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Ethan Bear

Washington Capitals Waive Lucas Johansen

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12/19: Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman confirms that Johansen has cleared waivers, and may now be sent down to Hershey.

12/18: The Washington Capitals have placed defenseman Lucas Johansen on waivers. The 26-year-old has played in six games with Washington this season, recording one assist, four penalty minutes, and a +1.

Johansen made the Capitals roster out of training camp, his first time spending all season with the top club. He spent most of last season with the AHL’s Hershey Bears where he recorded one goal, seven points, and a -5 through 40 games. He also received a pair of NHL games, although he failed to make any changes to his stat-line. Johansen did however manage to record one assist in his NHL debut in the 2021-22 season, although the defenseman is still searching for his first NHL goal. The Capitals drafted Johansen 28th-overall in the 2016 NHL Draft, taking him ahead of a Second Round that has since produced 10 different players who have played in 200-or-more NHL games, including standout names like Alex DeBrincat, Samuel Girard, and Carter Hart.

Johansen going on waivers opens the door for the Capitals to sign Ethan Bear. Bear has been a popular free agent after returning from a shoulder injury suffered during the 2023 IIHF World Hockey Championship. Bear would require surgery, keeping him from signing a new contract despite being an unrestricted free agent throughout the summer. The 26-year-old defenseman appeared in 61 games with the Vancouver Canucks last season, recording 16 points, 25 penalty minutes, and a +6. The Capitals will become the fourth franchise that Bear has played for, if he signs with them, after also spending seasons with the Carolina Hurricanes and Edmonton Oilers.

Latest On Ethan Bear

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While some teams are starting to look to the trade market to see what options are out there to help their respective back ends, there is still a free agent blueliner of some note that’s available.  CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal provided (Twitter link) an update on Ethan Bear, suggesting that the rearguard is two to three weeks away from signing.

The 26-year-old was expected to re-sign with Vancouver after last season but after he suffered a shoulder injury at the Worlds in the spring, the Canucks opted to non-tender him.  However, despite that and their recent acquisition of Nikita Zadorov, Dhaliwal reports that Vancouver is one of the teams showing interest in the defenseman.

Bear played in 61 games with Vancouver last season after being acquired from Carolina in an early-season trade, notching 16 points along with 82 blocks while logging 18:32 per game.  His best season came back in 2019-20 with Edmonton when he had 21 points in 71 contests while averaging nearly 22 minutes a game which put him tenth in Calder Trophy voting.  Since then, however, Bear hasn’t been able to get back to that top-four form consistently.

Dhaliwal suggests that Bear’s eventual contract is likely to be a one-year agreement worth around $1MM prorated.  That’s low enough for most teams to fit into their cap structure, especially since teams would likely be sending someone making $775K or more down to make room for Bear on their roster.  Not surprisingly, there appear to be several teams interested in Bear with Dhaliwal suggesting five or six are in the mix for Bear at this point.

While Bear isn’t likely to have a significant impact after being out for so long, he’d still represent a low-risk, low-cost upgrade to a team’s defensive depth.  Accordingly, getting that type of asset for free midseason will be a nice piece of business for whoever manages to land him.

Injury Updates: Brown, McDonagh, Kastelic, Bear

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Oilers winger Connor Brown took the pregame today but play-by-play voice Jack Michaels relayed (Twitter link) that he wound up being a late scratch.  He’s officially listed as day-to-day with a lower-body injury.  Edmonton doesn’t have enough cap space to carry an extra forward so they played today’s game against Nashville short a player.  Accordingly, it makes them eligible for an emergency cap-exempt recall of a forward making $875K or less should Brown still be unable to play on Monday against Vancouver.

It’s worth mentioning that when Brown does suit up for his next game, he will receive a $3.25MM bonus as part of the contract he signed with Edmonton this summer, one that guaranteed him just the NHL minimum.  Any amount of that bonus that the Oilers can’t absorb on their books this season would be treated as a carryover penalty and would count against their 2024-25 cap charges.

Other injury news from around the hockey world:

  • Also a late scratch from the Edmonton-Nashville game today was defenseman Ryan McDonagh. The Predators announced (Twitter link) that the blueliner is dealing with a lower-body injury and that he’s listed as day-to-day.  The 34-year-old has played in ten games so far this season, picking up a pair of assists while averaging exactly 20 minutes a night, his lowest ATOI since his rookie year back in 2010-11.  Marc Del Gaizo made his NHL debut in McDonagh’s absence.
  • Senators center Mark Kastelic is dealing with an ankle sprain, notes Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch (Twitter link). Yesterday, head coach D.J. Smith suggested that the 24-year-old would miss a few games but now stated that Kastelic “won’t play any time soon”.  Kastelic was placed on IR yesterday, meaning he’ll be out for at least a week.  He has been held off the scoresheet in his first nine games this season.
  • Postmedia’s Patrick Johnston relays that free agent defenseman Ethan Bear appears to be on track from his recovery from shoulder surgery and should be ready to play next month. The 26-year-old was injured playing at the Worlds back in May which played a role in him being non-tendered by Vancouver a month later.  While a reunion with them could make sense, they’d need to find a way to open up cap space over the next few weeks for that to happen.

Latest On Ethan Bear

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It has been an interesting few months for unrestricted free agent defenseman Ethan Bear.  After finishing out his season with Vancouver, he agreed to play for Canada at the Worlds despite not having a deal in place for 2023-24, a move that carried some risk.  While at that tournament, he re-aggravated an existing shoulder injury, resulting in him undergoing surgery.  That caused the Canucks to lower their offer to him and when a deal wasn’t agreed upon, they non-tendered him after the draft.

Since then, things have been quiet on his front with Bear not being linked to any teams through the first month of free agency.  Although he acknowledged to Postmedia’s Patrick Johnston that recovery is going well (perhaps even slightly ahead of schedule), the 26-year-old still isn’t going to be ready to play until sometime in December.  That certainly seems to have presented some challenges for him when it comes to finding a team to sign with.

With so many teams capped out, that will stand to limit the potential suitors Bear has right now.  While he’d be LTIR-eligible to start the season, if a signing team doesn’t have the cap room to carry him on the active roster now, they’d be in a tough spot where they’d need to open up room midseason to activate Bear.  The odd team has a willingness to do a move like this where they deal with the potential ramifications later but the role he’s likely to fill isn’t one where such a move could be justifiable.

Meanwhile, by the time he’s ready to return, there’s no guarantee that the teams that might have a spot for him now will still have one in December.  Others could be created by injuries but generally speaking, players unsigned that late into the year are settling for league minimum contracts (although Patrick Kane will almost certainly buck that trend at some point in 2023-24).

Bear indicated that a few teams have made inquiries thus far but clearly, an offer to his liking has yet to materialize.  He specifically stated a preference to return to Vancouver but was told by GM Patrik Allvin that they would need to clear up cap space for that to happen, a scenario that they are hardly alone in.  He fared relatively well with the Canucks after being acquired early last season, picking up 16 points in 61 games while averaging 18:32 per contest.

When healthy, Bear has shown over his five-year career that he is certainly an NHL-caliber defenseman, and as a right-shot player, he should be in more demand than it appears he has been thus far.  But his injury situation adds a wrinkle to those discussions and as a result, it looks like he’ll be on the open market for at least a little while longer even though his recovery might even be ahead of schedule.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Examining Maple Leafs Bargain Bin Free Agent Targets

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Joshua Kloke of The Athletic wrote an article today highlighting seven bargain bin free agent targets that could help the Toronto Maple Leafs next season. The Maple Leafs currently sit about $2MM over the salary cap despite putting Jake Muzzin and Matt Murray on LTIR for next year, making it difficult to imagine Toronto doing much shopping in free agency unless they sign two-way deals or move out a contract. The names on the list were interesting, and certainly, they reflect the Maple Leafs’ salary cap predicament.

The most interesting name on Kloke’s list was three-time Stanley Cup champion Jonathan Toews. Much speculation has been made this off-season about the future of Toews as he has battled health issues the past few seasons and may be leaning towards retirement. Toews was effective last year, albeit in limited action as he dressed in just 53 games and put up 15 goals and 16 assists. The former captain of the Chicago Blackhawks doesn’t have much to play for at this point, but if he were to choose the Maple Leafs as a destination, he could slide into a similar role that Jason Spezza and Joe Thornton had when they arrived in Toronto a few years ago. Toews could be a very effective fourth-line center for Toronto even at this point in his career, but one must wonder if wants to.

Zach Aston-Reese was another name on the list and is coming off a season in which he scored a career-high 10 goals with Toronto. By all accounts, Aston-Reese was well-liked in Toronto and was effective for them in a fourth-line role. We profiled the Staten Island, New York native just days ago in our Free Agent Profile series and highlighted that the 28-year-old has some of the best defensive analytics in the league but offers very little offensively.

Another name on the list was a young reclamation project and that is 25-year-old Jesse Puljujarvi. The right-winger is coming off a very disappointing season in which he scored just five goals and was dumped by the Edmonton Oilers in a cap-cutting move last year. Puljujarvi has been a disappointment in his young career after getting drafted fourth overall in 2016. He has just 51 goals and 63 assists in 334 NHL games but is just a year removed from a 36-point season in 2021-22. The Maple Leafs would probably be a good landing spot for Puljujarvi as he could play in more of a sheltered role in Toronto and wouldn’t be relied upon to provide much offence. On the flip side of that, he struggled to play with skilled players like Connor McDavid, which leads to speculation about whether he’d be able to play with any of Toronto’s skilled forwards.

The most realistic target for the Maple Leafs on the list was center Derick Brassard. Brassard entered last season on a professional tryout with the Ottawa Senators and put up decent numbers in limited playing time. The 35-year-old had 13 goals and 10 assists in 62 games while averaging just 12 minutes of ice time per game. It’s possible that Brassard might also elect to retire, but he did express a desire to keep playing at the end of last year. He also enjoyed playing closer to home having grown up in Hull, Quebec, which is just across the river from Ottawa. Should Brassard want to stay close to family, Toronto would make sense. From the Maple Leafs’ perspective, there is no harm in bringing in a veteran like Brassard on a one-year deal for the league minimum. He would give them a scoring option in the bottom six who can fill in at center, and they could bury his contract in the minors without penalty should things not work out.

The other names on Kloke’s list were defensemen Ethan Bear and Scott Harrington, as well as forward Sam Gagner. Harrington is a former Maple Leaf and could offer some depth on the backend, while Bear is expected to miss a significant chunk of the year and would be a mid-season addition. Gagner could offer the Leafs some depth scoring on the fourth line and is close with John Taveres from their days playing in London. Perhaps a return home could be possible for the 33-year-old Gagner.

Free Agent Profile: Caleb Jones

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It’s hard to believe it, but the NHL season starts in just over two months. For some NHLers they will soon be making plans to return to their respective cities to begin the upcoming season, for others like defenseman Caleb Jones, his plan is to try to find an NHL job in the next nine weeks.

It was surprising to see Jones go unqualified, as the Chicago Blackhawks elected to let him become a free agent rather than offer him a qualifying offer. Chicago needed to tender the 26-year-old at $1.35MM, but he was made a free agent when Chicago didn’t make the offer. Now, almost a month into free agency Jones remains unsigned, a somewhat surprising development for a player who has shown promise in his young career.

Jones, the younger brother of Blackhawks defenseman Seth Jones, was originally drafted by the Edmonton Oilers in the fourth round back in 2015 and played 93 games over parts of three seasons with the club before he was traded to Chicago in July 2021 as part of the Duncan Keith trade. Jones then dressed in 124 games over the past two years with the Blackhawks, putting up 9 goals and 22 assists.

Last year was a career year for Jones, as he had four goals and 12 assists in 73 games while playing over 19 minutes a night. Jones was tasked with playing second-pairing minutes on a very bad Chicago team and faired well despite not contributing much offensively. Jones led the defense core in many analytical categories and did a decent job controlling the play when he was on the ice.

Jones has typically demonstrated a good ability to move the puck well, utilizing his skating to push the puck up the ice and can keep himself mobile in the defensive zone to be a disruptive force on both the penalty kill and at even strength. However, he is not his older brother and doesn’t possess nearly the offensive acumen that Seth has displayed throughout his career.

The issue that Jones may face when trying to lock down an NHL job is that there is a bit of a surplus of left-shot depth defensemen in the NHL. Pittsburgh has Ty Smith and Pierre-Olivier Joseph competing for one spot on their third pairing, as do the Calgary Flames, with Oliver Kylington now returning after a one-year absence. The Ottawa Senators have several solid left-shot options throughout their NHL lineup, as do many other teams. For Jones, he could offer a solid third-pairing option, but there are very few teams who need that right now.

Stats

2022-23: 73 GP, 4-14-16, -19 rating, 40 PIMS, 86 shots, 48.9% CF, 19:13 ATOI
Career: 217 GP, 14-36-50, -39 rating, 80 PIMS, 225 shots, 48.1% CF, 16:49 ATOI

Potential Suitors

Jones would have teams lining up for his services if he was a right-shot defenseman, but he shoots left and typically plays the left side. While his market will be small, there are sure to be teams that could find a role for the younger Jones brother.

In the East, the Buffalo Sabres have Ilya Lyubushkin slated to play as a third bottom-pair left-side defenseman, and while he offers a physical element and does a good job suppressing scoring chances, he is not a good puck mover and isn’t particularly adept at much else. Jones could push Lyubushkin and create healthy competition for playing time in the Sabres defense core. The one barrier for Jones to Buffalo could be that the Sabres have already brought in Erik Johnson and Connor Clifton in free agency, and management may feel that they’ve already brought in enough competition on their back end.

In the West, The Anaheim Ducks have brought in a few NHL veterans to try and give guidance to their young stars. While Radko Gudas will bring some leadership and physicality on the back end, the Ducks could use a few more veterans who can teach their young players to become good pros. Jones could be a solid fit for the role as he has already played on a young, bad, rebuilding team and knows the challenges and tribulations that come with the growing pains of a rebuild.

Sticking with the West, another rebuilding club that could use some help on the backend is the San Jose Sharks. The Sharks aren’t pushing to make the playoffs this year, but that doesn’t mean they should stop looking for improvements. At the moment, the Sharks have 30-year-old journeyman Jacob MacDonald penciled in as their third pairing left side defenseman and Marc-Édouard Vlasic on their second pair. Vlasic was a terrific shutdown defender for a long time, but he has seen notable declines in his game for the past five years or so. Jones would likely offer an upgrade on both men while not costing San Jose much in the way of assets.

Projected Contract

Unfortunately for Jones, he is most likely going to be taking a pay cut from the $1.35MM he made last season. There should be a small market for his services as the season nears, but the native of Arlington, Texas, might have to sign a professional try-out to get teams interested in his services. Matt Dumba and Ethan Bear are both still unrestricted and might attract more interest as they are right-shot defensemen and have better track records. Jones should ultimately be able to find an NHL deal, but when he does, it will likely come in around the league minimum or a tick above it. There were many NHL defensemen who found deals late in the summer last year, and it seems that could happen again this summer with Jones.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Looking At Five 2023 Non-Qualified UFA Targets

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The 2023 unrestricted free agent class may be disappointing, especially with some high-profile names like Stanley Cup champions Ivan Barbashev and Adin Hill coming off the board in recent days. However, the market did get a bit of a boost in the last 24 hours thanks to a slew of buyouts and the qualifying offer deadline, which saw over 100 restricted free agents get released by their teams to unrestricted status tomorrow. With that being said, it’s time to take a look at some of the more intriguing targets now available for teams to sign.

Each player’s former team is listed in parentheses. You can find the full list of RFAs that went unqualified here.

D Ethan Bear (VAN)

The summer will likely end with Bear re-signing in Vancouver, but there’s nothing stopping him from heading elsewhere if a team comes calling. He could last a bit into the summer as he recovers from a shoulder injury sustained while playing at the IIHF Men’s World Championship, though.

After not really finding a role in the Carolina Hurricanes lineup, Bear had a very solid season with the Canucks, posting 16 points in 61 games and providing high-end two-way play for a team that desperately needed it. Add in the fact he’s a right shot and still only 26 years old, and he makes for a rather appealing target that would have landed on our top 50 unrestricted free agents list for 2023.

He’s likely to earn a two-to-three-year deal, probably slightly under his $2.2MM qualifying offer. If so, all signs point to it being one of the better value signings of a summer poised to see some overpayments out of need in a weak UFA class.

F Denis Gurianov (MTL)

Things have been downhill for the 2015 12th overall pick since he logged 20 goals in his rookie season, a feat he hasn’t matched since. After sliding back out of a consistent top-nine role with the Dallas Stars, he was dealt to the Montreal Canadiens at the deadline in exchange for Evgenii Dadonov, a move that may have paid dividends for both sides. Gurianov did show a bit of a resurgence with the Habs, scoring five goals and eight points in 23 games, looking more engaged than he did with the Stars. The Habs will likely attempt to get a deal done here, but he wasn’t worth the $2.9MM qualifying offer he was due.

This is not a case of analytics suggesting a breakout, though, in fact, it’s the opposite. There are red flags nearly everywhere in his profile, suggesting he’s a liability in isolation. There is still some obvious raw skill with Gurianov, though, and for a cheap cost, he could put up some higher point totals with picture-perfect chemistry. It remains to be seen whether he’ll ever find that.

D Caleb Jones (CHI)

The counting stats here aren’t the prettiest, but advanced metrics have long tabbed Jones as an effective player for his role. Last season, Jones’ -19 rating may not have been pretty, but he also logged nearly 20 minutes a night on a lottery team. In fact, Jones logged a career-high relative Corsi for percentage at even strength of 4.8%, and his 16 points in 73 games were a career-high.

He’ll never break the bank offensively from the blue line, nor should you expect him to, but he’s got an underrated ability to drive play and proved this season he can take on more serious minutes against tougher competition. Add in the fact he can play both the left and right side, and he should be quite a good value signing for a team looking to bolster their third pair (or potentially second).

At 26, though, Jones was nearing retirement age on a very youthful Chicago blueline, and they decided to cut ties to make room for more of their future talent. He shouldn’t cost much more than $2MM on a one-year offer.

F Daniel Sprong (SEA)

Sprong easily jumps out as the most tantalizing target here. Quickly overtaking Dale Weise for the “Dutch Gretzky” title (sorry, Canadiens fans), Sprong has grown into one of the most efficient per-minute scorers in the league. He’s notched at least 13 goals in four of the last five seasons, never averaging more than 13 minutes per game – in fact, he scored 21 goals (and 46 points) in just 66 games with the Kraken this year despite staying squarely in a fourth-line role, averaging 11:25 per game. He was 17th in the NHL in goals per 60 minutes this season among skaters with at least 25 games.

With that, he’s set himself up for more ice time and more money. He was eligible for arbitration and likely would’ve garnered a rich reward for his production – a number Seattle didn’t want to pay. That doesn’t mean another team won’t, although an underwhelming playoff performance may scare some teams off. For a fringe team looking to add a high-octane option to its top nine, though, look no further than the 26-year-old Sprong.

He could very well command above the $3MM mark on a short-term but multi-year deal, especially from a team slated toward the bottom of the league standings. He jumps out as an attractive option for teams like the Arizona Coyotes, who could bank on Sprong’s production maintaining (or even increasing) with a slight bump in minutes, parlaying it into a valuable trade at next year’s deadline. Signing him to a two- or three-year deal with cost certainty as the salary cap rises would only add to his trade value.

F Sam Steel (MIN)

Steel is the only unqualified RFA who can say they were a number-one center last year. However, it was by necessity – with the Minnesota Wild needing Joel Eriksson Ek to round out their top-six on their second line, it was an in-and-out swap all year between Steel and Ryan Hartman between their pair of star wings in Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello. Steel did have a career-high 10 goals and 28 points in 65 games, but you’d expect more for someone who spent over 350 minutes with Kaprizov and Zuccarello this season – especially from a former first-round pick.

That being said, you could do worse for a third-line center. Steel isn’t a liability defensively, and while he may not be able to translate his offensive acumen to the scoresheet in the NHL, he won’t take points away from those around him and can survive as a complementary player.

Still, with uninspiring production in Minnesota, he wasn’t a candidate to stick around, as the team needs every dollar available to them to stay in playoff contention. He’s flashed the least upside at the NHL level of any of the five players listed, although he does carry some certainty in terms of his defensive impacts and offensive production that others here don’t offer.

Other targets to watch: F Nathan Bastian (NJD), G Mackenzie Blackwood (SJS), F Max Comtois (ANA), F Morgan Geekie (SEA), F Tyson Jost (BUF), F Klim Kostin (DET), F Denis Malgin (COL), F Michael McLeod (NJD), F Jesse Puljujarvi (CAR)

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

West Notes: Coyotes, Canucks Free Agents, Pearson, Zhigalov

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The Coyotes enter next week’s draft loaded with picks, to put it lightly.  The team currently has nine second-round selections and nine third-rounders over the next three years.  Accordingly, Chris Johnston reports in TSN’s latest Insider Trading segment (video link) that Arizona is looking to deal from some of that future draft capital.  Instead of being a dumping ground for bad contracts as they have been in recent years, it appears as if their focus has turned to trying to acquire better pieces who could be moved because the other team is forced into making a move to get into compliance.  Accordingly, instead of receiving picks for taking on the player the other team wants to get rid of as they’ve done several times before, they’re flipping that plan around.

Elsewhere in the West:

  • With Ethan Bear needing shoulder surgery, it is no longer a guarantee that the Canucks will tender the blueliner a qualifying offer next week, reports CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal (Twitter link). Bear is owed a $2.3MM qualifier but is set to miss at least the first couple of months of the season.  With cap space still at somewhat of a premium for Vancouver, that might be too high of a price tag for their liking.  Meanwhile, Dhaliwal adds that the Canucks are working on a new contract for pending UFA defenseman Noah Juulsen and have reached out with an offer to pending UFA rearguard Kyle Burroughs.  As for goalie Collin Delia, the door isn’t closed on a return but the odds of him re-signing appear to be dropping.
  • Also from Dhaliwal (Twitter link), he recently updated Tanner Pearson’s situation. The winger has now undergone seven surgeries as a result of his wrist injury and it remains to be seen if he’ll be able to return to the ice.  The NHLPA indicated back in January that they were looking into how Pearson’s injury was handled and the continued uncertainty can’t be helping things.  Pearson has one year left on his deal which carries a $3.25MM AAV.  At this point, it looks like he’ll at least be starting next season on LTIR.
  • Avalanche prospect Ivan Zhigalov is heading home next season as Yunost Minsk in Belarus announced that they’ve signed the netminder to a one-year contract. The 20-year-old was the final pick in the draft last June with the 225th selection and spent this past season with OHL Kingston, posting a save percentage of .889 with a 3.59 GAA in 45 games.  Since Zhigalov was selected out of major junior, Colorado only holds his NHL rights through next season.

Afternoon Notes: Hellebuyck, Bear, Thompson

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Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic wrote today that Winnipeg Jets netminder Connor Hellebuyck is looking for a contract with an average annual value around $9.5MM. LeBrun says that teams looking to trade for the 30-year-old are aware of what Hellebuyck’s camp are seeking in contract negotiations. If Hellebuyck were to get that salary it would put him in the same pay bracket as Tampa Bay Lighting goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.

Hellebuyck was the 2020 Vezina award winner for top goaltender and has a long track record of putting up elite numbers. However, he has had a handful of poor seasons and with teams having just seen the Vegas Golden Knights win the Stanley Cup with Adin Hill between the pipes, there might be a hesitancy to pay a premium in a trade and an expensive cap hit for a goalie who is on the wrong side of 30. You can’t fault Hellebuyck for asking for the moon as he is nominated once again for the Vezina award after a terrific season in Winnipeg posting a 37-25-2 record with a .920 save percentage and a 2.49 goals against average.

In other afternoon notes:

  • Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK TV tweeted today that it appears the Vancouver Canucks have had discussions with defenseman Ethan Bear’s representatives about several contract possibilities. The tweet comes on the heels of a conversation with Bear’s agent Jason Davidson who said that they’ve discussed several options, but a one-year deal may be the way to go for the 25-year-old. It’s an interesting idea from Bear’s camp given that the defender is out until December after undergoing shoulder surgery this week. Bear is a year away from unrestricted free agency and the allure of picking his long term destination may be worth the roll of the dice.
  • Ben Gotz of the Las Vegas Review-Journal tweeted today that Bruce Cassidy told reporters that goaltender Logan Thompson is skating and should be 100% by training camp. Thompson started the year as Vegas’ number one goaltender but suffered a lower body injury in February and did not play again. When healthy the 26-year-old posted good numbers going 21-13-3 with a .915 save percentage and 2.65 goals against average. If Thompson is ready to go it could give Vegas leverage in their contract negotiations with pending free agent netminder Adin Hill. Thompson would be a solid fallback option should Hill elect to test the market and move on.

Ethan Bear Undergoes Shoulder Surgery, Out 6 Months

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After a few weeks of mulling, the Vancouver Canucks and defenseman Ethan Bear have made a decision on how to move forward from a shoulder injury sustained while playing at the 2023 IIHF Men’s World Championships. Bear underwent successful surgery and is expected to miss six months, the Canucks said today.

Bear is now on track to make his 2023-24 season debut before the Christmas break in the NHL schedule and could miss around the first 30 games of the season based on a six-month timeline from today. The 25-year-old right-shot defender is a pending restricted free agent and remains without a contract for next year.

In his first year with the Canucks, Bear totaled 16 points in 61 games and posted excellent possession numbers while seeing his ice time increase to its highest level in three seasons. He’s expected to challenge for a top-four role next season, with his competitor, Tyler Myers, potentially on his way out of town if Vancouver can find a taker for the last season of his $6MM average annual value contract.

Bear was one of Vancouver’s highest upside options at right defense before the team unexpectedly acquired Filip Hronek from the Detroit Red Wings near the trade deadline. While a healthy Hronek next year will add some much-needed top-four caliber depth to the Canucks blueline, Bear is still an important defensive cog for a team that struggles to keep the puck out of their own net. He’ll be missed to start the 2023-24 campaign.

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