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Taylor Hall Undergoes Knee Surgery

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The New Jersey Devils have officially announced that Taylor Hall underwent arthroscopic knee surgery this week, and will begin rehab immediately. Hall’s recovery timeline has not been announced, as it depends on how he responds to rehab in the coming days and weeks.

It’s not clear if Hall will be ready to play again this season, but at this point you couldn’t blame the Devils for shutting him down entirely. The team is well out of the playoff race and will be competing once again for the right to draft first overall in June. Hall’s presence would hurt those chances and while no team is actually hoping for losses, if there is any slight risk of re-injury there seems little point to risk his health.

The reigning Hart Trophy winner went down to injury just before Christmas after scoring 37 pints in 33 games and hasn’t been able to get back into a game since. That means his season will likely finish as the lowest-scoring year of his career, and get him even closer to unrestricted free agency without anything to show for the Devils. Hall has just one season remaining on his current contract that carries a $6MM cap hit, which means he is eligible for an extension on July 1st. It’s not clear just how big of a raise he’ll be looking for, but after scoring 130 points in his last 99 games his average annual value could approach eight digits.

Metropolitan Notes: Panarin, Hall, Blackwood, Pionk, Hayes

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Despite rumors that he might want to sign with the New York Rangers and talk that he loves playing in Columbus, it looks like Columbus Blue Jackets winger Artemi Panarin still hasn’t started negotiating with Columbus. In fact, Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reports that the agent for Panarin, Dan Milstein said he wants another meeting with his client before he lets Columbus know whether he’s willing to negotiate a contract extension with the Blue Jackets.

Milstein and Panarin met in Miami over the weekend, but Portzline writes that the two will need a second meeting to discuss their what their next step will be. Panarin, who will be an unrestricted free agent this summer, has been unwilling to sign an extension in Columbus with rumors that he wants to move to a city that can give him more exposure. However, Panarin has fit in well with Columbus and has said that he enjoys playing there.

The 27-year-old would be one of the most intriguing free-agent options if he chooses to test the open market as he’s having another strong year with 19 goals and 53 points in 46 games and could even break some of his career-highs if he can keep those numbers up. Even if Panarin opts not to negotiate a deal with Columbus, the rumor is that the Blue Jackets would keep him for their playoff run this year. Columbus is currently in third place in the Metropolitan Division with 59 points.

  • NHL.com’s Amanda Stein reports that star forward Taylor Hall practiced on his own today, but it looks unlikely he will join the team on their road trip to face Pittsburgh on Monday. Hall has been out since Dec. 23 with a lower-body injury and missed the All-Star game because of it. However, the team was hoping the Hart Trophy winner would be ready after the break, which he apparently isn’t. Stein adds that head coach John Hynes said that Hall is progressing, but isn’t healing as quickly as originally thought.
  • The New Jersey Devils also made several roster moves today, but didn’t recall goaltender MacKenzie Blackwood. NHL.com’s Amanda Stein reports that the Devils had already decided to go with Keith Kinkaid in goal on Monday. So New Jersey decided to recall Cam Johnson instead, so Blackwood could play in the AHL All-Star Game. The team didn’t want Blackwood to miss the opportunity while sitting on the bench as the team’s backup.
  • While the New York Rangers recalled goaltender Alexandar Georgiev and forward Boo Nieves from Hartford earlier today, it’s been noted that the team didn’t bring back defenseman Ryan Lindgren, but much of that could be because defenseman Neal Pionk might be ready to return to the lineup. Pionk has missed the last three games with a lower-body injury, but the 23-year-old was practicing today with the team along with Kevin Hayes, according to New York Post’s Larry Brooks. Hayes has been out since Jan. 2.

New York Rangers Almost Traded Ryan McDonagh To Edmonton In 2016

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In his most recent 31 Thoughts column earlier this week, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman mentioned that now-former Edmonton Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli was close to making a blockbuster trade back in 2016, just days before he traded Taylor Hall to New Jersey for Adam Larsson. Friedman, however, had no knowledge of the details of that blockbuster. However, New York Post’s Larry Brooks got a confirmation from multiple sources that the trade would have been with the New York Rangers.

Brooks reports that just before pulling the trigger on the Hall-Larsson deal, Chiarelli was close to a deal that would have sent the 2016 fourth-overall pick (used to take Jesse Puljujarvi) to the Rangers for defenseman Ryan McDonagh. The belief is that New York was interested in drafting Clayton Keller of the U.S. National Development Team with the fourth pick to begin the rebuild process then. Brooks adds there were other pieces to the deal, but points out that after the team’s first-round exit to Pittsburgh that year, the team felt it needed to re-tool their team with McDonagh being the most marketable player on the Rangers at the time.

Instead, Chiarelli turned the deal down, took Puljujarvi and sent Hall to New Jersey for Larsson, while the Rangers instead packaged Derick Brassard to Ottawa in a deal to get Mika Zibanejad. The team did discuss McDonagh with other teams at that time, including a deal with Colorado for either Nathan MacKinnon or Gabriel Landeskog, but the Avalanche weren’t that high on McDonagh’s value.

Considering how Puljujarvi has turned out in Edmonton thus far and how successful Hall has been since leaving the Oilers, the trade could have altered the outcome for Edmonton as well as Chiarelli, as McDonagh could have helped stabilize the team’s defense. However, there is no guarantee that Chiarelli still wouldn’t have moved Hall later on anyway.

Of course, the Rangers team may look quite a bit different with Keller on their team now as the 20-year-old put up a 23-goal, 65-point campaign in his rookie season last year and currently has 11 goals and 35 points this year and would have been a great piece to build around. Instead the franchise held onto McDonagh until last year’s trade deadline when they sent him and J.T. Miller to Tampa Bay in exchange for Vladislav Namestnikov, propects Libor Hajek and Brett Howden as well as a 2018 first-round pick (Nils Lundqvist) and a conditional 2019 second-rounder.

 

Kyle Palmieri Named All-Star Replacement For Taylor Hall

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When reigning MVP Taylor Hall was named an All-Star earlier this month despite being sidelined with a lower-body injury, it always looked like a long-shot that he would even be back in the New Jersey Devils’ lineup by All-Star weekend, nevertheless willing to participate in the exhibition event. That prediction has come to fruition, as Hall has officially backed out of All-Star participation. Fortunately, the Devils will be well-represented anyway. Kyle Palmieri, enjoying a career season, has been named Hall’s replacement on the Metropolitan Division squad, New Jersey announced.

Palmieri, 27, is making his first All-Star appearance in his ninth NHL season. It also happens to be the best season of his career to date. Palmieri has already registered 22 goals and 38 points in 47 games, putting him on pace for 38 goals and 66 points, both of which would shatter his previous career highs. Palmieri leads the Devils in goals, points, power play production, and shots in what has been an offensively dominant campaign. More than any season before, Palmieri deserves the All-Star nod and will be a fitting addition to the festivities.

Palmieri’s success – and now league-wide recognition – is also why he is considered an untouchable asset for the struggling Devils. New Jersey has fallen short of expectations this season just one year after a surprise run to the postseason, but Palmieri has been one of the lone highlights. Although his trade value has never been higher, the Devils are reportedly not willing to consider offers in the days leading up to the NHL Trade Deadline that revolve around Palmieri, who has two years remaining on his contract at a bargain $4.65MM if he keeps up this level of production. Many other pieces could be moved by New Jersey in the coming weeks, but their 2019 All-Star is here to stay.

2019 All-Star Rosters Announced

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The NHL has announced the four rosters for the 2019 All-Star Game today, scheduled to be held on January 26th in San Jose. Earlier today, Alex Ovechkin, who was elected captain of Metropolitan Division squad, told the league that he wouldn’t be attending and will accept the punishment of missing one game either before or after the break. Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, and Auston Matthews will represent the Pacific, Central and Atlantic respectively, as the other captains. A replacement Metropolitan captain for Ovechkin has yet to be named.

The full rosters are as follows:

Pacific Division

G John Gibson (ANA)
G Marc-Andre Fleury (VGK)

D Erik Karlsson (SJS)
D Brent Burns (SJS)
D Drew Doughty (LAK)

F Connor McDavid (EDM)*
F Johnny Gaudreau (CGY)
F Joe Pavelski (SJS)
F Elias Pettersson (VAN)
F Clayton Keller (ARI)

Central Division

G Pekka Rinne (NSH)
G Devan Dubnyk (MIN)

D Roman Josi (NSH)
D Miro Heiskanen (DAL)

F Nathan MacKinnon (COL)*
F Mikko Rantanen (COL)
F Blake Wheeler (WPG)
F Patrick Kane (CHI)
F Mark Scheifele (WPG)
F Ryan O’Reilly (STL)

Atlantic Division

G Jimmy Howard (DET)
G Carey Price (MTL)

D Keith Yandle (FLA)
D Thomas Chabot (OTT)

F Auston Matthews (TOR)*
F Nikita Kucherov (TBL)
F Steven Stamkos (TBL)
F John Tavares (TOR)
F David Pastrnak (BOS)
F Jack Eichel (BUF)

Metropolitan Division

G Henrik Lundqvist (NYR)
G Braden Holtby (WAS)

D John Carlson (WSH)
D Seth Jones (CBJ)

F Sidney Crosby (PIT)
F Taylor Hall (NJD)
F Mathew Barzal (NYI)
F Claude Giroux (PHI)
F Cam Atkinson (CBJ)
F Sebastian Aho (CAR)

*Denotes team captain

One final skater spot on each roster has yet to be announced, as it will be determined by the “Last Man In” fan ballot, a concept borrowed from Major League Baseball. The format of the current All-Star Game, which requires one representative from each team on these smaller 3-on-tournament rosters, was bound to cause some confusion with the initial selections. Seven top-twenty scorers were not selected – Mitch Marner, Brayden Point, Leon Draisaitl, Sean Monahan, Matthew Tkachuk, Phil Kessel, and Gabriel Landeskog – and several will inevitably remain out of All-Star participation even after the fan ballot additions. Morgan Rielly, the league’s top-scoring defenseman, and Mark Giordano, enjoying an elite season on both sides of the puck, are two surprising omissions on the blue line. Several of the league’s top goalies are also going to miss out, ineligible for the fan ballot, including Ben Bishop, Frederik Andersen, and Andrei Vasilevskiy. The “Last Man In” will be an intriguing new addition to the All-Star process, with nominees to be named shortly, but more than a few notable names will be left out regardless. Meanwhile, the health of players like Price and Chabot for Team Atlantic and Hall for Team Metropolitan will bear watching, as those players may opt to skip the All-Star festivities, opening up more players to selection.

New Jersey Devils Place Taylor Hall On Injured Reserve

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The New Jersey Devils announced that they have placed Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall on injured reserve with a lower-body injury, retroactive to Dec. 23, meaning the forward can be activated at any time.

While Hall still leads the Devils in points scored, he isn’t having the immense season he had a season ago when he accumulated 39 goals and 93 points. Through 33 games, Hall has 11 goals and 37 points. He wasn’t even missed much in the past three games as the team won all three on the strong goaltending of rookie MacKenzie Blackwood.

Hall last played on Dec. 23 and has since missed three games with that lower-body injury. NJ.com’s Chris Ryan writes that even though he can be activated at any time, he did not accompany the team on their four-game roadtrip that starts Wednesday in Dallas. However, Hall could meet up with the team when he is ready to return to action. In the meantime, the Devils have recalled defenseman Egor Yakovlev and forward Blake Pietila from the Binghamton Devils of the AHL, to join the team on the roadtrip.

The 27-year-old Yakovlev has already played 11 games for New Jersey, posting four points. A free-agent signing out of the KHL this summer, Yakovlev has provided solid insurance depth for the franchise. The 25-year-old Pietila has not made an appearance with New Jersey this season, but has appeared in 19 games over the last four years. He has been playing well with Binghamton with 12 goals and 22 points in 34 games.

 

 

Pacific Notes: Chiarelli, Haula, Tanev

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The Edmonton Oilers have been a team that has languished in mediocrity the last couple of years until the team fired head coach Doug McLellan and replaced him with Ken Hitchock. Since then the team seems almost unbeatable as the Oilers have produced a 9-2-2 record under the veteran head coach. Much of that credit might fall to general manager Peter Chiarelli.

With the sudden success of the team, The Athletic’s Daniel Nugent-Bowman (subcription required) interviewed Oilers’ CEO and vice-chair of Oilers Entertainment Group Bob Nicholson, who stated emphatically that if Edmonton makes the playoffs, Chiarelli’s job is safe.

“Yeah. There’s no question,” Nicholson. “I think there’s a lot of things that Peter hasn’t gotten credit for. He’s really started to build. You’re starting to see some of them come up now with the [Caleb] Joneses and the [Evan] Bouchards. We have a lot of assets, which this organization hadn’t had for a while. Peter deserves a lot of credit for that.”

Chiarelli has been highly criticized over the years after being hired in 2015, which included trading No. 1 overall pick Taylor Hall to New Jersey for defenseman Adam Larsson. He also made a few questionable acquisitions, including signing Milan Lucic to a seven-year, $42MM deal, which already looks like an albatross of a contract as there are still five years remaining, while Lucic is playing more of a bottom-six role for the team. Chiarelli also traded the team’s first and second-round picks to the New York Islanders for defenseman Griffin Reinhart, who played just 29 NHL games and is mired in the AHL for the Vegas Golden Knights. That first-round pick turned out to be Mathew Barzal.

However, the addition of Hitchcock and the signing of goaltender Mikko Koskinen have looked like solid moves this season. If the Oilers can continue on their torrid pace, Chiarelli may have done enough to stay on for a while longer.

  • While Vegas Golden Knights’ Erik Haula was listed as “month-to-month” a month ago, Las Vegas Review-Journal’s David Schoen reports that general manager George McPhee admitted that Haula actually had surgery in November after suffering the lower-body injury after being driven into the boards by Toronto Maple Leafs’ Patrick Marleau on Nov. 6. “He did have surgery,” McPhee said, who added that the injury was not an ACL injury. “It’s a unique injury.” McPhee has no timetable on Haula’s injury and wouldn’t even speculate as to whether last year’s 30-goal scorer would return for the regular season or even the playoffs. “It’s really hard to know,” McPhee said. “It’s going to be some months, but we don’t know because it’s just such a different injury than any of us have seen before.”
  • It’s possible that the Vancouver Canucks have waited too long to move defenseman Chris Tanev as a trade chip. According to Harman Dayal in The Athletic (subscription required), Tanev’s value has fallen quite a bit in the last few weeks and may not be a tradeable asset anymore. It’s believed that his inability to stay healthy is one problem and even though Tanev has played in 29 games this year, there are rumors that he’s hurt now and isn’t playing at his usual level of play. Whether his underwhelming play is a result of playing injured or rapidly declining play, it’s unlikely that Tanev could bring in anything back in value at the moment.

Calgary Flames Hesitant To Move Sam Bennett Despite Interest

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Through four games this season, young Calgary Flames forward Sam Bennett has just one point. He has yet to score a goal and has taken just six shots. He is seeing just over ten minutes of ice time per game, down more than four minutes from his career average. Bennett is currently on pace for just over 20 points on the year. It seems like a disappointing start and perhaps just an aberration for the 2014 fourth overall pick. In reality, it is par for the course for the 22-year-old forward. Since his strong 36-point rookie campaign in 2015-16, Bennett has failed to improve his production and has seen less and less ice time. This is simply a continuation of the trend.

To say that Bennett has failed to live up to the expectations of his lofty draft position would be to understate the issue. Drafted ahead of the likes of William Nylander, Nikolaj Ehlers, Dylan Larkin, and David Pastrnak in 2014, the Flames certainly expected far more out of Bennett thus far. His overall production is decreasing, he has never cracked 20 goals or 20 assists in a season, and a center when drafted now plays almost exclusively on the wing. Bennett has simply not at all been what the Flames thought they were getting at fourth overall. Meanwhile, the team is without a playoff win in the three years since Bennett became a regular and patience is running out in Calgary. Bennett has shown flashes of immense ability, but has lacked consistency and, more than anything, has been a poor fit in the Flames’ system. With the hire of new head coach Bill Peters, many expected a turnaround from Bennett this year, but it has been far from it so far. It would seem that Bennett’s time in Calgary is almost up, right?

Wrong, in fact. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman led off his latest edition of “31 Thoughts” by acknowledging the trade interest in Bennett, but doubting that GM Brad Treliving and the Flames were ready to move on. Calgary is wary of trading Bennett while his value is at its lowest to a team seeking to buy low on the talented forward and finally find a way to get the most out of his ability. Friedman expanded on his comments with Sportsnet Radio 960 in Calgary, stating that the Flames appear to be obsessed with avoiding the mistake that provincial rivals the Edmonton Oilers made in trading away Taylor Hall at well below his true value. Hall was also struggling to meet the expectations of his draft slot, first overall in 2010, and it was compounded by the team’s struggles as well. Hall was traded to the New Jersey Devils for Adam Larsson and is now the reigning Hart Trophy winner and a top ten forward in the league. The Flames could certainly use a Larsson-caliber piece in their pursuit of a playoff berth this season, but not at the cost of losing a player that they still believe has untapped potential.

That is not to say that the team hasn’t considered offers, though. Friedman states that, while no deal was ever close, Calgary went “far down the road” in trade talks with several teams. Friedman specifically names the Anaheim Ducks, Montreal Canadiens, Philadelphia Flyers, and Tampa Bay Lightning as teams that he knows have had interest in Bennett before and, especially in the case of Anaheim and Montreal, likely continue to. The fact that Bennett is perceived as being available via trade would seem to indicate that the Flames continue to field offers for the young forward, even if they aren’t actively selling. While Friedman doesn’t see it happening, Bennett’s play so far this year is trending towards 2018-19 being a new career low. With a year remaining on his contract beyond this season, giving a new team the time to attempt to turn his development around, a poor season for Bennett could see Calgary finally give up on their once-top prospect. It’s fair to want to avoid giving up on potential, particularly for a disappointing return, but a point is fast approaching when Bennett can no longer be seriously compared to a player like Hall.

New Jersey Devils Slowly Developing A Contender

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The NHL offseason usually revolves around the salary cap. Teams struggle to fit in as much talent as possible under a fixed ceiling, and are hindered in trade negotiations because of their limited cap space. The Edmonton Oilers for instance have done little this summer despite a desperate need to return to the playoffs, strangled by their expensive long-term contracts. Few teams in the league find themselves as unencumbered as the New Jersey Devils do currently, with less than $60MM in cap commitments for this season and only two players under contract for more than three years.

Even with the most cap space in the league the Devils haven’t done much to improve their team this summer, instead deciding to take an extremely slow approach to developing a contender. Amazingly, it could pay off sooner than later. New Jersey returned to the playoffs last season on the back of a Hart Trophy-winning year from Taylor Hall and solid debuts from several of their young players. Will Butcher jumped from winning the Hobey Baker award as the best college player in the country to quarterbacking an NHL powerplay, and finished his rookie season with 44 points. That put him 20th in the league among defensemen, ahead of star players like Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Aaron Ekblad and Zach Werenski. While there are other flaws in Butcher’s game, the Devils used him perfectly in a role that was best suited to take advantage of his talents.

Jesper Bratt started the year off on fire with 12 points in his first 13 games, and finished the year with a solid rookie total of 35 points. After turning 20 just a week ago, Bratt will be relied on as a key piece for years in New Jersey, despite his sixth-round draft pedigree. At the other end of the spectrum was Nico Hischier, who put up 52 points after being selected first overall and took over the team’s first-line center duty by the end of the year. The teenaged Hischier looks like he could be a Selke candidate in the future, along with having big offensive potential.

While Hall has just two years remaining on his modest six-year, $36MM contract the team seems in no rush to surround him with expensive free agent talent in order to take advantage of his bargain price. Instead, seeing as they’re already a playoff-caliber team, they will wait for their internal talent to blossom before eventually sitting down with Hall for a long-term extension. Hischier, Bratt, Pavel Zacha and others will mature on the roster while prospects like John Quenneville, Michael McLeod, Ty Smith and Jesper Boqvist will fight to secure jobs on it. Unlike Edmonton, who is fighting to improve the roster without any flexibility, New Jersey finds themselves in a position to wait for the right moment.

At the trade deadline last season, the Devils rewarded the solid play of their young team by adding Michael Grabner and Patrick Maroon for a playoff run. The team gave up relatively little in future assets—a pair of draft picks and two unsigned prospects—to try and make a bit more noise in the postseason. Though they wouldn’t find much success against the Tampa Bay Lightning, they would gain some good experience for the future. Even Hall, who will turn 27 this November, had never reached the postseason before last year. You can bet they will be interested in doing something similar should they find themselves in a playoff hunt again this year, given their ample cap space.

The other consideration is the expected free agent class of 2019, which should include several (if not many) star-level players. GM Ray Shero already admitted that he pursued James van Riemsdyk this summer before the price got too high, but perhaps that threshold would raise when dealing with someone like Tyler Seguin or Artemi Panarin. Both are still scheduled to become unrestricted free agents next summer, along with names like Erik Karlsson, Mark Stone, Matt Duchene, Jordan Eberle, Jeff Skinner, Blake Wheeler, Joe Pavelski, Max Pacioretty, and dozens more. While many of those players will be re-signed before New Jersey ever gets a chance at them, they might find themselves in a situation where they can outbid basically any other team in the league for whoever is left.

Snapshots: Offer Sheets, Hall, O’Gara

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With a limited pool of quality unrestricted free agents this year and quite a few impressive names among restricted free agents available, one has to wonder whether this might be the year that a team makes an attempt to pry away one of them with an offer sheet.

Sure, no team has used an offer sheet since 2013 when the Calgary Flames attempted to sign center Ryan O’Reilly away from the Colorado Avalanche. It didn’t work and since then, there hasn’t been one. Yet with names like Noah Hanifin, Dylan Larkin and William Nylander still available, you would think a team might attempt to go the offer-sheet route.

However, Craig Custance of The Athletic (subscription required) writes that won’t be happening this year, if again. The scribe informally polled nine general managers, who all collectively said there would be no offer sheets handed out this summer. One reason is that general managers see it as a way to drive up salaries, which they don’t want, and since almost all offer sheets are matched, then what would be the point? Custance adds that the compensation for offer sheets must be changed, so teams might be more willing to let a player go.

  • Chris Ryan of nj.com analyzes the success of Hart Trophy winners the following year they won, as he wonders how New Jersey Devils Taylor Hall will respond next season after winning the Hart Trophy with a 39-goal and 93-point season. While most of the previous winners (going all the way back to the 2006 season) saw a decline in their play the following year, most of them still put up solid numbers and still were in the voting for the Hart Trophy the following year, even if they didn’t win it. Edmonton’s Connor McDavid finished fifth in the voting the following year, while 2016 Hart Trophy winner Patrick Kane finished sixth the next season.
  • Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic (subscription required) writes that former Boston Bruins defenseman Rob O’Gara, who was traded at the trade deadline to the New York Rangers as part of the Nick Holden trade felt the trade was bittersweet. The 25-year-old blueliner was still on his entry-level contract and had only played 11 NHL games before the trade, but the four-year Yale University product had already lost some faith in him. In a league where youth thrives, O’Gara had already run out of time as he failed to crack Boston’s rotation and was often passed over for promotion by younger defenseman. In New York, however, he got a legitimate chance to take on a more permanent role, as he played in 22 games, a role he hopes to hold onto this season.

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