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Adin Hill

Pacific Notes: Hill, Ferraro, Bjorkstrand, Kemp

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As alluded to this morning in the team’s reassignment of goaltender Jiri Patera to their AHL affiliate, Danny Webster of the Las Vegas Sun reports that the Vegas Golden Knights have removed Adin Hill from the injured reserve, and he is on track to dress in the team’s game tonight against the New York Islanders. Even though he will be back in the lineup, it is unclear if Hill will start in tonight’s contest, or if the Golden Knights will continue to utilize Logan Thompson.

Being one of the better success stories of last season, there were high expectations for Hill coming off an impressive run to the Stanley Cup last year. When he has been healthy, Hill has once again been one of the better netminders in the league, producing a 10-2-2 record in 15 games with a league-leading .933 SV% and 1.99 GAA to boot.

However, for the fourth time in his career and already the second time this season, Hill has missed a significant amount of time with injury, being one of the main drivers of Vegas’ fall in the standings. Since recovering from his current injury suffered on December 17th, the Golden Knights have only managed a 6-8-1 record, falling to eighth in the league standings.

Other Pacific notes:

  • After suffering an undisclosed injury in the team’s most recent game, Curtis Pashelka of the Bay Area News Group reports that San Jose Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro will not play tonight. Fortunately, subsequent reporting indicated that the injury to Ferraro was not as bad as expected, but the Sharks will likely be keeping him out through the All-Star break to fully recover.
  • Kate Shefte of Seattle Times Sports reported that Seattle Kraken forward Oliver Bjorkstrand had missed the team’s practice today due to personal reasons. With a game tomorrow night against the Chicago Blackhawks, it is unclear if Bjorkstrand will be in the lineup or not. As the Kraken’s lone All-Star representative, Bjorkstrand is putting together quite the season, scoring 12 goals and 36 points in all 46 games for the team.
  • Having spent two weeks with the team since being recalled on January 9th, the Edmonton Oilers announced they have loaned defenseman Philip Kemp to their AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors. Making his NHL debut on January 13th, Kemp was unable to score his first NHL point after only managing two minutes of ice time. With Kemp now back in Bakersfield, the Oilers were able to comfortably place the new contract of Corey Perry onto their active roster.

Pacific Notes: McLellan, Hill, Amadio

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In this week’s edition of TSN’s Insider Trading, one of the proposed questions centered around the possibility of the Los Angeles Kings parting ways with current head coach Todd McLellan. Hoping to compete for a Stanley Cup this season, the Kings have produced a 1-5-4 record since December 28th, which has led some to speculate that a change behind the bench could be on the horizon in Los Angeles.

Unlike most teams that have made an in-season coaching change this year, the Kings still find themselves within a playoff spot in the Pacific Division, but the gap has certainly tightened over the last few weeks. Keeping together much of the same core over the offseason and bringing in Pierre-Luc Dubois, it’s safe to say that Los Angeles is not meeting their expectations up to this point in the season.

One of the main drivers in the team’s current misfortune has been the offense, which has only averaged 2.3 goals per game in their last 10 contests. In the year, the Kings rank 14th in the NHL with 3.27 GF/G, which does not appear to be enough firepower to take down a team such as the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, or Vancouver Canucks. With little salary cap mobility and a coaching change seeming unlikely, the Kings will have to do their best to handle this downturn internally.

Other notes:

  • Another team in the Pacific Division that has dealt with some unfortunate play of late would be the Vegas Golden Knights. In their last 14 games, the Golden Knights have produced a 5-9-0 record, now falling well short of the first-place Canucks. Nevertheless, in some positive news for the organization, the head coach of the team, Bruce Cassidy, suggested that starting goaltender Adin Hill is back practicing and should participate in a game sooner rather than later (X Link). Getting Hill back into the lineup should give the team quite a bit of much-needed stability, as he produced a 10-2-2 record in 15 games before going down with an injury in mid-December.
  • Sticking in Vegas, Jesse Granger of The Athletic reported that forward Michael Amadio would miss the team’s game tonight against the New York Rangers with an upper-body injury. One of the most valuable depth players across the league this year, Amadio has scored six goals and 17 points in 43 games.

Pacific Notes: Markstrom, Kuznetsov, Golden Knights

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With trade season now in full swing, one member of the Calgary Flames who has found his name mentioned in several rumors is goaltender Jacob Markstrom. As the Flames enter a transitionary period in their organization, and with goalie prospect Dustin Wolf ready to make the jump to the NHL, the logic behind moving Markstrom has never been more clear for Calgary.

However, in an article by James Nichols of NJ Hockey Now, he includes a quote from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman pouring cold water on the idea of the Flames moving Markstrom as he says, “From what I understand, Calgary has a very high bar here in terms of they’re not going to bother Markstrom with just anything. It would have to be something massive for them or somewhere they absolutely believe Markstrom would want to go before they would even consider going to him. I think that’s where things stand with Markstrom, the Flames, and anything right now”.

Assuming that Friedman is accurate, Calgary’s asking price for Markstrom may push too many teams away, although something could come together over the offseason. With teams such as the Carolina Hurricanes, Edmonton Oilers, and New Jersey Devils all looking to upgrade their situation in the crease, it would be incredibly rare for a team to part with a substantial amount of assets during the regular season.

Other notes:

  • Staying in Calgary, the Flames announced earlier today that they have sent down defenseman Yan Kuznetsov to their AHL affiliate, the Calgary Wranglers. Kuznetsov was recalled for the second time this year on January 9th and would make his NHL debut the same day against the Ottawa Senators. Skating in just under 12 minutes of the game against Ottawa, Kuznetsov was held scoreless in his debut, as he put two shots on the net and also blocked one.
  • After sending him down earlier this morning to make way for Brendan Brisson, the Vegas Golden Knights have recalled forward Byron Froese on an emergency basis due to the possibility of Chandler Stephenson missing time with an illness (X Link). Producing a 3-7-0 record in their last 10 games, the Golden Knights’ depth continues to be tested, as more and more of their typical players continue to miss games for the team.
  • In more news coming from Vegas, both Adin Hill and Jiri Patera are not ready to return to the team, although both goaltenders are currently skating (X Link). Relying on goaltender Logan Thompson heavily over the last few weeks, the Golden Knights are now relying on their fourth-string goaltender to serve in the backup role, as 23-year-old, Isaiah Saville was recalled yesterday on an emergency basis.

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.

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