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Elliotte Friedman

Pittsburgh Penguins Expected To Extend Marcus Pettersson

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As always, Elliotte Friedman’s 31 Thoughts column for Sportsnet has plenty of interesting hockey nuggets spanning the entire league. Most important to Pittsburgh Penguins fans however might be the fact that an extension with Marcus Pettersson is “all but done.” Pettersson, because he signed a one-year deal last month, isn’t techincally able to sign an extension until January 1st, but the two sides can still agree to terms.

The 23-year old defenseman has had a very strong start to the season, continuing the play he showed after being acquired from the Anaheim Ducks last year. Stepping into a bigger role for Pittsburgh he is now averaging close to 19 minutes a night on the season and trails only Kris Letang and Justin Schultz in terms of points from Penguins defensemen.

Snatched out of Anaheim in exchange for Daniel Sprong—who cleared waivers at the beginning of the month and is playing in the minor leagues—Pettersson looks like an absolute steal by GM Jim Rutherford. He’ll be a restricted free agent at the end of the year and will be arbitration eligible for the first time, but is starting to look like a core piece for the team.

Interestingly, Friedman also writes that the Penguins are going to add another piece at some point. The team recently rid themselves of Erik Gudbranson—another addition that didn’t work out quite as well as Pettersson—and now actually have a little bit of flexibility in terms of their cap structure. While defense may be a target, Pettersson has worked his way into their plans for the future and should have a new contract in a few months.

Zach Trotman Clears Waivers

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Saturday: Trotman has cleared waivers, Friedman reports.  That paves the way for him to be assigned to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the AHL.

Friday: The Pittsburgh Penguins have placed Zach Trotman on waivers, according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. That suggests the defenseman is healthy enough to return to action after starting the year on season-opening injured reserve.

Trotman, 29, was actually re-signed by the Penguins earlier this year to a two-year contract after serving as injury depth the last couple of seasons. A seventh-round pick of the Boston Bruins, he’s carved out a place as a short-term bottom-pairing option. In 83 NHL games, he has 13 points.

His contract length and uncertain health status will likely keep him from being claimed, meaning the Penguins can use him the same way they did last season when he’s ready to return. Expect to see him at some point this year, but he likely won’t be an impact player for Pittsburgh.

Snapshots: Scandella, Sparks, Tatar

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The Buffalo Sabres have been the topic of trade speculation since before the season began, starting with the acquisitions of Colin Miller and Henri Jokiharju. Suddenly the team had more defensemen than seemed necessary and many people believed they would soon make a move. That speculation quickly focused on Rasmus Ristolainen after some interesting training camp quotes, but after a few early injuries things have quieted down.

Now, with some of those injured players returning, Buffalo is back in the spotlight. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports however that Ristolainen may no longer be the target, suggesting that the focus is now on veteran defenseman Marco Scandella and his expiring contract. Scandella carries a cap hit of $4MM for the rest of this season and then is scheduled for unrestricted free agency.

  • Not only have the Vegas Golden Knights recalled Nicolas Hague a few hours after they assigned him to the minor leagues—Hague played this afternoon for the Chicago Wolves—they’ve also brought up Garret Sparks. The former Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender has been outstanding through four games for the Wolves, carrying a .931 save percentage for the AHL club. Oscar Dansk struggled in his first chance as the replacement for the injured Malcolm Subban, and it seems as though Sparks will get the next opportunity.
  • Tomas Tatar left practice today for the Montreal Canadiens with a lower-body injury according to Eric Engels of Sportsnet, though the team has not issued an official update so far. It’s been a rollercoaster ride in the early season for Tatar, who has seven points through nine games but has also taken six minor penalties.

Jonathan Ericsson, Luca Sbisa Placed On Waivers

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Wednesday: Ericsson has cleared waivers and will be assigned to the AHL, while Sbisa was claimed by the Winnipeg Jets. The Red Wings recalled Alex Biega to take Ericsson’s place on the roster.

Tuesday: According to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, the Detroit Red Wings have placed Jonathan Ericsson on waivers. That must mean he’s healthy enough to return, given he has been on injured reserve all season. Luca Sbisa has also been placed on waivers, and Friedman reports that he’ll be signing with the Anaheim Ducks after skating with the New York Islanders on a professional tryout.

Ericsson, 35, has been a staple in the Red Wings lineup for more than a decade, making his debut in 2008 and playing 662 regular season games for the team. Unfortunately, his play has declined with age and his minutes reduced accordingly. The Red Wings have now seemingly moved on from their previous core, with Ericsson likely being the latest victim of their turn to the younger generation of talent.

Still, the veteran defenseman has one year left on his contract that carries a $4.25MM cap hit. That will almost certainly mean he clears waivers, at which point he could be buried in the minor leagues if the Red Wings decide to do so. If they do send him to the AHL, $1.075MM of his contract would be removed from the Red Wings cap total.

Sbisa meanwhile is just trying to hold on to an NHL career that was so promising a few years ago. The 29-year old defenseman has played in just 39 regular season games since the start of the 2017-18 season, including just nine last year with the Islanders. A first round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers in 2008, his skating ability made him a strong option early in his career. Perhaps the Ducks can reclaim some greatness out of the veteran, as they were the team that Sbisa recorded his career-high 24 points for in 2011-12.

Toronto Will Have Some Tough Roster Decisions To Make Next Week

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The Toronto Maple Leafs are expecting to get back two key players from long-term injured reserve as defenseman Travis Dermott and forward Zach Hyman are both eligible to return on Saturday when Toronto faces Montreal. While that is great news for Maple Leafs fans, it might be quite a challenge as the team will have to make quite a few changes to their roster to fit those two back into their salary cap structure.

On Saturday’s Hockey Night in Canada, Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston reported that Toronto may have to clear four players from their roster in order to get Dermott and Hyman onto their roster. He said the moves could be demotions to the Toronto Marlies, but it wouldn’t be a surprise if Toronto made a trade or put a player on waivers.

Elliotte Friedman suggested in the same segment that Toronto is seeking to trade Nic Petan, who the Maple Leafs acquired at the trade deadline last season and isn’t a favorite of head coach Mike Babcock. Petan only played five games after the trade last year and has only appeared in three this year.

Dermott is coming off offseason shoulder surgery, while Hyman had surgery to repair his ACL which he tore during the playoffs last season. With the two on LTIR, the Maple Leafs, who are under the cap by just $380K, have saved $3.11MM on the cap. But when activated, the Maple Leafs will have to clear that much in order to keep both on the roster. While Petan might be an obvious choice, none of their bottom-line players (offense or defense) make much more than the minimum, which likely would force the team to make multiple moves, barring a bigger trade.

Other players who could be out could include Jason Spezza, Nick Shore, Justin Holl, Kevin Gravel and Martin Marincin.

Trade Rumors: Wild, Hurricanes, Ristolainen

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The Minnesota Wild finally picked up their first win of the season on Monday. Yet, they immediately followed that up with a loss on Tuesday and are on their way to another loss tonight. The Wild will likely head home from their Canadian road trip with a 1-6-0 record on the year and their only points coming against the Ottawa Senators. Combine that with last season’s “big” trade acquisitions of Kevin Fiala, Ryan Donato, and Victor Rask all having been healthy scratches at least once and free agent centerpiece Mats Zuccarello being held scoreless through four games prior to an injury, and it is easy to see why the situation in Minnesota this season is already so bleak. Thus, it should come as little surprise that Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports in his “31 Thoughts” column that Minnesota will “listen on everything.” New GM Bill Guerin is likely eager to make his mark on the team and hopeful that he can right the wrongs of his much-maligned predecessor, Paul Fenton. As one might expect from the level-headed Guerin, Friedman writes that he is not willing to rush into anything just for the sake of making a move, despite such a poor start. However, should the opportunity present itself to make a move that he feels is right for the team, Guerin won’t be afraid to pull the trigger and shake things up. Friedman feels that team’s biggest need is to add right-handed forwards. Currently, the team has just two: Ryan Hartman and Luke Kunin. If one exists on the trade market, a young, natural right wing or righty center could be a good long-term investment for Minnesota. However, the Wild are likely to be in more of a seller mode than buyer in the immediate future. Much of their roster is signed long-term, but Jonas Brodin, Eric Staal, Marcus Foligno, and perhaps even captain Mikko Koivu, an impending free agent, could be on the block.

  • The Carolina Hurricanes hoped to land an NHL forward when they traded away defenseman Justin Faulk, but a potential deal with the Anaheim Ducks that would have brought Ondrej Kase to Raleigh fell through and the team settled for defenseman Joel Edmundson and promising, but raw forward prospect Dominik Bokk.  Now, TSN’s Pierre LeBrun reports that the search for a top-nine forward continues for Carolina, despite their red-hot start. Neither of the two names mentioned by LeBrun as players that the ‘Canes have kicked the tires on should come as any surprise. The first is disgruntled young Edmonton Oilers forward Jesse Puljujarvi, who is currently playing overseas. This matches up with a recent report that the Oilers continue to pursue NHL-ready Carolina prospect Julien Gauthier, but turned down a one-for-one offer for Puljujarvi this summer. With both Edmonton and Carolina playing well and wanting immediate help, it could be that the trade now makes more sense for both sides. The second player named is Joshua Ho-Sang, another frustrated young forward who is currently sitting at home waiting to be traded by the New York Islanders, who instructed him not to report to the AHL after he failed to make the team. Both Puljujarvi and Ho-Sang are behavioral question marks, but bring both upside and roster flexibility should reigning GM of the Year candidate Don Waddell decide to make a deal.
  • LeBrun also reports that Buffalo Sabres defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen is likely no longer on the trade block. While at one point both sides had agreed that a change of scenery was a good idea, the Sabres are off to a strong start this season and Ristolainen recently spoke about how much he is enjoying playing for new head coach Ralph Kreuger and his happiness with being in Buffalo. LeBrun doubts that the team wants to upset their early momentum, while noting that trade talks this summer did not bear any fruit anyway. Ristolainen can still be a key contributor for the team and they seem content to maintain the status quo so long as they continue to accumulate points.

Latest On Taylor Hall, New Jersey Devils

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The New Jersey Devils are one of the most interesting teams in the league right now, with immense pressure on their coaching staff to get things turned around after their early season struggles. Those struggles go beyond just the immediate future of John Hynes though, as the team continues to try to convince Taylor Hall to sign a long-term extension. Elliotte Friedman starts off his latest 31 Thoughts column for Sportsnet with an examination of the situation, and then explained himself further on the Tim and Sid show:

The Devils know that if they’re not looking like a consistent playoff team, the chances of him staying are extremely unlikely. So they know they have to get going. They made a pretty interesting move today behind the bench. They realize if it doesn’t change they’re going to have to start having these [trade] conversations with other clubs.

Friedman even went on to speculate about a potential suitor, noting that the Edmonton Oilers have wanted to “correct” the previous trade for a long time. The Oilers obviously have a new front office in place now, but the simple fact that it is getting to the point of speculation like this is not the way the Devils hoped this season would go.

After selecting Jack Hughes first overall, adding P.K. Subban, Wayne Simmonds and Nikita Gusev, New Jersey was supposed to be not only improved but competing for a playoff spot in the Metropolitan Division. They’ve now gotten off to an 0-4-2 start to the season and can’t seem to find their way in either end of the rink, allowing more than twice as many goals as they have scored to this point.

It is too early for the Devils to throw in the towel—after all, it’s just six games—but after watching their rival New York Islanders lose captain John Tavares for nothing as an unrestricted free agent (a decision by the forward that Hall has said “took a lot of guts”) they’ll need to make a tough decision before the trade deadline on whether their future includes the 2018 Hart Trophy winner if he doesn’t yet have a contract in hand.

Hall will turn 28 next month and has five points through six games.

Andy Welinski Placed On Waivers By Philadelphia

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Tuesday: Welinski has cleared waivers and will head to the Phantoms.

Monday: The Philadelphia Flyers likely planned to have free agent addition Andy Welinski hit the waiver wire just before the start of the regular season, when waivers is saturated with talent and teams are not as likely to make an addition to their roster. However, Welinski suffered a lower-body injury in training camp and began the year on the Flyers’ injured reserve. Finally healthy, the team is forced to place Welinski on waivers now, as reported by Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, in order to send him to the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms. With NHL teams having two weeks of games to look at as well as injury losses in need of a response, it’s fair to wonder if Welinksi will clear waivers.

Welinksi, 26, hit the open market this summer as a Group 6 unrestricted free agent. A standout for his hometown University of Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs, Welinksi enjoyed a full four-year collegiate career before signing with the Anaheim Ducks, who had selected him in the third round in 2011. In his first two pro seasons, Welinski only played in seven games for the Ducks, instead producing at a high level as a top defenseman for the AHL’s San Diego Gulls. However, in 2018-19, Welinski became a valuable depth piece on the Anaheim blue line. His split his season between the parent club and farm team, skating in 26 games for the Ducks and recording four points. However, even with his emergence as an NHL option for Anaheim, he was still far short of the 80 games needed by age 25 to remain a restricted free agents. Welinksi opted to take his talents to Philadelphia, where a young defense corps undergoing an overhaul offered the potential for another NHL opportunity.

The question now is whether Welinski’s next appearance at the top level will be with Philadelphia or elsewhere. Although the Phantoms feature other NHL veterans, such as Nate Prosser and T.J. Brennan, Welinski would likely be the next man up in the event of an injury in Philly. However, other teams may be willing to offer him a depth role right away. Given the injuries to Niklas Hjalmarsson in Arizona and Adam Larsson in Edmonton, not to mention the depth concerns in Winnipeg and New Jersey, that is already four teams that could consider taking a flier on Welinski. He may not be a household name or even an established NHLer at this point in career, but for now he’s a free option with demand for defense on the rise.

Senators Suspend Search For President Of Hockey Operations

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The Ottawa Senators have been seeking a President of Hockey Operations for some time, but they will hold on a while longer to make a hire. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports that the team has decided to end their search for a President, at least through this season, although he also casts doubt on whether they will renew the search. To this point, their attempts to find a man for the role have been fruitless and the team is likely to go back to the drawing board.

It was back in March that the team first announced that they were searching for someone to take on the President role. In the midst of a last-place campaign, many felt that it was the death knell of GM Pierre Dorion. However, the team was quick to note that the hiring would not be to undermine or threaten Dorion, but instead to assist and support. Owner Eugene Melnyk has remained consistent in his confidence in Dorion and it is that faith that likely led to the team feeling comfortable in suspending their presidential search.

Well, that and their failure to attract a qualified name. A report in April suggested that the likes of Dean Lombardi, Mike Gillis, Trevor Linden, Joe Nieuwendyk and current NHL GM’s Steve Yzerman and Ron Francis had all been approached about the position, but turned down the opportunity. While many might assume that the current status of the Ottawa roster is to blame for the lack of interest, the Senators actually have a strong pipeline of young talent that should intrigue any hockey mind. Instead, it is likely the reputation of Melnyk and skepticism of his willingness to spend to the salary cap that have scared off the qualified candidates. Rather than rush into a decision on sub-prime option for the job, it is likely that Melnyk and company preferred to stick with the loyal Dorion and continue to ride out this rebuild without addition supervision. Only time will tell how it will all play out and whether the team will circle back to finding a president down the road.

Penguins Notes: Trade Market, Ho-Sang, Malkin

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Over the weekend, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman relayed the sentiment from Pittsburgh Penguins GM Jim Rutherford that he is “not really that excited” about the names available on the trade market. It’s an echo of comments that the veteran executive made this summer about teams being unwilling to part with value or make a deal that he felt was a fair swap. The Penguins entered the season with a surplus of defensemen and a shortage of cap space, hoping to make a deal from their depth. That need to make a trade has only been exasperated by both injuries to the forward corps as well as the unexpected emergence of John Marino as an affordable NHL option on the blue line. Rutherford remains on the hunt for a trade, but thus far to no avail.

With that said, the equilibrium of the trade market shifted today with the announcement by the Arizona Coyotes that dependable defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson would be missing three months with a broken leg. The timing could not have been better for the Penguins, as Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review notes that Arizona management was on hand in Winnipeg to watch the Jets host the Pens on Sunday ahead of their own match-up on Tuesday. The ‘Yotes are now another team that could be interested in acquiring a Penguins defenseman, particularly as they need to replace the solid defensive play of Hjalmarsson. Stay-at-home defenseman Erik Gudbranson, who was a healthy scratch for the Penguins last game, is one of the names available and would seemingly be a good fit in the desert. Arizona could also be interested in a cheaper addition like veteran Chad Ruhwedel or young Juuso Riikola. Of course, the player that most Penguins fans would like to be rid of is Jack Johnson – and the four years and $13MM remaining on his contract – but it remains a long shot that Pittsburgh will be able to trade Johnson without giving up another valuable piece of their own, whether they are dealing with Arizona or otherwise.

  • Another deviation from Rutherford’s comments comes in the form of a report that he has taken a liking to an available player. Dan Kingerski or Pittsburgh Hockey Now cites a league source that says the Penguins have talked to the New York Islanders about ostracized young forward Josh Ho-Sang. Ho-Sang has struggled to find a role with New York early in his pro career and after once again failing to make the team out of camp, he was instructed by GM Lou Lamoriello not to report to the AHL, but instead to wait for the team to find him a new home via trade. On one hand, the Islanders’ willingness to move Ho-Sang and the fact that he was already available on waivers this season means that the asking price is likely low. On the other hand, this means that Rutherford could solve his need for help up front, but would be unlikely to find a taker of one of his defensemen in the Islanders. Ho-Sang would be a good fit in Pittsburgh as a player with NHL experience and skill who can move back and forth between the AHL. However, it remains to be seen if Rutherford is willing to make a trade where one of his nine NHL defensemen aren’t headed the other way.
  • The timeline for Evgeni Malkin’s return from injury remains “uncertain”, according to Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston this weekend. Malkin was injured when he went down awkwardly after a hit earlier this month and the Penguins have not updated his status with any concrete timeline. Johnston expects that Malkin will be out at least a month, dating back to when the injury occurred, which means there is hope he could return in early November. This would be the best-case scenario however and Pittsburgh is unlikely to rush him back, even in light of the three other regular forwards currently shelved by injuries. Malkin was not himself at times last year and his 21 goals in 68 games was far from the expectation. The Penguins would likely rather he take his time with recovery and get back to full strength before the second half and hopeful playoff run.

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