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Devils Sign Mikael Diotte

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The Devils have added to their prospect pool, announcing that they’ve signed defenseman Mikael Diotte to a three-year, entry-level contract that begins next season.  Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The 20-year-old went undrafted but has taken some steps forward this season to get on the NHL radar.  Diotte is in his fourth full QMJHL season, all spent with Drummondville where he has already set new career highs offensively with 10 goals and 27 assists through 50 games.  Over his career with the Voltigeurs, the 6’3 rearguard has 20 goals and 65 assists in 197 major junior contests.

Diotte will spend the remainder of the season with Drummondville but will not be eligible to return for next year due to his age.  Instead, he will begin his professional career, potentially with AHL Utica, a team that only has two other prospect blueliners under contract for the 2024-25 campaign as things currently stand.

Maple Leafs To Activate Calle Jarnkrok Off LTIR

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The Maple Leafs will be welcoming back an important part of their forward group tonight as head coach Sheldon Keefe confirmed to reporters including David Alter of The Hockey News (Twitter link) that winger Calle Jarnkrok will play tonight versus the Rangers.  This means that they will be activating him off LTIR.

The 32-year-old has missed the last 13 games after sustaining a broken knuckle at practice in January.  Jarnkrok’s versatility has come in handy for Toronto this season as he has played at all three forward positions while being shuffled around on various lines.  Along the way, he has chipped in with ten goals and nine assists through 46 games while logging over 15 minutes a night.

In order to make the activation official, Toronto will have to get cap-compliant.  They’ll need to clear around $654K in cap room and open up a roster spot before Jarnkrok can be added to the active roster.  Toronto only has two waiver-exempt players (Matthew Knies and Nicholas Robertson) and it’s clear that Knies isn’t going anywhere.  Assigning Robertson to AHL Toronto would be the simplest solution.

However, if they don’t want to do that, they can place a player on waivers later today and designate him as a non-roster player to open the roster spot.  That said, if they do that, they will also need to make an LTIR placement, moving either Conor Timmins (mononucleosis) or Mark Giordano (concussion) to LTIR to open up the necessary cap space since the waived player would still count against the books.  While it will take some roster juggling, it’s a change that will be worthwhile to get Jarnkrok back into their lineup.

Panthers Sign Sandis Vilmanis

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March 1st was an important date on the NHL calendar as it was the first day that teams could sign players to contracts for next season.  We saw several of those deals handed out yesterday and today, the Panthers joined in, announcing that they’ve signed winger Sandis Vilmanis to a three-year, entry-level contract beginning in the 2024-25 season.  Financial terms of the deal were not released.

Vilmanis was a fifth-round pick by the Panthers back in 2022 (157th overall) and has shown steady improvement since then.  He had a good rookie season with OHL Sarnia last season with 20 goals and 25 assists in 62 games and has already set new benchmarks for goals and points this year with 28 and 53, respectively.  The 20-year-old was traded to North Bay just before the OHL trade deadline back in January.

Vilmanis has suited up for Latvia at multiple international tournaments.  He has played at the last three World Juniors and picked up four points in five games at the most recent event.  He also played in two World Under-18 events leading into his draft year.  He won’t be expected to make the jump to the NHL next season but instead should play with their AHL affiliate in Charlotte.

Canucks Sign Elias Pettersson To Eight-Year Extension

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There was a recent push on extension talks between the Canucks and center Elias Pettersson and it appears that push helped get a deal over the finish line.  The team announced that they’ve inked Pettersson to an eight-year contract extension.

GM Patrik Allvin released the following statement on the signing:

This is a very important signing for the Vancouver Canucks. Elias is one of the top players in the National Hockey League and is a key member of our leadership group. We know his best days are ahead of him and with his high end skill and desire to be the best, we look forward to seeing Elias succeed and grow. This signing is another example of our ownerships’ unwavering commitment to do what ever it takes to help us be a successful organization.

Financial terms of the contract were not disclosed by the team but Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reports (Twitter link) that the deal is worth $92.8MM in total for an AAV of $11.6MM.  Chris Johnston of TSN and The Athletic adds (Twitter link) that $47MM of the payout is in the form of signing bonuses while the contract carries a full no-move clause once he’s eligible for the 2025-26 season.  CapFriendly has the full breakdown which is as follows:

2024-25: $2.5MM salary, $12MM signing bonus
2025-26: $4.5MM salary, $10MM signing bonus
2026-27: $11.0MM salary
2027-28: $9.45MM salary, $5MM signing bonus
2028-29: $7.25MM salary, $5MM signing bonus
2029-30: $3.7MM salary, $5MM signing bonus
2030-31: $3.7MM salary, $5MM signing bonus
2031-32: $3.7MM salary, $5MM signing bonus

Vancouver drafted the 25-year-old in the first round (fifth overall) back in 2017 and since then, he has gone from being a key core piece to a legitimate franchise player.  Pettersson won the Calder Trophy in his rookie campaign in 2018-19 where he had 66 points and followed that up with 66 more the following season.  However, an injury-riddled 2020-21 season ultimately resulted in the two sides settling on a three-year bridge deal, one that was set to expire this summer where he would have been a restricted free agent with salary arbitration eligibility and a year away from unrestricted free agency.

Pettersson made a big jump on the offensive side of things last season, setting new career highs across the board with 39 goals and 63 assists, finishing tenth in NHL scoring.  That fuelled speculation that the two sides would work out a long-term agreement last summer and put any speculation to rest.  However, Pettersson and his camp had repeatedly indicated that his preference was to wait until the offseason before making a determination on his next contract.

This season, Pettersson’s per-game averages are down just slightly as he’s on pace for 38 goals and 61 assists, numbers that are still upper-tier league-wide while he is an all-situations player.  That had only helped spur on speculation about his willingness to sign long-term with the Canucks since he was still wanting to wait until the offseason to put pen to paper on his next contract.  That speculation got to the point where Vancouver and Carolina reportedly entered into serious discussions about a potential trade before both Vancouver and Pettersson took a step back and opted to take a real run at hammering out a new deal, talks which clearly proved fruitful.

The contract is by far the richest in franchise history, an outcome that shouldn’t come as much surprise considering Pettersson’s recent performance and the high demand for top-end centers.  The deal will make him the fifth-highest-paid player AAV-wise in the NHL next season behind only Auston Matthews, Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, and Artemi Panarin.

Vancouver now has a little over $60MM in spending on the books for next season per CapFriendly to just a dozen players with Filip Hronek headlining their crop of restricted free agents.  Of note, only two full-time regular defensemen are under contract for 2024-25 so Allvin will need to allocate a lot of their remaining money to filling out the back end.  Meanwhile, Pettersson is now one of just three Canucks under contract past the 2026-27 campaign, joining center J.T. Miller and blueliner Quinn Hughes.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Senators Recall Max Guenette And Leevi Merilainen

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The Senators have made a pair of roster moves in advance of their game tonight against Philadelphia, announcing (Twitter link) that they’ve recalled defenseman Max Guenette and goaltender Leevi Merilainen from AHL Belleville.

Guenette’s recall is a bit of a surprise since the Sens had all six of their defensemen get through last night’s game without an issue so it appears Guenette is up for injury insurance purposes with Travis Hamonic listed as out week-to-week.  The 22-year-old has made one appearance in Ottawa this season and has spent most of the season in Belleville where he has 29 points in 48 games.

As for Merilainen, it also might seem a bit surprising that a second goalie was recalled.  Joonas Korpisalo was a late scratch on Friday due to illness, resulting in the Sens not dressing a backup goalie until Mads Sogaard arrived.  But with Anton Forsberg being banged up last night and not traveling with the team, another netminder was needed.  Merilainen has split the season between two minor leagues, putting up a .904 SV% in 16 AHL games and a .926 mark in 13 ECHL appearances.

With the two promotions, Ottawa’s roster is now at the maximum of 23 players.  Meanwhile, cap space isn’t an issue for them in the short term following Friday’s placement of Josh Norris on LTIR so they can afford to carry a full-sized roster, a luxury they haven’t had for most of the season.

Penguins Receiving Strong Interest In Reilly Smith

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At the trade deadline, the focus is often on the rental market.  Contending teams are looking for that final piece but want a short-term acquisition as they can’t afford to keep the player beyond the current season.  However, some non-rentals also attract some interest at this time of year.  It appears one of them is in Pittsburgh as Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reports that the Penguins are receiving a lot of calls on winger Reilly Smith, even more than Jake Guentzel, one of the top rentals potentially available between now and March 8th.

The 32-year-old was acquired by Pittsburgh last summer in a move that basically amounted to a salary cap dump from Vegas with Smith, an important part of their Stanley Cup run, yielding just a third-round pick in return.  For a player who reached the 50-point mark in four of his six seasons with the Golden Knights, the return was on the light side but in a flat-cap environment, several teams had to make tough decisions like that.

While Penguins GM Kyle Dubas was hoping that Smith would be a key two-way contributor, that hasn’t exactly been the case.  Instead, his offensive numbers are down as he has just 10 goals and 15 assists in 51 games so far, not a great return on a $5MM price tag.  He’s still averaging over 16 minutes a night, however, and is seeing some action on the penalty kill.  In terms of a player profile, Smith is the type of player a lot of teams can use.

Fitting that contract onto the books is difficult enough for this season with half the league currently using LTIR to stay salary cap-compliant.  The fact that Smith has another year left on his deal after this one adds to the allure but also adds to the complications of making such a deal work.

Seravalli suggests that Smith could be a candidate for salary retention to help open up his market.  Pittsburgh has two of their three slots left while the one they’ve used (Jeff Petry) is on the books through next season.  If Dubas isn’t concerned about using a second slot through 2024-25, paying down Smith’s contract to just a $2.5MM AAV would certainly bolster his market and should allow them to get a considerably better return than what they gave up to get him.  While it’s not the direction they were hoping for, it looks like Smith could help yield a quality piece for a potential rebuild or retool this offseason.

West Notes: Markstrom, Oilers, Zuccarello, McCarron

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Flames goaltender Jacob Markstrom is no stranger to the rumor mill having been prominently featured in trade speculation in recent weeks.  Evidently, he’s not particularly thrilled about that happening.  Speaking with reporters including Sportsnet’s Eric Francis, the veteran suggested that he isn’t happy with how things have gone on that front:

“Everyone in here I really respect everything that’s been going on, and not going on, and how everyone in this room has handled everything. I think it’s been really good. And then the whole situation and everything, am I happy about that? No, I’m not. I think it could have been handled a lot different from up top.”

With Calgary already having moved Elias Lindholm, Chris Tanev, and Nikita Zadorov and the belief that Noah Hanifin will soon follow, many have wondered if Markstrom could follow suit, especially with several teams looking for help between the pipes.  But the Flames remain in a battle for a playoff spot with the 34-year-old being a big reason for that so it’s far from a guarantee that they’ll want to move him even if a team comes to the table.  However, how things have played out publicly when it comes to the trade speculation certainly appears to be a sore spot for Markstrom.

Elsewhere around the NHL:

  • Many eyes are on the Oilers as they look to augment their roster before the March 8th trade deadline. In an interview with Sportsnet’s Mark Spector, GM Ken Holland indicated that there are “lots of irons in the fire” as it pertains to trade discussions.  Holland typically makes a move or two each deadline and while cap space is limited for Edmonton, it wouldn’t be surprising for that to continue this season.  The Oilers have already made one move in recent weeks with the signing of Corey Perry who has five points in 13 games since joining them back in January.
  • The Department of Player Safety announced that they’ve fined Wild winger Mats Zuccarello and Predators winger Michael McCarron $2K each for unsportsmanlike conduct during the second period of Thursday’s game. Both players received minor penalties on the play.  The money from the fines goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

Trade Deadline Primer: Tampa Bay Lightning

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The calendar has now flipped to March which means the trade deadline is now just days away. Where does each team stand, and what moves should they be looking to make? We continue our look around the league with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

For the past several years, the Lightning have been legitimate Stanley Cup contenders but all teams eventually reach the point where they can no longer get to that level.  With Tampa Bay currently holding down the final Wild Card spot in the East, that point may very well have arrived.  However, don’t expect that to dissuade GM Julien BriseBois as he’ll almost certainly be looking to add to his roster in the coming days.

Record

32-24-6, 5th in the Atlantic

Deadline Status

Buyer

Deadline Cap Space

$7.383MM of LTIR space on deadline day, 1/3 retention slots used, 45/50 contracts used, per CapFriendly.

Upcoming Draft Picks

2024: TB 3rd, TB 5th, TB 6th, CHI 7th, MIN 7th, TB 7th
2025: TB 2nd, TB 3rd, TB 4th, TB 5th, TB 6th, TB 7th

Tampa Bay previously traded their 2024 and 2025 first-round picks in the Brandon Hagel and Tanner Jeannot trades respectively.  Both of those selections are top-ten protected.

Trade Chips

The Lightning aren’t in a spot where they can realistically move away any of their core players from their roster so instead, their non-draft-pick chips are going to come from their prospect pool.  More specifically, players that might be on the cusp of an NHL opportunity might be their best options to deal from.

Up front, Waltteri Merela comes to mind as someone who fits that profile.  He was up with the Lightning for a good chunk of time at the start of the season – getting into 19 games – but eventually was sent to the minors where he has fared relatively well since then with 20 points in 34 games.  Signed last spring after some strong years in Finland, the 25-year-old fits as a potential low-cost player who could hold his own on the fourth line for a couple of years.  A restricted free agent this summer, Merela should land somewhere close to the league minimum with a one-way offer.  This type of profile isn’t the most exciting for trade purposes but teams may value that over one of their later-round selections.

Defensively, Emil Martinsen Lilleberg is in a similar situation.  He has played 21 games with the Lightning this season after signing with them in the spring, days after Arizona opted not to sign the 23-year-old.  Martinsen Lilleberg has played a sheltered role thus far but has put up positive possession numbers while logging a little under 16 minutes a night.  He has another year left on his entry-level deal and would likely be viewed as near NHL-ready depth, something sellers are often interested in.  Maxwell Crozier is in his first professional campaign and has suited up 11 times with the Lightning.  He’s also 23 and has another year left on his deal and falls into a similar category as Martinsen Lilleberg.

Their best trade chip, if they’re willing to move him, might be goaltender Hugo Alnefelt.  The 22-year-old has shown steady improvement in his first three years in North America and as things stand, he profiles as the eventual partner for Andrei Vasilevskiy who is signed through the 2027-28 season and likely isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.  Accordingly, the smarter play might be to move Alnefelt and with the year he’s having with AHL Syracuse (2.31 GAA, .910 SV% in 22 games), his value should be up.  If a selling team has a near-term opening coming in the crease, someone like Alnefelt would be appealing.

Of their unsigned prospects, Isaac Howard is the headliner.  The 19-year-old forward was a first-round pick in 2022 (31st overall) and after struggling in his freshman year at Minnesota-Duluth, he has been a point-a-game player at Michigan State.  With their next two first-round picks being spoken for, Howard is the one piece they have in their prospect pool that carries similar value.  If BriseBois is inquiring about anyone of significance, it won’t take long for the other team to ask about Howard.

Other Potential Trade Chips: F Alex Barre-Boulet, F Gage Goncalves, D Philippe Myers, F Eamon Powell

Team Needs

1) Defensive Upgrades – Injuries on the back end have been an issue for the Lightning this season, resulting in some of their youngsters getting early NHL opportunities.  But while most of those players have eventually come back, that isn’t the case for Mikhail Sergachev who is believed to be out for the rest of the regular season and a good chunk of the playoffs after undergoing surgery last month to stabilize fractures to his left tibia and fibula.  Their entire cap space is based on his presence on LTIR.  They need a top-four player at a minimum and potentially two to take some pressure off some of the players they have toward the bottom of their depth chart.

2) Backup Goalie Upgrade – Tampa Bay needs to have a low-cost backup goaltender with how their salary cap spending is structured, resulting in long-time third-string netminder Jonas Johansson getting the nod.  While he held his own early on when Vasilevskiy was injured, he has hardly played since then, playing just seven times since December.  When he has got the nod in that stretch, he hasn’t fared well, posting a save percentage of just .862.  While it’s quite possible that Johansson is the backup again next season, Tampa Bay could use some of their rest-of-year cap flexibility to get a more proven second-stringer on an expiring contract to give Vasilevskiy an extra night off here and there.  That might be beneficial from a rest perspective as they’ll need him at his best for the postseason if they can get in.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Stars Notes: Seguin, Stankoven, Tanev

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While the Stars are currently without center Tyler Seguin and will be for the next several weeks, don’t expect Dallas to put him on LTIR and go on a bit of a spending spree.  Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that the 32-year-old is expected to return from his lower-body injury before the end of the regular season.  Accordingly, they’d have to be cap-compliant before activating him from LTIR so they couldn’t go and spend several million of his $9.85MM AAV at the trade deadline.  That said, they could eventually place him on LTIR to bring up an extra player or two for depth purposes after the deadline with those players returning to the minors once Seguin is able to return.  Dallas has $1.17MM in cap room, per CapFriendly, thanks to Evgenii Dadonov’s LTIR placement so their options to add will be limited in the coming days.

More from Dallas:

  • Speaking of returning to the minors, that’s what Logan Stankoven did today as the team announced that they’ve sent the 20-year-old back to AHL Texas. The forward has been shuttled back and forth in recent days and likely will be recalled before their game on Saturday versus San Jose.  Stankoven has been productive since making his NHL debut last month, recording three goals and one assist in his first four NHL appearances.
  • One player who might not be playing against the Sharks tomorrow is defenseman Chris Tanev. The veteran was acquired earlier this week from Calgary as part of a three-team trade but team reporter Mike Heika relays (Twitter link) that the veteran is dealing with visa issues and may not be available to play in that one.  In that case, he’d be lined up to make his debut on Tuesday on the back end of the home-and-home set with San Jose.  Tanev has 14 points and 171 blocks in 56 games so far and is expected to play a big role for Dallas down the stretch.

Metropolitan Notes: Markström, Hurricanes, Capitals, Gruden

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The Devils added some bottom-six grit today by acquiring enforcer Kurtis MacDermid from the Avalanche. Still, GM Tom Fitzgerald is far from done ahead of the March 8 trade deadline. He remains aggressive in his pursuit for a goaltender and, with Predators starter Juuse Saros all but off the table thanks to Nashville’s recent hot streak, he’s refocused his attention on the Flames and Jacob Markström.

Calgary seems less inclined to move on from their star starter than earlier in the calendar year, but that hasn’t stopped New Jersey from continuing to engage. Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports Friday that New Jersey has made it known they’re no longer asking the Flames to retain any salary on Markström in a potential deal, making a trade much more palatable for Calgary GM Craig Conroy, who’s made it clear in recent days he doesn’t want to be stuck with any more long-term salary commitments than necessary.

That still doesn’t likely solve all of New Jersey’s roadblocks in acquiring Markström, who carries a $6MM cap hit through 2026. The Flames’ unwillingness to take salary back means it’s highly unrealistic that they’d take Devils netminder Vítek Vaněček, who carries a $3.4MM cap hit through next season, back in a trade. That would pose significant cap issues for the Devils in 2024-25, as they have under $20MM in projected space with only 13 out of 23 roster spots filled. To make it work, they’d likely need to part with more assets to dump the last season of the struggling Vaněček’s deal in a separate trade.

Other notes out of the Metropolitan Division one week out from the deadline:

  • The Hurricanes continue to pursue forward help as their top priority over the next seven days, The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta reports. That includes smaller-scale additions outside of their reported interest in Canucks star center Elias Pettersson, which could very well flame out as extension talks between him and Vancouver continue. A quick scan of their forward group makes it clear they’d prefer to add a center above all else. 24-year-old Jack Drury is currently holding down the second line between Michael Bunting and Martin Nečas and, while he’s taken a step forward this season, still has only 26 points in 60 games – not at all the production you’d envision from the second-line center on a Stanley Cup-contending team.
  • All three of the Capitals’ questionable players for tonight’s practically do-or-die game against the Flyers will be in the lineup, head coach Spencer Carbery said (via Tom Gulitti of NHL.com). Tom Wilson (personal leave), Nick Jensen (lower body), and Sonny Milano (illness) had all missed recent practices or games. Wilson returns to a top-line role alongside Alex Ovechkin while youngster Hendrix Lapierre gets a chance down the middle between them, while Milano, who’s struggled to stay healthy with 11 points in 27 games this year, occupies a second-line role alongside Max Pacioretty and Dylan Strome. Jensen returns to his normal role, anchoring the team’s second pairing behind John Carlson.
  • The Penguins have recalled left-winger Jonathan Gruden for the second time in the past two days, per a team announcement. The 23-year-old was brought up under emergency conditions before yesterday’s loss to the Kraken but did not play, and was briefly returned to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton over the night. He’s skated in five NHL games this year, going without a point while averaging 7:20 per game.

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