Pacific Notes: Soucy, Pospisil, Zary, Stalock
Harman Dayal of The Athletic is reporting that the Vancouver Canucks defenseman Carson Soucy will return to the lineup tonight as the team takes on the Los Angeles Kings. Soucy has been out of the lineup for a month and a half with a broken hand suffered on January 20th against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
It is the second time this season that Soucy has broken a bone with the first being a broken leg that kept him out of the lineup for two months. On the year, injuries have limited Soucy to just 21 games with Vancouver, scoring two goals and six points overall.
Signed to a three-year, $9.75MM contract with the Canucks this past summer, Soucy still has plenty of time to recover and become an important factor of Vancouver’s defensive core. With Soucy now back in the mix, the Canucks should be able to field one of the league’s deepest defensive units come playoff time, as long as Tyler Myers can return in due time from his undisclosed injury.
Other Pacific notes:
- Calgary Flames forward Martin Pospisil is set to have a hearing for boarding Seattle Kraken’s Vince Dunn yesterday evening, according to the Department of Player Safety. During the play in question, Dunn received the puck below the goal line in Seattle’s defensive zone, with his back completely turned to the rest of the ice. Pospisil delivered a body check to Dunn while he was in a vulnerable spot, and was issued a five-minute major penalty on the play.
- Sticking in Calgary, Ryan Pike of Flames Nation is reporting that the Flames have placed forward Connor Zary on the team’s injured reserve, retroactively to the team’s game on Saturday. This allowed Calgary to open up a roster this afternoon to claim defenseman Joel Hanley off of waivers from the Dallas Stars.
- The Anaheim Ducks have reassigned goaltender Alex Stalock to their AHL affiliate, the San Diego Gulls, per a team announcement. Even with this transaction marking the fourth time that Stalock has been brought up to the NHL level this year, he has yet to suit up in a game for Anaheim. At the AHL level, Stalock has appeared in 11 contests for the Gulls, earning a 1-9-1 record with a .892 SV%.
Injury Notes: Capitals, Terry, Seider, Soucy, Joshua
After a loss to the Detroit Red Wings last night, the Washington Capitals should see the return of several players back into the lineup. Tarik El-Bashir of Monumental Sports Network is reporting that Sonny Milano, Nic Dowd, and Nick Jensen have all returned to the ice for practice.
The return of Jensen from a lower-body injury adds to the team’s already above-average defensive depth, and may even make the team more comfortable moving out pending unrestricted free agent Joel Edmundson before the March 8th trade deadline. In regards to the return of Milano and Dowd, the Capitals will be able to return Michael Sgarbossa and Pierrick Dube to their AHL affiliate, the Hershey Bears, where they have each spent most of the year up to this point.
In eight games leading up to last night’s loss, Washington began building some serious momentum toward a playoff berth, putting together a 5-1-2 record. After yesterday’s game, the Capitals are now six points back of the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, with only three games remaining until the trade deadline.
Other injury notes:
- According to Derek Lee of the Sporting Tribune, Anaheim Ducks forward Troy Terry was practicing today in a non-contact jersey and will travel with the team for their upcoming road game against the San Jose Sharks. Thankfully, Terry has only been out a total of four days, so it does not sound like the upper-body injury will keep him out of the lineup long-term. Enjoying a mildly healthier season than last year, Terry has skated in a total of 54 games for the Ducks this season, scoring 17 goals and 45 points in the process.
- Blocking a total of five shots in last night’s game against the Capitals, Red Wings defenseman Moritz Seider was in visible pain for much of the game. Heavily utilized by Detroit, Seider has averaged 22:14 minutes a night throughout this season, but would only play in about 18 minutes of yesterday’s contest. In positive news, the team announced that there is no injury concern for their top defenseman, and he will be good to go tomorrow.
- In an update on a couple of injured members of the Vancouver Canucks, Brendan Batchelor of Sportsnet reports that defenseman Carson Soucy will see the team doctor today, and that forward Dakota Joshua will see the team doctor later this week. In his first year with the organization, Soucy has seemingly been injured for much of the year, already having missed half the season with still 20 games to go. The team will be hoping for positive news coming out of the meeting with the team doctor, as the Canucks would like to get Soucy back into the lineup in preparation for the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Vancouver Canucks Announce Multiple Roster Moves
The Vancouver Canucks have placed centerman Dakota Joshua on injured reserve retroactive to February 13th and Carson Soucy on long-term injured reserve. Joshua is currently week-to-week with a hand injury, while Soucy has already missed the required 10 games, making him eligible to be activated off of LTIR whenever he’s healthy.
In a corresponding move, Vancouver has also recalled defenseman Jett Woo from the AHL. Woo recently received the first midseason call-up of his career, though he’s still waiting to play in his first NHL game. Woo has scored 18 points in 44 AHL games this season, a mark that, surprisingly, ranks second among Abbotsford Canucks defensemen.
Vancouver has promoted rookie forward Arshdeep Bains to the NHL to help fill in for Joshua’s absence. Bains, who has nine goals and 39 points in 42 AHL games this season, made his NHL debut in the team’s Tuesday matchup against the Colorado Avalanche, recording no points, one penalty, and a -2 in roughly 13 and a half minutes of ice time. Bains also added two shots on net, three hits, and one takeaway. He will likely get an extended look in the lineup, though Vancouver also has Sam Lafferty operating as a healthy scratch.
Woo will join Mark Friedman as the extra defenseman on the Canucks roster, backing up Noah Juulsen, who has filled in while Soucy is out. Friedman has appeared in 20 games with Vancouver this season, scoring one point and tallying 21 penalty minutes. Juulsen has six points and 16 penalty minutes of his own, scored through 41 games. Woo would offer a change of pace from each veteran depth defenseman, though the Canucks could be wanting more from the 23-year-old before they rely on him as anything more than added depth.
Injury Updates: Soucy, Sanderson, Zub, Chinakhov
Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet provided an update on Carson Soucy, telling reporters (video link) that the blueliner is currently listed as week-to-week. The 29-year-old has missed close to a month with a hand injury sustained while blocking a shot. In his first season with the Canucks after signing a three-year, $9.75MM deal with them back in July, Soucy has six points and 39 blocked shots in 21 games while logging a career-high 17:25 per night. As things stand, the Canucks don’t have enough cap space to call anyone up from the minors so if someone else has to be promoted, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Soucy transferred to LTIR retroactively.
Other injury news from around the NHL:
- The Senators will welcome back a pair of defensemen on Saturday as Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch relays that Jake Sanderson and Artem Zub will return from their respective lower-body injuries against Chicago. Sanderson has missed nearly three weeks with his injury and he certainly has been missed as he logs nearly 23 minutes a night for them in the final year of his entry-level deal. As for Zub, he was out for the last two games, resulting in Ottawa having to dress only 17 skaters earlier this week before being eligible for an emergency cap-exempt recall. The Sens now have 21 players on their active roster and that’s all they’ll be able to afford as they have less than $75K in cap space, per CapFriendly.
- Blue Jackets winger Yegor Chinakhov will return to the lineup on Saturday versus San Jose, notes Brian Hedger of the Columbus Dispatch (Twitter link). The 23-year-old started the season on IR and then spent a bit of time in the minors. However, since being recalled, Chinakhov has started to live up to his potential as a former first-round pick, collecting 14 goals and 10 assists in 40 games so far. He winds up missing just one game due to the upper-body injury he sustained last weekend.
Canucks Move Carson Soucy To Injured Reserve, Recall Jett Woo
The Canucks have placed defenseman Carson Soucy on injured reserve with a hand injury, the team announced Monday. In a corresponding transaction, blue-liner Jett Woo was recalled from AHL Abbotsford.
Soucy, 29, has been out since Jan. 20, when he caught a puck to the hand off a shot from Maple Leafs winger Mitch Marner. He’s missed Vancouver’s last seven games and is just over three weeks into a five-to-six-week recovery timeline, so the IR placement likely isn’t an indication of a setback in his return to the lineup and is instead a move to get Woo onto the roster. The Canucks can activate Soucy off IR at any time since he’s already missed more than seven days.
The 6-foot-5 left-shot defenseman has been hurt more than he’s played in his first season in British Columbia, now missing a combined 32 games with hand and lower-body injuries. He has two goals and six points with a +6 rating in 21 games after signing a three-year, $9.75MM contract in free agency.
This is Woo’s first NHL call-up after being cut from training camp three years in a row. The 23-year-old was exposed to waivers for the first time last October and passed through unclaimed.
A 2018 second-round pick, Woo inked a one-year, two-way extension worth $775K in the NHL and $100K in the AHL to remain a Canuck before completing his entry-level contract last summer. He will be an RFA with arbitration rights at the end of the season.
The former point-per-game player in the WHL hasn’t yet made his mark in Abbotsford, and his stat line this year doesn’t read much different from his first three pro campaigns. Through 42 games, the Winnipeg-born Woo has five goals, 16 points, and a -2 rating. He will not require waivers to return to the AHL if he stays on the roster for less than 30 days and plays less than 10 games.
Carson Soucy Out Five-To-Six Weeks With Hand Injury
Vancouver Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet has confirmed that defenseman Carson Soucy will miss five-to-six weeks with a hand injury. Soucy sustained the injury while blocking a shot in the team’s Saturday win over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
This is yet another long-term absence for Soucy, who already missed 23 games with a lower-body injury suffered in mid-November. He’s managed 21 games when healthy this season, netting six points, four penalty minutes, and a +6. The 29-year-old defender has served in a prominent role when he does play, averaging over 17 minutes of ice time on a Canucks blue-line that’s rotated all three pairings this year. The Canucks signed Soucy to a three-year, $9.8MM contract on July 1st – controlling him at a $3.25MM cap hit through the 2025-26 season.
Soucy has carved out a strong NHL career since being selected in the fifth round of the 2013 NHL Draft. He played four seasons at the University of Minnesota-Duluth after his draft year, making his pro debut with the AHL’s Iowa Wild at the end of the 2016-17 season. Soucy would go on to play in two more AHL seasons before getting his first prolonged stint in the NHL in 2019-20. He recorded 14 points, 18 penalty minutes, and a +16 in 55 games that season as a part of a strong Minnesota Wild blueline. He would go on to serve as the selection from the Minnesota Wild in the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft, playing in two seasons with the Seattle Kraken before making his way to Vancouver.
Pacific Notes: Perry, Soucy, Kylington, Markström
When the Oilers made Corey Perry‘s signing official earlier Monday, they disclosed his $775K cap hit deal included an unspecified amount of performance bonuses. CapFriendly later reported the specifics – a $225K bonus if he hits 10 games played, a $50K bonus if the Oilers advance to the Western Conference Final and Perry plays in at least half of the games in Round 2 or Rounds 1 and 2, and a $50K bonus if the Oilers advance to the Stanley Cup Final if Perry plays in at least half of the Conference Final series or half of Rounds 1 through 3 overall.
That’s a total of $325K in potential bonuses, which will add to an already hefty cap overage expected from Connor Brown‘s similarly structured contract this season. Brown signed a one-year, $775K deal to join Edmonton last summer after playing four games last season in Washington due to an ACL injury, which included a $3.225MM bonus if he hit 10 games played on the season. After a poor start through nine games, many called on the Oilers to waive Brown to avoid his unaffordable bonus kicking in. They opted not to, which now looks like an extremely poor decision in hindsight. Brown is yet to score a goal in 35 games this season and has only three assists. Whatever amount of Brown’s $3.225MM bonus that they can’t fit under the salary cap at the end of the season will carry over as a penalty in their 2024-25 cap, which will increase with whatever bonuses Perry garners.
More from the Pacific Division:
- An unfortunate season for Canucks blue-liner Carson Soucy continues. He’s likely out of the lineup for three to four weeks with a “possible” hand injury, CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal reports. The 29-year-old skated 13:40 in last weekend’s win over the Maple Leafs but did not play in the third period. He was on the ice for all three Toronto goals against in the second period. After signing a three-year, $9.75MM deal with Vancouver last summer, he’s missed 25 of Vancouver’s 46 games with lower-body injuries. He’s been decent when in the lineup, contributing two goals and six points with a +6 rating in 21 contests, averaging 17:24 per game.
- Flames defenseman Oliver Kylington is inching his way back toward playing in his first NHL game since April 2022. He practiced with the Flames today for the first time since being recalled from his AHL conditioning stint over the weekend, clearing a path for him to return just before the All-Star break or soon after. The 26-year-old took a leave of absence for mental health reasons that lasted the entire 2022-23 campaign before landing on LTIR to begin 2023-24.
- Also nearing a return for Calgary is starting netminder Jacob Markström, who was a full participant in practice today for the first time since sustaining a lower-body injury last week, per Sportsnet 960’s Pat Steinberg. He’s missed three games but will return to at least back up Daniel Vladař against the Blues tomorrow, if not start. The 33-year-old is having a solid bounce-back season, posting a .912 SV% and stopping 6.7 goals above average in 26 appearances. The Flames went 1-2-0 in Markström’s absence and sit four points back of the Predators for the second Wild Card spot in the Western Conference.
Canucks Activate Carson Soucy, Place Phillip Di Giuseppe On LTIR
The Canucks activated shutdown defenseman Carson Soucy from long-term injured reserve Saturday, with Soucy taking winger Phillip Di Giuseppe‘s spot on the active roster. Di Giuseppe has been added to LTIR with an undisclosed injury sustained last Tuesday against the Senators, which caused him to miss Thursday’s showing against the Blues. Thus, his LTIR placement is likely retroactive to January 3.
After signing a three-year, $9.75MM pact to join the Canucks last offseason, Soucy’s first few months in British Columbia have been marred by injuries that have limited him to 13 out of 38 games. When in the lineup, however, he’s been effective at first glance, logging two goals, three assists, five points and a +6 rating in 16:52 of ice time per game. That’s a bit more offense than most expected from Soucy, who scored just three times in 78 games with the Kraken last season.
More advanced metrics tell a different story, though. His possession impacts have been mediocre, posting a 46.3% Corsi share at even strength that ranks 16th among Canucks skaters with at least ten games played. He’s been most commonly paired with Tyler Myers, which has by far been the Canucks most disastrous two-way duo with just 41% of expected goals when they’re on the ice together, per MoneyPuck. Myers has fared marginally better when paired with Ian Cole or Nikita Zadorov.
While those numbers aren’t pretty, judging a player acclimating to a new system while fighting long-term injuries is hard. Soucy returns tonight from a lower-body injury that’s kept him out since November 12, causing him to miss 23 games.
It’s also a tough break for Di Giuseppe, who will now be out at a minimum through the end of the month. The 30-year-old veteran of over 250 NHL games spent most of his last two seasons with the Canucks in the minors with AHL Abbotsford but made Vancouver out of camp this season, playing in all but six games. A high-scoring threat at the AHL level, Di Giuseppe started in a top-nine role but has seen his minutes diminish in recent weeks, culminating in a few healthy scratches before sustaining the injury. He has three goals and five assists for eight points this season, averaging 13:03 per game.
Pacific Injury Notes: Soucy, Hoglander, Gagner, Holloway, Burroughs
In a report from Thomas Drance of The Athletic, the Vancouver Canucks will have to wait a bit longer for the return of Carson Soucy. Making his way back from a fractured leg, Soucy had just recently returned to skating a little over a week ago. In the same report, Drance also points out that forward Nils Hoglander will be a game-time decision for the team’s game tonight against the Ottawa Senators.
With an injury to his knee, foot, and leg all within his first three months as a member of the Canucks organization, Soucy’s tenure with the team has already been plagued by injuries. Of the 36 games played by Vancouver so far this season, Soucy has only suited up in 13 of those, only being available for 36% of the team’s games up to this point. When Soucy eventually returns to the lineup, assuming he can stay clear of injuries for the remainder of the season, the Canucks will own one of the most well-rounded defensive cores across the league.
In the case of Hoglander, it is unclear by the reporting if he is dealing with a nagging injury, or if the Canucks are debating on carrying him as an extra forward tonight. Although he suited up in the team’s most recent game against the Philadelphia Flyers, recent reports indicated that Hoglander had been moved off the second line and recently practiced as an extra forward.
Other injury notes:
- With forward Dylan Holloway ready to return from his knee injury suffered in mid-November, Daniel Nugent-Bowman of The Athletic expects both he and forward Sam Gagner to be in the lineup this weekend for the Edmonton Oilers. Although Edmonton has recovered fairly well since the organization’s horrid start to the regular season, the bottom half of their forward core has still been a significant issue across the board. Gagner has been a solid addition in that department in now his third stint with the Oilers, and the reintroduction of Holloway’s physical play will certainly make Edmonton harder to play against each night.
- Having missed the team’s most recent game on New Year’s Eve, San Jose Sharks defenseman, Kyle Burroughs confirms he will be back in the lineup tonight as the Sharks take on the Detroit Red Wings (X Link). Going through a difficult season similar to the rest of his teammates, Burroughs has tallied four assists in 35 games this year, carrying a -22 rating into tonight’s action.
Pacific Notes: Soucy, Barabanov, Moverare
Still, without a firm timeline for his return, the Vancouver Canucks will likely be getting defenseman Carson Soucy back very shortly, as he has finally begun skating again after suffering a fractured leg in November (article link). Factoring in the recent acquisition of Nikita Zadorov, once their defensive core becomes completely healthy, there is a very reasonable argument to be made that Vancouver may have the best defensive core in the league.
Joining the organization this past summer as an unrestricted free agent, Soucy would sign a three-year, $9.75MM contract after spending the last two seasons with the Seattle Kraken organization. Throughout his two years in Seattle, Soucy would skate in 142 regular season games, scoring 13 goals and 37 points, becoming a very valuable two-way defenseman for the Kraken.
Now in Vancouver, Soucy skated in 13 games before his injury, scoring two goals and five points, averaging just under 17 minutes of ice time per night. Without any real reason to carry eight defensemen on the active roster, Soucy’s return will likely spell the end of either Mark Friedman or Noah Juulsen‘s time in the NHL.
Other notes:
- Earlier today, Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now reported that forward Alexander Barabanov will be out of the lineup tonight with an illness. Already missing over a month of the season with a finger injury, Barabanov has been quite good upon his return on December 3rd, scoring one goal and four assists in eight games for the San Jose Sharks.
- According to the AHL transactions log, the Los Angeles Kings have recalled defenseman Jacob Moverare from their AHL affiliate, the Ontario Reign. It will mark the 10th time already this season that Moverare has been recalled by the Kings, scoring zero points in four games at the NHL this year.