Snapshots: Hedman, Capitals, Daley
Tampa Bay Lightning fans can breathe now, after Victor Hedman‘s eye has been declared safe following his visor exploding at the World Championships today. Aftonbladet out of Sweden has photos of his laceration (*WARNING: GRAPHIC*), which needed four stitches to sew back up. Apparently it was the actual visor that cut him, after a shoulder or elbow broke the protective shield.
Hedman is an important part of the Swedish defense, but is perhaps even more important to the Lightning’s chances over the next few years. The Norris trophy finalist will be entering an eight-year extension in 2017-18 which will pay him $63MM over the duration. His point total exploded this season while his defensive play is as steady as ever.
- Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Dmitry Orlov and Philipp Grubauer will all head to the World Championships now that their season is finished and lockers are cleaned out. Following their exit interviews today, the quartet will head to Europe to compete in the remainder of the tournament. While Backstrom is signed for the next three seasons, the other three are restricted free agents this summer and will be key to how Washington comes back from their latest playoff exit. While Vegas may go after Grubauer in the expansion draft, Kuznetsov and Orlov represent a big piece of the team going forward, and will both command hefty raises. For a team with so many free agents, there may not be enough money to go around for everyone.
- Trevor Daley isn’t expected to play in game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals for the Pittsburgh Penguins, but is still just being classified as a day-to-day lower-body injury. Head coach Mike Sullivan said that Tom Kuhhackl was a healthy scratch in game 7, while Carl Hagelin was dealing with a lower-body injury of his own.
Buffalo Sabres Announce Jason Botterill As GM
The Buffalo Sabres have announced Jason Botterill as their new General Manager today. The team had been waiting for the Pittsburgh Penguins’ second-round series to end before announcing the hire. The Sabres will presumably now begin their coaching search with Botterill at the helm, as they look to try and instill a culture change in the franchise from top to bottom.
Botterill has been rumored for weeks to be the top candidate for the job, as the team shut down the search after interviewing him a second time. The Penguins’ associate GM is considered one of the brightest young minds in hockey, with many colleagues saying he could have succeeded in any industry. He comes with a wealth of experience in many different roles, including serving as the interim GM for the Penguins between the Ray Shero and Jim Rutherford tenures.
The 40-year old Botterill was quite a player in his own day, selected in the first round by the Dallas Stars in 1994. He was a star at the University of Michigan, scoring 62 points in his senior season. Though his NHL career was limited, it didn’t take him long to get back into the game after retirement. Botterill returned to Michigan to finish his MBA before working for the league’s central scouting. Pittsburgh hired him away from the league offices in 2007, and would be promoted to assistant GM within two years. His promotion to associate came with Jim Rutherford’s hiring, though Botterill maintained a lot of the responsibility he’d had prior.
While he doesn’t have a ton of experience as a full-fledged GM in the league, it would be hard to find many people around hockey that doesn’t believe he’ll succeed as one. Legendary Michigan coach Red Berenson even once said he thinks Botterill should be the next commissioner of the NHL. His navigation of the Penguins’ salary cap situation and eye for young college talent will be a huge boost for a Buffalo team looking for anything to hang their hat on.
The Sabres once again ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic Division, this time not even receiving a top-5 pick in the process. The team that should have taken steps forward towards playoff contention stagnated at the bottom of the league, unable to keep their stars healthy or happy. Botterill will be tasked in bringing in talent to supplement the core of Jack Eichel, Ryan O’Reilly and Rasmus Ristolainen (among others) and have an immediate impact in the 2017-18 playoff picture. It won’t be easy, but there weren’t many other more exciting candidates for the team to pursue.
Darren Dreger of TSN was first to break the news on Twitter, though John Vogl of the Buffalo News had reported that he would be announced after the Pittsburgh series.
Snapshots: Botterill, Subban, Colorado
The Pittsburgh Penguins will decide their Stanley Cup playoff fate tonight against the Washington Capitals, and John Vogl of the Buffalo News believes the Sabres’ future may be along for the ride. Vogl writes that the hiring announcement of Jason Botterill, associate General Manager of the Penguins and leading candidate to take over as GM of the Sabres was likely delayed due to the ongoing series. The Sabres haven’t interviewed anyone since their second meeting with Botterill, and need to get someone in place with enough time to prepare for the expansion and entry drafts.
Though it was previously reported that Jeff Crisp, the Sabres head scout would handle the entry draft this season, it’s obviously important for the incoming GM to be involved in the operation. Botterill has a background in scouting, and will have been kept abreast of the incoming draft class during his Pittsburgh tenure. Whether the Penguins move on or not, Vogl expects the decision to come down before the beginning of the next series, perhaps even as early as Thursday. On Friday, owner Terry Pegula has a press conference scheduled to introduce Brandon Beane, the new GM of the Buffalo Bills.
- P.K. Subban has been fined $2,000 for embellishment after being assessed a penalty on May 2nd. It was the second citation he had received from the league, following one given on January 22nd. Subban was unable to serve the penalty as he was being treated in the Nashville dressing room for an apparent injury, but it isn’t the first time he’s been hit with a fine for diving. In 2015, he received two fines from the league for a combined three embellishment citations. Fines for diving escalate on each occasion, capping at a $5,000 penalty for the player and head coach should a player be cited eight times in a single season.
- Adrian Dater of BSN Denver reports that the Colorado Eagles are working to become a future AHL affiliate of the Avalanche. The Eagles are currently the team’s ECHL affiliate, but with some shuffling coming in the AHL due to Vegas entering the league they will try to gain standing in the next few years. According to Dater, the Eagles have plans to expand their current ~5,000-seat arena to try and accommodate the increased attendance that would come with a promotion to the AHL. This is the latest in a long line of teams that have worked to get their affiliates geographically closer to them, in order to move players back and forth quickly. It can also obviously provide fans that want to see the next generation of stars for their club before they graduate to the NHL, and the ticket prices that come with it.
Snapshots: Sakic, Mironov, Sobotka, Murray
Changes are coming in Colorado, according to Joe Sakic. The Avalanche GM was on Altitude Sports 950 yesterday (h/t Sportsnet) and was quite clear with his plans for this summer. Sakic said there will be a “lot of turnover” this offseason, and that the team is going to get younger. When Sakic named his untouchables earlier in the season, he only listed Nathan MacKinnon, Tyson Jost, and Mikko Rantanen, three of the youngest players on the team.
While there were many rumors of Matt Duchene potentially being moved at the deadline, it seems an inevitability that the young center—if he is indeed considered a center around the league still—is moved before the 2017-18 season begins. Sakic mentioned Jost and J.T. Compher in particular as future centers for the Avalanche, which wouldn’t leave much room for Duchene in the future.
- Sakic also confirmed that the team has reached an agreement with Andrei Mironov, but is just waiting for the official KHL release before announcing the contract. The GM did caution though that anything can happen before the release is announced, though he certainly hopes it will come through in the next few days. Mironov is currently playing in the World Championships with Russia.
- Vladimir Sobotka will be skating against Mironov, as the Blues’ forward is heading to the World Championships for the Czech Republic. Sobotka finally returned from the KHL to help the Blues in the playoffs, who held onto him despite the interest over the years from teams around the league. Sobotka will be a big part of the Blues going forward as he starts in on a three-year contract extension next season. Able to play both center and the wing, he’ll fit in somewhere on a team that will have their sights set on the playoffs once again.
- Matt Murray won’t start game 7 for the Penguins tonight, but he will be in uniform. The goaltender has recovered enough to backup Marc-Andre Fleury, posing a bit of a dilemma for the next series should Pittsburgh defeat the Capitals and move on. After injuring himself in warm up during the first game of the first round, Murray hasn’t played a single minute of these playoffs. The 22-year old led the Penguins to the Stanley Cup last spring, but will now wait for the veteran Fleury to falter in order to get back into the lineup.
Penguins Re-Sign Tom Kostopoulos To AHL Deal
The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins will be keeping their captain around for at least one more season, inking Tom Kostopoulos to a one-year AHL deal. Kostopoulos, veteran of 630 NHL games, has played solely in the AHL for the past four seasons. This will be his 19th professional season, and he has yet to show any sense of slowing down at the minor league level.
Kostopoulos was used as a bottom-six winger who was willing to drop the gloves to defend a teammate, registering 64 fights across his NHL career. That tough-guy portrait betrayed the amount of skill he had though, as he has continually registered excellent offensive numbers in the AHL. Just this year at the age of 38, Kostopoulos recorded 24 goals and 54 points, though couldn’t lead the WBS Penguins out of the first round. For his AHL career he has 521 points, including a career-high 71 in 2004-05.
While he won’t play a part in Pittsburgh next season, he will surely remain an icon in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Kostopoulos is headed for the AHL Hall of Fame some day, but it won’t be just yet. He’ll turn 39 next season.
Latest On Buffalo Sabres’ GM, Head Coach Searches
On a quiet night for hockey news other than the two Eastern Conference playoff games, Nick Kypreos and Elliotte Friedman used the second period break of the Penguins-Capitals contest to update the hockey world on the ongoing business of another Eastern Conference team. While Pittsburgh fans are hardly thinking of front office issues as their team appears to be on the fast track to second consecutive Stanley Cup appearance, the news certainly affects the Penguins as well. Kypreos revealed that, as has been expected, the Buffalo Sabres are likely to announce that Pittsburgh executive Jason Botterill will be their next General Manager. Friedman then chimed in that, with Botterill likely at the helm, Penguins assistant coach Rick Tocchet is a strong candidate for the open head coaching gig. Kypreos suspects that they could be waiting until after the end of the Penguins’ current series to announce at least Botterill, if not both if discussions have already been had about Botterill’s coaching choice.
The Botterill story has been told: a younger executive working for one of the most successful franchises in the game and eager for a new challenge and his turn in the spotlight. Botterill is also an expert on hockey analytics and salary cap analysis – a GM for the new age of hockey. Botterill has had two interviews with the Pegulas and other decision-makers in Buffalo and it seems that the job is all but his.
The Tocchet note though is new. Tocchet enjoyed an 18-year NHL career before becoming a coach, playing for six different teams, being selected to four All-Star Games, and winning the Stanley Cup with the Penguins in 1992. Tocchet was well-traveled and also well-rounded, capable of fitting into nearly any system he was part of. That versatility and two-way hockey intelligence translated well into coaching, as he has a broad understanding of the game. Tocchet was named an assistant coach for the Colorado Avalanche, a team he had never played for, less than a year after officially announcing his retirement from playing in 2002. He then moved to Phoenix to be an assistant under Wayne Gretzky, before moving to Tampa Bay in 2008 as an assistant for Barry Melrose. Tocchet replaced Melrose that same season and was the head coach of the Lightning for next two years, but was fired in 2010 with a 53-69-26 record. Tocchet was given a second chance by his former team in 2014 when he was brought on as an assistant coach for the Penguins by Mike Johnston. Tocchet outlived his head coach and the work he has continued to do for the Penguins has been praised by replacement Mike Sullivan and, of course, owner and former teammate Mario Lemieux. With Botterill probably getting a fresh start and his first GM gig, it doesn’t seem unlikely at all that the first coach he hires is someone experienced who he is also familiar with and Tocchet fits the bill.
Should Flyers Consider Moving No. 2 Pick?
One week ago, Philadelphia Flyers’ general manager Ron Hextall said he would listen to trade offers for his recently won No. 2 overall pick in this year’s NHL Draft, which created some discussion on whether a team should consider doing that. The Flyers are hardly at the bottom of the pack as they leapfrogged most of the struggling teams to go from the 13th overall pick to the second pick. The belief is they could trade the pick, which would likely net them a young Nolan Patrick or a Nico Hischier, and bring in a huge package that could net them success immediately. (Even possible rumors of Colorado packing Matt Duchene and Gabriel Landeskog have been suggested as a possibility.)
CSN Philly’s writers Tom Dougherty, Jordan Hall and Greg Paone discussed the pros and cons of whether Hextall should even be receptive to moving the pick. Dougherty writes that the team can’t even consider the move. It was the biggest jump in NHL lottery history and shouldn’t be taken for granted. He believes the teams should hold onto either Patrick or Hischier and continue building from there.
Hall is quick to point out that Hextall’s strategy has been to build a franchise from within, so why would the Flyers GM change suddenly. Even if this isn’t the strongest draft, the No. 2 pick should get them one top-notch playmaker and that will only make Hextall’s plan more successful. Paone believes that the team should look at it differently, although he is quick to point out that he doesn’t see the Flyers making a trade, but he points out that the draft, in any sport, has too many busts for a team to not consider making a trade. Trading that pick for a young, already established NHL player would make more sense in many ways.
The Flyers have a nice team already with core players Jakub Voracek, Claude Giroux, Branden Schenn and Wayne Simmons all about to hit their prime and plenty of youth not far behind. So which is better, adding another piece of youth or packaging that piece for a king’s ransom?
Capitals Have Four Of Top Eight Unrestricted Free Agents
The 2017 free agency class may not be the strongest, but the Washington Capitals have the most to gain (or more likely lose) if free agency doesn’t go their way. The Capitals, currently on the ropes, down 3-1, to the Pittsburgh Penguins (Game 5 tonight), have four of the top eight unrestricted free agents, according to Matt Larkin of the Hockey News, as he posts his Top-30 unrestricted free agents this summer.
Unlike previous years, Larkin writes that this year’s class falls short of firepower, which the scribe points out is bad news for the expansion Las Vegas Golden Knights, who get a 48-hour window to negotiate with any free agents before any other teams. Regardless, it’s the Capitals who will find themselves on the clock as defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk is listed as the number one free agent on the list, while winger T.J. Oshie is third. Defenseman Karl Alzner is ranked fifth, while veteran wing Justin Williams is eighth on their list.
Larkin adds that he believes the Capitals will only be able to ink two of those players and will be forced to let two go. Shattenkirk, who was acquired in a February trade from the St. Louis Blues for their playoff run, has struggled in the playoffs this year, but is listed first due to the fact that blueliners in the prime of their careers, who can play 20 minutes a night, are always rewarded. Whether Washington can keep him at a high price tag is the tough question.
The team is likely to do everything to sign Oshie, however. The 30-year-old winger has had a breakout season with Washington on the first line with Alex Ovechkin and Niklas Backstrom. He has tallied 59 regular-season goals in the two seasons he has played for the Capitals since being acquired by trade from the Blues.
The Capitals then have to look at Alzner, a rugged blueliner who at age 28, could get a large contract in a weak year of free agent defensemen, while Williams playoff success could make him a well-paid second-liner as well. The Capitals have to decide what priorities they have as it’s unlikely they can afford to keep all four players.
Montreal Canadiens veteran winger Alexander Radulov, who returned to the NHL last year after a long stint in the KHL, is ranked second on the list, although he has said he would like to resign with the Canadiens. Goaltender Ben Bishop is listed fourth on that free agent list and the 30-year-old netminder should be in high demand. Veterans Martin Hanzal (No. 6), Joe Thornton (No. 7), Radim Vrbata (No. 9) and Patrick Eaves (No. 10) round out the first ten on that list.
Morning Notes: Crosby, Ovechkin, Sabres Search
After skating on his own yesterday, Sidney Crosby was back at Penguins’ practice today in a regular jersey and looks poised to return to the lineup tomorrow night in Washington. If he does, it would be just five days since suffering a concussion due to Matt Niskanen‘s cross-check on Monday night. The idea of returning so quickly may be familiar to Penguins fans that remember Crosby’s first concussion. After being hit by David Steckel in the 2010-11 Winter Classic, Crosby would return just a few days later to face the Tampa Bay Lightning. After another (much less violent) hit from Victor Hedman, he’d lose the rest of the season and part of the next year.
While obviously if he’s returning it means that the Pittsburgh medical staff has signed off, returning so soon is still a risk for the Penguins’ captain. His history with head injuries is getting longer and longer, and there have been many instances around the league of players coming back too soon, only to have symptoms return. Here’s hoping that Crosby is 100% ready, and not being rushed back in order to give the Penguins a better chance for the Stanley Cup.
- The Washington Capitals will try Alex Ovechkin on the third line tomorrow, moving him down in an attempt to spread out their offense. Washington has only been able to score more than two goals once in the series, and even had trouble scoring in their first-round matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Despite out-shooting their opponent consistently, the Capitals just can’t seem to find the back of the net. Putting Ovechkin with Lars Eller and Tom Wilson may seem like a desperation move, but perhaps it will spark something in the team as they fight for their playoff lives.
- The Buffalo Sabres GM search continues, and according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet (via a Chris Nichols transcription on FanRag) they have asked at least one candidate if they would be comfortable with the team installing a President of Hockey Operations after taking the job. As discussed this week, many around the league believe Buffalo should follow the design of teams like the Calgary Flames, who have an experienced GM sitting behind a less-experienced man holding the position. While Buffalo tried this with Pat LaFontaine at one point, disagreements led to the dissolving of the President position and Tim Murray retaining whole control.
Pittsburgh Penguins Recall Eleven Players
The Pittsburgh Penguins have made their “Black Aces” call-ups, bringing eleven players up from the AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. The players are as follows:
G Sean Maguire
D David Warsofsky
D Derrick Pouliot
D Cameron Gaunce
D Frank Corrado
F Tom Sestito
F Dominik Simon
F Jean-Sebastien Dea
F Garrett Wilson
F Kevin Porter
In addition, Daniel Sprong has also been recalled. Sprong had been playing with the Charlottetown Islanders of the QMJHL. Sprong has one of the more interesting histories among young players, spending 18 games with the Penguins last year before going back to junior. That stint—combined with 12 healthy scratches peppered throughout—kicked Sprong’s entry-level deal into effect, which will make him a restricted free agent after next season despite spending this entire year in junior.
The second-round pick has continued to show that he’s ready for the next step in his hockey career, but will likely not get into any action with the Penguins during these playoffs. Instead, all of the players called up today will skate with the team and provide insurance should multiple injuries strike at the same time.