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Carolina Hurricanes Re-Sign Max McCormick

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The Carolina Hurricanes are welcoming back a valued depth forward. The team has announced a new one-year, two-way contract with veteran Max McCormick. The extension carries a $700K NHL salary and $125K AHL salary. McCormick will be an unrestricted free agent once again at the conclusion of the 2020-21 season.

McCormick, 28, initially arrived in Carolina as a free agent last summer. He did not see any NHL action this season for the first time since 2014-15, but still managed to prove his worth to the club. McCormick recorded 35 points in 56 points, placing him among the top five scoring forwards for the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers. With fellow top scorers Janne Kuokkanen and Julien Gauthier now gone and the Hurricanes’ affiliate relocating to Chicago, McCormick’s return provides some consistency and leadership to a team undergoing major changes.

McCormick has the ability to contribute at the NHL level as well. As a member of the Ottawa Senators, he played in 71 games over four years and chipped in ten points and 136 hits as an impact fourth liner. McCormick plays a heavier game than his stature may indicate and can hold his own on a checking line. The Hurricanes have not used a typical checking line in recent years, but should they opt to insert some grit and energy into the bottom-six, McCormick is a great option.

Jan Jenik Loaned To Kettera

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After loaning Ilya Lyubushkin back to the KHL, the Arizona Coyotes have sent another player abroad today. This time it’s Jan Jenik who has been loaned to Kettera of the Finnish second league.

Jenik, 20, was actually injured at the World Juniors this season and ended up playing in just 27 games for the Hamilton Bulldogs of the OHL. A third-round pick (65th overall) in 2018, he was one of the most dynamic players in the whole league during that short period, racking up 22 goals and 56 points.

That performance certainly has a lot of excitement surrounding the Czech-born forward, who was actually ranked 98th in Corey Pronman’s recent list of the top players under 23 for The Athletic. Getting him back on the ice is a huge deal for his development, even if it does come in an uncertain time for professional hockey players.

Because of his age, Jenik’s entry-level contract is not actually eligible to slide forward another season, meaning the Coyotes will burn the first year no matter where he plays. With that in mind, it will be interesting to see if he gets a chance in training camp to potentially push for a spot in the NHL right away, or ends up in the AHL, which recently announced they are targeting a February start date.

AHL, OHL Targeting February Start Dates

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The NHL said as recently as last week that they are still targeting a January start for the 2020-21 season, but other leagues may not be so optimistic. Jeff Marek of Sportsnet reports that at the OHL GM meeting today, a plan was presented that would have their regular season start on February 4. Training camp for the junior league would start on January 23, with a 40-game schedule expected. The AHL meanwhile had their own meeting, this time with the league’s board of governors, which included a new target start date of February 5.

While the idea of hockey returning in February is exciting, it also means nearly a year between meaningful games for many prospects. Leagues shut down in early March this year, and though some teams have found landing spots for their players overseas, many have been limited to training in small groups or individually.

The AHL had originally given a target date of December 4, but “due to the ongoing COVID-19 public health crisis” that has been moved back two full months. The minor league is much more reliant on ticket sales than the NHL is, while also not being quite as well set up for regional bubbles. With so much uncertainty over the public health situation, individual state, provincial and federal guidelines, and an NHL season that isn’t set in stone yet, even this AHL target is completely temporary. It can—and very well might—be changed again down the line.

For now though, the leagues will hope to get things started in just over three months’ time.

Ottawa Senators To Sign Alex Galchenyuk

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12:00pm: The Senators have officially announced the contract, signing Galchenyuk to a one-year, $1.05MM contract for the 2020-21 season. Dorion released a statement on the deal:

Alex’s signing represents another good addition for us at forward. He’s versatile in that he can play both left wing and centre. He’s gifted offensively, has been a solid power-play contributor and is a proven goal scorer in this league.

11:07am: The Ottawa Senators are going to add some more offensive firepower to the lineup, as Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic reports they are close to signing unrestricted free agent Alex Galchenyuk. Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia tweets that the contract is expected to carry a salary of $1.05MM.

Galchenyuk, 26, is a long way from the 30-goal campaign he had in 2015-16 with the Montreal Canadiens. Since then he’s been included in separate trades for Max Domi, Phil Kessel, and Jason Zucker, bouncing from Montreal to Arizona, Pittsburgh and Minnesota. He was a disaster for the Penguins, scoring just five goals and 17 points in 45 games despite getting an early opportunity beside Evgeni Malkin, and was anything but a dominant presence for the Wild, registering zero points in their four qualification round games.

Still, he’s 26 and was a third-overall pick eight years ago. There is incredible skill in Galchenyuk’s hands and though he has been a relative disappointment given his draft position, he still does have 135 goals and 320 points in 549 regular season games. That’s good enough for second among all players drafted in 2012, behind only Nashville’s Filip Forsberg (166 goals, 353 points).

In Ottawa, he can slide into a lineup that suddenly looks a lot deeper than expected. The Senators have not only added Galchenyuk, but also Evgenii Dadonov and Austin Watson to a forward group that will also likely include third-overall pick Tim Stuetzle. On defense they’ve added Josh Brown and Erik Gudbranson while solidifying the crease with Matt Murray. It’s an impressive offseason for GM Pierre Dorion, who has been adamant that the Senators will be competitive sooner than many believe.

The question now becomes where exactly Galchenyuk plays, given he is likely more effective as a center (even if there are still legitimate questions about his defensive ability). The team already has Chris Tierney, Colin White, Josh Norris, and Logan Brown as potential pivots, meaning someone—perhaps Galchenyuk—will have to move to the wing.

Still, for just over a million dollars, this is an almost risk-free move for Dorion. At worst, Galchenyuk struggles and the team doesn’t retain him next season. At best, he rediscovers his previous 30-goal potential and becomes a core piece in the rebuild. Most likely? Galchenyuk gets strong powerplay time and becomes a trade chip for the Senators at the deadline to add even more assets to the cupboard.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Hurricanes Re-Sign Haydn Fleury

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Scratch another player off the arbitration list.  The Hurricanes announced that they have re-signed defenseman Haydn Fleury to a two-year deal with a $1.3MM AAV.  The two sides were scheduled for a hearing on November 8th.  GM Don Waddell released the following statement:

Haydn made a huge leap in his development last season and established himself as an everyday NHL defenseman. He was very dependable late in the regular season and in the playoffs, and we look forward to him continuing his development into an elite NHL defenseman.

The 24-year-old was up with Carolina all season, the first full NHL campaign of his career.  However, given the depth that the Hurricanes have, Fleury was limited to 45 regular season games in almost exclusively a number six role.  He had four goals and ten assists, numbers that were decent considering he averaged less than 14 minutes per game.  However, Fleury was tasked with a bit more ice time in the playoffs, logging over 16 minutes a night while chipping in with a pair of goals in eight games.

That was enough to earn Fleury a small raise in his second trip through restricted free agency after he made $850K this season.  Notably, this contract will give him a third and final RFA stint in 2022 as he’ll still be a year shy of being able to hit the open market and he will be arbitration-eligible once again.

Even though Carolina has lost Joel Edmundson (trade with Montreal), Trevor van Riemsdyk (free agency, Washington), and Sami Vatanen (unrestricted free agent), Fleury will still have some work cut out for him to earn a regular spot in the lineup.  As things stand, he’s likely to battle with offseason acquisition Joakim Ryan and prospect Jake Bean for the sixth spot on their depth chart.  Even with the raise, it’s a reasonable price tag for a player that still has some upside but may still have to spend some time in the press box.

Waddell still has some work to do in the short term though as Warren Foegele is still in need of a contract with an arbitration hearing scheduled for November 4th.  Following this signing, Carolina has about $3MM in cap space to work with and a good chunk of that will be going to the winger.

Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic was the first to report the deal.

Sharks Loan Joachim Blichfeld To Denmark

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One of San Jose’s more intriguing prospects is heading home to get in some playing time before the 2020-21 NHL season begins.  Frederikshavn of the Metal Ligaen in Denmark announced that they’ve added winger Joachim Blichfeld on a short-term loan agreement until training camps in North America get underway.

The 22-year-old was a seventh-round pick (210th overall) by San Jose back in 2016 and he looks like he’ll outperform that selection.  In 2018-19, Blichfeld was the top scorer in the WHL, putting up 53 goals and 61 assists with Portland in just 68 games.

He made his professional debut last season and spent most of it with the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda where he acquitted himself well, tallying 16 goals and 16 assists in just 44 games.  That helped earn him four separate recalls to the Sharks between December and January while he was able to get into his first three NHL contests.

As things stand, with San Jose largely standing pat this offseason, Blichfeld will be among the young players that will have a chance of carving out a regular spot in the lineup.  Accordingly, this loan takes on a bit more importance as unlike most prospects getting sent out for some development time, a good showing in his hometown could be the difference between breaking camp with the Sharks or going back to the minors.

Columbus Blue Jackets Sign Calvin Thurkauf

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The Columbus Blue Jackets have signed restricted free agent Calvin Thurkauf to a one-year, two-way contract. The 23-year-old forward is currently playing with Zug EV of the Swiss NLA, but is expected to return for NHL training camp when it starts later this winter.

Thurkauf made his NHL debut this season, suiting up in three NHL games for the Blue Jackets after spending most of the last three years in the minor leagues. A seventh-round pick from 2016, he’s slowly worked his way through the minor league system and is now a real candidate for a bottom-six role.

It’s hard to know exactly where Thurkauf’s offensive game can go at the highest level, but he has looked good in a two-way role in Switzerland so far. He’ll have to continue to play good defense and use his big frame to carve out a role in Columbus.

This is of course not the restricted free agent that Blue Jackets fans are excited to hear about. That would Pierre-Luc Dubois, who figures to get a massive raise if he agrees to a long-term deal with Columbus. Still just 22, Dubois is already arguably the team’s best forward but does not have arbitration rights.

Ottawa Senators Sign Filip Chlapik

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The Ottawa Senators have taken care of a little more business, signing Filip Chlapik to a new contract. The one-year, two-way deal will pay him $735K at the NHL level. Senators GM Pierre Dorion had this to say on his young forward:

Filip’s a competitive player who works hard. He has applied himself to becoming an important player for us in Belleville. We’re confident that work ethic will be equally as effective for him as he strives to become the same type of player in Ottawa.

Chlapik, 23, still hasn’t established himself as a full-time NHL option, but did play 31 games with Ottawa this season. The 48th overall pick in 2015, he has 11 points in 56 career games. As Dorion points out, he has become a core piece of the Belleville lineup and could very well make the jump in the coming years.

While he waited for a new deal with Ottawa, Chlapik had signed on to play with HC Sparta Praha in the Czech professional league. Unfortunately, he has suited up just three times because of the COVID-19 situation overseas, which has put that league on pause. He has one goal in those three games.

Chlapik’s new contract leaves only Christian Jaros left for the Senators to sign, with an arbitration hearing on the books for November 7.

Oscar Fantenberg Signs In KHL

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A free agent defenseman has decided to take his talents overseas. Oscar Fantenberg, who spent the 2019-20 season with the Vancouver Canucks, has signed a one-year contract with SKA St. Petersburg in the KHL. The deal carries him through the end of April 2021.

Fantenberg, 29, has actually played in the KHL before, suiting up 44 times for Sochi HC in 2016-17. That’s the season which landed him an NHL contract, signing a one-year entry-level deal with the Los Angeles Kings almost immediately after it ended. Since then, the two-way defenseman has played in 147 NHL games, split between the Kings, Canucks, and Calgary Flames.

Perhaps his most impressive hockey came just this summer for the Canucks, where he played 16 postseason contests. While he’ll never be a top-four option in the NHL, it did appear as though he could be a useful depth piece for the next several years.

With that in mind, it will be interesting to see if his name pops up again after the KHL season ends, given that the NHL schedule will likely not be finished by the beginning of May. He’ll also be a candidate to return for the 2021-22 campaign, if he decides to try his hand in North America once again.

Devon Toews Avoids Arbitration

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One of the most interesting arbitration cases on the schedule this year was Devon Toews, who would have had to sit across the (virtual) table from Colorado Avalanche management that barely knew him. The Avalanche traded two second-round picks for Toews earlier this offseason, taking him away from the New York Islanders. That hearing, scheduled for October 31, will not be needed anymore, as the team has reached a four-year contract with Toews that will pay him an average annual value of $4.1MM.

CapFriendly has the full breakdown:

  • 2020-21: $2.35MM
  • 2021-22: $3.55MM
  • 2022-23: $4.6MM
  • 2023-24: $5.9MM

Toews, 26, is giving up three years of unrestricted free agency in the deal and turning down the chance to walk into the open market next offseason. An arbitration award would have only been able to be a one-year deal, making him a UFA at the age of 27. In exchange for giving that up, Toews has received quite the raise over the $700K salary he had averaged over the last two seasons.

Though it took him a while to get to the NHL, when he did, Toews found immediate success. A fourth-round pick in 2014 after his first season at Quinnipiac University, Toews would stay in college for two more years before joining the Islanders organization. In 2016-17 he would burst onto the AHL scene with 45 points in 76 games, racking up the most assists by any rookie and earning himself a place on the All-Rookie team.

Though injuries would limit his sophomore year, Toews would finally make it to the NHL just before Christmas in 2018 and never look back. In his first season with the Islanders he recorded 18 points in 48 games while averaging a little less than 18 minutes a game, but both those numbers ballooned in 2019-20.

Now thrown over the boards for more than 20 minutes a night and given regular powerplay time, Toews racked up 28 points in 68 games and was a monster in almost every possession statistic.

In Colorado, while the powerplay opportunity may disappear thanks to the presence of talented youngsters like Cale Makar and Samuel Girard (not to mention Bowen Byram, who is on the way), he’ll represent a perfect two-way complement that can slide in beside almost anyone. In fact, he seems a capable replacement for Ian Cole, who has quietly been extremely effective since ending up in Colorado, but whose contract expires after the 2020-21 season.

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