Trade Notes: Rossi, Marchment, Romanov
In an article by Michael Russo and Joe Smith from The Athletic, which was later confirmed by Patrick Johnston of The Province, there is a growing consensus that the Vancouver Canucks have made a formal offer to the Minnesota Wild for Marco Rossi. While the complete trade offer remains unclear, the trio of writers believes the Canucks proposed the 15th overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft along with a player.
Johnston elaborated in his article stating that it’s unclear whether the player offered to the Wild was a prospect, or one currently rostered with the Canucks. Still, the news confirms that Vancouver is being aggressive in their pursuit of upgrading their second-line center.
While it’s essentially understood that the Canucks and scoring winger Brock Boeser will be parting ways this summer, Vancouver has over $12MM in salary cap space for the offseason. That means the Canucks could comfortably offer Rossi his desired seven-year, $49MM contract, while leaving room for a few further upgrades.
Other trade notes:
- After signing center Matt Duchene to a new four-year, $18MM contract earlier today, the Dallas Stars only have a projected $455K in salary cap space entering the offseason. Given this, the Stars are looking to move salary off the roster, and forward Mason Marchment has found his name in the center of the rumor mill. According to David Pagnotta of TheFourthPeriod, Dallas is receiving interest in Marchment’s services, particularly from the Toronto Maple Leafs and Utah Mammoth. Marchment already has some familiarity with the Maple Leafs, appearing in four games for the Original Six franchise during the 2019-20 season.
- In a new report from Stefen Rosner in Responsible Gambling, he suggests that the New York Islanders are garnering trade interest in defenseman Alexander Romanov from the Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers. Rosner provided context for the report by stating that he anticipates the Islanders will begin contract negotiations with Romanov in a few weeks. However, he noted that some teams expect these negotiations to take longer since the Islanders also need to sign Noah Dobson, Simon Holmström, and Maxim Tsyplakov, all while managing a cap space of only $21 million.
Stars Open To Trade Offers On Mason Marchment
The Stars are open to the possibility of dealing winger Mason Marchment, reports David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period. It’s a more palatable avenue to clear cap space this summer than moving star left-winger Jason Robertson, who Dallas has at least considered including in talks in the weeks since their elimination in the Western Conference Final.
Marchment, who turns 30 in a week, is coming off one of the better seasons of his career. He scored 22-25–47 with a +15 rating over 62 appearances in 2024-25. While he missed significant time due to a facial fracture and subsequent surgery, that was his best goal-scoring work on a per-game basis for his career at 0.35 and his second-best season in the points department at 0.76.
The left-shot winger has averaged 21 goals and 51 points per 82 games over his six-year NHL career. Injuries are a legitimate concern, having only hit the 80-game mark once, but he’s one of the more consistently effective middle-six wingers in the league when healthy, both offensively and physically. Checking in at 6’5″ and 212 lbs, he’s a willing fighter and frequent hitter while also serving as one of the more efficient per-minute point producers of the last few years.
His possession impacts leave a little more to be desired. His raw numbers look fine, but become more concerning when put in context, considering he’s spent the majority of his NHL career with a pair of strong 5-on-5 teams in Florida and Dallas. They’re not huge drawbacks – he’s averaged a -0.2 relative CF% at even strength over his career while receiving semi-favorable offensive zone deployment – but his reputation defensively likely outweighs reality a little bit.
Nonetheless, his $4.5MM cap hit provides great value to the Stars. That’s almost never a deal a championship-contending club would be looking to move, but as detailed at length, the Stars simply don’t have a path toward cap compliance next season without making a salary dump. They have under $5MM in projected space with seven roster spots to fill, meaning they’d essentially have to sign only league-minimum players this summer while letting all of their pending free agents walk.
Salary cap considerations are essentially the sole motivator behind considering moving Marchment, a pending UFA starting July 1, and Robertson, a pending RFA starting July 1. They each have one year left on their contracts and would normally have their resources devoted toward extension discussions in a few weeks, but without a chance of recouping any cost-effective assets in a deal involving overpaid defenders Mathew Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin, it appears general manager Jim Nill is looking to part ways with a player with higher trade value to try and land a cheap contributor as part of the return.
Marchment would obviously have a much lower return and asking price than Robertson, a first-line fixture who’s posted 80 points in back-to-back seasons following his 109-point breakout in 2022-23. Parting ways with the former would also have a much less transformative impact on their forward group next season. Still, if they get the right deal for the latter, it may make sense. Extending Robertson, who will presumably cost at least his $9.3MM qualifying offer per season to re-sign on a multi-year deal, would give Dallas seven players making over $8MM per season in the summer of 2026, when they need to work out a new deal for star defenseman Thomas Harley.
Stars Activate Mason Marchment From Injured Reserve
Stars winger Mason Marchment has been activated from injured reserve Sunday, per a team announcement. The team opened roster space by reassigning forward Kyle McDonald and defenseman Christian Kyrou to AHL Texas, leaving them with an open spot.
Marchment, 29, will draw into the lineup this evening for the first time in over a month. The power forward needed surgery after taking a puck to the face against the Wild on Dec. 27, keeping him out of Dallas’ last 17 games.
The Ontario native was having an extraordinarily productive campaign before his injury. He had 12 goals and 15 assists for 27 points through the season’s first 33 games, still placing him fifth on the team in points per game with 0.82. He’s on track for his best offensive season as a Star and his finest showing since his breakout 2021-22 campaign with the Panthers, when he notched a +29 rating and 47 points in 54 games and finished 18th in Selke Trophy voting.
Marchment is now in the third season of the four-year, $18MM deal he inked with Dallas in free agency in 2022. He has 111 points in 182 games as a Star, ranking ninth on the team in scoring since his arrival and ranking third in hits (240).
A career-high 15.0% shooting rate explains some of Marchment’s re-emergence as a bonafide top-six piece, but he’s also recorded figures in the 14% range twice in his six-year NHL career. His possession impacts this season have also been standouts, ranking second on the team behind Mavrik Bourque with a 55.5 CF% at even strength.
He’s another weapon in a Stars offense that’s figured things out in recent weeks, ranking fifth in the league with 3.29 goals per game in Marchment’s absence. His return to the lineup should coincide with Mikael Granlund‘s Dallas debut after they acquired him from the Sharks yesterday, supercharging their already strong offensive depth.
McDonald and Kyrou were recalled yesterday as the Stars entered long-term injured reserve for the first time this season. Neither was ever expected to play, with their cap hits solely being added to the active roster to optimize their LTIR capture when they moved Tyler Seguin there and added Nils Lundkvist after news broke that the latter would miss the remainder of the season with an upper-body injury.
Stars Announce Several Roster Moves; Nils Lundkvist Out For The Season
It’s a busy Saturday in Dallas. The team announced (Twitter link) that defenseman Kyle Capobianco has been assigned to AHL Texas while blueliner Christian Kyrou and winger Kyle McDonald from AHL Texas. To make room on the roster, winger Mason Marchment was placed on injured reserve. The team then revealed that defenseman Nils Lundkvist has undergone season-ending shoulder surgery and that he and Tyler Seguin have been placed on LTIR.
Capobianco made his season debut on Friday and had some early struggles in his first taste of NHL action in two years. The 27-year-old has been quite productive with Texas, however, tallying 28 points in 35 games. Depending on how the back end of these roster moves shuffle out, it’s possible that Capobianco is back with the big club pretty quickly.
It’s the first regular season recall for both Kyrou and McDonald. On the surface, they may be short-lived ones as it’s likely those moves were made to optimize their LTIR placements. Kyrou has 13 points in 26 games with Texas in his sophomore year professionally. McDonald, meanwhile, has just five points in 31 appearances, a big drop after picking up 26 points in 51 outings last season.
Marchment has been out since late December due to a facial injury. Assuming the Stars filed the paperwork to make his placement retroactive, he can be activated at any time and is believed to be aiming to return before the upcoming break so he might not be out for much longer. He was off to a strong start before the injury with 12 goals and 15 assists in his first 33 outings.
As for Lundkvist, he had missed the last week and a half with an upper-body injury which we now know was a shoulder issue. His season comes to an end on a pretty quiet note as he finishes with five assists, 34 blocks, and 23 hits in 39 games while averaging just over 15 minutes a night. He joins blueliner Miro Heiskanen on the shelf as Dallas’ defensive depth starts to get tested.
The 24-year-old is slated to be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights this summer where he’ll be owed a $1.25MM qualifying offer. Dallas declined to tender him last summer when the qualifier was only $874K to avoid giving him arbitration rights so it wouldn’t be surprising if they go that route again if a deal can’t be reached before the end of June.
Seguin, meanwhile, underwent hip surgery back in December, a procedure that carried an expected recovery timeline of four to six months although it’s expected he won’t be back until the playoffs.
Accordingly, by placing both him and Lundkvist on LTIR, Dallas can exceed the cap by up to the amount of their cap hits minus any remaining regular cap room at the time of placement. (Kyrou and McDonald’s recalls allow them to reduce that regular cap room as much as possible to maximize how much LTIR space they have). All things considered, Dallas should have somewhere around $11MM in full-season contracts that they can add between now and the March 7th trade deadline, making the Stars a team to watch for in the coming weeks.
Latest On Mason Marchment And Tyler Seguin
Dallas Stars forward Mason Marchment is expected to be out for at least a few more weeks (as per Sean Shapiro of DLLS Sports). Marchment needed surgery after he took a puck in the face in a game against the Minnesota Wild on December 27th. The 29-year-old continues to skate in Texas as he looks to return to the lineup, but his timeline will ultimately come down to his breathing as he will need to wear a cage when he comes back.
Marchment needed surgical intervention due to the fractures in his nose and facial area and there was a delay in even having surgery because of the swelling in the area.
Marchment was having a solid season prior to the injury, posting 12 goals and 15 assists in 33 games and was a fixture in the top six. The Stars initially used Evgenii Dadonov in Marchment’s absence but have moved on to Jamie Benn, who has filled in admirably in the top six, posting four goals and an assist in his last six games.
Shapiro also reported that Dallas forward Tyler Seguin could still be another five or six months before he recovers from hip surgery. The 32-year-old had surgery a little over a month ago to repair a left-side femoral acetabular impingement as well as the hip labrum. Seguin had tried to manage the injury before surgery and was even playing some of the best hockey of his career to start the season. But the wear and tear eventually made the injury unbearable, which forced Seguin to shut down and have surgery. Seguin had nine goals and 11 assists in 19 games, as well as a plus-14 rating.
Snapshots: Islanders, Marchment, Kaprizov, Roest
There has been plenty of speculation in recent weeks about whether the Islanders might consider moving veterans Brock Nelson and Kyle Palmieri by the March 7th trade deadline. However, speaking with reporters today including Newsday’s Andrew Gross, GM Lou Lamoriello indicated that the concept is “not even a thought in my mind right now”. Both players are pending unrestricted free agents and New York went into today’s action in last in the Metropolitan Division, only two points up on Buffalo who sat last in the Eastern Conference coming into tonight. That said, the second Wild Card spot is still within striking distance so don’t expect Lamoriello to even consider selling for a while yet.
Elsewhere around the hockey world:
- In a recent appearance on The Ticket (audio link), Stars head coach Peter DeBoer indicated that winger Mason Marchment is still at least a couple of weeks away from returning to the lineup. He’s working his way back from a head injury that DeBoer specified were fractures in his nose and facial area. The 29-year-old was off to a solid start before getting injured, tallying 12 goals and 15 assists along with 44 hits in his first 33 games.
- While the Wild were once again without top winger Kirill Kaprizov tonight, a return could be on the horizon. Michael Russo of The Athletic relays (Twitter link) that Kaprizov has skated for the last two days and that there’s a chance he will travel with the team for their upcoming two-game road trip if there’s a possibility he can play in one of the games. The 27-year-old was off to a flying start before sustaining a lower-body injury that has kept him out since the holiday break. Kaprizov has 23 goals and 27 assists in 34 games so far, good for ninth in league scoring despite being out for more than two weeks now.
- While Predators prospect Austin Roest is eligible to play in the minors this season, WHL Everett announced that Nashville has informed them that they will return him to junior once he recovers from his injury sustained back in training camp. The 20-year-old was a sixth-round pick in 2023 and has already signed his entry-level deal. Roest has surpassed the 70-point mark in the last two seasons with the Silvertips and will get a final few months with them before turning pro next season.
Mason Marchment Has Surgery, Ilya Lyubushkin Leaves Game With Injury
Dallas Stars forward Mason Marchment required surgery after taking a puck in the face in a game against the Minnesota Wild on December 27th (as per Owen Newkirk of DLLS Sports). Marchment did not travel with the Stars on the five-game road trip that takes them to the East Coast and is still considered week-to-week.
Doctors had to wait for over a week to decide on how to proceed with Marchment because of how severe the swelling to his face was. Ultimately, they went with a surgical procedure, which likely means that the 29-year-old will be out for a few more weeks.
The Stars have several good young players they can call on to replace Marchment. However, it will be tough as he has been on a tear this season, posting 12 goals and 15 assists in 33 games, which ranks fourth in team scoring.
The Stars tweeted tonight that defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin would be doubtful to return to tonight’s game against the New York Rangers due to an upper-body injury. Nothing has been confirmed about the 30-year-old’s injury, but it likely occurred in the middle of the second period when Lyubushkin fumbled the puck in the corner of the Stars’ defensive zone and then took a hard hit into the boards from Rangers forward Sam Carrick. Lyubushkin fell awkwardly and was slow to get to his feet, he did not come out with his teammates for the start of the third period.
Dallas Stars Recall Justin Hryckowian; Mason Marchment Likely Out
According to a team announcement, the Dallas Stars have recalled Justin Hryckowian for the third time this month. Hryckowian hasn’t debuted in the NHL over the first two recalls but there’s reason to believe he’ll do that tomorrow against the Chicago Blackhawks.
There’s growing concern the Stars will be without Mason Marchment tomorrow, leading to the idea that Hryckowian will be called upon to make his debut. Last night, Marchment took a puck to the face in a scary scene and was helped off the ice by the team. He was immediately taken to the hospital and head Peter DeBoer shared (X Link) that Marchment is ‘okay in a broader sense’ but is unsure how long he’ll be sidelined.
If Marchment isn’t available Dallas will be limited to 12 healthy forwards. Hryckowian will likely slot on the team’s fourth line next to Oskar Back and Sam Steel with Logan Stankoven moving back to the team’s second line.
The Stars may even replace Marchment with Hryckowian on the team’s second line considering the strength of Dallas’ opponent tomorrow night. The former captain of Northeastern University has exceeded expectations in his first full AHL season scoring 12 goals and 26 points through his first 27 games. He may not be a longer-term player for the Stars yet but he’s certainly growing his prospect pedigree in the organization.
Central Notes: Holloway, Kapanen, Makar, Novak, Sissons, Marchment, Vlasic
In an impressive feat, St. Louis Blues’ forward Dylan Holloway will return to the lineup tonight after leaving the team’s most recent game after taking a puck to the neck (X Link). He left the game on a stretcher and was taken to an emergency department following the incident.
He’s been a solid addition to the Blues this season, as he’s off to the best scoring pace of his career to start the season. Four goals and six points in 13 games don’t necessarily jump off the page but considering he’s only managed nine points in 2022-23 and 2023-24, it’s a good improvement.
Unfortunately for St. Louis, the team will still be without forward Kasperi Kapanen tonight. Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic reported the projected lineup for tonight’s game and it didn’t include Kapanan meaning he’s likely still recovering from his upper-body injury.
Other Central notes:
- Marc Moser of the Colorado Avalanche originally reported earlier that defenseman Cale Makar would be a game-time decision for the team’s contest tonight. As it turns out, Makar is expected to play in tonight’s action. Makar left during the second period of the team’s recent game against the Seattle Kraken but returned for less than a minute in the third period. He’s been the team’s best and arguably the league’s best player this season with five goals and 23 points in 13 games.
- The Nashville Predators are without a few middle-six forwards tonight as the team announced Thomas Novak is considered day-to-day with an upper-body injury and Colton Sissons has a similar injury designation. The news will inevitably hurt the Predators in one of their least productive areas as their 2.38 GF/G currently ranks 27th in the NHL.
- Brien Rea of Victory+ reports that Dallas Stars’ forward Mason Marchment is considered day-to-day with an undisclosed injury. This means that Marchment won’t be in the lineup tonight but could make his return this weekend against the Winnipeg Jets. He’s gotten off to a decent start on the year with two goals and eight points in 11 games.
- Chicago Blackhawks’ defenseman Alex Vlasic had an impressive defensive season last year with a 90.6% on-ice save percentage in all situations on a basement-dwelling Blackhawks roster. Now that he’s recorded seven assists in 14 games this year, Scott Powers and Mark Lazerus of The Athletic share that Vlasic is now getting outside consideration for Team USA’s roster for the 4 Nations Face-Off. He played internationally for the United States this past summer recording two assists in eight games in the 2024 IIHF World Championships.
Central Notes: Joseph, Kapanen, Marchment
St. Louis Blues forward Mathieu Joseph skated today as he tries to work his way back into the lineup from a lower-body injury (as per Lou Korac of NHL.com). Joseph hasn’t played since October 26th against the Montreal Canadiens after he was hurt in the third period of a 5-2 loss. To this point, Joseph has missed four games, and it seems likely that his number of missed games will increase.
Joseph is unlikely to play tomorrow night given that he didn’t take much contact today and focused more on flow drills. The 27-year-old has had a decent start to the season, posting two goals and two assists in nine games to go along with 13 hits and 14 shots on net.
In other Central Division notes:
- St. Louis Blues head coach Drew Bannister believes that forward Kasperi Kapanen could be an option to return to the Blues lineup tomorrow night (as per Matthew DeFranks of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). Kapanen has missed the Blues’ past three games with an upper-body injury and will be looking to get his season on track as it has been a rough start for the former first-round pick. Kapanen has just a single goal in eight appearances this season and has struggled with possession, committing seven turnovers and seeing his team control just 46.5% of the play (at even strength).
- Dallas Stars forward Mason Marchment is considered day-to-day with an undisclosed injury according to head coach Pete DeBoer (as per Lia Assimakopoulos of Dallas Morning News). Marchment has been dealing with an issue since he fought during the second Global Series game on Saturday night against the Florida Panthers. Marchment had a run-in with Panthers defender Nate Schmidt after he had boarded the defenseman from behind. Marchment took the worst of the exchange and eventually fell to the ice.