Free Agent Focus: Columbus Blue Jackets
Free agency is now a little more than a month away and teams are looking ahead to when it opens. There will be several impact players set to hit the open market in July while many teams have key restricted free agents to re-sign as well. We continue our look around the NHL with an overview of the free agent situation for the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Key Restricted Free Agents
D Marcus Björk – Björk had a nice, albeit abbreviated rookie season for the Columbus Blue Jackets. The 25-year-old Swede split the year between Columbus and the Cleveland Monsters of the AHL. In 33 NHL games Björk tallied three goals and eight assists, while in the AHL he put up seven goals and eight assists in 44 games. Björk earned a lot of praise from the Columbus coaching staff and at one point was being dubbed a player who could have a long NHL career, this was before his game fell off during the middle of the season. He was demoted for a few months before being recalled towards the end of the year to re-join Columbus. While his play trailed off, one might wonder if it was tied to fatigue as Björk had never played more than 52 games in a season prior to this year. Columbus will likely lock up Björk for a season or two to take a long look at a player who could become a hidden gem for the Blue Jackets should he be able to build on his small success from this past year.
RW Mathieu Olivier – Olivier has never topped 19 points since turning pro back in 2018-2019. His career high came in the AHL when he put up 10 goals and nine assists in 58 games for the Milwaukee Admirals in the pandemic shortened 2019-2020 season. This past season the 26-year-old played a career high 66 NHL games for the Blue Jackets putting up 81 PIM, as well as five goals and 10 assists. Olivier offers sandpaper and is always willing to battle and stick up for his teammates, however he will never put up much in the way of offence. But given his status as one of Columbus’ most pressing RFA cases, it is a real indication of the lack of NHL talent that the Blue Jackets have on their NHL roster at this time. Olivier will likely be re-signed to a one year/two-way contract for around the league minimum.
Other RFAs: Tim Berni, Joshua Dunne, Carson Meyer, Trey Fix-Wolansky, Jacob Christiansen
Key Unrestricted Free Agents
D Gavin Bayreuther – Bayreuther is the Blue Jackets top unrestricted free agent heading into this offseason and was famously taken by the Seattle Kraken in the expansion draft two years ago only to be left unsigned. Bayreuther then became a free agent and quickly signed back with the Blue Jackets where he has played the past few seasons. The New Hampshire native toiled in the AHL with the Texas Stars for four seasons before finally getting a chance in the NHL with the Blue Jackets in the 2021-22 season. The 29-year-old spent most of this past season with Columbus where he put up two goals and 12 assists in 51 games.
Bayreuther has never put up much in the way of offense in his career as he has just 28 career points in 122 career games, he is the epitome of a tweener. He is too good for the AHL however he is likely not a strong enough player to sustain success in the NHL. He will likely be given the opportunity to sign a two-way contract this summer with a decent downside guarantee at the AHL level and the chance to split time between the AHL and the NHL.
F Lane Pederson – The Blue Jackets claimed Pederson off waivers from the Vancouver Canucks this past January. The Saskatoon native spent 27 games in the NHL this season split between to the two clubs and put up three goals and three assists. Much like Bayreuther, Pederson is also a tweener. He’s been a very good offensive player in the AHL the past few seasons as he has put up nearly a point a game since 2018-19. But this offensive success just simply hasn’t carried over the NHL as Pederson has just four goals and seven assists in 71 NHL games.
Pederson will get a two-way contract with a good AHL salary and will likely make for a good 13th or 14th forward next season.
G Michael Hutchinson – Hutchinson is the definition of a journeyman. He has played 153 NHL games spread over ten seasons posting a .902 career save percentage. Early in his career the 33-year-old looked as though he would be a solid NHL backup as posted a .914 save percentage in 38 games going 21-10-5 for the Winnipeg Jets in 2014-15. However, by 2017 Hutchinson found himself back in the AHL and struggled to find consistent NHL work, dressing in just 54 NHL games over the past six seasons. Given his age and recent track record it is realistic to guess that Hutchinson will find work as a teams third string goaltender that can take the bulk of the AHL starts and fill in at the NHL level should an injury occur.
Other UFAs: Joona Luoto, Justin Richards, Jon Gillies
Projected Cap Space
Columbus has ample cap room to fill out their roster as they currently have just under $17MM in space and 21 players signed for next season. However, filling out their roster simply won’t be good enough given how thin the team is on NHL talent. The club has committed big money to Patrik Laine, Johnny Gaudreau and Zach Werenski but haven’t been able to insulate them with much in the way of offensive talent. They have some terrific young players and will need to be careful to leave room for their future contracts, however the Blue Jackets need to do a better job of providing depth scoring so they don’t rely so heavily on their top line scorers. Columbus has been largely unsuccessful in unrestricted free agency making it interesting to see how they will play the market when it opens in July.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.
Blue Jackets Claim Lane Pederson Off Waivers From Canucks
The Blue Jackets have added some forward depth as NorthStar Bets’ Chris Johnston reports (Twitter link) that they’ve claimed center Lane Pederson off waivers from the Canucks. To make room for him on the active roster, Columbus has placed winger Gustav Nyquist on injured reserve.
Pederson successfully made it through waivers back in October while he was still with Carolina. With them, he played in four games with AHL Chicago before being included as a salary offset in the trade that also saw Vancouver pick up defenseman Ethan Bear. The 25-year-old remained in the minors with Abbotsford for nearly two months, averaging just shy of a goal per game which earned him a recall in late November.
Since being brought up, Pederson had been a regular for the Canucks, getting into 11 games (including last night’s contest against Columbus while on waivers), picking up a goal and two assists while averaging just under 13 minutes a night. For his career, Pederson has two goals and six helpers in 55 games between Arizona, San Jose, and Vancouver. He’s on a one-way contract for the league minimum salary of $750K and is arbitration-eligible if he can get into 25 more games this season. Otherwise, he becomes a Group Six unrestricted free agent.
The move is a low-risk flyer for the Blue Jackets who needed a replacement for Nyquist who is out indefinitely while there’s a strong chance they’ll be trading a few players between now and the March 3rd deadline so extra bodies were going to be needed at some point. Pederson has a chance to play a regular role in Columbus in the hopes of finding some NHL stability that has so far eluded him across four different organizations.
Lane Pederson Placed On Waivers
The Vancouver Canucks have placed Lane Pederson on waivers today for the purpose of assigning him to the minor leagues.
It’s a curious move, given the Canucks brought Pederson in along with Ethan Bear earlier this season and have a player in Phil Di Giuseppe that could be sent to the minors without issue. Pederson has apparently played himself back off the roster, despite only getting a few opportunities.
Through ten games since arriving in Vancouver, Pederson has three points and 15 penalty minutes, last appearing in a game on January 21.
Pederson did clear waivers at the beginning of the season with the Hurricanes, and played 18 games with the Abbotsford Canucks before a recall in December. The reason that call-up was so exciting was the 17 goals he had in the AHL, scoring at nearly a goal-per-game pace.
While he’s not expected to ever do that at the NHL level, it is a bit surprising to see him back on waivers now. Even more so because he was skating next to Andrei Kuzmenko and Elias Pettersson this morning, according to team broadcaster Brendan Batchelor.
Vancouver Canucks Recall Lane Pederson
Seeking help to continue their 7-3 run in their last ten games, the Vancouver Canucks have recalled Lane Pederson, one of the AHL’s hottest goal scorers, from their minor-league affiliate, the Abbotsford Canucks.
Pederson, 25, was acquired by Vancouver as part of the October Ethan Bear trade. At the time, we wrote that in adding Pederson the Canucks were adding a “capable AHL scorer” who would be able to “help bolster the Abbotsford Canucks.”
That’s exactly what he’s done, as after going scoreless through his first four AHL games with the Chicago Wolves, Pederson has scored 17 goals in just 18 games in the Canucks organization.
His hot streak has led the AHL Canucks to seven wins in their last ten games, helping them rebound from a difficult start and re-inserting them into the AHL’s Pacific Division playoff race.
AHL success is not foreign to Pederson, as he has scored near a point-per-game rate in that league since 2019-20, when he scored 16 goals and 34 points in 37 games for the Tucson Roadrunners.
Both the Arizona Coyotes and San Jose Sharks gave Pederson, who went undrafted out of the WHL’s Swift Current Broncos, extended looks in the NHL. Pederson got a 15-game trial in Arizona in 2020-21 and 29 games for San Jose last season. In total, though, Pederson has just five NHL points to his name.
With this recall, the Canucks will likely give Pederson a shot to see if his red-hot scoring can translate to the NHL level. It’s certainly possible that Pederson is one of those players who has the tools to excel against AHL defenses but not against tougher NHL competition, and that seems to be the conclusion Arizona, San Jose, and the Carolina Hurricanes reached by letting Pederson move on. But even so, with this recall, the Canucks have decided that they want to find out for themselves.
Vancouver Canucks Assign Three To AHL
According to the AHL’s transactions page, the Vancouver Canucks have assigned forwards Lane Pederson and Sheldon Dries, as well as defenseman Noah Juulsen, to the Abbotsford Canucks.
The moves leave Vancouver with only 12 healthy forwards and seven healthy defensemen on the active roster, meaning that the team could soon activate some players from injured reserve. The most likely options are Brock Boeser, Riley Stillman, and/or Quinn Hughes, who are all listed as day-to-day with their injuries and are on regular injured reserve. Defensemen Travis Dermott and Tucker Poolman remain on long-term injured reserve.
Vancouver is near the top of the league in man-games lost due to injury in this young season, and it reflects in their 2-5-2 record. But after winning back-to-back contests, the team is finally beginning to play with the level of confidence required to win hockey games. With some of their top players primed to soon return to the lineup, the tone around the team is certainly more optimistic than it was a week ago.
Pederson was acquired just yesterday, along with defenseman Ethan Bear, from the Carolina Hurricanes. He had spent the early part of the year in the AHL with Carolina’s affiliate, the Chicago Wolves, and did not register a point in four games. Dries and Juulsen, on the other hand, have combined for an assist in four NHL appearances this year with the Canucks. They’re all significant reinforcements for an Abbotsford team that’s 3-2-0 to start the season.
Waivers: 10/05/22
Another large group of players finds themselves on waivers today, hoping to get picked up by an NHL roster. The AHL awaits most that clear, though placement on the wire doesn’t necessarily indicate assignment to the minor leagues. Some players will clear just to give their team a little more roster flexibility over the next few weeks. Everyone from yesterday has cleared, and waivers today include:
Carolina Hurricanes
Ryan Dzingel
Maxime Lajoie
Lane Pederson
Stelio Mattheos
Mackenzie MacEachern
Minnesota Wild
New York Islanders
Dennis Cholowski
Cory Schneider
Parker Wotherspoon
Hudson Fasching
Arnaud Durandeau
Cole Bardreau
Andy Andreoff
Philadelphia Flyers
Adam Brooks
Max Willman
Louis Belpedio
This page will be updated as more reports come in
AHL Shuffle: 03/27/22
It’s a fairly busy day of hockey in the NHL, with eight games on the schedule. This afternoon, the New York Islanders host the Tampa Bay Lightning in a rematch of the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals, and later this evening, an Eastern Conference heavyweight matchup as the Toronto Maple Leafs host the Florida Panthers. While the NHL action is happening, there should still be plenty of small transactions around the hockey world to keep updated.
Metropolitan Division:
- A day after sending him down to the Utica Comets of the AHL, the New Jersey Devils have re-called defenseman Kevin Bahl. The hulking defenseman has yet to record a point in five NHL games this season, but has three goals and 12 assists in 49 games at the AHL level.
- The New York Islanders re-called defenseman Grant Hutton from the Bridgeport Islanders of the AHL on an emergency basis. Hutton saw his first NHL action back in November amid the Islanders’ COVID outbreak, going without a point in five games. The 26-year-old defenseman will draw into the lineup for the Islanders’ afternoon game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Atlantic Division:
- The Ottawa Senators announced that they have swapped a pair of goaltenders with the AHL’s Belleville Senators. Filip Gustavsson was re-assigned to Belleville, while Mads Sogaard was brought up to Ottawa. Gustavsson made his NHL debut for Ottawa last season, impressing in nine games, but has struggled over 15 NHL games this season with an .886 save-percentage and 3.78 goals-against average. Sogaard, Ottawa’s second-round selection, 37th overall, in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft, has yet to make his NHL debut, but has been solid in the AHL this season with a .906 save percentage an 2.87 goals-against average in 31 games.
Central Division:
- The Nashville Predators have activated defenseman Matt Benning off of injured reserve, the team announced. Benning, 27, had been on the injured list since March 13th with an upper-body injury and has no goals and ten assists in 53 games so far this season. The Predators are seeking to punch their ticket to one of the Western Conference’s playoff series’, and Benning’s return should help them get across that line.
Pacific Division:
- Forward Lane Pederson was re-assigned to the San Jose Barracuda of the AHL a day after the San Jose Sharks recalled him to play in Saturday’s win over the Anaheim Ducks. Pederson has just two assists in 27 games with the Sharks this season, but does have an impressive six goals and four assists in 11 games for the Barracuda.
This post will be kept updated throughout the day.
Lane Pederson Clears Waivers
Feb 22: Not only did the Sharks grab Dzingel, but Pederson has also cleared waivers according to Chris Johnston of TSN, meaning they’ll keep him in the organization. Pederson can now be assigned to the minor leagues.
Feb 21: Toronto is apparently on the way to San Jose. The San Jose Sharks have claimed Ryan Dzingel off waivers from the Toronto Maple Leafs, just days after the team acquired him from the Arizona Coyotes. To open a roster spot, the Sharks have waived Lane Pederson according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet.
When the Maple Leafs acquired Dzingel, they quickly explained that the plan was to put him on waivers and try to keep him in the organization as a depth option. His entire $1.1MM cap hit could be buried in the minor leagues, giving them an experienced NHL option to replace the outgoing Nick Ritchie. Instead, he’ll get a chance to jump into the lineup with the Sharks, where he’ll have to be kept on the active roster.
It’s certainly not like Dzingel deserves to be in the minor leagues. Though his offensive production has dropped off in recent years, he still is an excellent skater with strong defensive capabilities. In 26 games for the Coyotes this year he scored four goals and seven points, but perhaps could get a bigger opportunity with the reeling Sharks. The team has won one game over the last month, often scoring two or fewer goals in the process.
The last time an underused forward came to San Jose from Toronto, it certainly worked out for the new club. Alexander Barabanov ended up with the Sharks after 22 largely underwhelming games with the Maple Leafs and now is a regular in the team’s top-six. While Dzingel may not be able to recreate the 26 points in 41 games Barabanov has this season, he has performed to that level in the past and potentially could still be a nice addition.
The player he’s replacing in Pederson, meanwhile, has just not been able to create any offense at all this year. In 26 games, Pederson is still without a single goal and has recorded just two assists. The fact that he’s in the first season of a two-year deal that will be one-way in 2022-23, likely keeps him from being claimed on waivers.
For Toronto, the overall effect of the trade is Ritchie (and a draft pick) out, Ilya Lybushkin in, for roughly the same cap hit. The difference is that the defenseman will actually stay on the Maple Leafs roster, meaning as a net transaction, they’ve actually created a bit of cap space.
Sharks, Bruins Announce More COVID Absences
Jan 5: Tomas Nosek has joined the other Bruins in the protocol, along with one additional staff member.
Jan 4: The San Jose Sharks and Boston Bruins have each announced more COVID-related absences. The Sharks have placed Logan Couture and Lane Pederson in the COVID protocol, recalling Adin Hill and Scott Reedy in the process. Alexei Melnichuk has been reassigned to the San Jose Barracuda.
Couture, the Sharks captain, was not one of the players who entered the protocol earlier this season, though he also was missing for one of the games they played shorthanded due to a non-COVID illness. He’ll now be sidelined for the next little while, likely missing at least this evening’s game as well as two others in the coming days.
With Hill out, Couture and Pederson will join only Mario Ferraro in the protocol at this time. Head coach Bob Boughner confirmed to reporters including Curtis Pashelka of Mercury News that Couture is positive but has not yet experienced any symptoms. With the league’s new policy, that means he could potentially exit the protocol in five days, should he be able to provide a negative test.
The Bruins meanwhile have placed Jake DeBrusk and three staff members in the protocol, where they will join Karson Kuhlman. DeBrusk has had quite the eventful season so far, with his trade request going public only for the Bruins to put him back in the lineup due to other absences. In the two games the team has played since the holiday break, DeBrusk has taken a regular shift in both, even playing more than 16 minutes on Sunday against the Detroit Red Wings.
Now, as he finds himself in isolation, he’ll be forced to miss at least tonight’s game and likely at least two others in the next few days.
Injury Updates: Sundqvist, Pederson, Bogosian
Blues center Oskar Sundqvist skated on the fourth line on practice on Friday but still isn’t cleared to play yet, head coach Craig Berube told reporters including Tom Timmermann of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. That said, the fact he skated in a regular role suggests he’s nearing a return from the torn ACL he suffered back in March which would be a nice addition to their bottom six. That said, there is another factor in when he can be activated; until Ville Husso can return which would allow current backup Joel Hofer to be sent to the minors, St. Louis doesn’t have the cap room to activate Sundqvist from LTIR.
Other injury news from around the NHL:
- Sharks winger Lane Pederson is expected to miss a week or two, relays Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News (Twitter link). He was injured on a hit from Winnipeg’s Logan Stanley on Thursday night. Pederson hasn’t recorded a point in 11 games so far this season while being used primarily on the fourth line. With San Jose getting seven players back from COVID protocol yesterday – resulting in seven AHL demotions – they’ll at least have enough healthy forwards on the roster to cover for Pederson’s expected absence.
- The Lightning will have blueliner Zach Bogosian back in the lineup tonight as he returns from a foot injury, notes Eduardo A. Encina of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link). His second stint with Tampa Bay got off to a rough start as he suffered the injury in the season-opener. Bogosian will take the place of Erik Cernak who is dealing with an upper-body issue.