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Maple Leafs Recall Matt Murray

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Dec. 20: The Maple Leafs made the transaction official today, bringing Murray up and returning Hildeby to the AHL. It’s still unclear whether head coach Craig Berube plans on starting Murray tonight against Buffalo.

Dec. 19: Two-time Stanley Cup champion Matt Murray is expected to join the Maple Leafs’ roster ahead of tomorrow’s game against the Sabres, reports Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. If he makes the start for Toronto, it’ll be his first start in the blue and white since April 2, 2023.

Toronto is without No. 1 option Anthony Stolarz for the next four to six weeks after he underwent a procedure to remove a loose body in his knee. He hasn’t played since Dec. 12 against the Ducks, and Dennis Hildeby has been on the roster ever since as an emergency recall from AHL Toronto to back up Joseph Woll. Hildeby has made three starts this season in relief of injuries to Stolarz and Woll but hasn’t been all that impressive, going 2-1-0 but logging a .875 SV% and 3.68 GAA.

That’s led the Leafs to look for a more secure option to back up Woll for now. They may have that in Murray, who’s been tormented by injuries as of late but does at least have a prior pedigree as a legitimate NHL option. The 30-year-old didn’t play at all last season aside from a brief AHL conditioning stint at year’s end after hip surgery in the summer of 2023. Now healthy, he re-upped with the Leafs on a one-year deal worth $875K at the beginning of free agency and cleared waivers during training camp.

He’s looked rejuvenated in minor-league action, posting a sparkling .931 SV% and 1.85 GAA in eight appearances with a 4-1-3 record. He’s coming off a 27-save shutout of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins last night, so he’d have a day of rest if he plays tomorrow in the first half of the Leafs’ back-to-back. If not against Buffalo, it’s clear he’ll make his season debut on Saturday against the Islanders.

Murray arrived in Toronto in the 2022 offseason, acquired from the Senators in a cap-dump deal to serve in tandem with Ilya Samsonov as the replacement for ex-starter Jack Campbell, who left for the Oilers in free agency. Injuries limited him to 26 starts in 2022-23, although he was serviceable when healthy with a .903 SV%, 3.01 GAA, and a 14-8-2 record. That was good enough for one goal saved above expected, per MoneyPuck, so his most recent NHL experience positions him as an above-average netminder. That can’t be said for the much younger Hildeby.

Murray, who started most games for the Penguins in their back-to-back Stanley Cup wins in 2016 and 2017, has a .910 SV% and 2.79 GAA in 272 career NHL appearances. His recall would necessitate Hildeby heading back to the AHL to keep the Leafs’ active roster at 23 players.

Alex Ovechkin To Return After Christmas Break

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Dec. 20: Ovechkin was cleared for contact today, but Carbery told reporters he was overly optimistic about his return date. He won’t play before the Christmas break, putting his likely return date as Dec. 28 against the Maple Leafs. He’ll miss three more games at least, including tonight’s matchup against the Canes (per Bailey Johnson of The Washington Post).

Dec. 19: Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin is nearing the four-to-six-week return window initially outlined for him when he sustained a left fibula fracture last month. After skating in a non-contact jersey at practice over the past week, head coach Spencer Carbery said the superstar winger won’t play tomorrow against the Hurricanes but could return Sunday against the Kings or on Monday versus the Bruins. Sammi Silber of The Hockey News relayed the information.

Coming into the season, doubt was beginning to creep in over whether Ovechkin would be able to pass Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record of 894. His 31 goals in 79 games last year was his lowest total in a full season since the 2016-17 campaign.

Those doubts were silenced within weeks. The Caps as a whole got off to a raucous start, fueled in part by Ovi’s 15 goals and 25 points through his first 18 games of the season. He was playing his best hockey of the season right up until the injury, recording seven goals and two assists in his last five games. Unfortunately, an innocuous knee-on-knee collision with Utah forward Jack McBain hit pause on his chase for the record. He’s still 26 snipes back of tying Gretzky, sitting alone in second in NHL history with 868 goals. He’d have 50 games to score the remainder if he plans on tying the record in 2024-25, assuming he returns Sunday.

Losing Ovechkin for the last month hasn’t significantly impacted Washington’s record. They’re still 8-4-1 in their last 13 without him, outscoring opponents 40-33 and outshooting them 380-337. They’ve continued to dominate possession at even strength, controlling 56.5% of shot attempts during that window. They have only continued to establish themselves as surprise championship contenders after limping into the playoffs last year with a 40-31-11 record and a -36 goal differential.

Ovechkin had been flanked by team assists leader Dylan Strome and Aliaksei Protas on the first line before exiting the lineup. Protas has been moved down to Pierre-Luc Dubois’ line in Ovechkin’s absence. While The Great Eight will undoubtedly reunite with Strome in his return, he may have Tom Wilson on his opposite wing this time around.

Ovechkin is on injured reserve, and since the Capitals have a full active roster, they’ll likely move today ahead of the midnight roster freeze to free up a space for him to return in the next few days. Carbery told Silber that Ovechkin will take contact in practice either tomorrow or Saturday.

Devils Recall Justin Dowling

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The Devils announced yesterday that they have recalled center Justin Dowling from AHL Utica. They had an open spot on the active roster, so no corresponding transaction was necessary. His services were needed in last night’s 4-2 loss to the Blue Jackets with Curtis Lazar, who came off injured reserve Tuesday after undergoing knee surgery, exiting the lineup again due to continued post-surgery swelling, head coach Sheldon Keefe said (via Mark Scheig of The Hockey Writers).

Dowling, 34, had been on New Jersey’s roster for most of the last two months as Lazar’s replacement but was waived and reassigned earlier in the week to make room for the latter’s return. He’s in his second year with the Devils after inking a two-year, two-way deal in free agency in 2023 and has been a solid veteran presence on the farm. He’s posted 16 goals, 28 assists and 44 points in 64 games for Utica since last season, including four points in seven games this year.

The Calgary native’s 22 NHL appearances this season in Lazar’s absence are now his most since the 2021-22 season with the Canucks. He has two goals and an assist with a -2 rating, averaging 8:30 per game and winning 47.5% of his faceoffs. The 5’10”, 180-lb pivot has been serviceable for his limited role, controlling 48.8% of shot attempts and 48.6% of expected goals at even strength. Those shares are below New Jersey’s team averages but don’t paint him as anything worse than the replacement-level call-up he’s made out to be.

Dowling can remain on the active roster for up to 30 non-consecutive days or play 10 games before he requires waivers to return to Utica again. He might hit those numbers depending on how much longer Lazar needs a recovery window before he can play again. Keefe said he’ll likely be on the active roster through the Christmas break. If not, he can still be returned to Utica during the roster freeze.

[RELATED: Allowable Transactions During The Roster Freeze Period]

In 122 NHL games in parts of seven seasons with the Canucks, Devils and Stars, Dowling has 22 points and a -18 rating while averaging 10:24 per game.

Wild Place Yakov Trenin On IR, Recall Devin Shore, Travis Boyd

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Dec. 20: Shore is back on the active roster today, as is forward Travis Boyd, according to Michael Russo of The Athletic. Boyd made a pair of appearances with the Wild last month amid one of a couple of recalls this season, averaging just 7:39 per game and controlling an abysmal 21.9% of shot attempts at even strength. The 31-year-old leads Iowa in scoring this season with 18 points (3 G, 15 A) in 17 games and has nearly 300 games of NHL experience under his belt with the Coyotes, Capitals, Maple Leafs and Canucks in addition to his brief stint in Minnesota. The Wild’s active roster is now full.

Dec. 19: The Wild made a pair of roster moves in advance of their next game against Utah on Friday.  The team announced (Twitter link) that winger Yakov Trenin has been placed on injured reserve while winger Devin Shore has been assigned to AHL Iowa.

Trenin has missed three straight games due to an upper-body injury.  Assuming this placement is back-dated, he’ll be eligible to return as soon as this weekend.  The 27-year-old is in his first season with Minnesota after signing a four-year, $14MM contract with them back in free agency, a move that hasn’t worked as well as anyone would have hoped.

After putting up double-digit goals in each of the last three years, Trenin has struggled considerably offensively this season, lighting the lamp just twice while adding one assist in 29 games.  While he sits second on the team in hits with 82, it’s safe to say that GM Bill Guerin was expecting more from his biggest free agent addition from July.

As for Shore, he cleared waivers on Tuesday but stayed with Minnesota for a couple of extra days and played last night against Florida.  He has played in 13 NHL contests so far but has been held off the scoresheet while averaging a little over eight minutes a night.  The veteran has been a strong contributor with Iowa, however, notching two goals and eight assists in 14 appearances with them.

Philadelphia Flyers Assign Emil Andrae To The AHL

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The Philadelphia Flyers have assigned defenseman Emil Andrae to the Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the American Hockey League. The move comes as somewhat of a surprise as the 22-year-old Andrae has been solid in 20 NHL games.

The 2020 second-round pick has a goal and four assists in the NHL this year, as well as a +3 plus/minus rating, 22 hits and 28 blocks. His underlying numbers are even better, particularly on the possession front where Andrae has posted a CF% of 54.2 at even strength. The Flyers have leaned on Andrae quite a bit during his time in the NHL, as he has played 19:18 per game which makes his demotion all that more surprising.

Despite being undersized at just 5’9” Andrae did a good job winning puck battles and using his small frame to gain body positioning on opponents. His edge work remains solid, particularly in the offensive zone where he has been able to walk the blue line and get pucks to the net at a good rate.

Andrae had sat for several games as a healthy scratch, with the Flyers preferring to use Yegor Zamula over him. Now that he is back in the AHL, Andrae will have an opportunity to continue his development, and he should receive a recall at some point in the new year

Sharks Begin Extension Talks With Fabian Zetterlund

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The San Jose Sharks have reportedly begun talking about a contract extension with pending free agent forward Fabian Zetterlund (as per Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now). Peng describes the trade talks as “Casual” which likely means the two sides are in the early stages of negotiating.

The 25-year-old is in the final year of a two-year contract that carries a cap hit of $1.45MM and has been one of the better values in the NHL this season. Zetterlund is in his second full season with the Sharks after coming over in the Timo Meier trade from the New Jersey Devils at the 2023 Trade Deadline. He was originally drafted by the Devils in the third round of the 2017 NHL Entry Draft and spent parts of two seasons in New Jersey before being sent West.

In his first full season with San Jose, Zetterlund was very productive offensively, tallying 24 goals and 20 assists in 82 games. His plus/minus was ugly at -34, however, that number was certainly magnified because he was playing for a team with a goal differential of -146.

This season, Zetterlund has picked up where he left off, registering 12 goals and 11 assists in his first 35 games, however, his plus/minus is a solid +6, which is more in line with a player that has a defense first skillset.

On the surface, the Zetterlund contract doesn’t look like a difficult one to make happen. However, San Jose has to consider how they will allocate salary cap space as their young stars approach their second contracts as well as how they can mix in high priced veterans to their salary cap structure.

Either way, Zetterlund should do well on his next contract and it will be interesting to see what type of term San Jose offers the Karlstad, Sweden native.

Allowable Transactions During The Roster Freeze Period

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The NHL’s roster freeze period is now in effect.  While there usually aren’t a flurry of transactions in the days leading up to it, we saw three trades made on Wednesday while numerous teams made roster moves as well.

However, that won’t be the end of things on the roster movement front despite what the term freeze would imply.  Section 16.5 (d) in the CBA goes over what is and isn’t allowed during this period.  Let’s break that down.  The first section is as follows:

(i) For all Players on an NHL Active Roster, Injured Reserve, or Players with Non-Roster and Injured Non-Roster status as of 11:59 p.m. local time on December 19, a roster freeze shall apply through 12:01 a.m. local time December 28, with respect to Waivers, Trades and Loans; provided, however, that Players may be Recalled to NHL Clubs during this period and, provided further, that if a Player is placed on Regular Waivers prior to the roster freeze period and is claimed during such roster freeze period, the roster freeze period shall not apply and the Player shall immediately report to the claiming Club. However, during the roster freeze period a Club can make any Player transactions necessary for the Club to come into compliance with Article 50 as a result of a Player being removed from the Bona-Fide Long-Term Injury/Illness Exception.

From a waiver perspective, we’re unlikely to see any new activity on that front (unless a team needs to make a move to get cap-compliant following an LTIR activation) but Tyler Johnson’s pending termination in Boston will be able to be completed.

You might also notice in the CBA text that there’s nothing prohibiting recalls during this time.  Accordingly, teams can still bring players up and with many teams playing in three games between now and the break that starts on Tuesday, there will undoubtedly be several recalls across the NHL.

Now, let’s look at the other section of this rule which will preview a lot of the transactions that will be coming early next week:

(ii) Notwithstanding Section 16.5(d)(i), a Player on emergency Recall may be Loaned during the roster freeze period and a Player who was Recalled after December 11 may be Loaned through 11:59 p.m. local time on December 23, provided such Player is not required to be placed on Waivers during the roster freeze period in order to effectuate such Loan.

In essence, anyone recalled during the freeze is eligible to be sent down by Monday and in most circumstances, they will.  Meanwhile, anyone recalled (regular or emergency) since December 11th is eligible to be sent down.  There will be quite a few of those in that category as well, even if it’s just in an attempt to save a bit of money on the salary cap.

The one exception to this is if a player becomes waiver-eligible during this time.  This occurs when a player has been on an NHL roster for 30 days or played in 10 games since last clearing waivers.  If that happens to someone during this stretch, they’ll be ineligible to be sent down during the freeze.

With this all in mind, while there technically will be a roster freeze in place for a little over a week, there will still be considerable roster activity for the first half of it so don’t be surprised when the transactions keep coming in over the coming days.

Avalanche Recall Jere Innala

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One of Colorado’s more intriguing offseason signings is about to get an NHL opportunity.  The Avalanche announced (Twitter link) that they’ve recalled winger Jere Innala from AHL Colorado.  He won’t be available for tonight’s game against San Jose but will join the team on Friday in Anaheim.

The Avs signed the 26-year-old to a one-year entry-level deal back in June after a strong showing internationally for Finland at the World Championship where he had five points in eight games.  While he hadn’t played in North America at the time, Innala had a strong track record of success at home in the Liiga with HPK and HIFK before spending the last two seasons with SHL Frolunda where he had 28 points in 42 regular season games in 2023-24 before adding 11 goals and 15 points in 14 postseason contests.

With that success and the fact that Colorado struggled to find a working fourth line for a lot of last season, Innala was a speculative end-of-roster candidate in training camp.  While he had two points in three preseason games, they elected to start him in the minors with the Eagles.  With them, he got off to a solid start to his first season in North America, potting five goals and ten assists in 21 games so far.

Once again this year, the Avalanche have churned through numerous forwards at the bottom of their roster.  Chris Wagner, T.J. Tynan, Calum Ritchie, Matthew Stienburg, Givani Smith, Chase Bradley, Nikita Prishchepov, and Tye Felhaber are all forwards who have played at least once in Colorado’s bottom six this season but none of the group have more than one point (the first three have one each, the rest zero) so it appears that they’ve decided it’s time to give Innala a chance to try to secure a spot.

Predators Activate Jeremy Lauzon, Place Roman Josi On IR

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The Predators made two roster moves leading into tonight’s game versus Pittsburgh.  Per a team announcement (Twitter link), they have activated defenseman Jeremy Lauzon off injured reserve.  In a corresponding move, blueliner Roman Josi was placed on IR.

Lauzon has missed the last three weeks due to a lower-body injury.  The 27-year-old is off to a particularly quiet start offensively as he has just one assist in 22 games after putting up a career-best 14 points in 2023-24.  However, Lauzon’s physicality is the hallmark of his game and he leads the team in hits per game, checking in at 4.58, down only slightly from last year’s rate when he recorded 386 to lead the NHL by a significant margin.

As for Josi, he last played last Tuesday, meaning he will be eligible to be activated as soon as he’s cleared to return, assuming they back-date the IR placement (meaning he has already missed the required seven days).  The captain isn’t producing at quite the same rate as last year when he passed the point-per-game mark for the second time in his career but he’s still Nashville’s leader in scoring with 23 points in 29 games.

Red Wings Assign Ville Husso To AHL

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Last season, the Red Wings primarily had three goaltenders on their roster, unwilling to run the risk of losing one through waivers.  They haven’t been willing to do so this year, however.  That continued today as the team announced (Twitter link) that goaltender Ville Husso has been sent down to AHL Grand Rapids.

Husso cleared waivers early in the season and has primarily played with the Griffins.  However, with injuries lately to both Alex Lyon and Cam Talbot, the 29-year-old was seeing regular action with the big club, including six appearances this month.  Lyon was activated off injured reserve on Wednesday while Talbot was expected to return this weekend; this move indicates that Talbot will indeed be good to at least serve as the backup on Friday against Montreal.

Husso has played in eight NHL games overall this season, posting a 3.47 GAA with a .877 SV%.  However, he has fared much better in limited AHL action, compiling a 1.58 GAA with a .944 SV% in five outings with the Griffins.  A pending unrestricted free agent, Husso is heading for a significant drop on his current $4.75MM price tag but a good showing in the minors could help him land at least a one-way deal from someone this coming summer.  That said, playing time for him will likely be limited with Sebastian Cossa and Jack Campbell both in the fold.

With this move, the Red Wings now have one open roster spot.  Even with the roster freeze about to come into effect, that spot could still be filled by someone in the next few days.

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