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Evening Notes: Oilers, Ullmark, Silovs

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Jim Parsons of The Hockey News believes that the Edmonton Oilers should be looking for a defensive defenseman to pair with Darnell Nurse. Parson notes that the Oilers have been linked to several offensive defensemen but believes that Edmonton should be on the hunt for a two-way defenseman who can log high-leverage minutes and be a steady presence in the Oilers’ top four.

It’s hard to find fault in Parsons’ logic as a defenseman with that skill set would likely pair better with Nurse and allow him a better opportunity to maximize his abilities rather than trying to chase the game and make up for defensive lapses from a partner that shouldn’t be a top-four defenseman. The issue for Edmonton will be finding the assets and cap space to acquire such a player as no one that meets those criteria is available in free agency.

In other evening notes:

  • Shawn Simpson of The Coming In Hot podcast believes that Ottawa Senators netminder Linus Ullmark will sign a contract that is similar in dollars to that of Nashville Predators goaltender Juuse Saros but shorter in term. Saros recently signed an eight-year deal with Nashville with an AAV of $7.74MM and Simpson believes that Ullmark will carry a similar cap hit, but a shorter term in the range of six years. Ullmark’s play in recent seasons would certainly warrant a contract of that nature, and it would show Senators fans that the team is serious about building a perennial contender in Ottawa. On the other side of things, Ullmark is 31, and a six-year extension would carry him until he is 38 years old.
  • Vancouver Canucks goaltender Artūrs Šilovs has been left off Latvia’s roster for this weekend’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament. The MVP of the 2023 IIHF World Championship was ready to start the tournament but was apparently overworked and the Latvian Hockey Federation’s medical staff opted to pull him from competition to avoid a serious injury (as per a translation from Satiar Shah of Sportsnet). It’s hard to read too much into the situation due to the translation, but it appears he is healthy enough to play, but is resting as a precaution.

Carolina Hurricanes Name Three AHL Coaches

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The Carolina Hurricanes have announced the hiring of two AHL assistant coaches who will be behind the bench of the Chicago Wolves this fall as well as a new video coach. Dan Price and Spiros Anastas will join recently hired head coach Cam Abbott to form the coaching staff for the Hurricanes AHL affiliate, while John Stanier will round out the staff as the team’s video coach.

Price has been the head coach of the Western Hockey League’s Victoria Royals for the past seven seasons and has worked previously as an assistant with the club. Before joining the Royals, Price worked as an assistant coach for the WHL’s Tri-City Americans as well as the Chilliwack Bruins.

Anastas has an expansive international coaching resume having been a head coach for China, Greece, Serbia, Estonia and South Korea in various international competitions. In North America the Toronto, Ontario native has coached in the ECHL with the Brampton Beast and South Carolina Stingrays as well as in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) with the University of Lethbridge. Anastas also has a Calder Cup championship in his trophy case, having won the title with the Grand Rapids Griffins as an assistant coach in 2013.

Stanier began his career as a video scout in the USHL for the Des Moines Buccaneers before eventually being hired by the Ontario Hockey League’s Ottawa 67’s in September 2022. However, the Carp, Ontario’s time at home was short-lived as he will join Chicago after serving as a video coach in Ottawa for just two seasons.

Red Wings Sign Austin Watson To PTO

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The Detroit Red Wings have reportedly signed forward Austin Watson to a professional tryout (as per Watson’s agency WD Sports & Entertainment). This will be the second fall in a row that Watson has to enter training camp on a PTO after the 32-year-old turned last year’s PTO into a one-year contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning worth $776,665.

Watson dressed in 33 regular season games with Tampa Bay last year, registering 85 hits and 93 PIM to go along with two goals and two assists. Despite hanging onto an NHL job, Watson averaged a career-low 7:16 of ice time per game and didn’t see any action during the playoffs.

The long-time enforcer has managed to hang onto an NHL career despite his lack of offense and poor possession numbers but might be on his last opportunity in this tryout with the Red Wings. If Watson can secure an NHL role this year, it will likely be similar to last season where he was scratched more often than not and didn’t play much when he was in the lineup.

Should the 2010 first-round pick (18th overall) sign with Detroit, it will be his fourth NHL stop after playing 515 career NHL games with the Nashville Predators, Ottawa Senators and Tampa Bay. Watson has 60 goals and 58 assists over 10 NHL seasons, with his best season coming in 2017-18 with the Predators when he posted 14 goals and five assists in 76 games.

Laurent Brossoit To Miss Five To Seven Weeks From Knee Surgery

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Goaltender for the Chicago Blackhawks, Laurent Brossoit, is confirmed to be out most of if not all of training camp as the team announced he is set to miss five to seven weeks while recovering from meniscus surgery yesterday. The team recently signed Brossoit to a two-year, $6.6MM contract on the opening day of free agency this summer.

The Blackhawks are set to take on the Utah Hockey Club for their first game of the regular season on October 8th which means Brossoit could miss up to four games if he takes seven weeks to recover. If Brossoit can rebound on the quicker end of the prognosis he would be able to participate in Chicago’s last two preseason games against the Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues on October 4th and 5th, respectively.

Luckily even if Brossoit takes the maximum amount of time the Blackhawks will not be in too much of a hole at the goaltending position as they could recall last year’s backup, Arvid Soderblom, to stay with the team through the first week of the regular season. Soderblom would objectively serve as a downgrade to Brossoit but four games in early October should not make-or-break Chicago’s season.

Brossoit should ultimately serve as a co-starter in the Blackhawks’ net alongside Petr Mrazek. He has spent nearly all his career in a backup role and sought a share of the starts in his next home. Chicago served as an ideal choice for this as although Mrazek performed amicably for the team last season they needed a better option outside of Soderblom.

The Port Alberni, BC native has arguably been one of the better backup goaltenders over the last two years albeit surviving multiple stints on the injured reserve. Brossoit has amassed a 22-5-5 record over 34 games split between the Vegas Golden Knights and Winnipeg Jets since the start of the 2022-23 season with a .927 save percentage and 2.05 goals-against average. He will no longer have the defensive core in front of him that he’s had in seasons past which could negatively impact his numbers next year.

The Blackhawks have nothing to lose by giving Brossoit a two-year deal this summer as the team has little hope of contending over the next two seasons. Nevertheless, Brossoit will put them in a much better position to win this season comparing last year’s options.

Afternoon Notes: Swayman, McGroarty, Blues

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Bruins star netminder Jeremy Swayman remains without a contract for next season and beyond. The RFA is embroiled in a dispute for the second summer in a row, requiring an arbitration hearing to hand down a one-year, $3.475MM agreement.

That process a year ago convinced Swayman to educate himself “about the business side of it all,” the goalie said on the “Shut Up Marc” podcast yesterday. “I understand the cap is going up and where it will be in years. I understand my comparables and how I can’t ruin the goalie market for other guys that are going to be in my shoes down the line” (stick taps to The Score’s Sean O’Leary).

Swayman’s been one of the league’s best netminders the past couple of years, recording a .916 SV% and 2.41 GAA during his three full seasons as a Bruin. But he’s been stuck in a tandem situation with Linus Ullmark, limiting him to fewer than 45 starts each season. He’ll see a sharp increase in workload in 2024-25 with Ullmark out the door via a trade to the Senators. Still, Boston is likely hesitant about shelling out star-level money to a 25-year-old who looks like the real deal but hasn’t yet been a bona fide starter in the NHL.

More from around the league:

  • Forward prospect Rutger McGroarty went two seasons without signing an entry-level contract with the Winnipeg Jets due to concerns about his development path within the organization. The University of Michigan product went only a few hours between being acquired by the Pittsburgh Penguins in a trade with the Jets and signing his entry-level contract because “Everything feels right here” (X Link). He has already been impressed by the organization’s front office staff and the veteran members of the team and certainly seems excited to begin work as a Penguin. He will compete with several forwards for a spot on the opening night roster out of training camp in a few weeks and could even see time on a line with captain Sidney Crosby in his rookie campaign.
  • Any previous user of the popular salary cap site, CapFriendly, won’t go without a similar medium for very long — if you’re a fan of the St. Louis Blues. The team announced it is coming out with its own version of the website named ’BluesFriendly’ that will track current player’s contract details, status, and pathway towards the organization. It’s not as in-depth as the information CapFriendly previously provided but it could serve a purpose for some parts of the fanbase. It’s unlikely that other teams will follow a similar route as salary transparency across the league normally only benefits a player while serving virtually no purpose to the team.

Snapshots: Tuch, Jones, Lehkonen

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Both Mike Harrington and Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News expect Sabres winger Alex Tuch to sign a contract extension immediately upon becoming eligible to do so on July 1, 2025, they said in their latest mailbag. Tuch, a New York native, is entering the final two seasons of a seven-year, $33.25MM extension he signed while with the Golden Knights back in 2018.

“For all of [general manager Kevyn] Adams’ talk about looking for players who want to be Sabres, there is no one who wants to be here more than No. 89,” Harrington wrote. “What kind of message would it send if they don’t go long-term with him? While I expect Rasmus Dahlin to be named the captain at some point, make no mistake that Tuch might be the foremost leader in the dressing room now that Kyle Okposo is gone.”

Tuch, 28, was a first-round pick of the Wild in 2014 but was traded to Vegas for expansion draft considerations in 2017. He developed into a top-nine fixture in Nevada before being included as one of the core pieces in the trade that sent former Buffalo captain Jack Eichel to the Knights in 2021. Since then, he’s been a staple on the Sabres’ top line alongside Tage Thompson. He’s recorded 70 goals, 106 assists and 176 points in 199 games in a Buffalo sweater.

After routinely averaging over 19 minutes per game and recording over a point per game, Tuch will be in line for a significant raise on his $4.75MM cap hit. A long-term deal could easily cost north of $8MM per season for his 0.88 points per game average since arriving in Buffalo.

Here’s more from around the NHL:

  • Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette praised young defenseman Zachary Jones in a profile for NHL.com’s Dan Rosen last week, suggesting the 23-year-old is set for a regular third-pairing role in the Big Apple to begin the season. “Jones got better every single time he played for us,” Laviolette said. “He had to bring that out in himself every time we called his number, and it wasn’t on a consistent basis. When he got the opportunity, he was fantastic.” Jones, a Rangers third-rounder in 2019, has appeared in NHL games in each of the last four years but has been used sparingly, only appearing a career-high 31 times last season.
  • Avalanche winger Artturi Lehkonen appears to be recovering well from offseason shoulder surgery, per Evan Rawal of Colorado Hockey Now. Head coach Jared Bednar said last week that he wasn’t sure if the top-six fixture would be medically cleared for the beginning of the regular season, but video captured by Rawal the past few days shows “encouraging signs that he’ll be good to go when the Avalanche open their season.” However, it’s certain that he won’t be a full participant when training camp opens in a few weeks.

NHL’s Top 50 Highest-Paid Players For 2024-25

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Many of the NHL’s highest cap hits don’t match those players’ actual salaries, mainly as front-loaded deals enter their later stages. That’s why a player like Connor McDavid remains among the highest cap hits in the league at $12.5MM despite signing his deal seven years ago. Still, his actual compensation from base salary and signing bonuses has dropped to an unremarkable $10MM compared to some of the NHL’s other elite talents.

When a player signs a long-term deal, it’s up to the team and player to structure it. In some cases, teams will prefer to spread cash out evenly throughout the contract, meaning the total salary being paid out matches or very nearly matches their cap hit. In some cases, though, deals will be front-loaded with excess money paid to the players in the first few seasons of the contract. This, assuming the deal isn’t paid out primarily in signing bonuses, makes a potential buyout much more palatable if needed near the end of the agreement.

With some help from PuckPedia’s player dashboard, listed below are the top 50 highest-paid NHL players for the 2024-25 season. The players on this list don’t necessarily have the largest contracts out there in terms of total value remaining, and some of them may have wildly lower or higher cap hits than their total salary this season indicates. This top 50 only considers the current league year with the players’ 2024-25 combined base salary and signing bonuses listed.

Here are the NHL’s highest-paid players for the 2024-25 season, with the cutoff point closest to the $10MM mark than ever before:

  1. Auston Matthews, Maple Leafs: $16.7MM
  2. Nathan MacKinnon, Avalanche: $16.5MM
  3. Elias Pettersson, Canucks: $14.5MM
  4. William Nylander, Maple Leafs: $13.5MM
  5. Jake Guentzel, Lightning: $13.26MM
  6. Rasmus Dahlin, Sabres: $13MM
    David Pastrňák, Bruins: $13MM
  7. Dougie Hamilton, Devils: $12.6MM
  8. Seth Jones, Blackhawks: $12.5MM
    Alex Pietrangelo, Golden Knights: $12.5MM
  9. Sebastian Aho, Hurricanes: $12MM
    Aleksander Barkov, Panthers: $12MM
    Adam Fox, Rangers: $12MM
    Darnell Nurse, Oilers: $12MM
    Brayden Point, Lightning: $12MM
  10. Charlie McAvoy, Bruins: $11.5MM
    Zach Werenski, Blue Jackets: $11.5MM
  11. Pierre-Luc Dubois, Capitals: $11.25MM
    Roope Hintz, Stars: $11.25MM
    Matthew Tkachuk    , Panthers: $11.25MM
  12. Timo Meier, Devils: $11.1MM
  13. Mikhail Sergachev, Utah: $11.05MM
  14. Drew Doughty, Kings: $11MM
    Miro Heiskanen, Stars: $11MM
    Erik Karlsson, Penguins: $11MM
    Dylan Larkin, Red Wings: $11MM
    Alex Ovechkin, Capitals: $11MM
    Sam Reinhart, Panthers: $11MM
    Mark Stone, Golden Knights: $11MM
  15. Jordan Kyrou, Blues: $10.9MM
    Robert Thomas, Blues: $10.9MM
  16. Cale Makar, Avalanche: $10.6MM
  17. Jonathan Huberdeau, Flames: $10.5MM
    Brady Tkachuk, Senators: $10.5MM
    Mika Zibanejad, Rangers: $10.5MM
  18. Tomáš Hertl, Golden Knights: $10.25MM
  19. Thomas Chabot, Senators: $10MM
    Jack Eichel    , Golden Knights: $10MM
    Filip Forsberg, Predators: $10MM
    Connor Hellebuyck, Jets: $10MM
    Kirill Kaprizov, Wild: $10MM
    Elias Lindholm, Bruins: $10MM
    Connor McDavid, Oilers: $10MM
    Artemi Panarin, Rangers: $10MM
    Morgan Rielly, Maple Leafs: $10MM
    Mark Scheifele, Jets: $10MM
    Brady Skjei, Predators: $10MM
    Nick Suzuki, Canadiens: $10MM
    Andrei Vasilevskiy, Lightning: $10MM
  20. Cole Caufield, Canadiens: $9.975MM

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Penguins Notes: Robertson, O’Connor, Line Combinations

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Dan Kingerski of Pittsburgh Hockey Now writes about a potential link between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Toronto Maple Leafs forward Nicholas Robertson. It’s not the first time rumors have surfaced about a potential Robertson to Pittsburgh trade, as Kingerski wrote back in May that the Penguins, specifically general manager Kyle Dubas, should target the undersized Maple Leafs forward. However, Robertson remains a Maple Leaf despite asking for a trade in June, and the Penguins have just under $900K in available cap space. While a move seems unlikely at this point, it should be noted that the Penguins have 15 forwards on their active roster and could likely bury an additional $1.7MM in the minors.

Kingerski writes that the Penguins could offer sheet Robertson for below $2.29MM, and the cost would only be a third-rounder, but the Maple Leafs would likely match that number and shut the door on the Robertson-to-Pittsburgh talk. It appears that the Penguins’ best option, should they want to acquire Robertson, would be to make a hockey trade using a roster player with value and perhaps a draft pick to try and pry the 22-year-old loose.

In other Penguins notes:

  • Kingerski also wrote about the Penguins’ lack of a winger for superstar Sidney Crosby. The Penguins have spent the summer trying to find someone to play with Crosby after trading Jake Guentzel at the trade deadline, and with the summer coming to an end, Kingerski believes that Drew O’Connor is likely the Penguins’ best option for the first-line left winger role. O’Connor finished last season playing with Crosby and showed glimpses during that time. The 25-year-old finished the year with 16 goals and 17 assists in 79 games, including seven goals and five assists in the final 19 games when he played alongside Crosby.
  • The Penguins acquisition of young forward Rutger McGroarty has changed the potential makeup of their forward lines (according to Dan Kingerski). The Penguins boast as many as 19 potential NHL forwards, including newly acquired Kevin Hayes, Cody Glass, and Anthony Beauvillier, and it could make for an interesting training camp in the Steel City. McGroarty could get a look alongside Sidney Crosby on the first line, but he could also slide into a third-line role alongside Hayes and Beauvillier. It isn’t even clear which side of the ice McGroarty will play on, but one clear thing is that his presence in Pittsburgh makes things very interesting when it comes to the Penguins’ forward ranks.

Evening Notes: Islanders, Ducks, Wild

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Stefen Rosner of The Hockey News wonders if the New York Islanders would benefit from bringing in a player like Filip Zadina before training camp. The Islanders badly needed a top-six forward this summer but didn’t have the cap space or assets to make a move towards improving their forward group. Zadina has been linked to the Buffalo Sabres and has potential interest from a handful of other teams. He is also reportedly close to signing with an NHL team.

The 24-year-old hasn’t been able to live up to his draft status as a sixth overall pick and will now join his third NHL team in just seven seasons. The Pardubice, Czech Republic native, scored a career-high 13 goals last season and tallied 23 points in 72 games with the San Jose Sharks. But, despite being on the worst team in the NHL, he failed to play more than third- and fourth-line minutes and given the current state of his game, it’s unlikely he would help out the Islanders’ top six forwards. However, he could carve out a depth role in their bottom six.

In other evening notes:

  • The Anaheim Ducks announced that they’ve partnered with A Parent Media Co. Inc. to stream all of their regional games this season free of charge. The games will be available on the soon-to-launch Victory+, allowing Ducks fans in the Los Angeles regional market to watch Ducks games for free. The app for Victory+ will be available for fans outside the Ducks’ television region as well, but the games will not be free. However, the app will allow fans in other parts of the country to view the extra content that the team produces outside of their games.
  • Minnesota Wild general manager Bill Guerin spoke with KFAN FM 100.3 today and discussed the upcoming season, where his expectations are for the Wild to make the playoffs and win the Stanley Cup. Guerin has had to navigate some very rocky waters the past couple of summers regarding the salary cap, as the Wild have had to account for $14.74MM in dead cap space for two years due to the buyouts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. However, he has managed to keep the team competitive and believes that if his current group stays healthy, they will be in the mix come playoff time. Minnesota didn’t make many changes this summer and will count on many internal improvements from young players if they hope to improve on the disappointment of missing the playoffs last season.

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