Snapshots: Hajek, Larkin, Colorado Injuries, Lamoriello
The key to the Ryan McDonagh to Tampa Bay trade was the inclusion of prospect defenseman Libor Hajek and had he not been involved, McDonagh would still be with the Rangers, reports Larry Brooks of the New York Post. The 2016 second-round pick is having a strong season at the WHL level and put forth a very strong showing back at the World Juniors and figures to be an important piece of their retooling on the back end. Brooks adds that Pittsburgh, Washington, and Florida made runs at McDonagh before the trade deadline while noting that the Capitals would have needed to get a third team involved to get a deal done.
More from around the league:
- The Oilers are expected to sign UMass-Boston forward Colin Larkin to an NHL entry-level deal, reports Mark Divver of the Providence Journal (Twitter links). The 24-year-old has had a strong season at the NCAA Division III level, posting 24 goals and 22 assists in just 27 games and averaged a point per game or better in each of his four collegiate seasons. He is also the brother of Red Wings center Dylan Larkin.
- The Avalanche should have goaltender Jonathan Bernier available for their upcoming road trip, reports Mike Chambers of the Denver Post. He has missed the last eight games due to a concussion. Meanwhile, winger Sven Andrighetto, who has been out since December 31st due to a leg injury, is also nearing a return. The news isn’t as promising for a pair of defenders as Erik Johnson (shoulder) and Mark Barberio (concussion) are not close to returning to Colorado’s lineup.
- The contract extension for Washington GM Brian MacLellan leaves two general managers in limbo. One of those is Lou Lamoriello of the Maple Leafs whose initial three-year contract is set to expire at the end of the season. While there has been speculation that he could cede his spot to Kyle Dubas, the 75-year-old told reporters, including Postmedia’s Terry Koshan, that he isn’t concerned about his role with the team next year at all, calling it a “non-issue”. Even if Lamoriello is out of the GM chair next season, he’s likely to stick around in an advisory role at the very least.
Minor Transactions: 1/21/18
After a 13-game schedule on Saturday, the NHL has five games scheduled today, including the Vegas Golden Knights against the Carolina Hurricanes this afternoon. If the expansion Golden Knights come away with a victory, they will pass the Tampa Bay Lightning in the standings as the best team in hockey. In the meantime, keep an eye out for roster moves:
- The Detroit Red Wings announced they have recalled defenseman Joe Hicketts from the Grand Rapids Griffins of the AHL today. The team recalled the diminutive Hicketts after defenseman Trevor Daley suffered a lower-body injury. Despite being 5-foot-8, 180 pounds, Hicketts has proven to be a one of the Griffins most physical players and many have felt deserves to be getting playing time with the struggling Red Wings. How much playing time he will get is unknown, but the 21-year-old undrafted free agent has two goals and six assists in 43 games this season.
- CapFriendly also reported that after activating forward J.T. Compher off of injured reserve Saturday, the Colorado Avalanche also placed forward Sven Andrighetto on injured reserve with a lower-body injury to make room for him. The 24-year-old Andrighetto has missed seven games and hasn’t played since Dec. 31.
- The Athletic’s Scott Powers tweets that the Chicago Blackhawks have assigned defenseman Gustav Forsling to the Rockford IceHogs of the AHL. The 21-year-old defenseman has been with the team all season, having played in 41 games. He has three goals and 10 assists, but needs to build his confidence, according to Chicago Sun-Times reporter Mark Lazerus. The move opens a spot for forward Artem Anisimov to return to Chicago’s lineup. Anisimov has missed the team’s last 10 games with an upper-body injury.
Minor Transactions: 01/01/18
The 2018 portion of the season is underway, and with it teams can try to turn the page on whatever problems they faced last year. In places like Edmonton and Ottawa, perhaps the new year will bring success. As always, we’ll keep an eye on the minor transactions around the league and report them right here.
- Zac Dalpe has been recalled by the Columbus Blue Jackets on emergency conditions. With Sonny Milano and Jordan Schroeder already up on emergency loans, the Blue Jackets find themselves facing injuries all throughout their lineup. If Dalpe’s recall is due to another long-term injury, Columbus will have to decide whether they need to look outside the organization for help up front. After three straight losses in which they allowed 15 goals, their lead on several Metropolitan teams is starting to disappear.
- Though he was just recently sent down, the Pittsburgh Penguins have recalled Dominik Simon from the minor leagues. To make room, the club has re-assigned Casey DeSmith, Andrey Pedan and Garrett Wilson. That could mean good news on the injury front, but we’ll likely have to wait until tomorrow’s morning skate to confirm any returns.
- The Florida Panthers have recalled Maxim Mamin from the minor leagues, giving the 22-year old forward a promotion for his solid play in the AHL this year. Mamin has 15 points in 23 games as a rookie for Springfield, after coming over from the KHL this season.
- The New York Islanders have sent both Anthony Beauvillier and Steve Bernier to the minor leagues, while recalling Tanner Fritz from the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. Fritz has never played in an NHL game, but is having quite the season with 35 points in 29 AHL games.
- Peter Cehlarik has been sent to the AHL now that he’s healthy and ready to play again, as the Boston Bruins don’t want to mix things up. The team is on a long hot streak and seem to have found a good recipe up front. Cehlarik, who has played in just five games for the Bruins this season, will head back to the minor leagues where he’s been extremely effective since coming over from Sweden.
- The Colorado Avalanche have called up A.J. Greer from the AHL’s San Antonio Rampage. With Sven Andrighetto day-to-day with a minor injury, Greer provides another option if he is unable to go. Greer, the Avs’ 2015 second-rounder, has just one point in six games with Colorado in 2017-18, but has ten in sixteen with San Antonio, on pace to set a new career-high in points in his second pro season. It may only be a matter of time before the power forward is a regular in Denver, with this promotion his newest opportunity to make his case.
2017 NHL Free Agency Tracker
Stay with PHR for all of the free agency signings this off-season. As of noon ET on July 1st, unrestricted free agency is open, but not before many extensions earlier in June. This page serves to organize everything in one spot, and are linked to the PHR story that corresponds with the signing. All July signings will be separated by date while June signings are organized alphabetically by team. It will be updated as soon as stories post.
Please note that signings on this list start on June 12.
July 1st:
- Anaheim re-signs Cam Fowler (8 years/$52MM)
- Anaheim signs Ryan Miller (2 years/$4MM)
- Arizona signs Adam Clendening (1 year/$650K)
- Boston signs Paul Postma (1 year/$725K)
- Buffalo signs Benoit Pouliot (1 year/$1.15MM)
- Buffalo signs Chad Johnson (1 year/$2.5MM)
- Carolina signs Justin Williams (2 years/$9MM)
- Chicago signs Patrick Sharp (1 year/$1MM)
- Chicago signs J-F Berube (2 years/$3MM)
- Chicago signs Jordan Oesterle (2 years/$1.3MM)
- Colorado signs Jonathan Bernier (1 year/$2.75MM)
- Dallas signs Martin Hanzal (3 years/$14.25MM)
- Dallas signs Tyler Pitlick (3 years/$3MM)
- Detroit signs Trevor Daley (3 years/$9.534MM)
- Florida signs Radim Vrbata (1 year/$2.5MM)
- Los Angeles signs Mike Cammalleri (1 year)
- Los Angeles signs Cal Petersen ( 2 year ELC)
- Los Angeles signs Christian Folin (1 year/$850K)
- Minnesota signs Ryan Murphy (1 year/$700k)
- Minnesota signs Landon Ferraro (2 years/$1.4MM)
- Minnesota signs Kyle Quincey (1 year/$1.25MM)
- Minnesota signs Cal O’Reilly (2 years/$1.4MM)
- Montreal signs Kyle Alzner (5 years/$22.5MM)
- Montreal signs Byron Froese
- Montreal signs Peter Holland
- Nashville signs Nick Bonino (4 years)
- Nashville signs Scott Hartnell (1 year/$1MM)
- Nashville signs Anders Lindback (1 year/$650K)
- Nashville signs Matt O’Connor (1 year/$650K)
- New Jersey signs Brian Boyle (2 years/$5.1MM)
- NY Rangers sign Ondrej Pavelec (1 year/$1.3MM)
- NY Rangers sign Kevin Shattenkirk (4 year/$26.6MM)
- Ottawa signs Nate Thompson (2 years/$3.3MM)
- Philadelphia re-signs Mike Vecchione (2 years/$1.88MM)
- Pittsburgh signs Antti Niemi (1 year/$700K)
- Pittsburgh signs Matt Hunwick (3 years/$6.75MM
- San Jose re-signs Martin Jones (6 years/$34.5MM)
- San Jose re-signs Marc-Edouard Vlasic (8 years/$56MM)
- San Jose re-signs Joe Thornton
- St. Louis signs Beau Bennett (1 year/$650K)
- St. Louis signs Chris Thorburn (2 years/$1.88MM)
- St. Louis re-signs Oskar Sundqvist (1 year/$650K)
- Tampa Bay signs Dan Girardi (2 years/$6MM)
- Toronto signs Ron Hainsey (2 years/$3.25MM)
- Toronto signs Curtis McElhinney (1 year/$850K)
- Toronto signs Dominic Moore (1 year/$1MM)
- Toronto signs Garret Sparks
- Winnipeg signs Dmitri Kulikov (3 years/$13MM)
- Winnipeg signs Steve Mason (2 years/$8.2MM)
- Vancouver signs Sam Gagner (3 years/$9.45MM)
- Vancouver signs Michael Del Zotto (2 years/$6MM)
- Vancouver signs Anders Nilsson (2 years/$5MM)
Colorado Avalanche Sign Sven Andrighetto To Two-Year Deal
The Colorado Avalanche have re-signed one of their trade deadline acquisitions, inking Sven Andrighetto to a two-year contract. The deal will pay him an average of $1.4MM.
Andrighetto came over in the deal for Andreas Martinsen (who has since re-upped in Montreal) and had quite an impact in Colorado down the stretch. Scoring 15 points in 19 games, he showed some of the offensive chops that made him a third-round pick in 2013.
While the undersized winger isn’t exactly a star, he should provide some good value for a rebuilding club like Colorado and perhaps even be trade bait for the club at the deadline. If they can turn his early success into a big season, teams may view him as a mid-season option to add offense. This is a very low-risk move for the Avalanche, who have very little to play for next season.
Trade Deadline Summary: Winners & Losers Of The Atlantic Division
The NHL Trade Deadline has come and gone, and while it wasn’t the most exciting deadline day in recent memory, there were quite a few notable moves. Here are the winners and losers of the neck-and-neck Atlantic Division:
Winners
Boston Bruins:
- Acquired Drew Stafford from Winnipeg Jets for conditional 2017 sixth-round pick
GM Don Sweeney did not want a repeat of 2016, when he gave up second, third, fourth, and fifth-round picks for Lee Stempniak and John-Michael Liles, only for the team to miss the playoffs. In 2017, he succeeded in bringing in a reliable depth player and goal-scorer, Stafford, without having to pay the price of a top pick or any of Boston’s numerous high-end prospects. Sweeney deserves credit for not panicking when his divisional rivals all began making multiple moves, holding to his word of not overpaying and eventually getting a last-minute deal done at a bargain price for a good player.
Detroit Red Wings:
- Acquired 2017 third-round pick from Chicago Blackhawks for Tomas Jurco
- Acquired 2017 third-round pick and 2018 second-round pick from New York Rangers for Brendan Smith
- Acquired 2018 sixth-round pick from Montreal Canadiens for Steve Ott
- Acquired 2017 third-round pick and Dylan McIlrath from Florida Panthers for Thomas Vanek
As hard as it is to imagine, the Red Wings are going to miss the playoffs and were in a complete fire sale at the deadline. For as long as it has been since they were in such a position, the team did pretty well. GM Ken Holland may have been able to get a better deal for Vanek earlier in the season, but getting two high picks for Smith and anything at all for Ott was nice maneuvering. The Red Wings in essence added five picks for four players that were unlikely to be on the team in 2017-18 anyway. Could they have dealt Riley Sheahan and Drew Miller too? Possibly, but they did enough as is.
Colorado Trades Martinsen To Montreal For Andrighetto
The Colorado Avalanche have been surprisingly quiet at the deadline for the league’s worst team, but they’ve jumped into yet another deal by swapping young forwards with the highly-active Montreal Canadiens, sending Andreas Martinsen to the Habs in exchange for Sven Andrighetto.
Martinsen is the fifth new player that the Canadiens have added at the deadline, and continues their trend of getting bigger and tougher. The 6’3″, 220-lb. Norwegian winger played only limited minutes for the Avs and has just seven points in 55 games. However, Martinsen is a heavy hitter and plays in well to new head coach Claude Julien‘s system of strong, two-way play.
Colorado took a long look at Andrighetto when he was on waivers earlier this season, and clearly decided they wanted to pull the trigger on acquiring the speedy Swiss forward. Andrighetto had 17 points in 44 games last season with Montreal but, instead of a promotion, he has instead seem less time and production in 2016-17. The Avalanche will provide some much-needed new opportunity for Andrighetto to show he belongs in the NHL.
Canadiens Recall Andrighetto
The Montreal Canadiens have recalled forward Sven Andrighetto from St. John’s of the AHL in advance of their game Wednesday night in Tampa Bay, according to Amanda Stein of TSN 690 via Twitter. Stein notes that the team returns to practice tomorrow and recalling the Swiss forward this evening permits him to skate with the club before the game.
Andrighetto has spent much of the season bouncing back-and-forth between Montreal and St. John’s. He’s appeared in eight NHL games this season and has recorded two assists. For his career the 23-year-old forward has registered nine goals and collected 13 assists in 64 contests.
The recall of Andrighetto suggests that Andrew Shaw, out since December 12th due to a concussion, is not ready to return to the Habs lineup quite yet. Andrighetto’s addition to the roster gives the Canadiens 13 healthy forwards, not counting Shaw of course.
The Canadiens are likely anxious to get Shaw back into the lineup. Montreal is 2 – 3 since Shaw went on IR and the team has also had to make do without their top center, Alex Galchenyuk, who has been out of action the last three weeks with a knee injury. Despite missing the last nine contest, Galchenyuk remains the team’s third leading scorer with 23 points on the season.
Injury Updates: Hertl, Zibanejad, Senators, Canadiens, Green
San Jose Sharks center Tomas Hertl is making progress in his rehab from knee surgery back in mid-November but there remains no timetable for him to even return to practice, reports CSN Bay Area’s Kevin Kurz. Kurz speculates that sometime after the All-Star Break (January 27-29) could be the target for him to get back into the lineup.
Last month, GM Doug Wilson told reporters that Hertl was likely to miss weeks rather than months but considering it has been over a month since the surgery was performed back on November 18th, that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Hertl was off to a strong start to the season before undergoing the operation with nine points (4-5-9) in 17 games while averaging a career high 16:28 per game. That came off the heels of a career 2015-16 campaign that saw him pick up 46 points (21-25-46) in 81 games while chipping in with 11 points (6-5-11) in 20 postseason contests.
While his slower recovery isn’t ideal, it should be worth it for San Jose if the procedure stabilizes the knee so that minor collisions no longer cause issues as they have in the past, including an injury in the Stanley Cup Final back in June.
More injury updates:
- New York Rangers center Mika Zibanejad is around the midway point of his recovery from a broken fibula, writes Matt Calamia on their official team site. He is no longer in a walking boot or on crutches and was on the ice shooting pucks today (although he didn’t have skates on). Zibanejad, who last played November 20th, has 15 points in 19 games for New York so far this season.
- Ottawa Senators goaltender Andrew Hammond is listed as week-to-week with an ankle injury, the team announced via Twitter. He has seen action in just three NHL games so far this season because of injuries and the fact he cleared waivers last month. Prospect Matt O’Connor will serve as the backup in his absence or until Craig Anderson returns from his leave of absence. Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun suggests that Hammond could be out for months with the issue being a high ankle sprain which are notoriously slow to recover from.
- Still from Garrioch, Senators winger Clarke MacArthur has backed off his targeted return date of January 7th. Fortunately for the team, this isn’t due to a setback but simply due to the fact that he won’t be able to get the final test needed for clearance until after the holiday break instead of before as was originally anticipated. He has yet to play this season due to a concussion sustained in training camp.
- Montreal Canadiens right winger Sven Andrighetto has recovered from his upper body injury that caused him to miss the last two games and has been assigned to their AHL affiliate in St. John’s, per a team announcement on Twitter. After being a regular in the second half of last season, the Swiss forward hasn’t made much of an impact with Montreal this year with just two assists in eight games and cleared waivers back in October.
- The Canadiens also officially placed injured defenseman Andrei Markov on injured reserve, reports Renaud Lavoie of TVASports. Markov was injured in Saturday’s game against the Washington Capitals, and the coaching staff expressed that the injury—described as a lower body injury—was nothing major. Markov is having a stellar year so far, posting 2G and 19A in 31 games for the surging Canadiens.
- Detroit Red Wings blueliner Mike Green will not be available for tomorrow’s game against Florida, head coach Jeff Blashill told reports, including Ted Kulfan of the Detroit News (Twitter link). This will be the second straight game that he will miss. Green is Detroit’s leading point getter on the blueline this year with seven goals and 11 assists in 32 games and ranks second to only Henrik Zetterberg in team scoring.
Minor Transactions: 12/13/16
Here are today’s minor roster moves:
- With Peter Holland and Josh Jooris being added to the roster in recent days, the Coyotes had to make a roster move to get back to 23 players. They announced that they have assigned center Laurent Dauphin to Tucson of the AHL. Dauphin has three points (2-1-3) in 20 games with Arizona this season and has a goal in his lone minor league appearance as well.
- The Canadiens announced that they have assigned right winger Sven Andrighetto and defenseman Mark Barberio to their AHL affiliate in St. John’s. Both players were recalled last week; Andrighetto had a pair of assists in three games after getting called while Barberio was a healthy scratch. Montreal is now carrying only 18 skaters on their active roster but are off until Friday so they will save a bit of salary cap space with these moves before bringing them or other players back up later in the week.
- The Wild have recalled right winger Teemu Pulkkinen from AHL Iowa, per a team release. Minnesota claimed him off waivers from Detroit in October but struggled with just one goals in eight games and eventually cleared waivers to be sent to the minors. He has fared better at the minor league level with 15 points in 15 games and was the AHL’s Player of the Week two weeks ago.
- Islanders defenseman Scott Mayfield has been sent back to Bridgeport of the AHL, the team announced (Twitter link). The 24 year old has made the most of limited ice time with New York, picking up a goal and two assists in just three games while averaging under 12 minutes per game. He has that same statline in 14 games with the AHL’s Sound Tigers.