Nolan Patrick Tops NHL Central Scouting’s Midterm Rankings
Despite battling injuries for much of the season, Brandon Wheat Kings center Nolan Patrick remains in the top slot on NHL Central Scouting’s Midterm Rankings.
Patrick missed 35 games with an upper-body injury, but has 13 points in eight games this season. He also missed Team Canada’s World Junior camp. While Patrick remains the clear top choice, he’s not considered a generational talent like Connor McDavid; Patrick is more in the range of a player like Eric Staal, who was the second-overall pick in 2003.
The list behind Patrick have been much more fluid than the top spot among North American Skaters. Here’s the top-five skaters:
1. Nolan Patrick (WHL)
2. Nico Hischier (QMJHL)
3. Gabriel Vilardi (OHL)
4. Owen Tippet (OHL)
5. Casey Mittlestadt (Minnesota High School)
I’ve previously written about Hischier’s ascent up the list after a great World Juniors. Hischier has 31 goals and 63 points in 37 games with the Halifax Mooseheads, where he is on loan from Switzerland. That gives the team that drafts him the option to play him in the AHL while not burning a year of his entry-level contract.
Vilardi is a prototypical big right-handed center with the Windsor Spitfires. He has 34 points in 26 games this season. Tippet is a big, fast, and skilled sniper, perhaps the best pure scorer in the draft. He has 34 goals and 57 points in 41 games with the Mississauga Steelheads this season. Mittlestadt is considered a big-game offensive player. While he’s a little more of an unknown, as he plays high school hockey, he’s committed to the University of Minnesota for next season.
Meanwhile, former top International skater Timothy Liljegren fell to seventh on NHL CSS’ list after missing time with mono. Liljegren is two-way right-handed defenseman, though its difficult to project a defenseman’s offensive ability based on SHL numbers with that league’s seeming unwillingness to hand out second assists.
TSN’s Bob McKenzie noted that the North American bureau did not devalue Patrick while he was out with a long-term injury, while the overseas bureau did drop Liljegren. Here’s the top-five International Skaters; all men are forwards:
1. Klim Kostin (KHL)
2. Elias Pettersson (SHL-2)
3. Lias Andersson (SHL)
4. Kristian Vesalainen (SHL)
5. Martin Necas (CZE)
Kostin is “big, strong, mobile, and has a good understanding of the game,” according to NHL Director of European Scouting Goran Stubb. Kostin has bounced around between different clubs this past fall, but is still highly rated based on his “dynamic” skill. Over in Sweden, Pettersson is the leading scorer of his Swedish-2 team with 27 points in 27 games.
The top goaltenders are Keith Petruzzelli of Muskegon in the United States Hockey League (USHL) and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen of HPK in the Finnish junior league.
Islanders Get Permission To Speak With Gerard Gallant
Per Elliotte Friedman and confirmed by Bob McKenzie, the New York Islanders have requested permission to speak with former Panther bench boss Gerard Gallant. Permission was granted and the Isles have a chance to lock up a coach whose firing shocked the hockey world.
Gallant was fired by the Panthers on November 27th, while former Isles head coach Jack Capuano was relieved of his duties today. Friedman notes that Gallant is a former assistant coach for the Isles.
The Islanders have struggled this season, and Capuano was the first casualty of their fall in the standings. General manager Garth Snow has to be feeling heat as well, since his offseason gambles, namely signing Andrew Ladd to a monster deal, have not paid off.
While nothing is set in stone, or guaranteed, Snow’s chase of Gallant indicates a desperation to turn things around.
Snapshots: NHL Three Stars, Toews, Bickell, Maple Leafs
Nicklas Backstrom, Brad Marchand, and Brock McGinn have been named the NHL’s Three Stars of the Week.
Backstrom had three goals and 10 points in four games as the Capitals continued their nine-game winning streak. He has 13 points on that winning streak, and is currently on a six-game point streak. Backstrom is 10th in NHL scoring with 42 points in 43 games.
Marchand had the second-most points in the last week (behind only the aforementioned first star of the week) with 4-4-8 in three games. He had a three-point game in the Bruins’ win over the Blues before being held pointless in a loss to Nashville. He finished off the week with a career-high five-point night in a 6-3 win over Philadelphia. Marchand is seventh in NHL scoring with 43 points in 46 games.
McGinn had seven points in three games as the Hurricanes continued their four-game winning streak. Carolina is now one point out of a wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference. McGinn has 12 points on the season in 28 games this season, with seven coming in the last week.
- Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews may want to remember the old Mark Twain quote which says that “reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated.” On his morning appearance on TSN 1260, Bob McKenzie talked about Toews’ struggles and suggested that “a lot of people are writing obituaries on Toews’ career right now,” which McKenzie believes is “real premature.” Toews has 21 points in 37 games this season, which puts him on pace for 41 points in 73 games. That would be a career-low at a time when offensive players ought to be in their prime; even in the 2012-13 lockout-shortened season, Toews scored 48 points in 47 games. Prior to this season, Toews has scored at 0.88 PPG. That’s fallen year-over-year since 12-13, and is now at 0.57. If the Blackhawks want to capitalize on the final year of a cheap Artemi Panarin, they’ll need their captain to kick it into a higher gear.
- Some very good news out of Carolina on Monday, as veteran winger Bryan Bickell practiced for the second time in the last week, according to Chip Alexander of the Raleigh News & Observer. Bickell has not played since the end of October, when he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Bickell was acquired by the Hurricanes in the summer in a salary-dump trade from Chicago, where he won three Stanley Cups.
- Over at Maple Leafs practice, Martin Marincin and Frankie Corrado are both on the ice. Marincin is wearing a red non-contact jersey as he returns to practice one month after suffering an injury that was expected to keep him out of the lineup between 4-6 weeks. Meanwhile, Corrado returns to the NHL after a two-week conditioning stint with the Toronto Marlies where he had three assists in seven games. He’s appeared in just one NHL game this season.
Blues Waive Brad Hunt
The St. Louis Blues have placed defenseman Brad Hunt on waivers, according to TSN’s Bob McKenzie on Twitter this morning.
Hunt has an excellent track record of scoring at the AHL level, which has translated to the NHL level for the first time in his career. The 5’9 offensive defenseman has scored five points in nine games with the Blues this season, and has 29 points in 23 games with the Chicago Wolves.
The Blues signed Hunt to a one-year contract on July 2, 2016. He had spent the previous three seasons in the Edmonton Oilers’ system, scoring three points in 21 games with the big club and 142 points in 185 games with their farm club.
In other waiver-related moves, Marek Hrivík has cleared waivers. The Rangers have assigned the winger to the Hartford Wolf Pack of the AHL. Hrivík had two assists in 16 NHL games this season.
Snapshots: Capitals-Penguins, Myers, Lightning, Oilers
Capitals fans will likely see a major milestone when Washington hosts the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night.
Captain Alex Ovechkin needs one point to hit 1,000 for his career. His fellow captain, Sidney Crosby, is sitting at 982, though in 139 less games. Ovechkin will become the 84th player in NHL history to hit the 1,000-point mark, and the second-fastest active player to do so behind only former Penguin and Capital Jaromir Jagr.
Ovechkin has 19 goals and 14 assists for 33 points in 40 games so far this season. Overall, he has 544 goals and 455 assists in 879 games. In a swap of their normal roles, Crosby has been the more prolific scorer this season with 26 goals and 18 assists for 44 points in 33 games. Crosby has 364-618-982 in 740 games. Both superstars, who broke into the NHL together back in 2005-06, will hit the 1,000-mark in the same season.
The two teams have played twice, with the Penguins winning in overtime in the season-opener and the Capitals winning 7-1 in mid-November. Washington has a six-game winning streak while the Penguins are riding a five-game streak.
In other good news for the Capitals, top-six winger T.J. Oshie will make his return after missing one game with an upper-body injury.
- Tyler Myers will be away from the Winnipeg Jets for an unknown amount of time, as the defenseman deals with a personal matter, according to Scott Billeck, who covers the Jets for the Winnipeg News and the NHL. Billeck reports that Myers had been travelling with the team, but left the team sometime last week while the team was in Florida. Myers has been out of the lineup since mid-November with a back injury. He has two goals and five points in 11 games played.
- It’s been a nightmare of a season for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Steven Stamkos is likely out until the playoffs, but there’s no guarantee that the Lightning can survive that long. Currently, they have 42 points, four back of a playoff spot. While that’s not a big deficit, the Lightning have lost four games in a row for the second time this season, and are battling several key injuries. Stamkos, Brayden Point, Ryan Callahan, Brian Boyle, J.T. Brown, Braydon Coburn, and Ben Bishop are all out of the lineup. The Lightning are facing the end of their current roster’s window of Cup contention, with Bishop, Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, and Jonathan Drouin all needing new contracts. GM Steve Yzerman won’t be able to sign all of his pending free agents, and the team needs to go for it this year. TSN’s Bob McKenize reports that Yzerman is willing to deal nearly “just about anybody” up front, besides Drouin in order to acquire a top-four defenseman (interview transcribed by Chris Nichols of FanRag). Kevin Shattenkirk, Michael Stone, and Dougie Hamilton have all had their names out there this season, and are potential targets for Yzerman to go for. The former two are pending free agents while the latter has been the subject of rumors all year, despite Brian Burke’s insistence that he’s not available for less than 20 first-round picks.
- The Edmonton Oilers are on pace for 94 points, which would be their first season above 90 points since 2005-06, when they went to the Stanley Cup Finals. Despite their fancy new digs, the Oilers are just 9-8-2 at home. OilersNation’s Robin Brownlee gave a startling statistic: the Oilers have won just 86 of their last 207 home games. Brownlee writes that the Oilers need to improve their home record if they want to solidify a playoff spot, seeing as 13 of their last 18 games of the season are at home. The Oilers are on pace to make the playoffs, in spite of their home record, not because of it.
2017 U.S. National Junior Team Preliminary Roster Announced
With the World Junior Championships just a few weeks away, the USA has announced their preliminary roster for the tournament. The 27 players will be cut down to 23 in time for the first matchup that starts December 26th with a game against Latvia at the Air Canada Center in Toronto. The initial roster is as follows:
F Luke Kunin (MIN, 15th overall 2016)
F Tanner Laczynski (PHI, 169th overall 2016)
F Patrick Harper (NSH, 138th overall 2016)
F Jordan Greenway (MIN, 50th overall 2015)
F Joey Anderson (NJD, 73rd overall 2016)
F Erik Foley (WPG, 78th overall 2015)
F Brock Boeser (VAN, 23rd overall 2015)
F Jeremy Bracco (TOR, 61st overall 2015)
F Colin White (OTT, 21st overall 2015)
F Clayton Keller (ARI, 7th overall 2016)
F Troy Terry (ANA, 148th overall 2015)
F Logan Brown (OTT, 11th overall 2016)
F Kieffer Bellows (NYI, 19th overall 2016)
F Alex DeBrincat (CHI, 39th overall 2016)
F Jack Roslovic (WPG, 25th overall 2015)
F Tage Thompson (STL, 26th overall 2016)
Vancouver No Longer Pursuing Evander Kane
Well, so much for that homecoming. According to Bob McKenzie of TSN, the talks between the Vancouver Canucks and Buffalo Sabres on a possible Evander Kane deal are dead (for now). McKenzie does admit that there had been a dialogue, but how close the two teams got to a deal is still unclear.
Over the past few months, there have been on-again-off-again rumors surrounding a possible interest in bringing Evander Kane back to Vancouver, where he grew up and played his junior hockey. While his troubled history with the Sabres continued, many saw it as a possible fresh start for the power forward.
This deal has been rumored going back to the summer, but heated up in the last few days after McKenzie mentioned on Tuesday that the two had started discussing a possible trade again. Remember however, that it was also the Minnesota Wild who were talking to the Sabres about a possible deal earlier this month, and have not yet been ruled out.
If Kane is to move somewhere, it would be the second time a franchise has moved on from him after not being able to settle his off-ice activity. The Winnipeg Jets benched Kane, scratched him and asked him to quit social media amid a long-list of clashes between he and, well, basically everyone else around him. It hasn’t stopped in Buffalo, as the troubled star has had multiple run-ins with the law and simply hasn’t been all that effective when he’s on the ice.
Whichever team does acquire him, if he truly is on the move, will have a project on their hands that at this point doesn’t seem fixable. How long will his off-ice antics be tolerated if he continues to struggle in uniform. Currently he has just one point in his first six games this season, after dealing with three cracked ribs early on.
McKenzie’s Latest: Olympics, Escrow, And Star Treatment
In a pair of radio appearances in Montreal and Edmonton on Friday morning, TSN Insider Bob McKenzie spoke about two big issues in the NHL.
McKenzie spoke in Montreal about the brewing fight between the NHL and NHLPA over Olympic participation and CBA (transcribed by Chris Nichols from FanRag). The current perception is that the owners don’t want to go to the Olympics and are “holding the players hostage” over the issue. The owners are offering Olympic participation at the price of extending the CBA.
The Fourth Period’s Dave Pagnotta reports that it doesn’t seem likely that the NHLPA will accept the offer.
This is because the players’ biggest problem is with escrow. As Nichols puts it, “there may not be a more mind-numbingly awful subject to discuss for hockey fans than escrow.”
McKenzie says he empathizes with the players, because no one would want to lose an additional 15 percent off the top of their take-home salary. The players using the five percent salary cap escalator each season helps raise the salaries of free agents, but ends up hurting players by increasing escrow. While the players say they want a cap on escrow, the issue, according to McKenzie is that “you can’t put a cap on escrow in a hard cap system. I think some players – I’m not saying all players – some players don’t understand escrow.”
This is where McKenzie says the negotiations could get ugly now and when the CBA expires: “if the players actually think that the NHL is going to negotiate a cap on escrow, which would mean that the owners are getting less than 50 percent of the revenue – that’s going to be a motherhood issue on both sides of the fence.”
How will they come to an agreement? “Outside of shutting down the league and going back and fighting the battle over the salary cap and the share, I don’t know how you solve that… There’ll be blood on the tracks for escrow to come down in any meaningful way, other than by not putting the inflator in or the Canadian dollar getting stronger.”
Hopefully for hockey fans, the two sides can figure it out without costing fans the chance to see NHLers at the Olympics in 2018 and beyond, and avoid another season-long lockout.
Another hot button issue in the hockey world is the treatment of superstars. The Calgary Flames’ Johnny Gaudreau will miss six weeks with a broken finger after being slashed 21 times by the Minnesota Wild. Flames coach Glen Gulutzan spoke to the referees about Gaudreau’s treatment earlier in the game, but there was no change in the standard of calls. GM Brad Treliving said “it wasn’t a unicorn” that broke Gaudreau’s finger. Meanwhile, the Flames rivals in Edmonton also have an issue with the officiating: the Oilers super sophomore Connor McDavid has also been hooked and held with few or no calls.
Neither McDavid nor coach Todd McLellan have been vocal about McDavid’s treatment. McKenzie believes that is the right choice, telling TSN 1260‘s morning show that complaining to the media won’t lead to the results they want. The TSN Insider suggested the Oilers organization will gather video of the missed calls and “lobby behind the scenes and if [Stephen Walkom’s office] thinks you have a valid point then they’ll send out a memo.”
McKenzie said, “one of the things I used to love about the NHL was it was really hard on the star players” but when that happened, “mayhem was going to follow” and that “often leads to serious injuries or criminal behaviour.”
With most enforcers out of the league, NHL teams don’t have the means they used to police the game themselves. If anyone got in Wayne Gretzky‘s face, they could count on a visit from Oilers tough guy Dave Semenko. But now, McKenzie says “it’s up to the referees to make sure that Brandon Dubinsky doesn’t get away with murder on Sidney Crosby.”
Even if there are changes implemented, McKenzie wisely points out that “at the end of the day it’s officiating and no one is ever going to be happy about it.”
Brad Richardson Undergoing Surgery
The week of major injuries continues.
Arizona Coyotes forward Brad Richardson was stretchered off after suffering an ugly leg injury during Thursday night’s 3-2 OT loss in Vancouver.
After scoring the first goal of the game in the second period against the team he played two seasons for, Richardson took a hit from Nikita Tryamkin along the sidewall. His right leg buckled under him as the 6’7, 265 lbs Tryamkin fell on top of him. The medical staffs from both teams assisted Richardson as he was strapped into a stretcher.
The 31-year-old Richardson has a broken tibia and fibula, according to TSN’s Bob McKenzie. He’ll have surgery on his right leg on Friday morning. Coyotes GM John Chayka confirmed McKenzie’s report to Arizona Sports’ Craig Morgan. Sarah McLellan of the Arizona Republic reports that Richardson is currently stabilized at a Vancouver hospital. There is no timeline for Richardson’s recovery, according to Chayka.
The Coyotes had a 2-0 lead at that point, but the Canucks scored twice in the next six minutes to tie the game before winning it in overtime.
Richardson has been off to a good start this season, with nine points in 16 games so far this season. He’s coming off a career-high 31 points in 2015-16, his first season with the Coyotes. While there’s no timeline for Richardson’s return, it will clearly be a long-term injury. With Coyotes center and pending-UFA Martin Hanzal already on the trading block, Chayka will likely look to add some depth down the middle. Perhaps rookie Dylan Strome will get a bigger role after playing just seven games out of 16 and averaging only 13:41 per game.
NHL, Stakeholders Discuss Possible Change To Draft Age
Could the NHL change the draft age from 18 to 19?
TSN’s Bob McKenzie spoke about the possibility on Tuesday night’s edition of Insider Trading. Former third-overall-pick Pat LaFontaine is leading a group of stakeholders that includes the NHL, NHLPA, CHL, USHL, Hockey Canada, USA Hockey, and NCAA to discuss a “whole new development model.”
According to McKenzie, the model would go from age five to age 20, and would include changing the NHL Draft-eligible age to 19, with “some obvious exceptions for exceptional players.”
The system would likely feature an expanded version of the CHL’s Exceptional Player Status. Normally, players aren’t eligible to play in the WHL, OHL, or QMJHL (the CHL’s three leagues) until they’re 16. However, there is a process (outlined extensively by McKenzie here) where players deemed exceptional can begin to play Major Junior at age 15. Players and their families apply to the CHL and Hockey Canada, and the player is examined on and off the ice to determine if he truly is exceptional. So far, only six players have ever applied, with John Tavares, Aaron Ekblad, Connor McDavid, Sean Day, and 2018-eligible Joseph Veleno being successful candidates. The first thee on that list went first overall in their OHL and NHL draft years, while Day went fourth in the OHL draft was a third-round pick of the New York Rangers in 2016. While it’s still early in his career, McKenzie noted that “some were questioning whether he was as blatantly exceptional as Tavares, Ekblad or McDavid.”
Changing the NHL Draft age would drastically change the way the draft is conducted. Looking back over the past two drafts, top selections like McDavid, Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews, and Patrik Laine would likely have been able to still be drafted at age 18. All four of them have been successful in their rookie seasons, and were clearly NHL-ready at age 18/19. While McDavid was a CHL exceptional-status player, the other three played NCAA, Swiss National League, and Liiga in their draft years. The NHL and other stakeholders would need to find a way to coordinate with all leagues to determine which players are truly exceptional and deserve to be drafted at age 18.
While the above mentioned players would still have been drafted at 18, elite prospects like Dylan Strome, Mitch Marner, Noah Hanifin, Jesse Puljujärvi, and Pierre-Luc Dubois may have been forced to wait an extra year, depending on the rules set out. As it stands now, several teams have issues with how the NHL-CHL agreement is laid out, as it forces 19-year-old draft+1 players to either play in the NHL or CHL when the AHL may be the best for their development. Strome is a current example: he’s posted 129 and 111 points in his last two years in the OHL and has nothing to gain from returning to junior, where he will dominate and potentially learn bad habits because of how dominant he is at that level. Strome has just one assist in six NHL games this year, and would be well-served by 40 games in the AHL to learn the pro game. That’s currently prevented by the NHL-CHL agreement. On one hand, it’s easy to see that CHL teams don’t want to lose their brightest stars before they absolutely have to, but at the same time it may not be in the player’s best interests to go back to junior. Changing the draft age to 19 could alleviate this issue, with drafted players only playing one more year of junior, at most, before turning pro.
LaFontaine and the stakeholders will meet again on Wednesday. On Insider Trading, McKenzie said they’ll “need to get some traction soon if it’s going to happen.”
The NHLPA would also need to agree to the change in collective bargaining when the current CBA expires in 2022 (both sides can opt out two years early). Convincing the Players Association that players will have to wait an extra year before making an NHL salary could be a tough argument, but it will be interesting to see how the discussion goes over the next little while.