Headlines

Go To MLB Trade Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Players

NHL Postpones Detroit/Anaheim Game To Sunday

at CDT | by 3 Comments

3:55 pm: The Anaheim Ducks added defenseman Hampus Lindholm and forward Vinni Lettieri to COVID protocol. With the announcement coming so quickly, it was likely the motivator behind tonight’s postponement.

3:50 pm: The NHL has postponed tonight’s game between the Detroit Red Wings and Anaheim Ducks to Sunday, January 9 at 7:00 PM CT.

In the statement, the league says the game was postponed due to COVID issues affecting Anaheim. Currently, the team has five players in COVID protocol – goalie John Gibson and forwards Ryan Getzlaf, Derek Grant, Sam Carrick, and Nicolas Deslauriers.

Trevor Zegras was previously in COVID protocol but was activated from the list today. However, after just one morning skate, he wasn’t going to play in tonight’s game as originally scheduled.

The postponement gives Anaheim a chance to regroup. Getzlaf was placed in protocol on January 2 and could be available by then. Gibson entered today, however, and likely won’t be available for that game.

Snapshots: Paquette, Zuccarello, Canadiens Quarantine

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

The Montreal Canadiens are absolutely ravaged at the moment by injuries and COVID, and bad turned to worse today when forward Cedric Paquette didn’t finish Saturday’s game against the Florida Panthers due to a neck injury, per TVA’s Renaud Lavoie. Montreal dressed just 11 forwards and five defensemen for that game, a 5-2 loss. They had just three players dressed with a cap hit greater than $1MM, with the majority of their lineup filled out by rookies and AHL call-ups. Paquette played a third-line role, centering Lukas Vejdemo and Alex Belzile. Paquette’s only played in 18 games this season, missing some time due to injury and suspension, but he only has one assist while averaging 9:11 per game. More injury news is certainly concerning for the 28-year-old Paquette, who signed a one-year deal with Montreal this offseason.

More notes from around the league on the first day of 2022:

  • With the Minnesota Wild missing captain Jared Spurgeon from tonight’s Winter Classic due to a lower-body injury, The Athletic’s Michael Russo tweets that right wing Mats Zuccarello will serve as the third alternate captain for the outdoor spectacle. Matt Dumba and Marcus Foligno are healthy and will serve as the other two alternates, as per usual. Zuccarello fought back from an early-season injury to have one of the most productive starts of his career, posting 24 points through 24 games. The Norwegian winger will likely reprise his role on the team’s top line, playing alongside Kirill Kaprizov and Ryan Hartman.
  • The Canadiens aren’t playing again until January 12th at the earliest as their entire upcoming four-game homestand is postponed. The team won’t complain due to the aforementioned excessive amount of lineup absences, but now, head coach Dominique Ducharme says that a five-day quarantine for the entire team upon their return to Montreal is possible and will be discussed. While it won’t affect their playing schedule, it could give a chance for players to stay healthy and help their lineup get back to having experienced NHLers in the mix.

Filip Zadina Placed In COVID Protocol

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

The Detroit Red Wings placed forward Filip Zadina in COVID-19 protocol prior to their game Saturday against New Jersey, per a team tweet.

In his absence, the team will dress 11 forwards and seven defensemen.

Zadina has just four goals and six assists in 30 games this year but is shooting at an uncharacteristically low 5.6% rate. The 22-year-old forward is still developing and is expected to be a big part of this Detroit team in the future as they regain relevancy.

With Zadina out, Detroit now has six players on the COVID list — forwards Carter Rowney, Givani Smith, Michael Rasmussen, and Robby Fabbri, as well as netminder Alex Nedeljkovic.

The team was already stretched thin at the forward position with Taro Hirose and Riley Barber making their season debuts tonight.

 

Team Canada’s Alex Pietrangelo Uncertain About Olympic Participation

at CDT | by 2 Comments

In a piece by David Schoen of the Las Vegas-Review Journal, Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Alex Pietrangelo, who was one of the three players initially named to Team Canada’s roster for the 2022 Winter Olympics, now says he’s uncertain if he’ll participate in the Games.

Pietrangelo’s concerns come after the International Olympic Committee confirmed a three-to-five-week quarantine period for a positive COVID-19 test. As Pietrangelo notes in the Schoen report, he has a young family and multiple kids and, understandably, doesn’t want to risk being away from his family for that long.

It’s a recent memory for a lot of NHLers, who were forced into a similar situation for the bubble-style 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs. After the fact, many players expressed concerns and regrets about being away from their families for such a long length of time.

If he does proceed to opt-out, Pietrangelo would be the first confirmed member of an Olympic roster to do. Golden Knight teammate Robin Lehner said publicly last week that he wouldn’t be attending, but was not one of the first three players named to his native Sweden’s Olympic roster.

Obviously, losing a player of Pietrangelo’s caliber won’t be great for Team Canada. However, assuming they still have a large pool of NHLers to select from, they still prove to have the most dynamic puck-moving group of defensemen in the tournament.

Pietrangelo is third on the Golden Knights with 18 points in 26 games this season.

Latest On NHL Olympic Participation

at CDT | by 14 Comments

The opening ceremony for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, is now just under two months away.

Yet it’s still not clear whether or not NHL players will be a part of the multi-week-long tournament, with the possibility of the league missing two straight Winter Olympics looming large. Information provided Saturday by the International Olympic Committee provided some more clarity on the situation, for better or for worse.

The key portion of all of it, summarized in this Twitter thread by TSN’s Chris Johnston, is the official word on the quarantine regulations if an athlete does test positive for COVID-19 while in China. Any positive test will yield an automatic quarantine that can last between three and five weeks. While players can test negative twice within a 24-hour span to exit protocol, similar to NHL guidelines, this is only applicable in China after the mandatory minimum 21-day quarantine.

That poses some serious issues for a variety of reasons. For one, if a player tests positive, they won’t get a chance to rejoin their team for the rest of the tournament as the quarantine period is simply too long. It’s also a giant question mark for players financially, especially if they test positive near the end of the tournament, as Johnston notes that teams aren’t required to pay players if they miss time on the other side of the Olympic break. However, a joint call between the IOC, IIHF, NHL, and NHLPA is expected soon to “review these matters,” per Johnston.

It’s a lot of food for thought for players, and the league is now making it clear that it will be entirely the players’ choice on whether they go, with deputy commissioner Bill Daly stating that “[he doesn’t] anticipate being on a different page than the players’ association on these issues.”

There are two paths in that regard. Players could just individually opt-out of playing in Beijing, something Vegas Golden Knights netminder Robin Lehner already did, justifiably citing mental health reasons. However, the possibility remains that the players could collectively elect to not attend the Olympics, marking the second straight Winter Games without an NHL presence.

While it was previously believed that the NHL had a strict deadline of January 10, 2022, to decide on their Olympic participation, it’s now clear, per Johnston, that it’s only a soft deadline. The NHL can opt-out after that point, but will incur financial penalties if they do so.

Gary Bettman: Olympic Participation “Ultimately A Players’ Decision”

at CDT | by 19 Comments

The NHL has more than a few concerns about participating in the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing, China. Speaking with the media, including CBC’s Joshua Clipperton, following the conclusion of Friday’s Board of Governors meeting, Commissioner Gary Bettman didn’t shy away from expressing his hesitations either:

We have real concerns on a whole host of issues… We have concerns, and we’ve expressed those to the players’ association… Our concerns have only been magnified… I actually find it difficult to believe that a player would want to go…. I don’t think that this is going to be the ideal Olympic experience in terms of the lockdowns in the Olympic Village and everything else that’s going on.

The league’s apprehension is based mostly on the continued issues with the spread of the Coronavirus, not only across the league but on a global basis, China included. The NHL has seen the majority of its teams impacted by COVID-19 already this season, including at the cost of some games. Olympic participation would mean sending its biggest stars off, out of the protection of the league’s protocols and to the origin point of the virus and to protocols that have yet to be finalized and announced. In that same vein, Bettman discussed the possibility that China could mandate a three-week quarantine for any athletes who test positive for COVID and stated that he would be surprised if any NHLer would risk an additional three weeks in the country in order to play at the Olympics. Beyond the COVID conversation, there are also a number of political red flags as the governments of both Canada and the United States have become more vocal of late about the human rights violations taking place in China.

Yet, with all that said, Bettman is standing by his word. Barring a joint decision between the NHL and NHLPA – with Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly stating his expectation that the two sides would be on the same page should it reach this point – to disallow participation, the final decision will lie with the players themselves:

We made a promise to the players, and I’m going, to the best of our ability, adhere to it, understanding that there may be consequences that nobody’s gonna like… It’s not like we haven’t expressed our concerns. But in the final analysis, subject to some caveats, with all of the issues that are being raised… the players, for the most part, seem to continue to be saying they want to go… ultimately, this is going to have to be a players’ decision.

A return to the Olympics was in fact collectively bargained when the NHL and NHLPA agreed to a new CBA last year. The players have right to compete for gold if they so choose, though it is obvious that the league would rather they not. Bettman does note that more players have expressed their concerns of late, but will it be enough? That remains to be seen with time ticking away before the opt-out deadline of January 10 and the opening of the tournament in two months.

Minor Transactions: 11/14/21

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

There’s a six-game slate in the NHL tonight on this Hall of Fame weekend, but transaction action keeps rolling along at lower levels of the game as well. As COVID rears its ugly head again, affecting the rosters of multiple teams this season, teams in the AHL and ECHL have had to adjust their rosters as they lose players to their NHL affiliates. Keep track of today’s minor transactions right here.

  • As the Ottawa Senators deal with the NHL’s worst COVID outbreak this season, the AHL’s Belleville Senators made a minor trade yesterday, acquiring forward Chris Wilkie from the Rockford IceHogs in exchange for future considerations. Wilkie, a product of Colorado College, was originally a sixth-round draft pick of the Florida Panthers back in 2015. This is his second professional season, and he notched a goal and assist in his Belleville debut yesterday.
  • Defenseman Alec Rauhauser was returned to the ECHL’s Greenville Swamp Rabbits today after being loaned to the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda. Rauhauser, an undrafted free agent, spent last season in the Florida Panthers organization after four seasons at Bowling Green State University. He made his AHL debut in one game with the Syracuse Crunch but spent the majority of the season in Greenville. In 52 games over two seasons, Rauhauser has 13 ECHL points.
  • The AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms recalled forward Charlie Gerard from the ECHL’s Reading Royals today. Gerard is in his second professional season after a four-year run at Minnesota State University-Mankato and showed promise last season with 34 points in 49 games in the ECHL with the Utah Grizzlies. Now with the Phantoms on a professional contract, he’ll get his chance to show what he can do within the Flyers organization.

Artem Zub Leaves Game With Upper-Body Injury

at CDT | by 1 Comment

Things continue to get worse in terms of the amount of personnel available for the Ottawa Senators. Defenseman Artem Zub left Thursday’s game against Los Angeles with an upper-body injury, and head coach D.J. Smith says there’s “no update” on his status.

Ottawa is already without nine players due to COVID-19 protocol, including defensemen Nikita Zaitsev, Josh Brown, Victor Mete, and Nick Holden. The team is down to just nine healthy defensemen under NHL contracts now, as Jacob Bernard-Docker, Maxence Guenette, and Jonathan Aspirot remain with AHL Belleville.

The team’s depth is stretched extremely thin, as many young players are now getting NHL time sooner than expected. 2019 first-round selection Lassi Thomson made his NHL debut Thursday in place of Zaitsev.

If Zub is to miss any period of time, Bernard-Docker is the obvious choice to come up from Belleville. The 21-year-old right-shot defenseman does not require waivers and got into five games with the Senators at the tail end of last season.

Zub himself was having a great start to the 2021-22 season, notching five assists in 12 games while working his way up to the team’s top pairing with Thomas Chabot. He’s been Ottawa’s most responsible defenseman since joining the team prior to 2020-21, now averaging nearly 23 minutes a night this season.

Kyle Capobianco, Marian Studenic Clear Waivers

at CDT | by 5 Comments

Nov 8: Both players have cleared waivers and can now be assigned to the minor leagues.

Nov 7: Two names are appearing on NHL waivers Sunday, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. The Arizona Coyotes placed defenseman Kyle Capobianco there, while the New Jersey Devils waived forward Marian Studenic.

Capobianco, a 24-year-old who was expected to possibly steal a lineup spot this season, hasn’t played this season as a knee injury has sidelined him. Capobianco was activated from injured reserve today in order to permit the Coyotes to waive him. It appears as though recent call-ups Dysin Mayo and Cam Dineen have now surpassed Capobianco on the team’s depth chart.

The Devils have utilized Studenic in five games this season, but the 23-year-old Slovakian has yet to register a point. He was technically the team’s only extra healthy forward, but they’ve also played Mason Geertsen at forward instead of his usual defense at some points this season. Studenic’s averaged just 11:33 of ice time in those five games.

Both Capobianco and Studenic were younger players that appeared to have the inside track on roster spots heading into the season. It’s entirely possible that a team could choose to take a chance on either one of Capobianco or Studenic.

Ottawa Senators Assign Filip Gustavsson To AHL

at CDT | by 3 Comments

Per the Ottawa Senators communications department, the team re-assigned goalie Filip Gustavsson to the AHL’s Belleville Senators on Sunday.

The Senators have largely operated with a trio of netminders this season as starter Matt Murray’s health has been an issue at multiple points already so far in the season. But as he returns to full health, the team has opted to send Gustavsson, who does not require waivers, to Belleville.

It’s worth noting that the team currently has an active roster of 22 players and could indeed carry a third goalie as a healthy scratch.

Gustavsson has performed the best out of Ottawa’s three netminders this season with a .911 save percentage through five games played. Neither Murray’s or Anton Forsberg’s save percentage eclipses the .900 mark.

While many believe that the 23-year-old Swede has played himself into a backup or even starting role with Ottawa, the organization continues to value the positional depth, not willing to expose Forsberg to waivers in order to assign him to Belleville.

It’s highly likely that Gustavsson will return to the Ottawa roster at some point this season as he continues what’s been a strong development path since arriving in the Ottawa Senators organization.

Pro Hockey Rumors is not affiliated with National Hockey League, NHL or NHL.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

scroll to top