December 31 against the Calgary Flames. Not only did Chicago see Marc-Andre Fleury enter the protocol today, but also several members of the Rockford IceHogs, including part of the coaching staff. The rampant spread of positive cases in the AHL is having a huge effect on their NHL affiliates, who haven’t been able to recall enough healthy bodies at times this season.