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Patric Hornqvist

Nominees Announced For 2023 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy

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The Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy is given out annually to the NHL player who exemplifies perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey. The Professional Hockey Writers’ Association has voted on the award since 1968, and today they announced their nominees for 2023.

Past winners of the award include Carey Price (2022), Oskar Lindblom (2021), Bobby Ryan (2020), Robin Lehner (2019), Brian Boyle (2018), Craig Anderson (2017), and Jaromir Jagr (2016).

Below are the nominees from each team:

Anaheim Ducks – Jakob Silfverberg

Arizona Coyotes – Clayton Keller

Boston Bruins – Nick Foligno

Buffalo Sabres – Craig Anderson

Calgary Flames – Mikael Backlund

Carolina Hurricanes – Jordan Martinook

Chicago Blackhawks – Alex Stalock

Colorado Avalanche – Andrew Cogliano

Columbus Blue Jackets – Boone Jenner

Dallas Stars – Jamie Benn

Detroit Red Wings – Robby Fabbri

Edmonton Oilers – Derek Ryan

Florida Panthers – Patric Hornqvist

Los Angeles Kings – Pheonix Copley

Minnesota Wild – Mason Shaw

Montreal Canadiens – Alex Belzile

Nashville Predators – Cody Glass

New Jersey Devils – Dougie Hamilton

New York Islanders – Zach Parise

New York Rangers – Jimmy Vesey

Ottawa Senators – Derick Brassard

Philadelphia Flyers – Nick Seeler

Pittsburgh Penguins – Kris Letang

San Jose Sharks – Nikolai Knyzhov

Seattle Kraken – Brandon Tanev

St. Louis Blues – Sammy Blais

Tampa Bay Lightning – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare

Toronto Maple Leafs – Mark Giordano

Vancouver Canucks – Brock Boeser

Vegas Golden Knights – Phil Kessel

Washington Capitals – John Carlson

Winnipeg Jets – Sam Gagner

Patric Hornqvist To Be Placed On LTIR

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The Florida Panthers were going to face a cap crunch when Anthony Duclair was eventually cleared to return from his Achilles recovery, but it seems the injury bug might have done the work for them. Patric Hornqvist is expected to be moved to long-term injured reserve, according to Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff.

Hornqvist suffered what is believed to be a concussion during Saturday’s game against the Seattle Kraken, and will now miss at least ten games and 24 days due to the LTIR placement. As George Richards of Florida Hockey Now points out, this is not because of Duclair, who is still not close to returning.

Still, given the low usage that Hornqvist was getting this season, moving his $5.3MM cap hit to LTIR does give the team a good bit of extra flexibility. The 35-year-old is averaging just over nine minutes a night this year, playing as a fourth-liner and barely contributing. In the final year of his deal, reports emerged earlier this year that there is a handshake deal in place with the veteran forward that will keep him in Florida through the end of the season.

The Panthers had been operating with a roster under the allowed 23 players – even dressing fewer than 20 in recent games – something that will be able to change with Hornqvist out. The team will now have the flexibility to recall an extra defenseman, and keep players like Aleksi Heponiemi and Chris Tierney up on regular recall.

For Hornqvist, it appears as though the end of his NHL career might be fast approaching. His production has been on a steady decline in recent years and this season he has just three points in 22 games. About to turn 36, he has over 900 regular season games under his belt.

Snapshots: Hornqvist, Columbus, Colorado

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When Anthony Duclair is eventually ready to return from his Achilles injury, the Florida Panthers are going to need to make some moves. The team is using up nearly all of his $3MM in long-term injured reserve flexibility even with a roster of 20 players, meaning that much will need to come off the books to activate him.

While the easy answer might be to trade Patric Hornqvist, who is playing fourth-line minutes on an expiring $5.3MM cap hit, it might not happen. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet discussed the situation on the 32 Thoughts podcast, and noted that even if there wasn’t a “guarantee” handed over that Hornqvist wouldn’t be traded, to get him to Florida in the first place that kind of agreement was made. While there isn’t anything technically stopping general manager Bill Zito from going back on his word, Friedman doesn’t expect it.

  • Also on the podcast, Friedman and co-host Jeff Marek also brought up the Columbus Blue Jackets as the latest team connected to Jakob Chychrun. While the Blue Jackets aren’t going anywhere this year, they have plenty of young assets that could be of interest to the Arizona Coyotes and expect to be better next season when not dealing with a huge number of injuries. Chychrun looked quite good in his latest game for the Coyotes, recording an assist, eight shots on goal, and a +3 rating in a win over the Carolina Hurricanes.
  • Now that the Colorado Avalanche don’t need to play today, they’ve returned Sampo Ranta and Anton Blidh back to the AHL. The depth forwards could be back up as early as tomorrow, when the team welcomes the Dallas Stars in.

Lightning Claim Rudolfs Balcers Off Waivers

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Rudolfs Balcers is staying in Florida.  At least, he’s staying in the State of Florida as Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports (Twitter link) that the Lightning have claimed the winger off waivers from the Panthers.

The 25-year-old signed a one-year deal with Florida this past summer after being bought out by San Jose despite putting up 11 goals and 12 assists in 61 games last season, all career highs.  He had played in all 14 games for the Panthers this season, potting two goals and two assists despite logging a little under 11 minutes of playing time per game.  However, the team needed to waive someone in order to create a spot for Aaron Ekblad to be activated off LTIR and the team decided that Balcers was the better choice between him and veteran center Eric Staal.

Florida will be at 12 forwards on the active roster once that move is officially made later today with one of those being Patric Hornqvist who has been injured for more than a week.  However, the team confirmed (Twitter link) that the veteran will be able to return today, meaning the Panthers will be able to ice a full roster although they won’t have enough cap space to carry any spare players which could be problematic when injuries arise.

Balcers could immediately jump into Tampa Bay’s lineup with the team only previously carrying the minimum 12 forwards including youngster Cole Koepke who hasn’t produced much in the early going as he has been held off the scoresheet through his first dozen career NHL contests.  Balcers would be an upgrade on Koepke on their fourth line, one that won’t have any significant cap effects since he’s signed at the league minimum with arbitration eligibility next summer.  With the Lightning only being able to afford cheap pickups while making sure they can be cap-compliant for when Anthony Cirelli is able to come off LTIR, this pickup is certainly a worthwhile one, especially if he’s able to produce at the level he did last season with the Sharks.

Injury Notes: Zadina, Byram, Hornqvist, Chytil, Dahlin

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After a major offseason overhaul rivaled only by the Ottawa Senators, expectations have been big for the Detroit Red Wings this season, however the team has gotten itself off to an up-and-down start. Sitting at 5-3-2 coming into today, the team would be faced with one of its tougher tasks of the young season this afternoon: a showdown with the New York Islanders, who were on a five-game winning streak. Detroit answered the call, shutting out the Islanders 3-0. That win appears to have come at a price, however. Forward Filip Zadina went down late in the third period after appearing to block a Ryan Pulock shot.

After the game, Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde, provided an update to the media, including Michigan Live’s Ansar Kahn. According to Lalonde, Zadina’s injury “doesn’t look good” and Detroit may not see the winger for a while, adding that the team would know more tomorrow. Soon to be 23-years-old, Zadina has yet to become the player Detroit hoped he would be when he was drafted sixth-overall in 2018, and has zero points through his first nine games this year, including today. But, with Detroit missing more than its fair share of forwards, including Tyler Bertuzzi, Jakub Vrana, Oskar Sundqvist, and Robby Fabbri, losing Zadina for any period of time will surely be felt.

  • For those who watched today’s NHL Global Series contest in Tampere, Finland between the Colorado Avalanche and Columbus Blue Jackets, noticeably absent from Colorado’s blueline was Bowen Byram. The defenseman was replaced in the lineup by Jacob MacDonald, who was playing in just his fourth game of the season. Thus far, there is no word on the severity of Byram’s injury, however The Athletic’s Peter Baugh reports that it’s a lower-body injury. While no injury is good news, for Byram, who has dealt with a number of concussion-related issues in his past, having the injury apparently be unrelated to that is somewhat of a relief. The former fourth-overall pick is off to a strong start to the season, scoring two goals to go with three assists in 10 games to date.
  • Florida Panthers winger Patric Hornqvist, who suffered an upper-body injury early in Thursday’s game against the San Jose Sharks, is considered day-to-day, head coach Paul Maurice told the media, including Bally Sports’ Katie Engleson. The veteran has just one goal through 11 games to start the season, but with Florida missing several key pieces from last year’s team, they will need a quick recovery from Hornqvist and renewed production to help supplement their offense going forward.
  • New York Rangers center Filip Chytil expects to play in the team’s game tomorrow afternoon against the Red Wings. While Rangers head coach Gerard Gallant did not confirm that Chytil would be in the lineup, the forward did tell USA Today Sports’ Vince Mercogliano that he feels 100%. Still, Gallant is hopeful he can play Sunday. Chytil, who hasn’t played since October 23rd, was believed to be dealing with a concussion, said Larry Brooks of the New York Post. The 23-year-old had three points in six games prior to the injury.
  • Per Mike Harrington of The Buffalo News, Buffalo Sabres head coach Don Granato confirmed that defenseman Rasmus Dahlin will miss tonight’s game in Tampa Bay against the Lightning with an upper-body injury. Granato declined to go into specifics on the injury but, Harrington says, it likely occurred during Friday night’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes, when Dahlin was involved in a scuffle with Hurricanes forward Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Thankfully for Buffalo, Dahlin is listed as day-to-day, but his injury is yet another in a long line of defensemen going down in the Buffalo organization this season, whether that be at the NHL or AHL level. Defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin, who has missed the last four games with injury, draws back in tonight in place of Dahlin.

Atlantic Notes: Panthers, Stecher, Mittelstadt

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The Panthers will have some reinforcements up front for their first game after the All-Star break.  Team reporter Jameson Olive relays that wingers Patric Hornqvist and Maxim Mamin plus center Noel Acciari should all be ready to suit up on Wednesday against Carolina.  Hornqvist has been out for close to a month with an upper-body injury while Mamin has missed close to three weeks with an undisclosed injury.  As for Acciari, he hasn’t played with Florida all season due to a pectoral injury suffered back in the preseason that required surgery although he did get in a couple of games on a conditioning stint last week.  The Panthers only have one open roster spot at the moment so they will need to make a couple of moves to activate the trio of forwards off IR.

Elsewhere around the Atlantic:

  • The Red Wings should have defenseman Troy Stecher back in their lineup on Saturday against Philadelphia, notes MLive’s Ansar Khan. The veteran has missed more than three months due to a wrist injury, a disappointing outcome in a year where he’s going to hit unrestricted free agency this summer.  His return will help offset the absences of Filip Hronek (COVID protocol) and Nick Leddy (upper-body injury) and if he’s able to play well over the next month, he could be an interesting trade candidate for Detroit heading into the trade deadline.
  • Sabres center Casey Mittelstadt has been cleared for contact as he works his way towards coming from his latest upper-body injury, reports Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News.  Head coach Don Granato indicated that the 23-year-old can now be classified as being out day-to-day but that they will err on the side of caution since he has hardly played this season; Mittelstadt has played just seven times due to multiple injuries.

Panthers, Ducks Announce More COVID Protocol Additions

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The Florida Panthers will not have Patric Hornqvist in the lineup this evening when they take on the Carolina Hurricanes, as he has entered the COVID protocol. Hornqvist joins Mason Marchment, Sam Reinhart, and Spencer Knight, stealing quite a few important names from the team’s regular roster.

The Panthers, among the league’s elite teams so far this season, lost their last game against the Dallas Stars in a shootout and have now called two points behind the Tampa Bay Lightning for first place in the Atlantic Division. The team is not only without these key players due to COVID-related absences, but also names like Sam Bennett due to a suspension and Markus Nutivaara due to injury. Despite that, they will need to try to take down the red hot Metropolitan-leading Hurricanes.

Lucas Carlsson and Aleksi Heponiemi will both enter the lineup tonight, while Sergei Bobrovsky will take the net again, his fifth start since returning from the holiday break.

In Anaheim, the Ducks are facing their own COVID absences. Vinni Lettieri is the latest addition to the protocol, where he will join John Gibson, Hampus Lindholm, Derek Grant, and Sam Carrick. Ryan Getzlaf has technically left the protocol, but he’ll also miss tonight’s game against the New York Rangers as the team gets him back up to speed.

The Ducks have recalled five players ahead of the game. Benoit-Olivier Groulx, Jacob Perreault, Buddy Robinson, Greg Pateryn, and Lukas Dostal are all up from the San Diego Gulls. Perreault, still just 19, would be making his NHL debut when he hits the ice tonight (he is expected to play with Trevor Zegras and Sonny Milano). Selected 27th overall in 2020, Perreault has 18 points in 23 games for the Gulls this season as one of the few junior-aged players eligible to play in the minor leagues. That’s thanks to the number of games he played last season–27–during the OHL’s postponed campaign. The son of longtime NHL forward Yanic Perreault, he would be the 16th player from the 2020 first round to make his debut–the second for Anaheim, after Jamie Drysdale.

Nashville Predators Sign Juuso Parssinen

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June 1: The Predators have officially announced the deal, confirming the three-year, entry-level contract.

May 29: The Nashville Predators have reportedly come to terms with an upstart forward prospect. Contract resources CapFriendly and PuckPedia both reports that the club and 20-year-old forward prospect Juuso Parssinen have agreed to the required three-year entry-level contract beginning in 2021-22 and carrying a $850,833 cap hit. The alleged contract breakdown is as follows:

  • 2021-22: $750K base salary + $92.5K signing bonus and $82.5K games played bonus
  • 2022-23: $750K base salary + $92.5K signing bonus and $82.5K games played bonus
  • 2022-23: $775K base salary + $92.5K signing bonus and $57.5K games played bonus

Parssinen has improved by leaps and bounds since being selected by the Predators in the seventh round of the 2019 NHL Draft. Picked 210th overall, Parssinen was just eight selections away from going undrafted altogether. However, Nashville has to be glad they used a late-round flier on the Finnish product. Parssinen had played only seven games in the Liiga, Finland’s top pro level, and had recorded just one point when he was selected by the Predators. The following season, that production climbed to 12 points in 31 Liiga games, while Parssinen also enjoyed his best per-game scoring season at the U-20 junior level. And this season? The young center played exclusively in the Liiga to the tune of a whopping 42 points in 55 games, good enough for second on TPS in scoring and even earning him an alternate captain role despite his young age. He also added four points in seven games for Team Finland at the World Junior Championship, holding is own playing with and against elite NHL prospects.

While Parssinen’s scoring progression in Finland is enough to get Predators fans’ attention, they may not want to get too excited. Although Parssinen is now officially under contract, he also just signed a two-year extension with TPS back in February. That could mean that the promising young pivot remains overseas on loan for at least one, if not two years. However, when Parssinen does finally arrive in Nashville he will be that much more polished a player. At about 6’3″ and 200 pounds, there is also little concern about him adjusting to the bigger, stronger, more aggressive North American game.

If a late seventh-round pick with net front presence and leadership ability drafted out of Scandinavia who surprises with his impressive European production sounds familiar to Predators fans, it should. In many ways, Parssinen’s path to this point mirrors that of former Nashville star Patric Hornqvist, the 230th pick in 2005 out of Sweden’s Djurgardens IF. If Parssinen has the chance to even come close to making the impact on the organization that Hornvist did, perhaps it isn’t too early for fans to get excited.

Central Notes: Jones, Brome, Panthers

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The 2019 offseason was a tough one for Columbus who saw several of their top veterans head elsewhere in Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene, and Sergei Bobrovsky (among others as well).  Defenseman Seth Jones is a year away from being able to do the same but GM Jarmo Kekalainen told Brian Hedger of the Columbus Dispatch that they won’t be allowing Jones to walk away for nothing, citing that he doesn’t see the team being in the same situation next season as they were back in 2019 when they pushed their chips to the table and had a star player who many expected to go to New York as Panarin eventually did.  For now, the focus will remain on working on a long-term extension for the 26-year-old who averaged more than 25 minutes a game for the third straight season.

Elsewhere in the Central:

  • Earlier this month, Red Wings winger Mathias Brome told Svenskafans’ Andreas Lundskog that he was open to returning overseas but wasn’t going to limit himself to going back to his native Sweden. It appears he’s zeroing in on the Swiss NLA as Aftonbladet’s Tomas Ros and Hans Abrahamsson report that Brome is expected to join Davos.  It was a disappointing first season in North America for the 26-year-old who managed just a goal and an assist in 26 games with Detroit this season despite logging a respectable 13:39 per night.  Brome is set to become a restricted free agent this summer but as he’s a year away from UFA eligibility based on his age, there’s a good chance he’ll be non-tendered if a deal overseas is finalized.
  • Despite missing two of the last three games due to an upper-body injury, Florida center Sam Bennett is available for the series opener against Tampa Bay, notes Jameson Olive of the Panthers’ team site. The 24-year-old made an immediate impact after being acquired from Calgary at the trade deadline, picking up six goals and nine assists in just ten games, beating his output with the Flames despite playing in 28 games more with Calgary.  Meanwhile, Olive also relayed (Twitter link) that winger Patric Hornqvist is ready to return after missing the final seven games of the regular season with an upper-body injury of his own.

Injury Updates: Panthers, Avalanche, Sabres Goalies, Watson

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The Panthers are in a battle for first place in the Central Division but will be without a few regulars for a little while.  The team announced (Twitter link) that goalie Chris Driedger has been ruled out for the rest of the road trip which takes him out for the next three games though he isn’t expected to be out much longer than that.  Winger Patric Hornqvist is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury.

Meanwhile, winger Carter Verhaeghe isn’t expected to play on the trip either, notes David Wilson of the Miami Herald.  As a result, Florida entered tonight’s game down two of their top four scorers plus their top netminder statistically.  Between that and Carolina holding two games in hand, the Panthers will have their work cut out for them if they want to secure that top seed.

Other injury notes from around the NHL:

  • Avalanche defenseman Bowen Byram and winger Logan O’Connor have both suffered setbacks in their recoveries from upper- and lower-body injuries respectively, reports Mike Chambers of the Denver Post (Twitter link). Byram was recently taken off the COVID-Protocol Related Absences (CPRA) List but his injury preceded his placement there.  As for O’Connor, he has been out since the end of March.  Both players are now listed as week-to-week.
  • On the other hand, Colorado is set to get several key regulars back as com’s Rick Sadowski mentions that wingers Mikko Rantanen and Joonas Donskoi plus goalie Philipp Grubauer could all return to the lineup on Friday. Those three were on the CPRA list until recently as well and would undoubtedly provide a boost to the Avalanche’s lineup as they look to chase down Vegas for the top seed in the West.
  • The Sabres are unlikely to have goaltenders Linus Ullmark or Carter Hutton return this season, reports Mike Harrington of The Buffalo News. Ullmark has not yet resumed skating after suffering a lower-body injury two weeks ago while interim head coach Don Granato noted that Hutton recently had a setback after resuming skating as he worked his way back from a leg issue.  That means that Dustin Tokarski and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen will likely remain Buffalo’s tandem for the rest of the year.
  • The Senators have ruled out a return for winger Austin Watson this season, relays Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch (Twitter link). Watson suffered a wrist injury back in late March, one that carried a four-to-six week recovery time and it appears it will be the latter with him not returning.  He wraps up his first year with Ottawa with 10 points, 40 penalty minutes, and 100 hits in 34 games.

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