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Pascal Dupuis

Twelve Players Deemed Exempt From Expansion Due To Injury

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The list of players that will be exempt from the expansion draft due to long-term injury was sent out today, with Craig Custance of ESPN providing it for us. These are players who will likely never play in the NHL again, and thus will be exempt and not require protection even if they hold no-movement clauses. The list is as follows:

Dave Bolland (Arizona)
Craig Cunningham (Arizona)
Chris Pronger (Arizona)
Cody McCormick (Buffalo)
David Clarkson (Columbus)
Johan Franzen (Detroit)
Joe Vitale (Detroit)
Ryane Clowe (New Jersey)
Mikhail Grabovski (New York Islanders)
Pascal Dupuis (Pittsburgh)
Nathan Horton (Toronto)
Stephane Robidas (Toronto)

While none of these players would have likely been taken, it does allow Toronto, Columbus and New Jersey to officially scratch one of their no-movement clauses off their list and with it the automatic protection. Interestingly, Joffrey Lupul does not appear on the list despite missing more than an entire year and having very little affiliation with the Toronto Maple Leafs at this point. Since the list was agreed upon with the NHLPA, perhaps he maintains that he has plans to play again.

In a similar case, Marc Savard also doesn’t appear on the list for the Devils. Though Savard’s deal comes off the books this year and he’s clearly done with hockey, a similar case could be made for several of the others on this list including Pronger, who is working for the Department of Player Safety and Cunningham who recently lost his leg due to medical complications. Savard is coaching minor hockey while he still struggles with concussion symptoms, years after last playing in the league.

Penguins Notes: Murray, Sheary, Hagelin

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The Pittsburgh Penguins will take on the San Jose Sharks tonight in a rematch of the Stanley Cup Final from last season, and there will be a familiar face in net. Matt Murray will make his second start of the season after allowing just a single goal in his debut against the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday. Even though Marc-Andre Fleury has played exceptionally well to start the year, head coach Mike Sullivan says both netminders will continue to play, according to Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

We’re fortunate. We have two really good goaltenders that we know are going to give us a chance to win. We’re going to do our best to keep them both in the mix. We’ll go from there. These situations always have a way to work themselves out. Inevitably performance is always the dictator.

Mackey expects that Murray’s play tonight will factor large in the decision of who to start on Tuesday at home, though it’s up in the air from that point. The team doesn’t have another back-to-back situation until November 18th and 19th.

  • The Penguins will get some help up front to try and score some goals for Murray, as Conor Sheary will return from a seven game absence to play tonight. Sheary suffered an eye injury last month in Montreal and has been itching to get back into game action.  According to Mackey, he’ll start on the fourth line with Matt Cullen and Eric Fehr, though he could quickly ascend back up the lineup. Sheary has one goal and two assists on the season in just four games.
  • The ’HBK’ line (Carl Hagelin, Nick Bonino and Phil Kessel) is officially broken up, according to Adam Gretz of NBC. The trio that was so dominant in the playoffs is now spread out over the Penguins top three units, with Hagelin skating alongside Sidney Crosby and Patrick Hornqvist.  As Gretz notes, Hagelin brings a lot of the same aspects that Pascal Dupuis added so effectively to Crosby’s wing over the years. Hopefully it will spark something in the speedy winger, as he only has two points on the season so far.  Kessel on the other hand is off to a great start this season and now finds himself skating alongside Evgeni Malkin and Chris Kunitz. #81’s ten points this year trails only Malkin on the Penguins, and he leads the team in assists.

East Notes: Dupuis, Kessel, Plekanec, Krejci

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As Pascal Dupuis enters his first full year away from hockey, he’s expected to remain with the Penguins organization in an off-ice capacity, reports Bill West of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.  While his exact role has yet to be determined, he’s expected to do some amateur scouting based out of Quebec and potentially some player development work.

Dupuis was forced to hang up the skates last season due to recurring blood clot issues.  He skated in 18 games with Pittsburgh, picking up two goals and two assists.  For his career, he suited up in 871 NHL contests with the Penguins, Wild, Thrashers, and Rangers, tallying 190 goals and 219 assists.

While Dupuis won’t play this year, he still has not yet officially retired as he is still owed $3MM in salary (with a $3.75MM cap hit) for 2016-17.  The Penguins will be able to place him on Long-Term Injury Reserve (LTIR) at the start of the season.

More from the East:

  • Still with Pittsburgh, right winger Phil Kessel may not be ready for the start of the season as he continues to recover from offseason hand surgery, tweets Josh Yohe of DK Pittsburgh Sports. He adds that it will be close so even if he isn’t ready on October 13th, he shouldn’t miss too much time.  Kessel had 26 goals and 33 assists in 82 games in the regular season with the Penguins and then picked up his play in the postseason, scoring 10 goals and 12 helpers in just 24 games to lead the team in scoring.
  • Canadiens center Tomas Plekanec has been named team captain for the Czech Republic’s entry into next month’s World Cup of Hockey, the team announced. This will mark the fourth time that Plekanec has captained his national squad, including the 2012 and 2016 World Championships and the 2014 Olympics.
  • Boston center David Krejci is on the ice with a handful of Bruins for their Captains’ practice, tweets WEEI’s DJ Bean.  Krejci underwent hip surgery back in late April and his recovery time was estimated to be around five months so it would appear that he is on pace in his rehab process.  In a follow-up tweet, Bean added that it’s not looking likely that Krejci will be able to play in the World Cup though he is still talking to the Czech national team.

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