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Sami Vatanen

Metropolitan Notes: Devils Defense, Santini, Svechnikov

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The New Jersey Devils outlook for their future shot upwards a few weeks ago during the draft lottery after they won for the second time in three years, and now have the opportunity to add top prospects Jack Hughes or Kappo Kakko. However, one thing that is missing from a potential playoff roster in the future is a dominant defenseman.

The Athletic’s Corey Masisak (subscription required) divides up the current roster, but makes it clear on many occasions that what the team truly needs is a dominant defenseman who can run the defense. Even with 2018 first-rounder Ty Smith likely to join the team next season, the team could very well be on the lookout for a dominant blueliner via trade (if one can be found), suggesting the team may have to move one of their current top three to make a deal like that work in either Damon Severson, Will Butcher or Sami Vatanen.

Both Severson and Butcher are listed as unlikely to be traded unless a blockbuster deal can be found are both considered to be top-four defenseman along with Vatanen, but both blueliners would have significant value in return for an elite defenseman. Vatanen would unlikely have much trade value due to his age, but more importantly due to his injury history.

  • Sticking with the Devils defense, the team hopes they have found a regular to their defensive core as defenseman Steven Santini seemed to have found his niche in the final six weeks of the season. The 24-year-old had dealt with injuries and time in the minors, but looks to have a good chance to establish himself as an everyday defenseman next season for New Jersey, according to NJ.com’s Chris Ryan. After missing a large chunk of the season after breaking his jaw on the first game of the season last year, Santini came back in December, but needed time to find his game. His opportunity came at the trade deadline when the team traded Ben Lovejoy to Dallas, giving Santini a shot at Lovejoy’s minutes. He took advantage of them. “He’s got to be difficult to play against. Tight gaps on line-rush defense. He needs to be hard at the net front. He needs to be able to end plays defensively down low,” Devils coach John Hynes said. “We’d like to see him take a step on a penalty kill, missing a guy like Ben Lovejoy where he could fill into that type of role. And understanding that his puck skills need to improve.”
  • With Game 2 lineups out, the Carolina Hurricanes still don’t have injured forward Andrei Svechnikov back in the lineup. The 2018 second-overall pick has been in concussion protocol after suffering a head injury in a fight with fellow-Russian Alex Ovechkin in the first round of the playoffs. News & Observer’s Chip Alexander reports that a Game 3 return would be perfect timing for the Hurricanes and would get the home crowd even more hyped up, regardless of Carolina’s Game 2 performance.

Anaheim Ducks Sign Defenseman Simon Benoit

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3/7: The Duck have confirmed the signing and the terms of the deal for Benoit, noting that the first-year pro leads the Gulls and is third among all AHL rookie defensemen in plus/minus, while also leading San Diego rookie defenders in goals, shots, and games played. The strong performance from the under-the-radar junior signing has clearly impressed the Anaheim brass this season.

3/4: The Anaheim Ducks have made an unexpected splash into the free agent market, signing a player off their AHL squad. TVA’s Renaud Lavoie reports that the Ducks have signed undrafted QMJHL product Simon Benoit to a three-year entry-level contract. CapFriendly adds that the contract begins next season and carries an AAV of $925K, offset by a $278K signing bonus and $348K in potential performance bonuses over the term of the deal. Benoit has played all season on an AHL contract with the San Diego Gulls.

Benoit, 20, has made the most of his first pro season after he failed to draw NHL interest this past summer. The 6’3″, 192-lb. possession defenseman has established himself as a capable two-way defender in the AHL and looks to have NHL upside. A former standout with the QMJHL’s Shawinigan Cataractes, Benoit has moved to the pro level seamlessly, recording 12 points and a team-best +17 rating thus far through 50 games with the Gulls.

With San Diego head coach Dallas Eakins as the heavy favorite to take over as head coach in Anaheim next season, the future could be bright for Benoit if he can continue his dependable defensive play. The Ducks have lost Shea Theodore, Sami Vatanen, Marcus Pettersson, and Brandon Montour from their blue line in the last 18 months, opening up the door for prospects to play a bigger role moving forward. With Anaheim’s cap crunch so tight, they are unlikely to make many major additions on the back end this off-season either. With just three core defensemen remaining and signed through next season, it is very likely that there could be three, if not four or five, spots on the Ducks blue line up for grabs in training camp next year. Benoit will certainly throw his hat in the ring and at the very least could earn his NHL debut at some point in the 2019-20 season.

Sami Vatanen Diagnosed With Concussion

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Thursday: Vatanen has been moved to injured reserve and the Devils have recalled Eric Gryba from the AHL.

Wednesday: The New Jersey Devils have had an extremely frustrating season, and today got some more bad news. Sami Vatanen has been diagnosed with a concussion and will be out indefinitely. The injury occurred on Monday when Derick Brassard hit Vatanen’s head into the boards. Brassard was ejected from the game, but did not face any supplementary discipline.

Vatanen, 27, has been the good-if-not-great player the Devils hoped for when they traded Adam Henrique for him last season, and could very well be a trade target if the team can’t right the ship next year. Signed for another year at $4.875MM, the right-handed defenseman will draw even more than that on the open market and price himself right out of New Jersey if the team can’t get an extension with him done at some point after July 1st. Though he only has 17 points on the season, Vatanen is still logging nearly 22 minutes a night and putting up respectable possession numbers on a struggling team.

This injury comes at a terrible time for the team if they felt as though they could put together a second-half push, but more likely only strengthens their position for the draft lottery. The Devils currently sit ahead of only the Ottawa Senators in the Eastern Conference and will have a good chance of drafting an elite prospect with a top five pick in June. If they decide to sell off some of their aging or expiring assets, they could potentially have quite the haul of draft picks to inject some more talent into the minor league system and continue the slow, methodical rebuild that GM Ray Shero had spoken about. Last year’s playoff run appears to have been a fluke, but there are obvious pillars of the future already on the roster.

Russia Notes: Vatanen, Kovalenko, Repik

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According to Igor Eronko of Sport-Express, the rights of New Jersey Devils defenseman Sami Vatanen have been traded in the KHL. Vatanen now belongs to Avangard Omsk, meaning he would have to sign with them if he ever decided to leave the NHL. Though this is by no means indicating that Vatanen is considering a move to the KHL—he has never given the slightest hint of desire to do so—it likely means he would have another suitor should he reach free agency after next season. There is an interesting history between the player and league, as Vatanen is the highest drafted Finnish player ever in KHL history, going second overall in 2010 (Aleksander Barkov was subsequently drafted second in 2012, before the draft was eliminated in 2016).

Vatanen is currently in the third season of a four-year $19.5MM contract signed with the Anaheim Ducks in 2016, and is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2020. The puck-moving defenseman was acquired by the Devils in exchange for Adam Henrique, but could potentially hit the open market as a sought after commodity given his offensive upside and handedness. The Devils will have to try to lock him up next season, or face strong competition from the NHL and KHL for his services.

  • Colorado Avalanche prospect Nikolai Kovalenko has been registered to the Russian World Junior team, after the country left a few spots open this week. Kovalenko is currently playing in the KHL for Yaroslavl, and was selected in the sixth round by the Avalanche in 2018. Adding the shifty forward will leave just two spots left on the squad, which will kick off their tournament tomorrow afternoon against Denmark.
  • Former NHL forward Michal Repik saw his contract terminated with HC Slovan today, and will instead play the rest of the year with Vityaz Podolsk. The 29-year old has had a long and interesting playing career which included a Memorial Cup title with Vancouver Giants, 72 mostly ineffective games in the NHL, and a recent appearance at the Olympics for the Czech Republic.

Devils’ Steven Santini Suffers Broken Jaw

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When the Devils started Steven Santini over Ben Lovejoy on Saturday, it was in hopes that the young defenseman could help suppress some of the Philadelphia Flyers’ offense after a 5-goal effort from the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night. Not only did the Flyers win 5-2 today, but the Santini experiment barely even got off the ground. On just his second shift of the night, Santini took a puck up high and was forced to leave the ice. He did not return. In speaking to head coach John Hynes after the game, beat writer Amanda Stein reports that Santini suffered a broken jaw. He will be out indefinitely.

This is an unlucky blow for both the player and team. Santini was making his first appearance of the season for the Devils and hoping to stick in the top six this time around. The 23-year-old defenseman played in 38 and 36 games respectively in his first two pro seasons, but has yet to even play half an NHL season, nevertheless establish himself as a starter. A second-round pick in 2013, Santini was a mainstay of the U.S. Juniors program and a standout defender at Boston College for three years. Santini is a stay-at-home type and does not bring much in the way of offensive potential, but is a smart, safe option on the back end and seemingly has the skill set and demeanor of a solid bottom-pair defenseman.

While that may not sound all that exciting, Santini is the exact type of player that the Devils could use right now. After a hot 4-0 start to the season, New Jersey has allowed ten goals in back-to-back losses and have the Nashville Predators, Florida Panthers, and Tampa Bay Lightning on the docket this week. With a less-than-stellar goalie tandem of Keith Kinkaid and Eddie Lack and a defensive corps that is top-heavy with offensive-minded puck movers like Sami Vatanen, Damon Severson, Will Butcher, and Mirco Mueller. The team could use more conservative, tight defensive play right now and hoped Santini could provide it. Instead, the onus could be back on banged-up Lovejoy to pick up the slack in the defensive end.

Metropolitan Notes: Dundon, Schneider, Devils Defense, O’Brien

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When Tom Dundon took ownership of the Carolina Hurricanes earlier this year, he said he was going to make changes. Trading one of its top scorers in Jeff Skinner certainly qualifies, but the owner made it clear that it wasn’t even a hard decision to make, according to Chip Alexander and Luke DeCock of the News & Observer.

“It had to be done,” Dundon said Friday. “The consensus in the organization, and it has been for a while, was it was better for all parties. It’s good for him, too.”

The team didn’t get a top return for the 26-year-old who has scored 204 goals for Carolina over the course of eight seasons. He had a no-trade clause and could have chosen to play out his final season in Carolina and then walk away leaving the Hurricanes with nothing to show for him. Instead, Carolina walked away with prospect Cliff Pu and three draft picks, none of which are first-round picks. Buffalo has three of them in 2019.

“This was not money motivated,” Dundon said. “This was simply that we think the team has a better chance to perform at the level we think it can perform at right now.”

  • New Jersey goaltender Cory Schneider isn’t going to be rushed back after undergoing hip surgery this offseason, according to Corey Masisak of The Athletic (subscription required). The 32-year-old goaltender had another turbulent season in which he started the season strong, struggled and then fared well to end the season. He finished the season with a 2.93 GAA and a .907 save percentage in 40 games, his worst season statistically of his career. Masisak says the timetable for Schneider to return remains murky and general manager Ray Shero has commented on Pekka Rinne’s post-surgery success on multiple occasions, suggesting the team will almost certainly be starting the season with Keith Kinkaid as their starter.
  • With four top defenders on their roster, the New Jersey Devils have to choose their new pairings between Sami Vatanen, Will Butcher, Andy Greene and Damon Severson. While the obvious choice might be that Vatanen and Greene should remain together as their shutdown line, Todd Cordell of HockeyBuzz writes that they should look at a different option which would be to match Severson with Greene instead, pointing out that Severson’s numbers alongside Greene have been as good, if not better, than Vatanen’s. That would leave Butcher with Vatanen, which could also provide a solid pairing.
  • Bill Meltzer of NHL.com writes that the Philadelphia Flyers walked away with a good feeling about many of their prospects at the World Junior Summer Showcase today, especially with the success of their 2018 first-round pick Jay O’Brien. The 18-year-old has not had much of an opportunity to play against top competition against his own age, but thrived in the game against Canada where he was named Player of the Game for Team USA after potting two goals and showing a great defensive presence.

Anaheim Ducks Sign Swedish Forward Anton Rodin

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The Ducks are importing some scoring help for the coming season. Sportsnet reports that Anaheim has signed Anton Rodin, a former Swedish Hockey League MVP and brief member of the Vancouver Canucks. Rodin finished the 2017-18 season with HC Davos of the Swiss NLA, but will now return to North America to join the Ducks. Contract terms are not yet available.

Rodin, a second-round pick back in 2009, has had trouble making his mark in the NHL. He came over to the U.S. for the 2011-12 season, but found himself playing in the AHL for next two seasons without a callup, prompting the Swede to return to the SHL, the next season, which is where he stayed for another three years. He returned to Vancouver and got into three NHL games, but spent most of his time with the Utica Comets before asking for his release in November of this season.

Devils Closing In On Signing Yegor Yakovlev

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While there has been rumors of the New Jersey Devils intention of signing KHL defenseman Yegor Yakovlev this offseason, no deal has happened. However, international journalist Igor Eronko spoke to New Jersey’s general manager Ray Shero, who confirmed that the team hopes to sign the defenseman after the IIHF World Championships.

“We haven’t officially signed him yet, but once IIHF Worlds is over, we’ll see coming back on Monday. Hopefully we can finalize something,” Shero said.

Yakovlev also said that he is eager to sign with the Devils, according to Eronko.

“The Devils have scouted me for 3 years,” Yakovlev said. “They really wanted to see me on the team. That’s why I chose New Jersey and I’m really happy to join the organization. I know they play a fast smart hockey and I like it.”

The 26-year-old defenseman could continue to add depth to a team that more than a year ago had little defensive options. In the last year, the team has upgraded some of its defenders with college free agent Will Butcher, who had a solid rookie season, as well as trading for Sami Vatanen from the Anaheim Ducks.

Yakovlev has spent the last three years playing for KHL powerhouse SKA St. Petersburg. He tallied five goals and nine points in 35 regular season games and also played in the Olympics this year in Pyeongchang for the Russian team that won the gold medal.

 

Snapshots: Round Two And World Championships

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The NHL is expected to wait on the result of Game Seven tomorrow night between the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs before announcing a full schedule for the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. However, they have at least put an end to the wait on the dates and times of the series openers. No one is more relieved than the Vegas Golden Knights, who have already been inactive for a week after sweeping the Los Angeles Kings. The Knights will host the San Jose Sharks, also fresh off a sweep of the Anaheim Ducks, at 10 PM ET on Thursday, April 26th. The second round will kick off earlier that evening with the third-straight postseason collision between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals. With their Metropolitan Division rivals out of the way, that series will get underway in Washington at 7 PM ET on Thursday. Friday night, the 27th, will feature the much-anticipated match-up between the Nashville Predators and Winnipeg Jets, the top two teams in the NHL in the regular season. That series starts in Nashville at 8 PM ET on Friday. Finally, the Tampa Bay Lightning await the winner of Bruins-Maple Leafs and the decision also affects when their second round begins on Saturday, the 28th. If the Bruins win on Wednesday night, they’ll travel to Tampa for a 3 PM ET puck drop, but if the Leafs pull off the comeback and take the series, they’ll take the ice against the Lightning later in the day at 8 PM ET. Stay tuned for more Round Two schedule updates in the next 36 hours or so.

  • Meanwhile, the “consolation playoffs”, the IIHF World Championships, will begin in Denmark on May 4th and teams continue to add talent from those NHL teams who have been eliminated from the postseason. Insider Juha Hiitela adds another name to the list, confirming that Minnesota Wild forward Mikael Granlund will suit up for Finland at the tournament. Granlund scored at the highest clip of his career in 2017-18, recording 67 points in 77 games, including a career-high 46 assists. He added another three points in Minnesota’s first round playoff series versus Winnipeg, but the Wild were outmatched by the Jets and fell in five games. Now, Granlund will have a chance to return to the World Championships, where last he scored 12 points in 10 games to lead Finland to a second-place finish.
  • However, Hiitela adds that New Jersey Devils top defenseman Sami Vatanen will not be joining Granlund in Denmark. Per Hiitela, Vatanen suffered a concussion in the Devils opening series against the Tampa Bay Lightning. This adds some clarity to the recent situation in which Vatanen missed most of Game Four and all of the deciding Game Five with an undisclosed upper-body injury. Just as he was missed by New Jersey, he’ll be missed by Finland at the World Championships. This would have been the first appearance at the tournament for the five-year NHL veteran.

Devils Close To Deal With Defenseman Yegor Yakovlev

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Another team eyeing overseas talent this off-season is one whose off-season has yet to begin. Russian news source Sport-Express reports that SKA St. Petersburg defenseman Yegor Yakovlev is planning to sign with the New Jersey Devils. It seems that GM Ray Shero and company have stayed busy on the talent acquisition front for next season, despite the team still being focused on their first-round playoff series.

Yakovlev, 26, is yet another talented member of KHL powerhouse SKA. Teammates like Ilya Kovalchuk, Nikita Gusev, Sergei Plotnikov, and Mikko Koskinen are among many on the roster who could sign in the NHL this summer, but Yakovlev seems to be closest to a concrete deal. Yakovlev lost games due to injury in 2017-18, but last season set career highs with 21 points and a +30 rating in 56 games. He made up for some missed time this year with a strong showing for Russia at the Olympics as well, skating on the team’s top pair. A high-energy two-way defenseman, Yakovlev certainly appears to have the talent to push for a regular role in the NHL.

Where exactly he fits in New Jersey is a different question. The Devils surprised many this season by earning a playoff berth just one season after finishing near the bottom of the league. Part of that turnaround has been the improved play on the blue line, greatly aided by the additions of Sami Vatanen and Will Butcher. On the left side, where Yakovlev plays, New Jersey has Butcher, captain Andy Greene, and – for now – John Moore. While admittedly it’s not as strong as the right side of Vatanen, Damon Severson, Ben Lovejoy, and seventh-man Steve Santini, it’s still a solid group and a consistent one at that, with all three playing in 81 games this year. Even if Moore, an impending unrestricted free agent, was to leave the Devils, Mirco Mueller is a promising lefty in need of some play time. While healthy competition never hurts, it certainly seems like Yakovlev is signing on to a situation where he won’t be guaranteed a starting job without earning it.

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