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Central Notes: Predators, Drouin, Seguin, Martinez

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The Nashville Predators were expecting better than a 4-7-1 record through the first month of the regular season, especially after spending $108.5MM to bring in Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault, and Brady Skjei in free agency. Still, despite the poor start, it doesn’t appear the team is ready to hit the panic button yet.

In an article from The Fourth Period, David Pagnotta said, “Barry Totz is certainly going to be doing his due diligence and looking around to see what may be available down the road. But right now, as you mentioned, four points out of a playoff spot, despite their rough start to the new season, I don’t really get the sense that they’re looking or itching to make an impact type of move or a panic type of move just now.”

The issues in Nashville fall on both sides of the ice. The offense hasn’t generated much enthusiasm with 2.42 GF/G and the defense hasn’t been able to hold down the fort with a 3.42 GA/G through 12 games. There are still some encouraging signs with the Predators sitting eighth in the league with a 52.8% CorsiFor% and the biggest disparity in actual goal differential minus expected goal differential according to Hockey Reference. Time will tell if Nashville has fundamental problems with their play or if they have to wait a bit longer for pucks to start bouncing their way.

Other Central notes:

  • The Colorado Avalanche are already getting a major boost to their forward core with the return of Artturi Lehkonen. According to Meghan Angley of Guerilla Sports, the team could get another reinforcement in the form of Jonathan Drouin. Angley shares that Drouin is close to returning from his upper-body injury which has kept him sidelined for much of the year aside from the opening contest. Lehkonen and the return of Drouin give Colorado two bonafide top-six wingers with Valeri Nichushkin expected to return in a few days.
  • Thanks to a lower-body injury, Dallas Stars veteran forward Tyler Seguin has only participated in seven of the team’s 11 contests. Robert Tiffin of D Magazine shares that the lower-body injury shouldn’t keep Seguin out for an extended time but it will likely be something the team has to manage all year. Seguin may inevitably land around his 2023-24 totals of 68 games played but has gotten off to a strong start this year with five goals and nine points in his limited action.
  • Mario Tirabassi of CHGO Blackhawks reports veteran defenseman Alec Martinez resumed skating this morning before the team’s practice. Martinez, who brings Stanley Cup pedigree to a relatively young Blackhawks roster, has been sidelined on October 15th due to a right groin injury. In his stead, Chicago has relied on a combination of young defensemen Nolan Allan, Wyatt Kaiser, and Alex Vlasic on the left side of the defense.

Blackhawks’ Alec Martinez, Laurent Brossoit To Remain Out Through October

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The Chicago Blackhawks must continue leaning on their youth, with defenseman Alec Martinez and goaltender Laurent Brossoit out for at least three more games, per Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times. The Blackhawks have three games remaining on a five-game road trip that neither Martinez nor Brossoit will join, meaning the next chance for either to return will come when Chicago hosts Detroit on November 6th. Isaak Phillips and Arvid Soderblom are currently replacing the duo.

Brossoit began the year on IR following knee surgery in late August. Because of the injury, he missed the entirety of training camp and opening day. In September, he received a four-week prognosis that will now be pushed into five weeks or more with the latest update. Brossoit will make his Blackhawks debut whenever he does return, joining the team on a two-year, $6.6MM contract this summer after just missing out on the William M. Jennings Trophy alongside Connor Hellebuyck last season.

While Hellebuyck is undoubtedly an all-time great, Brossoit has flashed tons of upside of his own, posting a .927 SV% through 34 games across the last two seasons. He’s up to a .911 SV% across 140 career games, though he’s yet to appear in 25 games in a single season. Brossoit could leapfrog over Soderblom when he returns and may even find his way into a starting role, with Hawks starter Petr Mrazek boasting a measly .896 through eight games this season.

Martinez will also prove a notable addition when he returns. He filled a top-pair role through Chicago’s first four games and proved impactful despite recording just one assist. Martinez spent the last five years with the Vegas Golden Knights, where he routinely handled top-end minutes – when he could stay healthy. He scored 49 points across 221 games in Sin City but missed 91 regular season games with injury. He’ll try to buck the trend while handling plenty of responsibility when Chicago returns home.

Blackhawks Place Alec Martinez On IR, Recall Isaak Phillips

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Scott Powers of The Athletic reported early today that Alec Martinez would not be in the lineup tonight for the Chicago Blackhawks while dealing with a lower-body injury. The organization confirmed Martinez would be out of the lineup for today and then some by placing him on injured reserve and recalling Isaak Phillips from their AHL affiliate, the Rockford IceHogs.

Chicago specified Martinez’s injury in the announcement saying it’s located in his right groin. His absence from the Blackhawks weakens an already scant left side of the Chicago defense. The organization signed Martinez to a one-year, $4MM contract this past offseason hoping to add some veteran leadership and Stanley Cup pedigree to their blue line. The Rochester Hills, MI native has tallied one assist in four games for Chicago up to this point in the season while averaging just over 21 minutes a night.

Phillips already gets his second look with the Blackhawks after being demoted to the AHL exactly one week ago. The former fifth-round pick of the 2020 NHL Draft may see some time next to Connor Murphy on the team’s bottom-pairing although Powers confirmed this morning that Nolan Allan would be making his second NHL appearance.

Phillips split time between Chicago and Rockford last season scoring four goals and 14 points in 29 games for the latter. Depending on the number of injuries to the Blackhawks’ blue line this season, Phillips should be a frequent recipient of similar roster moves. Chicago added enough depth up and down their lineup this past offseason allowing prospects such as Phillips to gain more confidence in the minors.

Central Notes: Nashville’s Roster Spots, Lambert, Martinez

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Alex Daugherty of The Tennessean theorized a few names of who might take one of the last available spots on the Nashville Predators opening night roster. General manager of the organization, Barry Trotz, was quoted as saying, “Realistically, there’s probably three spots and guys are pressing for those three spots“.

Daugherty asserts in his article that the Predators have two open spots at the forward position and one open position on defense. Zach L’Heureux, Juuso Parssinen, Mark Jankowski, and Joakim Kemell strike as the most NHL-ready players at this stage of preseason and may be in the hunt for one of those last two spots on offense. The latter may be a year or two away despite his impressive shot with Trotz saying, “(Kemell’s) s a shooter. That’s what he does. But you’re also looking at the rest of his game. How is he without the puck?“.

There may be less competition on the blue line with Dante Fabbro the odds-on favorite to claim the sixth spot. One defenseman making Trotz’s job harder is Tanner Molendyk, the 24th overall pick of the 2023 NHL Draft. Molendyk is a solid two-way defenseman impressing many at camp but he’s not eligible to play in the AHL until next season being 19 years old. He may get an extended look this preseason compared to his age comparables with Trotz saying, “Molendyk had a perfect camp last year and he’s having a perfect camp this year. I have to assess him and see if he’s better than some of the veteran players“.

Other Central notes:

  • Winnipeg Jets’ prospect Brad Lambert may be further from cracking the opening night roster than expected. Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun reported earlier today that Lambert was not skating with the top group. Head coach Scott Arniel added he might play in tomorrow night’s game against Minnesota but would not guarantee it. Lambert’s coming off of a dominant year with the AHL’s Manitoba Moose with 21 goals and 55 points in 64 games and it will be interesting to see what Winnipeg does with their second-line center if they send him back down to the AHL.
  • Veteran defenseman for the Chicago Blackhawks, Alec Martinez, took a maintenance day today after feeling a bit ’banged up’ after last night’s preseason contest according to Charlie Roumeliotis of NBC Sports Chicago. Martinez skated on the top-pairing with Seth Jones in the team’s loss to the Detroit Red Wings. He skated in just under 20 minutes while putting one shot on goal and blocking four.

Blackhawks To Sign Alec Martinez, Laurent Brossoit, Three Others

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Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports the Chicago Blackhawks have signed defenseman Alec Martinez to a one-year, $4MM contract. Additionally — the team has also agreed to terms with goaltender Laurent Brossoit on a two-year, $6.6MM contract, forward Craig Smith on a one-year, $1MM contract, and forward Pat Maroon on a one-year, $1.3MM contract. And while they didn’t qualify him yesterday, winger Joey Anderson is sticking around in Chicago. He’s inking a two-year deal with an $800K cap hit, The Athletic’s Scott Powers reports.

The Blackhawks had quite a few dollars to throw around today and this grouping of players doesn’t even represent all of the organization’s signings today. Chicago has taken a major step forward in their rebuild with these moves, as they’ve grabbed arguably the best goaltender available on the market in addition to two veteran talents with Stanley Cup pedigree. Martinez and Maroon have combined for six Stanley Cup rings throughout their careers and will bring a wealth of experience and leadership to Chicago’s lineup.

Martinez recently wrapped up a four-and-a-half season run with the Vegas Golden Knights while he saw his spot on the depth chart slowly deteriorate. After scoring 32 points in 53 games during the 2020-21 season, Martinez fell to 17 points in 59 games this past year while seeing his ice time drop by nearly three minutes on average. Due to the moves Vegas made on their blue line, Martinez’s time with the organization unceremoniously ended.

In terms of production, Maroon and Smith bring similar power to the roster. Both individuals play with a physical edge while Smith can be counted on for more goals. Factoring in the retention of Anderson on a two-year deal, the Blackhawks bottom-six will be significantly harder to play against than just a season ago.

Finishing up with Brossoit, Chicago brings in some help behind Petr Mrazek. Seeking a larger opportunity outside of a backup role, Brossoit should be set to share the net with Mrazek instead of operating behind a more talented netminder. After winning a Stanley Cup Championship with the Vegas Golden Knights, Brossoit returned to the Winnipeg Jets on a one-year deal in which he would produce a 15-5-2 record in 22 games while posting a .927 SV% and 2.00 GAA.

Free Agent Rumors: Stamkos, Bennett, Verhaeghe, Stolarz, Ekman-Larsson, Grzelcyk, Martinez

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The Devils are in the market for a top-six forward today, and they may end up as one of the finalists for Lightning captain Steven Stamkos, per ESPN’s Kevin Weekes.

They’ll be one of many teams making Stamkos’ agent’s phone ring off the hook today. TSN’s Bob McKenzie also expects the Ducks, Hurricanes, Predators and Red Wings to make aggressive pushes for the future Hall-of-Fame forward.

A return to Tampa Bay is extremely unlikely for Stamkos, whose 555 career goals and 1,082 games played have all come in a Lightning uniform. They weren’t close to an extension as of last weekend, and their signing of top UFA left winger Jake Guentzel to a seven-year, $63MM deal this morning has all but completely boxed him out.

More from around the Eastern Conference amid an already busy morning:

  • The Panthers are working hard on extensions for forwards Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe as they become eligible to sign at 11 a.m. CT today, sources tell David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period. They’ve already gotten one big piece of business done today by keeping Sam Reinhart away from the open market on an eight-year, $69MM deal, but Bennett and Verhaeghe are two crucial pieces of their top-six forward group that remain unsigned past next season. It’s unclear what these deals may look like, but Reinhart taking a considerable discount on market value to remain in South Florida is surely a good indicator that Panthers GM Bill Zito can get them locked into deals that won’t break the bank.
  • TSN’s Darren Dreger adds the Panthers are also trying to re-sign UFA netminder Anthony Stolarz, but they have some competition. The Blackhawks and Maple Leafs are also in the mix for the veteran’s services. While a career backup, he’s one of the best options on the market in a UFA class devoid of starters. He was electric when used in Florida last year, posting a .925 SV% and 2.03 GAA in 27 appearances.
  • After making Chris Tanev’s six-year deal official, expect the Leafs to add another veteran blue liner in Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Dreger says. OEL is coming off a Stanley Cup win in Florida after putting up 32 points in 80 regular-season games, averaging 18:24 per night. He’d likely anchor a third pairing in Toronto on the left side behind Morgan Rielly and Jake McCabe.
  • The Penguins are among the teams linked to defenseman Matt Grzelcyk, The Athletic’s Josh Yohe reports. Grzelcyk is likely on his way out of Boston after spending the entirety of his eight-year, 445-game career there. He had 11 points and a +13 rating in 63 games last season while logging 17:36 per night.
  • Alec Martinez could continue his NHL career with the Blackhawks on a one-year deal, per TSN’s Bob McKenzie. The three-time Cup winner fell down the Golden Knights’ depth chart last year, limited to 55 games due to injuries and healthy scratches. He still managed 17 points, though, his most offense in three years, but had a -2 rating while averaging 19:03 per game.

Latest On The Golden Knights’ Pending UFAs

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The Golden Knights won’t be able to re-sign most of their pending unrestricted free agents with a looming salary cap crunch, and they’ve already gone through the process of elimination on who to prioritize. The team has informed forwards Michael Amadio, William Carrier and Anthony Mantha that they won’t be offered extensions before July 1, David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reported yesterday. All three will hit the UFA market.

Amadio is a tough loss after being arguably their most cost-effective depth scorer over the past three seasons. After being claimed off waivers from the Maple Leafs early in the 2021-22 campaign, he enjoyed the best run of his career in Sin City. The 28-year-old has played nearly 200 regular-season games in a Vegas uniform, posting 41 goals and 72 points in less than 13 minutes of ice time per game. He’s also been quite the playoff performer, posting 10 points in 16 games en route to their Stanley Cup win in 2023 and logging a goal and an assist in their first-round elimination against the Stars this year. Amadio has made the league minimum salary each season, but he could likely land close to $3MM annually this summer.

Carrier, 29, is an original Golden Knight. Selected from the Sabres in the 2017 expansion draft, the Québec native has been a serviceable fourth-line winger, and his 372 appearances rank sixth in franchise history. He struggled with injuries this season, limited to eight points in 39 games, but had a career-high 16 goals in 56 games the year before. Carrier has shining career possession numbers at even strength – a 53.6 CF% and a 55.9 xGF% – making him one of the better two-way options in the entire league for his role.

He likely won’t land much of an increase, if any, on his expiring $1.4MM cap hit. Still, Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon needs every inch of flexibility possible to keep Jonathan Marchessault and Chandler Stephenson from heading to market.

Giving up a pair of draft picks for Mantha at the trade deadline may have been a rare ill-advised move from McCrimmon. The 29-year-old winger seemed to fit nicely into their top nine down the stretch in the regular season, posting three goals and 10 points in 18 games. However, he fell out of the lineup once Tomáš Hertl and Mark Stone were ready to return from their injuries and only played in three of their seven playoff games against Dallas without recording a point. He’d been making an average of $5.7MM annually for the past four years on a deal signed by Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman in the 2020 offseason, and while he won’t earn that much again on his next deal, he might get close after his first 20-goal season since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Golden Knights are also unlikely to re-sign veteran defenseman Alec Martinez, who likely wouldn’t have been in their opening night lineup next season after Noah Hanifin’s acquisition. But they haven’t informed him of anything like the others, Pagnotta said, and it’s unclear if he’ll test the market in July. After winning the Cup with Vegas last year and twice with the Kings in the early 2010s, the 36-year-old is “evaluating his options” as the end of his career draws closer.

And while Marchessault is the higher-priority extension target, McCrimmon hasn’t closed the door on a Stephenson re-signing. Pagnotta reports he’ll speak to Stephenson’s camp in the next two weeks to gauge his price. Still, if he heads to market, he’ll have plenty of suitors as the second-best center potentially available after Elias Lindholm. As such, his market value could very well eclipse a $6MM AAV – a prohibitively expensive figure for Vegas unless significant cap-cutting trades are made.

Golden Knights Activate Alec Martinez From Injured Reserve

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The Golden Knights have taken left-shot defenseman Alec Martinez off injured reserve, per the NHL’s media site. As Martinez was not on long-term injured reserve, his $5.25MM cap hit continued to count toward their salary pool usage, so no corresponding transaction is necessary.

Martinez, 36, was placed on IR on March 6 with a lower-body injury. Failing to place him on LTIR ahead of the March 8 trade deadline suggested that he wouldn’t miss too much time, and that has held true. GM Kelly McCrimmon told Jesse Granger of The Athletic that Martinez underwent an undisclosed procedure earlier this month to address the injury.

Prior to this IR stint, Martinez had landed on the list twice this season due to upper and lower-body injuries. As such, the once-premier shutdown defender had his worst showing in the possession quality control department in quite some time, posting a negative expected rating (-5.3) for the first time since he was traded to Vegas in 2020. His 42.6 CF% at even strength is also a career-low, although his four goals in 16 points in 45 games is double the rate of offensive production he offered last season.

The veteran routinely finishes atop the league leaderboard in shot blocks, averaging 3.15 per game since joining the Golden Knights, which have taken an immense toll on his ability to stay in the lineup. He’s played over 70 games in a season just once over the past six years.

With his return, Vegas has a fully healthy defense corps after needing to cycle through their minor-league depth for most of the season. In addition to Martinez, Shea Theodore and Zach Whitecloud have each missed significant time this year, including a 34-game absence for an upper-body injury in Theodore’s case. They’ve gotten solid fill-in performances from depth blue-liner Ben Hutton and AHL call-up Kaedan Korczak in the interim, and the deadline pickup of Noah Hanifin for the Flames adds yet another premier name to what’s arguably the league’s deepest defense.

Hanifin has replaced Martinez’s longtime spot on the team’s top pairing with Alex Pietrangelo, so he’s expected to slide down to a third-pairing role alongside Whitecloud in his return to the lineup against the Devils today. Nicolas Hague is expected to be a healthy scratch for the first time this season.

The Golden Knights hope Martinez can help stabilize a team that’s suddenly failed to live up to their stingy reputation. The defending Stanley Cup champions are 3-7-1 in their last 11 games, surrendering three or more goals in 10 of those outings. They remain with a three-point cushion on the second wild-card spot in the West with two games in hand on the ninth-place Wild, but they’ll need to return to .500-plus hockey the rest of the way to ensure they don’t miss the playoffs for only the second time in franchise history.

West Injury Notes: Martinez, Eriksson Ek, Bjugstad

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Alec Martinez is finally back on the ice for practice for the Vegas Golden Knights a short while after being placed on the team’s injured reserve (X Link). Given that he was not in a non-contact jersey this afternoon, it is reasonable to assume that Martinez should be back in the lineup for the Golden Knights soon.

Once Martinez officially returns to the lineup for Vegas, the team will have a really good problem to have. After acquiring Noah Hanifin from the Calgary Flames on March 7th, the Golden Knights have put themselves in a position to place Martinez on the team’s bottom-pairing comfortably.

Unfortunately, this return likely spells the end of consistent playing time for either Nicolas Hague or Zach Whitecloud. Unless the team opts to run with seven defensemen, either Hague or Whitecloud will serve as a healthy scratch as the Golden Knights look to hang on to the last wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

Other injury notes:

  • After missing the team’s game against the Anaheim Ducks with a lower-body injury, it appears that Minnesota Wild forward Joel Eriksson Ek may not join the team on their upcoming road trip to California. Joe Smith of The Athletic reported that Eriksson Ek is still considered day-to-day, and the team was waiting to see how he responded to the next couple of days of practice.
  • Earlier this evening, when the Arizona Coyotes matched up against the New Jersey Devils, Nick Bjugstad left the game after having only accrued 7:24 of ice time and did not return (X Link). It will be a tough blow to a Coyotes lineup if Bjugstad is unable to play for the foreseeable future, as he has recently been a focal point of their lineup. In the last 12 games, Bjugstad has scored seven goals and 10 points in total, averaging just over 17 minutes of ice time per night.

Trade Notes: Maple Leafs, Johnson, Martinez

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Once the roster freeze across the league is lifted on Thursday morning, it will mark the unofficial start to trade season in the NHL calendar. Up to this point, much has been made of the potential trade targets for the Toronto Maple Leafs, primarily centered around veteran defenseman Chris Tanev, currently with the Calgary Flames.

Instead of sorting through potential targets, Jonas Siegel of The Athletic wrote an article (subscription required article) examining the assets currently available to the Maple Leafs they will have to offer in any deal leading up to the trade deadline. Given the team’s current positioning in the standings and their liberal usage of draft selections in the past, Toronto’s first-round draft pick in the 2024 NHL Draft will likely be in play.

However, given the team’s recent history of trading first-round draft picks, there should be some considerable internal pushback in moving the asset once again. Since 2019, the Maple Leafs have used their first-round pick to acquire Jake Muzzin (2019), Nick Foligno (2021), Ryan O’Reilly (2023), Noel Acciari (2023), Jake McCabe (2025), and Sam Lafferty (2025). The team also traded their 2020 first-round selection to move Patrick Marleau to the Carolina Hurricanes, and their 2022 first-round selection to move Petr Mrazek to the Chicago Blackhawks.

Of the six players acquired by Toronto for first-round draft picks in the last six seasons, only one of them (McCabe) is still in the organization, as the rest have moved on to different organizations, or have seen their careers end. Keeping this in mind, if the Maple Leafs are to use their 2024 first-round draft pick as leverage for a trade this season, they would be much better served in acquiring a player with term.

Other notes:

  • Heavily linked to Calgary center, Elias Lindholm, Jimmy Murphy of Boston Hockey Now indicates if the price for Lindholm remains high, the Boston Bruins may look to a recent trading partner in the Chicago Blackhawks to improve down the middle of the ice (article link). Murphy indicates that shortly after the roster freeze is lifted, Chicago will make center Tyler Johnson available for trade, also being able to retain salary in the deal. With a high amount of injury concern attached, Johnson may still be an effective buy-low middle-six option for the Bruins.
  • After the recent extension given to defenseman Ben Hutton, Ken Boehlke of SinBin reports that more changes may be coming to the blue line of the Vegas Golden Knights. With seven defensemen already on the active roster, and with Shea Theodore and Kaedan Korczak both expected back at some point, Boehlke notes the Golden Knights may be inclined to move out defenseman Alec Martinez. The moving out of Martinez would open up space in the defensive core as well as cap space for an additional upgrade elsewhere.

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