Eastern Notes: Carolina GM Search, Simmonds, Islanders
With just a 9.9 percent chance to finish in the top three, the Carolina Hurricanes beat the odds Saturday when they moved up from a team with the 11th-worst record in the league and were awarded the No. 2 pick in the 2018 draft. While that gives the franchise lots of new options that they weren’t expecting, it also makes their general manager and coaching openings much more attractive, according to Chip Alexander of the News & Observer.
The general manager position, which has been open since the team transitioned former general manager Ron Francis to President of Hockey Operations on Mar. 7, was not a popular destination after new owner Tom Dundon ousted Francis and multiple candidates declined to interview, forcing to team to announce they would wait until the offseason to address their needs. On top of that, the team then lost head coach Bill Peters when he triggered an out-clause in his contract and took the head coaching position with the Calgary Flames.
However, Alexander writes both openings are now more intriguing with the No. 2 pick as adding an impact player immediately after they take the job is always a positive. Adding a winger like Andrei Svechnikov could change the team dramatically as he would likely be the No. 1 overall pick if Rasmus Dahlin not been there.
- NHL.com’s Bill Meltzer writes the Philadelphia Flyers have a lot of work ahead of them this offseason. To start with, the team must depend on the continued development of their youth, including Nolan Patrick, Travis Konecny, Oskar Lindblom, Travis Sanheim, Robert Hagg and Samuel Morin. However, general manager Ron Hextall intends to make many roster changes to improve the team with the idea of adding more speed, especially to the special teams. Hextall, who is known for making offseason trades, is likely to be active again on the trade market and could attempt to move winger Wayne Simmonds. While Simmonds has said he wants to stay, the team could get a good return as the 30-year-old will enter the final year of a reasonable $3.975MM deal. With plenty of youth in their system working their way up, it would seem unlikely the Flyers would extend his contract.
- With two picks in the lottery, the New York Islanders have multiple options in front of them, writes Arthur Staple of The Athletic (subscription required). While the team could use the 11th and 12th picks in the 2018 NHL Draft to trade down and pick up a top forward, the team could also stay where they are and rebuild the team’s prospect pool, which isn’t as strong as it once was. The scribe also adds that the team could use one of the picks in a package to acquire a veteran defenseman who could help fix their leaky blueline.
Philadelphia Flyers Must Look To Future
The Philadelphia Flyers dropped their 10th straight game today against the Boston Bruins and while that losing streak is hard to take, Philly.com’s Sam Carchidi writes that there are positives despite all the negatives the team has been enduring this year. The team is playing well at even strength, struggling mainly on special teams and the team should be getting defenseman Radko Gudas back from a 10-game suspension on Dec. 12, so there is hope for this season.
Regardless, the scribe writes fans may have to look towards the future rather then at this year’s production. While fans are angry about the offseason trade in which the Flyers traded away center Brayden Schenn, who is currently putting up good numbers in St. Louis with 10 goals and 20 assists, there are long-term assets to consider. The team took on Jori Lehtera‘s contract in exchange, and the veteran is making that deal more challenging to analyze as he hasn’t scored a goal for Philadelphia this year. However, the team also got back two first round picks in that deal. The team drafted center Morgan Frost this past year, who is playing well in the OHL with 13 goals and 27 assists in 26 games. The team is also getting another first-rounder in the bountiful 2018 draft as well.
Carchidi writes the team should have ample cap room next year when the contracts of Valtteri Filppula ($5MM AAV) and Matt Read ($3.63 AAV) expire. If the team chooses to buyout the final year of Lehtera’s deal, the team should have ample space to sign a free agent this offseason when players such as John Tavares, Evander Kane and James van Riemsdyk are available.
However, the team also has quite a few prospects starting with 19-year-old goaltender Carter Hart, a 2016 second-round pick, who looks like the team’s goaltender of the future. After recovering from a bout of mononucleosis, he has put up huge numbers in the WHL, including a 1.58 GAA and a .953 save percentage in 13 games. He is expected to be Canada’s starting goaltender in the upcoming World Juniors and some believe he could be ready to be the Flyers starter in the 2019-20 season after a year in the AHL.
If you include that with the large amount of young players under the age of 25 on the Flyers current roster such as Sean Couturier, Nolan Patrick, Travis Konecny, Shayne Gostisbehere, Ivan Provorov, Travis Sanheim, Robert Hagg and a bunch of other youngsters who still must prove themselves, the core is already there. Along with the success of a lot of their young players in the minors, this team has a lot to look forward to in the future.
Snapshots: Konecny, Duclair, Oilers-Red Wings
After missing nine games with an injured knee and ankle, Philadelphia Flyers rookie Travis Konecny will return to the lineup on Saturday night. That’s according to Tim Panaccio of CSN Philly.
It’s an early-than-expected return for Konecny, who was expected to miss 4-6 weeks when he was placed on IR three weeks ago. The rookie has seven goals and 22 points in 51 games so far this season, while averaging almost 15 minutes per night with solid possession numbers. His 22 points were good for fourteenth in rookie scoring when he was injured back in February. He’s now dropped to twentieth, having been passed by fellow Flyers rookie Ivan Provorov among others.
It’s not yet known who Konecny will line up with in Washington this evening. Forward Jordan Weal was called up to replace Konecny, and though he has just one goal in six games, he’s been lining up on the Flyers’ top line with Claude Giroux and Wayne Simmonds. The Flyers also added center Valtteri Filppula at the trade deadline, so the forward core looks slightly different than the one Konecny left last month.
- Much-maligned sophomore Anthony Duclair played his first NHL game in six weeks last night. He had been sent to the AHL in mid-January to find his scoring touch, which had been missing all season. Duclair scored 20 goals and 44 points in his rookie year, but has just three goals and nine points in 42 games this season. The main culprit appears to be his shooting percentage, which has gone from 19% down to 5.2%. It’s not as if Duclair lit up the AHL either, with just one goal and eight points in 16 games. However, it appears he’s back with the NHL club for the rest of the season. Sarah McLellan of AZ Central quoted Coyotes bench boss Dave Tippett as saying the rest of this season is Duclair’s chance to “re-establish himself as an NHL player.” The Coyotes clearly want to take a closer look at Duclair before making a decision on him this summer when he’s an RFA.
- It will be a tale of two teams heading in completely different directions when the Detroit Red Wings visit the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night. The Oilers are comfortably in a playoff spot for the first time in a very long time, and the Red Wings are about to miss the playoffs for the first time since 1989-90. The last time the Oilers finished ahead of the Red Wings was the following year; twelve members of tonight’s Oilers were not yet born. In addition, this will be David Desharnais‘ first appearance in blue and orange since being acquired before the trade deadline, and he’ll line up Anton Slepyshev and Zack Kassian.
Flyers Place Travis Konecny On IR
The Philadelphia Flyers will be without rookie center Travis Konecny for the next 4-6 weeks.
Konecny suffered an lower-body injury earlier this week, and has now been placed on injured reserve. GM Ron Hextall announced the move via the team’s Twitter account. In a corresponding transaction, the Flyers have recalled Lehigh Valley’s top scorer, Jordan Weal.
A first round pick in 2015, Konecny has had a solid rookie season in the Flyers’ bottom six, scoring 22 points in 51 games. That total ties him with fellow rookie Ivan Provorov and sophomore Shayne Gostisbehere for fifth on the Flyers. In his OHL career with the Ottawa 67’s and Sarnia Sting, Konecny had 239 points in 183 games.
Weal was acquired from the Los Angeles Kings last January along with a third round pick in exchange for Vincent Lecavalier and Luke Schenn. Weal has 47 points in 43 games in Lehigh Valley this season. The former third round pick was held pointless in 14 NHL games last season split between Los Angeles and Philadelphia.
Travis Konecny To Miss 4-6 Weeks With Lower-Body Injury
After suffering a lower-body injury last night against the St. Louis Blues, Philadelphia Flyers rookie Travis Konecny will be out 4-6 weeks. At minimum, that would mean missing the next eleven Flyers games, a team that is in a dogfight for the final wildcard spot. Konecny left the game before the third period last night, and was ruled out by GM Ron Hextall earlier today.
Konecny was a member of this year’s famed teenage class, making an impact at the NHL level at the tender age of 19 years old. Along with fellow rookie Ivan Provorov, Konecny had been making a huge impact for the Flyers and showed a glimpse at what the future holds for the team. His 22 points in 51 games put him 14th in all rookie scoring and fifth on his team. It’s a big loss despite his young age, as he played almost 15 minutes a night for the club.
If he takes the whole six weeks, Konecny would return with just ten games remaining in the Flyers season. For a team that looks like it will be in a struggle for the playoffs right down to the wire, having a winger of Konecny’s skill down the stretch is imperative. It’s not clear who will be moving up in the lineup to fill his spot, as he has been skating on one of the team’s top two lines.
Snapshots: NHL Three Stars, Gostisbehere, Johnson
The NHL has named its Three Stars of the Week: Sebastian Aho, Mikael Granlund, and Peter Budaj.
Aho had four goals and an assist in three games, including two game-winning goals. In the Hurricanes’ first game of the week, Aho had a hat-trick and assist, before scoring the winning goal on Friday against the Oilers and being held pointless on Saturday. In 51 games, the 2015 second-round pick has 16 goals and 31 points, good for sixth among rookies.
Granlund had three goals and six points in three games as the Wild went 2-1-0. After two assists in the first two games of the week, he too had a hat-trick plus assist in the third game of the week. Granlund currently leads the Wild in scoring with 48 points in 51 games.
Budaj won three of four games with a 0.930 SV%, 1.62 GAA, and two shutouts. After starting the season as the Kings’ third-string goaltender, he now leads the NHL in shutouts with seven and has a sparkling 0.920 SV% with 25 wins in 46 appearances. With Jonathan Quick out from opening night until March, Budaj has allowed the Kings to remain in a wildcard spot.
- The offensively-starved Flyers will be without last year’s rookie standout Shayne Gostisbehere yet again when the Blues come to Philadelphia tonight, but it’s not an injury or illness that’s keeping him out. Gostisbehere will be a healthy scratch for the third-straight game. After scoring 17 goals and 46 points in 64 games last year, he has just four goals and 21 points in 48 games this season. That’s a pace of 7-29-36 over 82 games, much lower than his 59-point-pace in 2015-16. While Gostisbehere will remain out of the lineup, rookie forward Travis Konecny will draw back in for Matt Read. When asked about the lineup, coach Dave Hakstol told NBC’s Jason Brough that he’s “trying to dress the best roster possible to win hockey games. Point blank.” Without Gostisbehere, the Flyers are 1-1, winning 3-1 and losing 1-0.
- In an appearance on TSN Radio in Edmonton, Bob McKenzie put forward the idea that Tampa Bay could look to move pending RFA center Tyler Johnson for defensive help. Despite Johnson’s lessened production this year (33 points in 53 games), McKenzie suggests a combination of “needing a defenseman and maybe having a surplus of forwards, and… the cap issues and maybe not being in a position to sign [Johnson] might make him more expendable over some of the other pieces.” Besides making a decision on potential rentals like Ben Bishop and Brian Boyle and RFA forwards Jonathan Drouin, Ondrej Palat, and Johnson, McKenzie believes GM Steve Yzerman will be looking for a cost-controlled defenseman to make his team better going forward. Regardless of who he choses to keep, it’s going to be a stressful next few months for Yzerman.
Hextall: No Shakeup Trades On The Horizon
After going on a ten game winning streak earlier this year, the Flyers now find themselves mired in a similarly-sized slump, dropping nine of their last 11 games as they get set to host Vancouver tonight. That has had many wondering if GM Ron Hextall would be willing to make a trade to shake things up but he told Dave Isaac of the Courier-Post that it’s not something he plans to consider:
“I’m not gonna make a trade to send a message. I’m (only) going to make a trade to make us better. ”
“… We’re staying on course. I don’t care if we win every game for the rest of the year or lose every game. We’re staying on course. We set out a course two and a half years ago and we’re not deviating from what we planned.”
Historically, Hextall has done most of his trading in the offseason. Since taking over from Paul Holmgren in May of 2014, he has only made three in-season trades. Of those, only one was of particular significance, when he acquired Radko Gudas for a pending UFA in Braydon Coburn, who later re-signed in Tampa. The other two trades were to shed part of Vincent Lecavalier’s contract to the Kings last season and giving Kimmo Timonen one last shot at a Stanley Cup before he would have to retire due to blood clots, dealing him to Chicago back in 2015. In other words, history suggests he’s not about to make a core-changing reactionary move. That hasn’t stopped him from voicing his frustration with their recent play, however:
“It’s driving me nuts. I hope it is everybody else, too. In saying that, it’s a close league. Every night, you have to be on top of your game. You don’t play good, you don’t win. We’re not playing well enough right now. You can’t accept losing.”
With no trades on the horizon, head coach Dave Hakstol acknowledged that he will continue to tweak their lines in an effort to get some more players going. One of those moves is switching rookie Travis Konecny over to the right wing, a position he played for most of his junior career. He’s expected to play alongside Claude Giroux on the top line beginning tonight against the Canucks. The 19 year old got off to a quick start this year but has been much quieter of late, scoring just twice in his last 27 games.
Snapshots: Benson, Connauton, Burrows, Flyers, Olympics
The Edmonton Oilers have put pen to paper with one of their 2016 draft picks as they announced that they have inked left winger Tyler Benson to a three year, entry level contract. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Benson was Edmonton’s second round pick (32nd overall) back in June. The Edmonton native had long been touted as a first rounder but an injury-plagued 2015-16 season (he played in just 30 games) certainly didn’t help his draft stock.
This season, Benson leads his junior team, the WHL’s Vancouver Giants, in scoring with 40 points (10-30-40) in 31 games. As has been the case with several young prospects who have signed recently, unless Benson plays in ten or more games with the Oilers this season, his contract will actually ‘slide’ a year with the team receiving a small reduction in his salary cap charge.
Other notes from around the league:
- Per a team release, the Arizona Coyotes have assigned defenseman Kevin Connauton to their AHL affiliate in Tucson on a conditioning assignment. Connauton has played just twice this month and only nine times this season as he has predominantly been the seventh defenseman for Arizona.
- Canucks left winger Alex Burrows will play in his 800th game tonight against Anaheim. All of those games have come in a Vancouver uniform and once he suits up, he’ll be only the sixth player in franchise history to play in 800 games for the Canucks. The 35 year old has been an effective bottom six player this season with 14 points (6-8-14) in 32 games and has 378 points (190-188-378) through his first 799 contests.
- The Flyers will make rookie winger Travis Konecny a healthy scratch tonight, notes Sam Carchidi of the Philadelphia Inquirer. The timing is a little strange as Konecny is coming off a two assist game but head coach Dave Hakstol wants to see his play improve without the puck on his stick. Left winger Michael Raffl will return to the lineup after missing Wednesday’s game with a lower body injury and slot in on the top line while defenseman Radko Gudas is day-to-day with an undisclosed injury.
- The NHL has drafted two versions of the 2017-18 schedule with the uncertainty surrounding their participation in the 2018 Winter Olympics, notes Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston (Twitter links). As a result, the league is no longer imposing any deadline on the decision regarding whether they will or won’t be participating. However, the IOC is still hoping for a decision by January 15th.
Snapshots: Flyers Rookies, Kronwall, Jordan, Rod
The Flyers may have a pair of rookies in their opening night lineup. Forward Travis Konecny and defenseman Ivan Provorov have both looked good so far in the pre-season; Konecny is leading the team with six points in six games and Provorov is playing big minutes on a pairing with Mark Streit.
Konecny has played up and down the lineup so far in the pre-season, and figures to be a feisty bottom-six forward with the potential to move up the lineup as needed. He can play either wing or center. Count head coach Dave Hakstol among those impressed by Konecny’s “ability to read a play and make things happen.”
Meanwhile, Provorov has shown great chemistry with Streit after another wonderful season with the Brandon Wheat Kings in the WHL, with 21 goals and 73 points in 62 games. He might be the best of many high-end defensive prospects in the Flyers system.
Seeing as Konecny and Provorov are both still junior-eligible, they’ll need to either play in the NHL or go back to junior. Expect both men to get at least nine games to show he’s ready.
- The Red Wings may be without Niklas Kronwall to start the season. The veteran defenseman has a knee injury according to Ted Kulfan of The Detroit News. Coach Jeff Blashill says if Kronwall isn’t available on opening night then the Red Wings will carry eight defensemen to start the season.
- Former Hurricanes depth defenseman Michal Jordan has signed with Ak Bars Kazan in the KHL. It was reported earlier this off-season that Jordan was seeking a one-way contract as an unrestricted free agent (UFA). The Hurricanes had apparently offered him a two-way contract but Jordan wasn’t interested. Jordan has 3 goals and 7 points in 79 NHL games over the last four seasons.
- And speaking of players signing overseas, San Jose Sharks 2014 second-round pick Noah Rod has signed a five-year extension with his Swiss club, Genève-Servette HC. According to ESPN’s Corey Pronman, Rod does have an out-clause to come to North America to play with the Sharks.
Flyers Lose Laughton, Manning To Injury
According to Dave Isaac of the Courier-Post, the Philadelphia Flyers have lost two players to injury today. Scott Laughton will be out 3-4 weeks with a lower-body injury, while Brandon Manning is week-to-week with an injury to his upper-body.
Laughton, a former first-round pick of the Flyers, had his first full NHL season last year, contributing 21 points in 71 games. The 22-year old was hoping to improve on those numbers as he headed into this season, but will now have to wait for a few weeks to join the club. With the season starting in less than a week, his timeline should keep him out for the first 10 games or so.
Manning, 26, was an option for the Flyers on the back end after spending 56 games with them last season. The undrafted blueliner has built quite a career since his days with the Chilliwack Bruins, making his NHL debut as a 22-year old and finding a ton of success at the AHL level. In 2014-15 he put up 43 points in 60 games for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms while also racking up 150 penalty minutes (he had 31 and 231 the year before).
The Flyers had some tough decisions coming in camp, especially around youngsters Travis Konecny and Ivan Provorov, both of whom should benefit from these injuries. The two 19-year olds are trying to make the jump from the CHL to NHL and have turned heads at camp this year. Each was a first-round pick in the past and look ready to contribute at a professional level.