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Vegas Recalls Isaiah Saville With Adin Hill, Michael Amadio Out

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The Vegas Golden Knights have recalled goaltender Isaiah Saville ahead of their Wednesday night game, as expected starter Adin Hill is not yet ready to return. The Golden Knights also shared that forward Michael Amadio will miss Wednesday’s matchup with illness.

Saville will serve as the team’s backup against the Colorado Avalanche, with Jiri Patera set to make his fourth start of the season. It’s only the sixth start of Patera’s career, which kicked off with two NHL appearances last season. He’s set a 3-2-0 record and .908 save percentage in his limited NHL career, though he’s spent more of his time operating as the starter for the AHL’s Henderson Silver Knights. He’s appeared in 14 AHL games this year, setting a 6-6-2 record and .900 save percentage. He’s been backed up by a platoon of goalies, including Saville, who has managed a 4-3-0 record and .914 save percentages in seven games of his own. The sudden recall is only the second of Saville’s career, though the 23-year-old has yet to play in his first NHL game.

Hill’s unexpected setback now makes nine consecutive games that he’s missed with an undisclosed injury. The 27-year-old has continued to look fantastic in the ice time he has managed, setting a league-leading .933 save percentage and 1.93 goals-against-average in the 15 games he’s played this season. His injury forces Vegas to turn to their AHL netminders, as the team is also missing Logan Thompson due to illness. Thompson has served as the de facto starter in Hill’s absence, setting a 12-8 record and .902 save percentage in 24 games.

Afternoon Notes: Golden Knights, Puljujarvi, Meyers

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Vegas Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy shared updates on the team’s long list of injuries, sharing that Daniil Miromanov is back on the ice, Keegan Kolesar is still out of the lineup with illness, and that starter Adin Hill has returned to skating on his own but isn’t quite ready to rejoin the team. Cassidy also shared that Shea Theodore is still a ways away from returning. The star defenseman is joined by Miromanov and Hill on injured reserve.

These injuries have underscored what’s been a battered Vegas lineup to start the year. The club currently has a top-six forward in William Karlsson, starter Adin Hill, and four different defensemen on IR. The only on the list to not yet make his season debut is NHL newcomer Miromanov, who is dealing with an undisclosed injury that’s held him out since the start of the year.

The amount of talent being held out of Vegas’ lineup is impressive. Karlsson ranks third on the team in scoring with 32 points in 38 games. Theodore still leads all Knights defenders in scoring, despite missing 18 games, with 18 points in 20 games. And Hill has returned to the impeccable goalie that made him an icon last postseason, boasting a .934 save percentage through 15 games this season. The Golden Knights will be in for a big boost when they’re able to get each of these players back, although how long that may take is still up in the air.

Other notes from around the league:

  • The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins have signed Jesse Puljujarvi to a professional try-out agreement, extending his time in the Penguins organization. Puljujarvi is working his way back from double hip surgery and has been skating with the Pittsburgh lineup at practices. And while his return still seems to be a ways out, this move helps set him up for an AHL conditioning stint once he’s ready to go.
  • The Colorado Avalanche have assigned Ben Meyers to the AHL’s Colorado Eagles. This is likely in an effort to maintain the young forward’s waiver exemption status. Meyers has played in a collective 58 NHL games since joining the Avalanche in 2021-22 and will lose his exemption once he hits 60 games. The 25-year-old centerman has totaled six goals and no assists through those 58 games, adding 37 points in 49 AHL games.

Snapshots: Skinner, Greenway, Hill, Atanasov

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Rumoured to be on the horizon for several days now, the Buffalo Sabres have officially activated forwards Jeff Skinner and Jordan Greenway from injured reserve tonight, per a team announcement. According to the stipulations provided in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the Sabres can activate both, and carry a 24-man roster over the roster freeze since they are under the salary cap.

Barring something extreme, Paul Hamilton of WGR Sports Radio expects both players to be in the lineup tonight as the Sabres take on the Toronto Maple Leafs. Skinner, dealing with an upper-body injury, has missed three games for Buffalo, while Greenway, also dealing with an upper-body injury, has missed a total of nine games throughout his injury.

It is positive news for a Sabres organization seemingly unable to stay healthy up to this point in the 2023-24 regular season. With a 3-6-1 record in their last 10 games, Buffalo has failed to gain any sort of traction this season, sitting stagnantly in seventh place in the Atlantic Division.

Other snapshots:

  • Playing in only one game since December 1st, the expectation is that the Vegas Golden Knights will place goaltender Adin Hill on injured reserve (X Link). Not slowing down a bit since his impressive performance in last year’s Stanley Cup playoffs, Hill holds a 10-2-2 record this season, carrying a league-leading .933 SV% and a 1.93 GAA in 15 starts.
  • According to Elliotte Friedman, one player who is gaining plenty of overseas traction in the NHL is Vasili Atanasov, currently rostered on Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod of the Kontinental Hockey League. With one year remaining on his current contract, the 21-year-old forward has 19 goals and 38 points in 39 games. Although he has shown quite the ability to score at the professional level, he is a bit undersized standing at 5’11” and 157 pounds.

Evening Notes: Devils, Svechnikov, Hill

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TSN’s Pierre LeBrun recently shared that New Jersey Devils defenseman Dougie Hamilton could be out through the end of the regular season, after undergoing surgery to repair a pectoral injury. The Devils would gain $9MM in cap space if they moved Hamilton to long-term injured reserve, money that LeBrun says would put the Devils in a position to be aggressive at the Trade Deadline.

The Devils have come back into their own, winning seven of their last 10 games after a more-than-slow start to the year. LeBrun added that the Devils would be in the market for roster pieces, including looking for a new goaltender. New Jersey was rumored to be closely attached to former Vezina Trophy-winner Connor Hellebuyck this off-season but weren’t able to get a deal done before the netminder signed a seven-year extension with the Winnipeg Jets. Hellebuyck’s new deal carries a cap hit of $8.5MM – just under the Devils’ available cap. The deal also carries a no-movement clause for its first three seasons and a modified no-trade clause for the last four.

There’s no doubting the Devils’ need for a goaltender. The team has scored the eighth-most goals in the league through the first half of the year but they’ve allowed the tenth-most goals-against, with both Vitek Vanecek and Akira Schmid boasting save percentages below .900.

More notes from around the league:

Pacific Notes: Spence, Hoffman, Markstrom, Golden Knights

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Kings defenseman Jordan Spence has changed agents and is now represented by Quartexx, PuckPedia reports (Twitter link).  The 22-year-old is in his first full season at the NHL level, appearing in all but one of 26 games for Los Angeles so far.  A prominent point producer in the minors with 87 points in 102 games with AHL Ontario, Spence has had a bit of a harder go hitting the scoreboard in the NHL although he does have nine assists while averaging just shy of 15 minutes a night.  Spence is set to become a restricted free agent for the first time this summer and will be owed a qualifying offer worth a little over $813K.

More from the Pacific Division:

  • Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch suggests Sharks winger Mike Hoffman could be a name to keep an eye on when it comes to the trade front. After getting off to a slow start, the 34-year-old is up to eight goals in 28 games, just one off the team lead.  A pending UFA with a $4.5MM cap hit, the asking price for Hoffman likely won’t be very high but he could be a useful addition to a team looking to add a bit of firepower to their bottom six.
  • Flames goaltender Jacob Markstrom practiced on Wednesday with their AHL affiliate, relays Postmedia’s Wes Gilbertson. The 33-year-old has been out for the last week and a half with a finger injury but Gilbertson pointed out that Markstrom didn’t seem to be limited at all which suggests the netminder could be nearing a return.  Calgary has a full roster at the moment although that can easily be addressed by returning top prospect Dustin Wolf back to the Wranglers.
  • Golden Knights goaltender Adin Hill is expected to accompany the team on their road trip next week, notes Danny Webster of the Las Vegas Sun (Twitter link). The 27-year-old has missed the last week and a half with a lower-body injury after getting off to a stellar start; he leads the NHL in GAA (1.87) and SV% (.935) over his first 14 starts.  Meanwhile, Webster adds that defenseman Kaedan Korczak will miss some time due to a lower-body injury of his own.  Korczak has a goal and six assists in 15 games with Vegas so far this season.

West Injury Notes: McTavish, Markstrom, Lindholm, Golden Knights

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Heading into the Anaheim Ducks’ two-game road trip this week, it was largely expected that Mason McTavish would be able to join the team, even after suffering an upper-body injury in the team’s loss last week to the Colorado Avalanche. However, earlier today, Derek Lee of The Sporting Tribune reported that McTavish will not be making the trip with the team, and will likely be available for the team’s game against the Winnipeg Jets next Sunday.

Last season, McTavish produced at a solid clip, scoring 17 goals and 43 assists in a disappointing offensive season for the Ducks. His work at the center position left a lot to be desired in the faceoff dot specifically. Still, McTavish’s offensive production and his defensive attributes were good enough to see him finish seventh in Calder Memorial Trophy voting by season’s end.

This year, if he continues on the same pace, McTavish will pass his point production from last season a little past the halfway mark of this year. He’s gotten off to an incredible start with Anaheim, scoring 10 goals and 21 points in 24 games, currently sitting second on the team in scoring. His work in the faceoff dot has also improved significantly, winning 57.0% of his 337 draws this year, a year-on-year improvement of 14.7%.

Other injury notes:

  • During practice today, Pat Steinberg of Sportsnet reported that the starting goaltender of the Calgary Flames, Jacob Markstrom, left practice early, and is being evaluated for a hand injury. At this time, there have been no other updates to the injury status of Markstrom, but the team may look to recall top prospect Dustin Wolf, since their AHL affiliate, the Calgary Wranglers, do not play until the end of the week.
  • Sticking in Southern Alberta, one member of the Flames who missed the entirety of the team’s practice today was forward Elias Lindholm. The team announced that Lindholm was out with an illness for today’s practice, and his status is unknown as to whether or not he will be in the team’s lineup tomorrow night.
  • Out in Vegas, the expectation is that goaltender Adin Hill (who has been out since December 2nd) and defenseman Alec Martinez (who has been out since November 22nd) will not be able to make the team’s upcoming two-game road trip (X Link). In the crease specifically, Logan Thompson will take over the crease for the most part, but with back-to-back games this weekend, Jiri Patera may have to make a start if Hill is not able to return by Sunday.

Vegas Golden Knights Extend Adin Hill

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June 30: Vegas has confirmed Hill’s extension at $4.9MM per season over two years. PuckPedia confirms the breakdown of his contract:

2023-24: $1.6MM base salary, $4MM signing bonus, eight-team no-trade list
2024-25: $4.2MM base salary, five-team no-trade list

June 25: The Vegas Golden Knights captured their franchise’s first-ever Stanley Cup earlier this month, and while he didn’t end up winning the Conn Smythe Trophy the work of netminder Adin Hill played a significant role in getting Vegas over the line.

Now it appears Vegas is nearing a contract extension agreement with Hill, 27, who was set to hit the open market July 1st. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman has reported that Hill is “looking at an extension in Vegas around the 2x$4.9M range,” and that nothing is official at this time.

PuckPedia made a point that will be central to the reception of this contract, which is that Hill’s reported $4.9MM cap hit “would put him just outside a top 16 starter in Cap Hit. Based on last season, at that cap hit he would be expected to play 50+ games.” That’s potentially going to be an issue for Hill, as the last time he was a true full-time goalie for a full season was with the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks back in 2015-16.

In recent years Hill has consistently battled injuries, and even though he had injury troubles this season as well he actually set a career-high in NHL games played with 27.

The six-foot-four 27-year-old played quite well in those 27 games, posting a 16-7-1 record and a .915 save percentage, but those numbers won’t deliver enough return on Vegas’ $4.9MM AAV investment unless he can handle a higher workload.

Even with those concerns about availability, it’s abundantly clear why Vegas made the choice to extend Hill and reward him for his playoff heroics. Hill’s playoff performance stepping in after an injury to Laurent Brossoit was genuinely stunning, and his .932 save percentage in 16 games is a testament to that. Hill’s out-of-this-world save on Nick Cousins to set the tone for the Stanley Cup Final is going to be a moment long remembered in hockey history, and while NHL clubs probably shouldn’t let sentimentality influence major financial decisions, Vegas’ desire to keep their playoff hero around for longer than just one season is completely understandable.

There are going to be fans that snicker at Hill receiving a per-year cap hit nearly as high as what Darcy Kuemper, a tried-and-tested, durable NHL starter received on the open market after winning his own Stanley Cup. That’s an understandable point of view given just how spotty Hill’s track record has been in past years. He was let go by San Jose last summer for a mid-round draft pick, after all.

But in the end, this is a player who shouldered a significant amount of responsibility in high-leverage moments and led his team to a Stanley Cup. 26-year-old Logan Thompson, who impressed as a rookie this past season, will cost Vegas just $766k against the cap for the duration of this Hill contract extension. So assuming Vegas runs a Hill-Thompson tandem, they’ll be paying their netminders under $6MM combined, a totally affordable number.

The presence of Robin Lehner and his $5MM cap hit on Vegas’ books complicates things, especially if he plans on returning to the ice after missing the season due to hip surgeries. But with the start of free agency looming, locking up Hill and therefore a two-goalie tandem for the next two seasons is a solid bit of business, assuming Hill can stay healthy.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Goalie Notes: Hill/Brossoit, Reimer, Greiss

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The Vegas Golden Knights’ key bit of business this offseason revolves around the two netminders who helped guide them to the team’s first Stanley Cup: journeymen Adin Hill and Laurent Brossoit. In a massive piece detailing this summer’s goalie market from The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun, both Hill’s and Brossoit’s agents expressed interest in returning to the team on behalf of their clients. Both pending unrestricted free agents, Hill and Brossoit filled in for the injured Logan Thompson down the stretch and in the playoffs, with Hill ultimately going on a miracle run for the last two-and-a-half rounds of the playoffs after Brossoit sustained a lower-body injury. Hill is obviously due a significant raise from his previous $2.175MM cap hit, but LeBrun surmises that Hill knows “they’ve got a good thing going in Vegas” and may not completely maximize the leverage coming from his spectacular playoff performance. Meanwhile, Brossoit’s agent, Ray Petkau, acknowledged it may be tough for the team to retain Brossoit given their crunch at the position, but will continue to remain in contact with Vegas and explore their options.

More from LeBrun on the goalie market this evening:

  • Petkau confirmed to LeBrun another one of his clients, San Jose Sharks netminder James Reimer, will hit unrestricted free agency on July 1. The 35-year-old veteran of nearly 500 games posted career-worst numbers behind a struggling Sharks team, notching just 12 wins in 41 starts and recording a .890 save percentage. While it’s hard to blame him for the team’s shortcomings, it’s also clear his days as a high-end tandem netminder are over, and he’ll likely need to settle for a strict backup role if he wants to stay in the league next season. He’ll also likely take a marginal pay cut from the two-year, $4.5MM deal he signed with San Jose in 2021.
  • Another Petkau client, Thomas Greiss, will also be hitting the open market. The 37-year-old is in a similar situation to Reimer, although he’s now gone two consecutive seasons without clearing the .900 save percentage mark. The St. Louis Blues’ backup job to starter Jordan Binnington is likely going to rising prospect Joel Hofer, so it makes sense the team wouldn’t be interested in a reunion. The one-time Jennings Trophy winner could also draw interest from teams looking for an inexpensive, experienced backup netminder to start between 15 and 25 games.

Afternoon Notes: Hellebuyck, Bear, Thompson

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Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic wrote today that Winnipeg Jets netminder Connor Hellebuyck is looking for a contract with an average annual value around $9.5MM. LeBrun says that teams looking to trade for the 30-year-old are aware of what Hellebuyck’s camp are seeking in contract negotiations. If Hellebuyck were to get that salary it would put him in the same pay bracket as Tampa Bay Lighting goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.

Hellebuyck was the 2020 Vezina award winner for top goaltender and has a long track record of putting up elite numbers. However, he has had a handful of poor seasons and with teams having just seen the Vegas Golden Knights win the Stanley Cup with Adin Hill between the pipes, there might be a hesitancy to pay a premium in a trade and an expensive cap hit for a goalie who is on the wrong side of 30. You can’t fault Hellebuyck for asking for the moon as he is nominated once again for the Vezina award after a terrific season in Winnipeg posting a 37-25-2 record with a .920 save percentage and a 2.49 goals against average.

In other afternoon notes:

  • Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK TV tweeted today that it appears the Vancouver Canucks have had discussions with defenseman Ethan Bear’s representatives about several contract possibilities. The tweet comes on the heels of a conversation with Bear’s agent Jason Davidson who said that they’ve discussed several options, but a one-year deal may be the way to go for the 25-year-old. It’s an interesting idea from Bear’s camp given that the defender is out until December after undergoing shoulder surgery this week. Bear is a year away from unrestricted free agency and the allure of picking his long term destination may be worth the roll of the dice.
  • Ben Gotz of the Las Vegas Review-Journal tweeted today that Bruce Cassidy told reporters that goaltender Logan Thompson is skating and should be 100% by training camp. Thompson started the year as Vegas’ number one goaltender but suffered a lower body injury in February and did not play again. When healthy the 26-year-old posted good numbers going 21-13-3 with a .915 save percentage and 2.65 goals against average. If Thompson is ready to go it could give Vegas leverage in their contract negotiations with pending free agent netminder Adin Hill. Thompson would be a solid fallback option should Hill elect to test the market and move on.

Vegas Golden Knights Have Had Extension Talks With Adin Hill

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No one in or around the Vegas Golden Knights organization is thinking about anything other than tomorrow’s Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final. A strong road performance could give the team a 3-0 stranglehold on the series and send them well on their way to fulfilling owner Bill Foley’s original “Cup in six years” proclamation.

It’s never too early to start talking about the future, however, and Vegas does have some notable storylines that will dot their offseason, which begins later this month regardless of the Final’s result. One of them is their goaltending situation – breakout netminder Adin Hill is an unrestricted free agent at season’s end.

Today, The Athletic’s Joe Smith released an extensive profile piece on the 27-year-old, in which he noted Vegas made an extension offer to Hill in March after he sustained a lower-body injury that kept him out for the rest of the regular season. Smith says it was a “nice” raise above his current $2.175MM cap hit, but Hill didn’t want to begin negotiations until Vegas’ season concluded.

Hill has done more than enough to earn the commitment, rocketing himself to Vegas’ likely Conn Smythe winner despite not even seeing the ice in the first round against the Winnipeg Jets. But Vegas’ goaltending situation is one of the murkier ones in the league heading into 2023-24, and a Hill extension would likely cause a cascading effect.

37-year-old Jonathan Quick likely won’t be brought back after coming over from Los Angeles (via Columbus) at the deadline. He played well in a few appearances for Vegas down the stretch, but the pending UFA is more than likely destined for retirement.

One player who likely deserves an extension but won’t get one is 30-year-old Laurent Brossoit, who played well above his pay grade in the playoffs before getting injured in the second round against Edmonton. That’s because Vegas still has early-season Calder candidate Logan Thompson waiting in the wings after missing the past few months with a lower-body injury, and veteran Robin Lehner (who missed the entire regular season and playoffs) could be ready to go next year as well.

With a 20-player roster, CapFriendly projects Vegas with under $3.5MM in cap space for 2023-24 including a healthy Lehner.

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