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Evening Notes: Driedger, Kartye, Foegele

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After being knocked out of the NHL playoffs by the Dallas Stars the Seattle Kraken have sent goaltender Chris Driedger to the Coachella Valley Firebirds of the AHL. The 28-year-old netminder was assigned to Seattle’s AHL affiliate on an emergency loan leading to speculation for the reason behind the loan. Seattle could be making the move as an insurance policy as the Firebirds just won a marathon triple OT thriller against the Calgary Wranglers that has the Flames AHL affiliate on the ropes trailing 2-1. Driedger is familiar with Coachella Valley having dressed in 14 games for the club going 9-4 with a .908 save percentage and 2.61 goals against average.

Driedger didn’t see any action with Seattle this year after struggling in 2021-22, he was unseated from his position as the backup after the club signed veteran Martin Jones. The Winnipeg native has one more year left on his three-year contract that carries a cap hit of $3.5MM and could very well be bought out this summer to free up cap space. Driedger was terrific in his two seasons in Florida but has struggled for the Kraken since coming over in the expansion draft and signing his deal.

In other evening news:

  • Forward Tye Kartye has also been sent down to Coachella Valley by the Seattle Kraken. The 22-year-old had an eventful first season in professional hockey after spending his entire OHL career with the Soo Greyhounds. Kartye had a terrific year in the AHL putting up 28 goals and 29 assists in 72 regular season games and then joined the Kraken for their playoff run where he became a dependable depth scoring option as he put up five points in ten playoff games.
  • TSN 1260’s Jason Gregor tweeted today that Edmonton Oilers Warren Foegele played through an apparent wrist injury since February. Gregor goes on to say that it limited the forwards mobility and impacted his shooting. Foegele struggled early in the playoffs but was one of the best Oilers forwards in the series against the Vegas Golden Knights as he had two goals in Edmonton’s six game series loss. The former Carolina Hurricane had an MRI today and it will determined in the coming days whether surgery will be required.

Snapshots: Three Stars, Letang, Gonchar

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The NHL has released its Three Stars for last week, with Seattle Kraken goaltender Martin Jones taking top spot. The honor continues what has been an incredible run for the 33-year-old netminder. In each of the last three seasons (two with the San Jose Sharks and one with the Philadelphia Flyes), Jones has failed to eclipse 17 wins. This year, through 31 appearances, he has 21. That is despite putting up a save percentage – .895 – that is actually slightly lower than any he has posted in the past. Jones has faced more than 30 shots just five times this season.

Second and third went to two wingers at very different stages of their careers. Lucas Raymond of the Detroit Red Wings is just trying to establish himself as a consistent presence in the league, while Nikita Kucherov continues on his Hall of Fame track. Each one collected three goals and seven points in three games last week.

  • The Pittsburgh Penguins are expecting Kris Letang to return to the team in the next few days. The veteran defenseman was away dealing with the death of his father, and hasn’t played since December 28. The Penguins have 40 games left in the season, and Letang needs to play in 30 of them to reach 1,000 for his career.
  • Sergei Gonchar, who last coached in the NHL during the 2019-20 season, may be on his way back to join Rick Tocchet with the Vancouver Canucks, according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. While Tocchet’s hiring isn’t official, Friedman seems to believe it is inevitable at this point, suggesting it could happen within the next few weeks. Today, Jim Rutherford admitted that he had been in contact with potential replacements.

Snapshots: Three Stars, Heinola, Samuelsson

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The NHL released its Three Stars for last week, and first place went to one of the game’s legendary players. Sidney Crosby is back on top after scoring 11 points in four Pittsburgh Penguins matches, passing Bryan Trottier for 17th on the all-time points list. With 64 more points, he will become just the 15th player in NHL history to record 1,500 in a career.

Second and third place went to Pavel Buchnevich and Martin Jones, respectively, after their own impressive weeks. The St. Louis Blues forward had seven points in four games to help power the incredible turnaround that now has them on a six-game winning streak and sitting fourth in the Central Division. Jones, meanwhile continued his resurgent season and now carries a .913 save percentage through 15 appearances.

  • The squeaky wheel is getting some grease in Winnipeg, where the Jets will dress Ville Heinola for the first time this season. Earlier this month, Heinola’s agent publicly requested some additional playing time for his client, who has been stuck in limbo somewhere between leagues for much of his professional career. Now 21, Heinola has seven points in 11 games for the Manitoba Moose but will make his season debut against the Carolina Hurricanes tonight, according to Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun.
  • Speaking of getting a defenseman into the lineup, the Buffalo Sabres are expecting to have Mattias Samuelsson dressed tomorrow night. The team has gone into a tailspin since he was injured earlier this season and is currently on an eight-game losing streak. Buffalo went 4-1 with Samuelsson, who signed a seven-year extension in early October.

Seattle Kraken Activate Philipp Grubauer

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The Seattle Kraken have activated goaltender Philipp Grubauer off of injured reserve. In a corresponding move, defenseman Gustav Olofsson has been reassigned to the team’s AHL affiliate, the Coachella Valley Firebirds.

Grubauer, 30, was placed on injured reserve on October 25th after suffering an injury during a game against the Colorado Avalanche, his former team. After a moderate absence, he is now healthy and ready to return to the ice.

Complicating Grubauer’s return, though, is the current state of the Kraken and the current performance of the man signed to be Grubauer’s backup: Martin Jones. The Kraken currently sit fifth place in the Western Conference, and have a solid 9-5-3 record, with seven of those wins coming in their last ten games. Jones’ play has been a major part of that, and he at the moment is giving the Kraken some of the best goaltending in their brief franchise history.

Last season, the poor play in net was one of the major reasons the Kraken were among the NHL’s worst teams. Grubauer was perhaps the worst starting netminder in hockey in 2021-22, posting a nightmarish .889 save percentage in 55 games. Backup Chris Driedger didn’t fare much better with a .899 of his own, and this season it’s been more of the same for Grubauer. In four games this season, he has a 3.70 goals-against-average and a .860 save percentage.

In contrast, Jones has posted a .912 save percentage and 2.34 goals-against-average. So the simple answer with Grubauer returning is to maintain Jones’ starring role.

But complicating the situation, and potentially necessitating a different answer from that simple one, is the contract status of each goalie.

The Kraken have significant dollars tied to Grubauer, as he makes $5.9MM each year for the next five seasons. Jones, on the other hand, is playing on an expiring one-year, $2MM deal.

So on one hand, the Kraken likely stand to have the best odds of winning as many games as possible if Jones gets the lion’s share of starts.

But on the other, playing Jones and limiting Grubauer’s game action could further damage Grubauer’s confidence, and hurt his odds of bouncing back and playing like the quality netminder he was with the Avalanche and Washington Capitals.

The Kraken are tied to Grubauer, after all, and while Jones operating as a full-on starter may have short-term benefits, it could cost them in the long term.

This could be a difficult decision for head coach Dave Hakstol to make. But since coaches are often the first to fall if a team hits a rough patch, they typically take the “win the game in front of you” approach to roster decisions, which is entirely reasonable. So with that in mind, it seems that Grubauer’s return won’t take a major chunk out of Jones’ workload.

But regardless of what the situation looks like now, Grubauer’s return to the Kraken roster and how he is deployed is certainly something worth tracking in the coming weeks.

Picture courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Seattle Kraken Sign Martin Jones

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Official now, Martin Jones is joining the Seattle Kraken on a one-year, $2MM contract for next season. The deal comes on the heels of Chris Driedger’s ACL injury and gives the Kraken a veteran backup for Philipp Grubauer.

Jones, 32, was once considered a legitimate workhorse starter in the league, playing in at least 60 games for four straight seasons during his time with the San Jose Sharks. There were good results too, including some long playoff runs with those impressive teams. Unfortunately, it has been quite a while since he’s even been close to league average in his performance, posting four straight years with a save percentage of .900 or below.

This season, for the Philadelphia Flyers, he had a .900 even in 35 appearances. While that 6’4″ athletic frame can still show flashes of the goalie he once was, there are too many times when pucks leak through Jones or he is caught out of position.

With a $2MM cap hit, Jones should be the regular NHL backup, though it is interesting the Kraken signed him at all. They already had Joey Daccord in the system, and inked free agent goalie Magnus Hellberg earlier today. You could argue that either one is probably a better option than Jones right now (even with their relative inexperience), and both will be subject to waivers should the team try to send them to the minor leagues.

Given Grubauer’s significant struggles last season, the goaltending position in Seattle is by no means settled at the moment. He will get the lion’s share of the work but if the team has to deal with another year of the worst save percentage in the league, it’s difficult to know how they’ll be anywhere near competitive.

Trade Rumors: Chiarot, Oilers, Coyotes, DeBrusk

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While the Marc-Andre Fleury-Washington Capitals connection was the highlight of the most recent “32 Thoughts” column from Sportnset’s Elliotte Friedman, the insider had plenty else to say about the burgeoning trade market. Though just a small note, the inclusion most likely to come to fruition is Friedman’s report that several teams are pursuing Montreal Canadiens defenseman Ben Chiarot. Chiarot’s name has been out there among trade candidate all season and it isn’t going away. As the top impending free agent on the NHL’s worst team, Chiarot is a near lock to be dealt. Friedman reports that the Calgary Flames, Florida Panthers, and St. Louis Blues are among the teams confirmed to have interest in Chiarot, but Friedman also keys in on another possibility: the Toronto Maple Leafs. The rumblings out of Toronto suggest that the Leafs are targeting a defenseman at the trade deadline and they may very well need one to escape the ultra-competitive Atlantic Division. Friedman notes that the club kicked the tires on Chiarot when he was a free agent and could be a top contender to land him this time around.

  • Another report that is hardly outside the box is Friedman’s suggestion that the Edmonton Oilers have looked into just about every goalie that could potentially be traded this season. Among the list of names are some who have already been linked to Edmonton, such as Columbus’ Joonas Korpisalo and Dallas’ Braden Holtby and Anton Khudobin, but other interesting targets include Philadelphia’s Martin Jones and Washington’s Ilya Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek. However, the key piece of Friedman’s report is that the Oilers may end up empty-handed if they aren’t willing to improve their offer. Friedman hears from potential trade partners that Edmonton is not willing to move their first-round pick and increasingly hesitant to move their second-rounder as well. Without a third- or fourth-round selection this year, the Oilers are seemingly only peddling late-round picks, with top prospects likely off the board as well. That won’t get it done in a sellers’ market.
  • One goalie who likely won’t wind up in Edmonton is Arizona’s Karel Vejmelka. Though there have been few bright spots in the Coyotes’ dismal season, Vejmelka’s play has given fans in the desert some hope. The 25-year-old rookie, an unheralded import from the top level in Czechia, has performed well this season. By league standards, his .901 save percentage and 3.40 GAA may not seem like much to be excited about, but as a first-year NHLer playing behind one of the worst rosters in the league, the keeper has held his own in 25 appearances. Rather than quickly flip Vejmelka to another team, the ’Yotes seem insistent on extending the goaltender instead, including him as a core piece in their rebuild.
  • Still in Arizona, where rumors circle the struggling squad, Friedman reports that young forward Lawson Crouse is unlikely to be traded despite recent speculation. The hulking power forward is not without his flaws, but with 10 goals and 20 points in 40 games, Crouse is well on his way to a career year. Although the Coyotes have shown their willingness to move on from high-potential players for the right price by placing Jakob Chychrun on the block, Friedman states that they have begun telling suitors that they would prefer to keep Crouse.
  • Elsewhere, The Athletic’s Fluto Shinzawa writes that the market for Bruins forward Jake DeBrusk is in fact as cold as it seems. There was a flurry of speculation when DeBrusk first requested a trade, but it has quieted down significantly since Boston’s play improved in the new year. This isn’t because the Bruins aren’t listening though. Instead, Shinzawa reports that teams seem hesitant to make the commitment to DeBrusk, at least at the Bruins’ asking price. While his play has improved of late, it is still far off his performance earlier in his career and not up to the level that his $4.41MM qualify offer demands. The challenge for the Bruins is to find a team willing to pay the asking price that either is willing to qualify or otherwise negotiate an extension with DeBrusk or conversely a team that sees him as a rental, as recent rumors have suggested the New York Rangers might. Neither the Bruins nor DeBrusk want to extend their relationship, but it may be easier said than done to find the right deal.

San Jose Sharks Sign Adin Hill

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Though an unsigned restricted free agent when acquired from the Arizona Coyotes, there was no question that young goaltender Adin Hill was a big part of the San Jose Sharks’ future. That became even more clear when incumbent starter Martin Jones was bought out. The Sharks have now taken their first official step toward a new status quo in net, signing Hill to a new deal. The team announced that the 25-year-old has inked a two-year deal. Kevin Kurz of The Athletic reports that it will carry a $2.175MM cap hit, paying Hill $1.675MM in 2021-22 and $2.675MM in 2022-23.

Hill arrives in San Jose with his eye on the starting job after gradually increasing his role with the Coyotes over the past three seasons. From four NHL games and an .891 save percentage in 2017-18, Hill improved to 13 games apiece in the next two years with a combined .910 save percentage and finally to a career-best 19 games, including 17 starts, and a .913 save percentage in 2020-21. Hill’s numbers are remarkably similar to his AHL play, he has a career 2.79 GAA and .909 save percentage in the NHL and a 2.69 GAA and .909 save percentage in 138 AHL games. Often the mark of a good goaltender, Hill shows little discrepancy in his play regardless of the caliber of competition or defense in front of him.

At 6’6″, Hill is a big, positional goaltender who learned how to use his size from one of the best in the game right now, new Colorado Avalanche addition Darcy Kuemper. The Sharks hope that Hill has a ceiling like Kuemper, but will settle for any upgrade to Jones’ abysmal numbers over the past few years. With the term of his new deal coming in shorter than that of veteran free agent signing James Reimer, San Jose will not be completely left hanging if Hill does not pan over the next two years, but they would much rather be signing him to a long-term extension in 2023 than searching for a replacement.

Philadelphia Flyers Sign Martin Jones

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After being bought out by the San Jose Sharks, Martin Jones has quickly found a new home. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports that Jones will be joining the Philadelphia Flyers. The deal is expected to be a one-year contract at $2MM.

It is easy to dismiss Jones as a player not worth getting excited about. The past three seasons in San Jose have been nothing short of horrendous four the veteran netminder, especially compared to his lofty contract. However, Jones was carrying a heavy load as the unchallenged starter for the Sharks, playing a workhorse schedule despite his struggles. The expectation is entirely different in Philadelphia. Carter Hart is coming off a difficult campaign of his own, but the talented young keeper should rebound and will be given every opportunity to hold on to the starting job. Jones meanwhile will be looked upon to mentor Hart and provide competent play at the backup position. With far less pressure, he could very well return to form.

With that said, the Flyers’ choice of Jones as their No. 2 at this salary is intriguing. Philly has only $8MM in cap space with Hart and Travis Sanheim in need of new contracts and two other roster sports to fill and could have benefited from a more affordable backup. If they were going to give out a substantial contract to a keeper, it likely should have been someone they trusted as the starter if Hart continued to struggle. The past few years have not supported the idea that Jones can still be that player. So he instead is a pricey backup, which is not ideal for the Flyers.

San Jose Sharks To Buy Out Martin Jones

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The goaltending carousel continues today, as Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic tweets that Martin Jones will be bought out by the San Jose Sharks. The veteran goaltender will be placed on unconditional waivers today as the first buyout window comes to a close. With three years left on his current deal, San Jose will now be forced to carry a buyout penalty through the 2026-27 season. Those penalties will be:

  • 2021-22: $1,916,667
  • 2022-23: $2,416,667
  • 2023-24: $2,916,667
  • 2024-25: $1,666,667
  • 2025-26: $1,666,667
  • 2026-27: $1,666,667

Jones, 31, has been one of the worst starting goaltenders in the league over the last three seasons, posting an .896 save percentage in each campaign. Despite that poor performance, he’s still received 135 starts from the Sharks and incredibly has a winning record at 68-53-11. Even this season, despite the Sharks finishing seven games below .500, Jones still went 15-13-4. It’s entirely reasonable to suggest that the team wouldn’t be in the troubling situation they are with better goaltending, and they’ll finally get to test that theory by moving on from Jones.

The Sharks brought in Adin Hill just before the expansion draft and could hand him the reins, though bringing in another veteran goaltender to share the load is likely. Hill also needs to be signed, as he currently is a pending restricted free agent with arbitration rights. The 25-year-old netminder has just 49 games of NHL experience under his belt, though has posted a .915 save percentage over the last two seasons, a significant upgrade from the performance that Jones was providing.

What Jones’ market in free agency will look like is anyone’s guess, given how poorly he has played for the last three seasons. With so much money still being paid out by the Sharks, a short-term low-cost contract as a tandem or backup could be his best scenario to prove he can still play at the NHL level.

San Jose Still Looking For Veteran Goaltending

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The San Jose Sharks acquired young goaltender Adin Hill a few days ago, giving them a potential answer in net for the 2021-22 season. Hill has shown plenty of promise in his limited experience, including a .913 save percentage in 19 appearances this year. It’s hard to turn the keys over to a 25-year-old netminder with just 49 games under his belt though, so the Sharks are still looking for a veteran netminder for next season, according to Kevin Kurz of The Athletic.

What does that mean for Martin Jones, a veteran who is already under contract? It seems likely, as Kurz suggests, that Jones has played his last game for the Sharks. The 31-year-old goaltender is still signed for three more seasons and carries a $5.75MM cap hit, but has played so poorly that he is a prime candidate for a buyout. In 137 appearances since the start of the 2018-19 season, Jones has posted a .896 save percentage, still somehow going 68-53-11 in the process. The fact that he had a winning record last season even on the struggling Sharks team suggests that perhaps if they improve the goaltending situation there are better days ahead for this San Jose roster.

Still, a buyout would be expensive, costing the Sharks at least $1.67MM in cap space over each of the next six years. Add that to a veteran replacement and things might end up being pretty similar in terms of salary cap costs for the Sharks, meaning they’ll need to make sure whoever they bring in is a clear upgrade (though, at this point, that’s not difficult to accomplish). Hill of course is also not proven at the starting level, meaning someone that can take the reins in a pinch should be appealing to the Sharks.

There are plenty of veteran names on the market this year, including many that have been starters or tandem goaltenders in recent years. Frederik Andersen, Jaroslav Halak, James Reimer, Petr Mrazek, Jonathan Bernier, and others would all likely fit the role at various costs, but the Sharks could also pursue a trade if those free agent prices get out of hand. At any rate, it appears GM Doug Wilson’s work isn’t complete when it comes to goaltending.

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