Atlantic Notes: Red Wings, Green, Sabres, Canadiens, Miller
On top of being one of the teams that have shown interest in signing free agent winger Ilya Kovalchuk, the Red Wings also are interested in signing winger Thomas Vanek this summer, reports MLive’s Ansar Khan. Vanek spent most of the 2016-17 season with Detroit and fared quite well, recording 15 goals and 23 assists in 48 games before being shipped as a rental to Florida at the trade deadline. Vanek’s nomadic journey continued this past season and he could once again be in line for a one-year deal in free agency.
Khan adds that the Red Wings has their eyes set on a pair of goalies that are soon set to hit the open market in Carter Hutton (St. Louis) and Anton Khudobin (Boston). Both netminders have shown that they are capable of handling more than the typical workload for a backup goalie which will come in handy given incumbent Jimmy Howard’s up-and-down performance over the last few years.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic:
- In the same column, Khan provides the details for the contract offers that Detroit has on the table for pending UFA defenseman Mike Green. The Red Wings have pitched a one-year, $6MM offer which matches what he made in each of the past three years as well as a two-year, $10MM proposal. Green is slated to be one of the more prominent defenders on the open market this summer and is expected to be fully recovered from the cervical spine surgery he had back in April.
- Although there have been reports that the Sabres were expected to buy out winger Matt Moulson, Sabres GM Jason Botterill told Mike Harrington of The Buffalo News that the team does not have any interest in buying anyone out at the moment. Moulson has one year remaining on his contract with a $5MM cap hit and spent most of 2017-18 in the minors on loan to the Kings’ AHL affiliate in Ontario. While a buyout would save Buffalo some cap room this season compared to putting him in the minors, it would also create a cap charge of nearly $667K on their books for 2019-20. The Sabres have a lot of cap room at the moment so they may feel that they’re better off absorbing the higher cost for 2018-19 to get him off the books entirely instead of taking on the extra hit the following year.
- Speaking with reporters to discuss Friday’s trade, Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin stated (via Arpon Basu of The Athletic on Twitter) that they currently have no plans to buy anyone out. Montreal had several veterans that underachieved in 2017-18 but most are signed for at least the next two years which would make a buyout somewhat prohibitive long-term.
- Tampa Bay has yet to begin contract talks with pending RFA forward J.T. Miller, reports Joe Smith of The Athletic (Twitter link). Instead, it appears that discussions between the two sides will pick up at the draft. The 25-year-old has wrapped up his bridge contract, is coming off of a career season offensively, and has arbitration rights which put him in line for a sizable raise from the Lightning on the $2.75MM he made in each of the last two years.
Blue Jackets Unlikely To Add At Center This Summer
It was another strong regular season for the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2017-18. The team had its second-best finish with 97 points behind the strong efforts of all-world goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, blossoming young defensemen like Seth Jones and Zach Werenski, rookie forward Pierre-Luc Dubois and game-changing acquisition Artemi Panarin. Yet, the Jackets were again ousted in the first round and still have yet to advance past that stage of the postseason in their 17-year history. In evaluating what area Columbus needs to improve in next season, some will point to poor special teams or a lack of shots on net. However, the major issue this season was the center position, where everyone not named Dubois had a disappointing campaign. The scoring depth, defensive ability, and face-off success of the group was all lacking this year. Entering the off-season with more than $13MM in salary cap space, many think the Blue Jackets should make a competitive offer to John Tavares or even Paul Stastny or Tyler Bozak in an effort to solve their problems down the middle. As The Columbus Dispatch’s Steve Gorten describes, that is unlikely to be the case.
While on surface level Columbus seems to be in fine shape regarding the salary cap, Gorten feels that GM Jarmo Kekalainen needs to tread carefully when contemplating adding salary to the current roster. In the short term, the team already faces several free agency dilemmas. Restricted free agents Boone Jenner, Oliver Bjorkstrand, and Ryan Murray are in need of new contracts and the team is surely to be interested in retaining several impending unrestricted free agents such as Ian Cole, Matt Calvert, and possibly Thomas Vanek. The team’s long-term considerations are more pressing though; Columbus will need to pay Panarin, Werenski, and Bobrovsky after next season, all of whom will command significant contracts in both term and salary.
Given these spending limitations, both this year and in the future, signing a top free agent center is unlikely to be the right move for the Blue Jackets. Instead, Gorten suggests that Columbus stand pat and wait for their current centers to rebound from down seasons. 23-year-old Alexander Wennberg showed 60+ point potential last season, but injuries and long stretches of poor play kept him to just 35 points in 66 games this year, the first season of a six-year, $29.4MM deal. Health may be all it takes to get Wennberg back into that true #1 center range and the 2013 first-rounder may still make his contract look like a bargain and could even end up being a superior player to Dubois. For his part, Kekalainen has trust in the young forward, telling Gorten “I’m 100 percent confident with Wennberg that he’s going to have a great year next year.” What Kekalainen may be more focused on is improvement in the bottom-six, where the Jackets need a return to form from veteran Brandon Dubinsky. The 32-year-old is midway through a six-year, $35.MM deal but did not play to that level this season. Dubinsky was held to just 16 points in what was easily the worst season of his career. A buyout at this point in the contract would be very costly to Columbus, who are left to hope that he can bounce back. Gorten also suggests that the depth down the middle could be substantially bolstered by a prospects like Lukas Sedlak, Alexandre Texier, or Jonathan Davisson taking a step forward in their development, while there is also the off chance that the Jackets could land a potentially pro-ready pivot like Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Isac Lundestrom, or Barrett Hayton at pick #18 in the first round.
Even if all of that doesn’t work out, Columbus will also have options like Jenner and captain Nick Foligno, who they have hesitated to leave at center full-time, but are more than capable of playing the position if necessary. Rather than handcuff themselves with a free agent contract that could cause problems down the road, Gorten seems right in his take that hoping for the in-house options to step up their game seems to better suit the Blue Jackets this off-season.
Vancouver Canucks Will Not Re-Sign Jussi Jokinen
According to Rick Dhaliwal of News 1130, the Vancouver Canucks have informed Jussi Jokinen‘s agent that they will not be offering the pending free agent another contract. Jokinen is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent after being acquired by the Canucks as part of the Thomas Vanek deal earlier this year.
Unfortunately, it may be the end for Jokinen after playing on four different clubs last season. Though he did find some success at the end with Vancouver, he failed to accumulate 20 points for the first time in his career and couldn’t contribute in many of the ways he was known for in his youth. Now 35, Jokinen was once one of the more versatile forwards in the league, able to play all three positions and hit the ice on both special teams. Responsible in his own end and dangerous at the other, Jokinen was also a good playoff performer with 32 points in 54 games.
As for the Canucks’ other pending unrestricted free agents, Dhaliwal reports that they have not spoken to Nic Dowd yet and have told Darren Archibald he’ll have to wait until they deal with some of their restricted free agents. The Canucks have some big decisions to make with RFAs like Troy Stecher, Sven Baertschi, Jake Virtanen and Derrick Pouliot.
Thomas Vanek & The Offense-Only Perception
In a few months, some lucky team in the NHL will get the chance to sign a two-time 40-goal scorer coming off an excellent offensive season. He put up the third most points by any free agent forward despite making just $2MM this season. In his first taste of playoff action since 2015, he scored two points and helped his team to an overtime victory while playing 16:28. That team will likely get a chance to sign him to an extremely short-term deal with little risk involved. And then, going off of recent history, that team will say “no thanks” and pass.
That player is Thomas Vanek, who was bought out in June of 2016 because of a $6.5MM cap hit, and has been overlooked ever since. In the summer of 2016 Vanek was coming off his 11th consecutive 40+ point season, but ended up signing a one-year deal with the Detroit Red Wings for just $2.6MM. That was only $100K more than the salary handed to each of Matt Martin and Joe Colborne, who both signed for at least two seasons. It substantially shorter and cheaper than the deal Jamie McGinn signed, he of 167 career points and exactly zero 40+ point seasons (a mark he still has failed to eclipse). Darren Helm earned a five-year deal, each of which would pay him close to $4MM, after a 26-point season.
The problem with Vanek, as some would explain, was that he was a perimeter player. He didn’t play defense, work hard enough or contribute in different ways. He was one dimensional. Well, who among the group above is two dimensional? Those four combined for 38 points in 2016-17. Vanek scored 48 all by himself.
That’s right, his 12th straight 40+ season was to follow after his $2.6MM contract, even with a trade midseason to shake things up. Vanek would net the Detroit Red Wings a third-round pick at the deadline, a neat little asset for paying a relatively paltry sum.
But then, when free agency rolled around again in 2017 Vanek would have to wait. Even with his 48 points, and obvious skills on the powerplay and in the shootout, he would wait all the way until the Vancouver Canucks finally snatched him up in September. You’d think that proving himself still capable would improve the offers, but Vancouver would sign him for just $2MM this time around. The deal came with no performance bonuses, likely because who would doubt he’d hit them at this point.
Vanek once again was up to the task, and found instant chemistry with Canucks rookie phenom Brock Boeser. This time, he’d register 41 points by the time the trade deadline came around—his 13th consecutive 40+ if we’re still counting—and earning the Canucks a shiny young Tyler Motte. The now 34-year old Vanek would put up 15 points in 19 games for the Columbus Blue Jackets down the stretch, helping them secure their playoff position.
When this July rolls around, Vanek will be an unrestricted free agent once again. He’ll be entering the summer as the third-highest scoring free agent forward on the market, behind only John Tavares and David Perron—that’s right, ahead of players like Evander Kane, James van Riemsdyk, James Neal, and Paul Stastny—and he still might come with very little risk.
He’s obviously not a player that you’d hand out a long-term deal to, not anymore at least. But when one dimensional defense-only players are getting hefty contracts, teams need to start realizing that the opposite is also valuable. Even if he is a coach’s nightmare—which he’s never been described as by anyone other than outside observers—in the right situations he’s still extremely effective. Any team, even a rebuilding one, should be looking at him as an undervalued asset if his price remains low like the last two offseasons. You can bet there will be a team that wants him at the trade deadline again next year—especially if he’s in the midst of #14.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
Injury Notes: Penguins, Blue Jackets, Bruins
The Pittsburgh Penguins could be without rookie forward Zach Aston-Reese long-term. Actually, head coach Mike Sullivan described the injury as “longer-term”, though he refrained from putting any specific timeline on his return. He did say that Aston-Reese suffered an upper-body injury in practice, which is why he missed last night’s game, a 3-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils, and will presumably miss many more. While the Penguins made a splash with their acquisition of center Derick Brassard at the trade deadline, Aston-Reese has been a point-per-game player since being recalled to Pittsburgh, spending ample time beside Sidney Crosby. Fortunately for the two-time defending Cup champs, they are also deep at wing and should have no trouble making up for the loss of Aston-Reese in their top-nine.
- While the Penguins lose a man to injury, the rival Blue Jackets add one. Columbus announced today that captain Nick Foligno has been activated from injured reserve. Foligno missed more than a week with a lower body injury suffered against the Penguins back on the 18th. However, he’s returning to the lineup sooner than expected. The Blue Jackets are thankful for Foligno’s quick bounce back; not only are they looking to solidify their playoff position, but they also lost forward Josh Anderson to long-term injury recently. Fortunately, Foligno’s return and the additions of Thomas Vanek and Mark Letestu at the trade deadline make for a timely situation to replace Anderson.
- Speaking of trade deadline injury replacements, the Bruins could not be happier with how their additions played in the absence of Patrice Bergeron last night. When a player of Bergeron’s caliber goes down, the team always suffers. Bergeron will be out at least two weeks with a fractured foot and it showed right away last night on the defensive side of the match-up, as Boston surrendered three easy first period goals to the Carolina Hurricanes. However, it was Rick Nash and Tommy Wingels leading the charge to a comeback victory. The pair of new Bruins combined for two goals and an assist in 32 minutes of ice time as Boston won 4-3.
Trade Deadline Recap: Eastern Conference
After a month of lead up, a sprinkling of trades over the last week or so, and a wild deadline day today, NHL teams are done with transactions for the 2017-18 NHL season. Here are the deals that improved contenders in the Eastern Conference:
Deadline Day
Tampa Bay Lightning receive:
D Ryan McDonagh
F J.T. Miller
New York Rangers receive:
F Vladislav Namestnikov
F Brett Howden
D Libor Hajek
2018 first-round pick
Conditional 2019 second-round pick
Columbus Blue Jackets receive:
F Thomas Vanek
Vancouver Canucks receive:
F Tyler Motte
F Jussi Jokinen
Columbus Blue Jackets receive:
D Ian Cole
Ottawa Senators receive:
F Nick Moutrey
2020 third-round pick
New Jersey Devils receive:
F Patrick Maroon
Edmonton Oilers receive:
F J.D. Dudek
2019 third-round pick
New York Islanders receive:
F Chris Wagner
Anaheim Ducks receive:
F Jason Chimera
Boston Bruins receive:
F Tommy Wingels
Chicago Blackhawks receive:
Conditional 2019 fifth-round pick
Pittsburgh Penguins receive:
F Josh Jooris
Carolina Hurricanes receive:
F Greg McKegg
Columbus Blue Jackets Acquire Thomas Vanek From Vancouver Canucks
The Columbus Blue Jackets have continued to add, acquiring Thomas Vanek from the Vancouver Canucks according to Bob McKenzie of TSN. Vancouver will get Tyler Motte and Jussi Jokinen in return.
Vanek is the definition of a trade deadline rental, and will play for his eighth club in Columbus. Last season he brought the Detroit Red Wings a third-round pick, but Vancouver decided to target a young player instead.
In Motte, the Canucks receive a 22-year old center that was only acquired by Columbus last summer. Part of the Brandon Saad–Artemi Panarin trade, he looked like a player who could compete for a fourth-line spot and perhaps move up the lineup if his offensive potential started to show. The former Michigan Wolverine scored 32 goals in 38 games in his final NCAA season, but has just 12 points in 64 career NHL games.
Jokinen will be joining his fourth team of the season, and is just a body to even out some of the salary in the deal. After being bought out by the Florida Panthers last offseason, he signed a $1.1MM deal with Edmonton before being flipped for Mike Cammalleri early in the year. He was then claimed off waivers by the Blue Jackets, and now flipped again to Vancouver. The veteran forward can play multiple positions, but has just seven points on the season and looks close to being out of the league entirely.
Vanek looks like a great fit in Columbus, who have needed some help on the powerplay all season. After finding chemistry with Brock Boeser in Vancouver this year, Vanek has 41 points in 61 games and can still be a healthy offensive contributor in a sheltered role. The 34-year old was once one of the league’s very best goal scoring threats, but will only be needed to be a secondary option on a deep Blue Jackets roster.
Snapshots: Scratches, Hornqvist, Cullen, Cole
As expected, a pair of veteran wingers have been made healthy scratches tonight in order to ensure they will be healthy to be dealt. Sportsnet’s Dan Murphy was first to report (via Twitter) that Canucks winger Thomas Vanek is being held out of the lineup although News 1130’s Rick Dhaliwal adds (Twitter link) that this merely precautionary and that this should be interpreted that a trade is getting closer to being worked out. Meanwhile, Oilers winger Patrick Maroon has also been held out of their lineup tonight against Anaheim. Interest in him has picked up considerably as the day has progressed and he is expected to be dealt before the deadline.
Other notes from around the league:
- Although the Penguins have committed more money on their payroll for next season with the acquisition of Derick Brassard earlier this week, GM Jim Rutherford told Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the trade will not impact their attempts to sign winger Patric Hornqvist to a contract extension. Mackey speculates that the 31-year-old could land $6MM on his next deal and Pittsburgh already has more than $64MM tied up in 15 players for next season, per CapFriendly. Even with a projected bump in the salary cap, that doesn’t leave much wiggle room to work with.
- Still with the Penguins, they are still showing interest in Wild center Matt Cullen, reports Josh Yohe of The Athletic (subscription required). Where he would fit in isn’t as obvious now with Brassard’s addition but Pittsburgh is certainly familiar with him with the 41-year-old having played there the last two seasons. On the surface, Riley Sheahan could potentially shift to the wing to make room. However, the Wild have yet to indicate that Cullen is available and instead, plan to use the savings from losing Chris Stewart to waivers (or from sending him to the minors if he clears) to free up some salary cap flexibility.
- The Senators are seeking a third-round pick in exchange for recently-acquired defenseman Ian Cole, reports Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch. Cole was acquired as part of the Derick Brassard swap earlier in the week but with Ottawa in full sell mode, expectations were that he was included in the trade solely to be flipped before the deadline.
Snapshots: Vanek, Tavares, Matthews
Thomas Vanek is probably the most likely player to be traded from the Vancouver Canucks in the next few days, and yet there remains a chance he could re-sign with the team instead. Speaking with Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet, Vanek explained he’d love to play another year with Daniel and Henrik Sedin, but they haven’t given him an answer about their future yet.
Obviously, there is also the option of trading him this weekend only to re-sign him in the summer when he becomes a free agent. Vancouver already brought back Erik Gudbranson, their other top rental option, and don’t seem poised to really be big sellers at the deadline. Vanek brought in a third-round pick last season for the Detroit Red Wings, and could likely fetch a similar price if Vancouver decides to shop him around.
- After Josh Bailey was re-signed to a six-year contract this morning, many pointed out how it might help the New York Islanders re-sign his linemate John Tavares. The Islanders were making it clear that they wanted to keep this group together and were committed to winning. Not so fast, says John Shannon of Sportsnet, who tweets that the signing will “not have any effect” on the Tavares negotiations, and that the captain will still wait until after the season is over to make a decision.
- Auston Matthews suffered damage to his shoulder last night, and will be out for “a bit” according to head coach Mike Babcock. Chris Johnston of Sportsnet details how the Toronto Maple Leafs plan on dealing with the loss of their superstar center, and notes that the team will not change their approach to the trade deadline.
Thomas Vanek Trade Not Guaranteed Before Deadline
Though the Vancouver Canucks are heading towards something of a rebuild, they decided to hold onto an asset when signing Erik Gudbranson to a three-year extension. Gudbranson was a pending unrestricted free agent that likely could have brought back at least a draft pick at the trade deadline, but was deemed too important to lose. A similar situation could be brewing around Thomas Vanek, who is also a pending UFA. Rick Dhaliwal of News 1130 has been told that the Canucks will only move the veteran forward in the right deal, and the chances of a trade could be as low as “50-50”.
GM Jim Benning was clear in his press conference following his own extension that the team would be signing veterans to help develop the younger players in the organization, and Vanek fits the bill if they decide to keep him around. The 34-year old winger has found some good chemistry with Brock Boeser this season, and actually ranks second on the team in scoring. Any extension would again rob the Canucks of future assets, but Vanek’s contributions could outweigh the mid-round pick he would likely bring back (based on last season’s return).
Vanek is earning just $2MM this season and could be acquired by nearly any contender looking to give their powerplay a boost. He was tenuously linked to the Anaheim Ducks, but several teams could benefit from his offensive pedigree.