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Patrik Laine

Camp Notes: Laine, Priskie, Boedker, Boqvist

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Jets winger Patrik Laine will soon be beginning his training camp but it won’t be in Winnipeg.  Vili Pesu of Ilta-Sanomat in Finland reports that Laine will soon begin skating with SC Bern of the Swiss NLA; head coach Kari Jalonen indicated that it would be on a week-to-week basis.  Laine is coming off an intriguing season; while he had 18 goals in the month of November alone, he also only had a dozen tallies the rest of the season.  As a result, a short-term bridge deal has been the expectation for a while but it appears that there is still a ways to go to get an agreement in place.  While Laine will be practicing with Bern, he will not be participating in any games while he’s with them.

More camp news from around the NHL:

  • Hurricanes defenseman Chase Priskie has been listed as week-to-week following an injury sustained on Friday, notes Chip Alexander of the Raleigh News & Observer (Twitter link). The youngster signed with Carolina after being an unrestricted free agent back in mid-August.  At the time, he was told that he’d be given a long look at earning a roster spot with the big club but missing even a couple of weeks could make that a much tougher task.
  • Senators winger Mikkel Boedker will miss at least the next five days due to a hip flexor, reports Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch (Twitter link). The winger is entering his second season with the team and will be playing for a new contract as he’s slated to become an unrestricted free agent in July.  Meanwhile, in a separate tweet, Garrioch notes that Ottawa will make their first set of roster cuts on Sunday.  They’re currently carrying 63 players on their training camp roster.
  • It doesn’t appear as if Blackhawks prospect Adam Boqvist will be returning to OHL London for the upcoming season. GM Stan Bowman told NBC Sports Chicago’s Charlie Roumeliotis that if the defenseman doesn’t crack Chicago’s roster, they will send him to their AHL affiliate in Rockford instead of back to junior.  While Boqvist is only 19 (typically too young for players with CHL experience), he was drafted out of Brynas in Sweden which doesn’t make him subject to the NHL-CHL agreement which allows him to play in the minors already.

Snapshots: Red Wings, Blues, RFAs

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The Detroit Red Wings will operate without a captain once again this season, despite the expectation that Dylan Larkin will one day assume the role. Head coach Jeff Blashill told reporters including Ansar Khan of MLive that they will instead start with four alternates: Larkin, Justin Abdelkader, Frans Nielsen and Luke Glendening. Blashill and Steve Yzerman agreed to wait until the GM got to know the entire team better after taking over this offseason.

Larkin, 23, has become the face of the Red Wings franchise after putting up a career-high 32 goals and 73 points last season. As the old guard including Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and recently Niklas Kronwall have moved on from their roles on the Red Wings, Larkin and other young players have taken on more and more responsibility. As the team transitions from rebuilding to contending over the next few years it seems likely that someone will eventually wear the “C” for Blashill and Yzerman, just not yet.

  • The St. Louis Blues are finalizing extensions for Steve Ott and David Alexander according to Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The pair of assistant coaches will be given extensions that match the length of head coach Craig Berube, who was given a three-year deal earlier this summer. The coaching staff under Berube completed a miracle turnaround this season with the Blues, taking them from last place in the NHL to Stanley Cup champions in just a few months.
  • Andy Strickland of Fox Sports Midwest has heard a few things on restricted free agents Patrik Laine and Mikko Rantanen, including about a recent short-term offer from the Winnipeg Jets to the former. The deal presented to Laine was in the “$5MM per year range” though Strickland notes that even on that short-term deal the Jets will “need to come up on money.” For Rantanen, Strickland reports that the free agent forward is not far away in terms of salary with the Colorado Avalanche and that the team’s last offer “blew past Nathan MacKinnon’s $6.3MM AAV.”

Latest On Patrik Laine, Winnipeg Jets

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When perusing the front page of CapFriendly, one might notice the Winnipeg Jets at the very bottom of the salary chart and think “boy, they have a lot of cap room!” The Jets project to have just under $64MM committed to the 2019-20 season, leaving them with the most available cap space in the league. That sentiment would be a little premature however, as the Western Conference contender still have high profile restricted free agents Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor to sign. That duo will take up a huge chunk of any cap room the team has, though it doesn’t appear as though anything is imminent on either front.

Connor recently admitted that his focus is on getting a deal done before training camp so that he doesn’t miss any preparation time, but it might not be so simple with Laine. Chris Johnston of Sportsnet caught up with the Finnish forward overseas and asked him about where his contract negotiations were with the Jets. His answer? Nowhere right now. Johnston writes that contract talks between the two sides have been “non-existent all summer” and Laine was less than decisive on where he’ll be playing hockey next season.

The most likely scenario for both players remains a deal being worked out prior to training camp, but with now less than a month before NHL teams start to gather time is certainly starting to run out. A huge chunk of the restricted free agent market is frozen right now, a situation that Craig Custance of The Athletic recently examined (subscription required). Custance writes that several sources have suggested that the NHLPA has been involved in these negotiations, trying to get the players to wait and set an entirely new market for those coming out of entry-level contracts.

Last season saw William Nylander of the Toronto Maple Leafs not reach a deal until the very last few minutes before a December 1st deadline that would have kept him from playing the entire season. The young forward then experienced easily the worst season of his career, never able to get on track after several extra mo

nths away from the team and no real practice time to speak of. That negotiation is something all of this year’s restricted free agents are aware of, but they are obviously dealing with it in different ways. Sebastian Aho was convinced he needed to get a contract done before camp, but in his conversation with Johnston, Laine seems more than willing to let things play out:

I’m not stressed. I’m not worrying about that at all. I know that I’ve done my job as well as I can over these three years, so I know I’m going to play somewhere next year. So that’s something I’m not thinking about too much.

There’s little doubt that Laine deserves a substantial raise after scoring 110 goals and 184 points in his first 237 NHL games, but it is unclear how the Jets want to go about his next contract. The team already has a huge amount of salary tied up in Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele, Nikolaj Ehlers and Bryan Little for the next five years (at least), and with Connor expecting to focus on a long-term deal the Jets will have a lot committed. Josh Morrissey will need a new contract next summer after proving to be a legitimate top option on defense, while the blueline as a whole may need to be reshaped when Dustin Byfuglien’s contract expires in 2021—the monstrous defender will be 36.

After several years of contention the Jets are in a state of flux until they get Laine and Connor signed, but GM Kevin Cheveldayoff has plenty of work to do in order to secure a strong future without taking on too much risk.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Latest On Kyle Connor Contract Talks

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While much of the ink this offseason has been spilled about Mitch Marner, there are plenty of other extremely talented restricted free agents still unsigned as we get closer to training camp. There is just a month left before the Winnipeg Jets will get together to prepare for the season but both Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor are still without contracts. In fact, the Jets only have seven forwards signed to one-way contracts for the upcoming campaign meaning any negotiations that leak into the regular season would put a lot of pressure on their already thin depth chart.

When asked by media including TSN whether he hopes to have a deal done before training camp starts, Connor was clear that would be his preference:

Yeah that’s definitely the plan. A player never wants to miss time in training camp, it’s tough always coming in and not getting that preparation, time with the teammates and practice. So that’s definitely a goal for sure.

I don’t think it’s anything to press the panic button on. It’s just kinda how these things do—take a little bit of time.

Connor wouldn’t comment on whether his representatives or the Jets are waiting on a player like Marner to set the market, something that has been speculated on for some time. The young forward also didn’t have much to say about any offer sheets coming his way, something that is still technically a possibility for many of the top names. After Sebastian Aho signed a sheet with the Montreal Canadiens on the first day of free agency—one that was quickly matched by the Carolina Hurricanes—the league seems to be back to normal concerning the RFA tactic (that is to say, there have been no others signed.)

While Laine has stolen many of the headlines the last several seasons in Winnipeg, it’s Connor who has established himself as a legitimate first line option at even-strength. The 22-year old former Michigan Wolverine has consecutive 30+ goal seasons in his first two full years in the NHL and put up 66 points in 2018-19. Laine meanwhile has continued his incredible goal scoring, but saw his overall performance drop to just 50 points in 82 games last season.

It’s that even-strength production for Connor that arguably makes him a more valuable player for the Jets moving forward, though both are obviously going to get huge raises coming off of their entry-level contracts. How exactly the team plans on fitting them into their current salary structure is unclear however, given they already have so much money tied up in a handful of other forwards. CapFriendly currently projects the Jets to have a little less than $17.6MM in cap space, but that is for a 17-man roster. That number starts to shrink as you add names from the minor leagues to fill out the forward ranks, and the pair of restricted free agents could easily eat up a combined chunk around $15MM depending on term. That financial crunch may end up forcing the Jets to go with a shorter contract for at least one of them, though nothing seems imminent at this point.

Mitch Marner Deal Holding Up Other Restricted Free Agents

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If the Toronto Maple Leafs’ negotiations with Mitch Marner last as long as they did with William Nylander last season, many other NHL teams are going to be in trouble. According to The Athletic’s Joe Smith, many other agents are waiting to see how Marner’s deal shakes out before finalizing terms for their own top restricted free agent forwards. A surprising number of prominent RFA forwards remain unsigned and could stay that way until the Marner deal sets the market.

Writing specifically about the Tampa Bay Lightning, a team facing their own RFA conundrum with breakout center Brayden Point, Smith states that the team expects Point to be ready for camp in September, but agent Gerry Johansson is content with the “slow process”. The agents for Mikko Rantanen, Matthew Tkachuk, Kyle Connor, Brock Boeser, Patrik Laine, and Travis Konecny likely feel the same way and are apparently waiting to see where Marner, the best of the group, ends up before moving forward. In fact, Sportsnet’s Rick Dhaliwal also added today that things are very quiet around Boeser’s camp and he acknowledges that the process has been slow for most big-name RFA’s.

So what will be the first domino to fall? Will Marner really sign first and set the stage for everyone else? Or will another unsigned star finally budge and give the market a much-needed comparable? While Marner, who recorded 94 points in 82 games last year, is the most established player and considered the top RFA who would be the ceiling for the market, he was actually quite comparable to Rantanen and Point last season. However, the rest of the group could benefit from any of the group signing a contract to use as a point of comparison. At this point in the summer, the odds are high that at least one of these negotiations will last into the regular season. But if the reports are true that the market waits on Marner, those teams with top unsigned RFA forwards better hope that Toronto and their star winger are closer than it seems.

Snapshots: Jets, Kings, Badgers

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A lot has been made about the rumored discourse in the Winnipeg Jets’ locker room. The team suffered another early exit from the postseason this year and some reactions from players, coaches, and media members alike indicated that chemistry concerns may have played a role. This off-season hasn’t helped the narrative either, with mainstays Tyler Myers, Ben Chiarot, and Brandon Tanev all electing to walk away as free agents, while Jacob Trouba was traded and Marko Dano and Joe Morrow were not qualified. Andrew Copp was re-signed, but only after a salary arbitration award, and Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor remain unsigned. It’s not good look for a group of players who some feel don’t get along.

Well, star player Mark Scheifele wants to put a stop to these whispers. Speaking with NHL.com’s Mike Zeisberger, the Jets’ No. 1 center said that he is confident in his team’s chemistry. “People can claim whatever, but I know we have a tight-knit team,” Scheifele said, “We have great guys in our room. And there’s no question in my mind about the character we have in our room, the unity that we have.” He summed up the ongoing drama by stating that “you know what’s going on in your room. Anything extra is a bunch of baloney.” Scheifele admitted that it was difficult to see the likes of Trouba, Myers, Chiarot, and Tanev leave and hopes that there are resolutions shortly with Laine and Connor, but did not hint that internal issues were the cause of any of their negotiations. Of course, Scheifele would never come out and say otherwise, but it should provide Winnipeg fans with a bit of comfort that he was willing to speak openly about the locker room and tried to shut down the rumors that personalities have or could continue to affect the team’s performance.

  • The World Junior Summer Showcase is underway and fans of the Los Angeles Kings should pay close attention. NHL.com’s Adam Kimelman writes that the Kings lead the way with seven prospects participating in the tournament, headlined by recent No. 5 overall pick Alex Turcotte of Team USA. In fact, each of L.A.’s top four selections in June are in attendance; Turcotte is joined by fellow first-round pick Tobias Bjornfot, fellow American forward Arthur Kaliyev, and forward Samuel Fagemo, who joins Bjornfot on Team Sweden. Fourth-round pick Kim Nousiainen will also suit up for Team Finland. 2018 picks Akil Thomas and Aidan Dudas will both line up at forward for Team Canada. It’s an impressive collection of young talent for the Kings and one that should inspire hope for the future for a team that finished last in the Western Conference this past season with just 71 points. This group likely won’t be making an impact in the NHL in 2019-20, but L.A. is grooming a talented young core to take over down the road.
  • As for next season, Turcotte definitely won’t be in L.A., as he’s committed to playing at the University of Wisconsin. The Badgers’ incoming recruiting class has been very highly regarded, as it features Turcotte and fellow U.S. National Team Development Program products Cole Caufield (MTL) and Owen Lindmark (FLA), as well as another 2019 draft selection in Ryder Donovan (VGK) and potential 2020 top-ten pick in Dylan Holloway. With so many talented freshmen incoming, the question has been how head coach Tony Granato would use his rejuvenated roster. That question has been partially answered for the arguably the team’s new two best forwards. Talking to The Athletic’s Corey Pronman at the Summer Showcase, Caufield stated that he and Turcotte will play on the same line for Wisconsin, at least to begin the year. The duo have some familiarity, although Caufield – the No. 15 pick this year – largely played on Jack Hughes’ wing last season. However, they both possess immense offensive talent, while Turcotte has the two-way intelligence to compensate for Caufield’s lack of size and defensive focus if need be. Having played on the international stage already, the adjustment to the college level should not be too difficult and Turcotte and Caufield could put up huge numbers in their first (and likely only) collegiate season.

Penguins To Sign Brandon Tanev To Long-Term Contract

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The Pittsburgh Penguins were not expected to be major players in free agency, but have apparently fallen in love with one particular two-way forward. TSN’s Darren Dreger initially reported the deal, and the Penguins have now confirmed the signing of Brandon Tanev to a six-year contract with a $3.5MM AAV.

That’s a significant commitment to a player who made just $1.15MM last season and whose best season was 14 goals and 29 points, but the 27-year-old provides more than offense on the ice as Tanev finished with a career-high in hits with 278. That physicality, to go with the ability to show some offense and the fact that Tanev continues to improve every year suggests that Pittsburgh believes that his best years are still to come. The hope is that Tanev can provide the team with an energy booster in the bottom-six, but who can also help those lines add some offense.

Pittsburgh likely wouldn’t have been able to make a deal like that work, but general manager Jim Rutherford freed up quite a bit of cap room in the last week by trading off defenseman Olli Maatta as well as finding a trade partner for Phil Kessel and his $8MM salary.

The Jets were thrilled with the 27-year-old’s play, but with Tanev having received quite a bit of attention on the open market, Winnipeg realized early on that they wouldn’t have enough money to keep him in the fold considering the team would already be up against the cap once the team re-signs some of their core, including Patrik Laine, Kyle Connor and Neal Pionk.

Calgary Flames, Matthew Tkachuk Taking Time To Get Deal Done

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The Calgary Flames have many offseason tasks they must deal with this summer, but the No. 1 priority of the team is locking up their top restricted free agent, Matthew Tkachuk. However, with a number of big-name restricted free agents cashing in on mega contracts in the last couple of years, the negotiations are expected to take a while. In fact, The Fourth Period reports that the two sides are in no rush to get a deal done quickly.

Both Calgary and Tkachuk have already had initial discussions, but negotiations aren’t expected to pick up again until later this month, most likely after the NHL Entry Draft. Much of the initial discussions likely dealt with the type of deal that Tkachuk is looking for as he could either sign a short-term bridge deal or a long-term deal. If the team isn’t ready to shell out an expensive long-term deal, they could offer a three-year bridge deal in hopes of seeing whether Tkachuk is worthy of such a deal that would take him to his final year of restricted free agency.

Several restricted free agents have cashed in recently, especially in Toronto as Auston Matthews signed a five-year, $58.2MM contract ($11.63MM AAV) in February, while William Nylander signed a six-year, $45MM deal ($6.96MM AAV) in December after holding out. There are quite a few key restricted free agents this offseason and Tkachuk might want to wait some of them out to see what the market sets at, including Toronto’s Mitch Marner, Carolina’s Sebastian Aho, San Jose’s Timo Meier and Winnipeg’s Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor amongst others.

Tkachuk is coming off a breakout season in the final year of his entry-level deal as he potted 35 goals and picked up 77 points this season, something they were hoping for after they drafted him sixth overall in 2016. A physical, menace-type player, Tkachuk is critical to the team’s long-term plans, but with plenty of cap concerns approaching, the team could opt to give him a little less money if he accepts a shorter-term deal. However, a long-term deal might be the preferred outcome in case Tkachuk continues to take steps forward in his development, which is quite possible considering he’s still only 21 years old.

The Flames are projected to have more than $14MM in cap space this offseason, giving them the room to lock up Tkachuk to a long-term deal, although the team still has other key restricted free agents in Sam Bennett, Andrew Mangiapane and goaltender David Rittich to sign. The team also must decide on whether to bring back unrestricted free agent Mike Smith in net to pair with Rittich. If not, the team will have to find a goaltender on the free agent market to replace him. That could take up a significant amount of cap room, although there have been rumors the team could move one of their veteran defenseman, either T.J. Brodie or Travis Hamonic, to open up some more cap space and free up a defensive roster spot for some of their upcoming defensive prospects. General manager Brad Treliving might also attempt to trade forward James Neal and his bloated $5.75MM AAV contract, although finding a taker might prove to be a challenge considering he has four more years remaining on his contract.

Central Notes: Laine, Predators Prospects, Gunnarsson, Honka

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With teams worrying about players’ second contracts more than ever, the Winnipeg Jets may have one of the most challenging tasks this summer when they have to lock up star forward Patrik Laine, who hits restricted free agency on July 1. While many may ask why not offer him what he wants, the Jets have two other serious issues, including an already full salary cap as well as the fact that Laine has proven to be wildly inconsistent so far in his early career.

While Laine still tallied 30 goals this past season (his lowest total of his career), 18 of those goals came in November with Laine scoring no more than four goals in any other month. Regardless, The Athletic’s Murat Ates (subscription required) writes that while a long-term deal could net Laine close to $9MM per season, he might even get more if he opts to take a bridge deal and bank on the potential to get back to 40 goals in the next two years. With the potential to hit his peak within that time, he could really hit payday if he waits. However, that could be an even bigger problem to the team’s long-term salary outlook.

  • The Athletic’s John Glennon (subscription required) writes that while the Nashville Predators have been ranked near the bottom when it comes to the franchise’s prospect cupboard, the Nashville Predators have some hope. The team does have a team in the AHL, the Milwaukee Admirals, who have slowly developed players that are ready to compete for spots on the NHL roster such as Eeli Tolvanen, Anthony Richard and Yakov Trenin, while the team has added some college depth to bolster their depleted group of prospects. Much of the team’s problems is that they have traded many picks to add talent over the last few years, but Glennon adds that the team has drafted well with the picks it has had whether they are in college, in juniors or playing overseas.
  • The St. Louis Blues will be missing a defenseman Saturday when they open up Game 1 against the Dallas Stars as NHL.com’s Chris Pinkert writes that Carl Gunnarsson will sit out after suffering a lower-body injury in Game 7 against the Dallas Stars in the second round. Veteran Robert Bortuzzo is expected to replace him in the lineup. Gunnarsson, a third-pairing defenseman, saw his playing time decrease somewhat in the second-round series.
  • SportsDay’s Matthew DeFranks writes that one offseason task that the Dallas Stars must look at is what to do with defenseman Julius Honka, who has been a healthy scratch for the final four months of the season as he hasn’t played a games since Jan. 15. The former first-round pick in 2014 has fallen down the depth chart as he has slipped behind Jamie Oleksiak, Ben Lovejoy, Taylor Fedun, Joel Hanley, Gavin Bayreuther and Dillon Heatherington. “We’re going to sit down over the summer now and we’re going to decide is he a part of this group or is he an asset to go get something else?” said Dallas general manager Jim Nill. “That’s what we’ve got to figure out.”

Snapshots: Laine, Holland, NWHL

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The Winnipeg Jets and Patrik Laine have not had any contract negotiations, according to Andy Strickland of Fox Sports Midwest. The 21-year old sniper is scheduled to become a restricted free agent this summer and is in line for a big raise after his third consecutive 30-goal season to start his career. In fact, Laine has 110 goals over his first three years, but saw his overall point output drop to just 50 this season despite playing in all 82 games.

The Jets have plenty of work to do this offseason with Laine, Kyle Connor and Jacob Trouba all headed for RFA status, and don’t have an eternity to get it done. With more and more reporters believing there is an increased chance of an offer sheet this season, getting deals for Laine and Connor done before July 1st would limit that opportunity for other teams.

  • Ken Holland has been the focus of much speculation over the last few days regarding the Edmonton Oilers general manager job, but now some details are becoming clear. Mark Spector of Sportsnet reports that the Oilers are willing to offer complete autonomy to Holland in the role and are waiting to receive an answer. Mark Hunter, Keith Gretzky and Sean Burke, the most commonly reported final candidates, have not been ruled out as back up plans if Holland turns the Oilers down.
  • The first cracks are showing in the NWHL after more than 200 players announced a boycott of all North American women’s professional leagues. Hailey Salvian and Katie Strang of The Athletic (subscription required) report that the 2019-20 season for the Buffalo Beauts is “up in the air” and that several players have “serious doubts” whether they will be operational. The reporters also indicated that expansion into Montreal and Toronto, two markets that were left vacant when the CWHL closed their doors earlier this year, is no longer likely.

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