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Zack MacEwen

East Notes: Crosby, Kane, Rasmussen, Zub, MacEwen

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History was made in last night’s matchup between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Utah Hockey Club. Sidney Crosby, the Penguins captain and franchise icon, became the 21st player in NHL history to record 600 goals in his career.

Given that Crosby is still signed for two more years beyond this season in Pittsburgh, it’s a guarantee he will finish much higher than 21st on the all-time goal list. Should he continue to average between 30-40 goals a season, avoid injury, and retire after his extension, Crosby could finish his career 12th all-time in goals and potentially catch another franchise legend Mario Lemieux at 690.

It’s another impressive milestone in arguably the best career of the salary cap era. Crosby is already top-10 in the all-time points list and should pass the likes of Joe Sakic, Lemieux, and Steve Yzerman before he finally decides to hang up his skates.

Other notes from the Eastern Conference:

  • The Detroit Red Wings may be light up front in tomorrow night’s contest against the New York Islanders. Ansar Khan of MLive reported this morning that forwards Patrick Kane and Michael Rasmussen weren’t on the ice for practice. Rasmussen’s absence is likely tied to the body check received from Boston Bruins’ forward Mark Kastelic in last night’s loss. There should be more context regarding Kane’s absence after the practice.
  • TSN Ottawa reported this morning that the Ottawa Senators are without defenseman Artem Zub and forward Zack MacEwen at practice. No additional context was provided regarding the availability of either player for Ottawa’s game tomorrow night against the Calgary Flames. Still, it likely explains the Senators’ call-up of forward Zack Ostapchuk a few hours ago.

Senators Expected To Scratch Vladimir Tarasenko For Trade-Related Reasons

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The Senators will likely scratch pending UFA winger Vladimir Tarasenko for trade-related reasons Wednesday against the Ducks, Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia reports. Ottawa recalled winger Matthew Highmore from AHL Belleville in a corresponding transaction, a team announcement states.

In recent days, Tarasenko has generated interest from multiple teams. The Bruins, Oilers, Golden Knights, Hurricanes, Panthers, and Rangers have all inquired about picking him up before Friday’s trade deadline, Garrioch said Monday.

His one-year, $5MM contract contains a no-trade clause, so he can block a trade to any team he chooses. Per Garrioch, Tarasenko reportedly prefers the defending Eastern Conference champion Panthers as his post-deadline home, but it doesn’t appear he’ll force his way into a move to South Florida if another contender serves up an offer more to Sens GM Steve Staios’ liking.

Tarasenko, 32, has picked things up after a slow start in the Canadian capital, posting 17 goals, 24 assists and 41 points in 57 games. His 0.72 points per game matches last season’s rate split between the Blues and Rangers, albeit in a little less ice time. Tarasenko’s averaging 16:03 per game, his lowest usage in 10 years.

Interestingly, he’s been a much-improved player at controlling possession quality from his later days in St. Louis. He has a 0.2 expected rating, his first time in the black in an entire season since winning the Stanley Cup with the Blues in 2019.

As such, Ottawa will follow in the footsteps of the Kraken (Alexander Wennberg) and Coyotes (Jason Zucker) and scratch their most likely trade asset to avoid a pre-deadline injury. Tarasenko, who has four points in his last four games, will be a scratch for the first time since taking a brief personal leave in December.

He’ll be replaced in the lineup by the 28-year-old Highmore, who comes up from Belleville for the third time this season. The Nova Scotia-born winger made six appearances for the Sens in November and December, recording an assist, a -1 rating and one shot on goal while averaging a career-low 7:59 per game.

The former Blackhawks, Blues and Canucks depth forward is in his first season in Ottawa after inking a one-year, two-way deal ($775K NHL/$400K AHL) on July 1 last year. He’s spent most of the year with Belleville, scoring nine goals and adding 20 assists for 29 points in 40 games. It’s a significant step back from last year’s minor-league showing when he posted 61 points in 68 games with St. Louis’ affiliate, the Springfield Thunderbirds.

As long as Highmore’s recall lasts under 10 days and sees him play four games or less, he won’t need waivers to return to the B-Sens. He’ll likely factor in on Ottawa’s fourth line tonight with Mark Kastelic and Parker Kelly. Zack MacEwen, who was quietly moved to injured reserve yesterday, per CapFriendly, is out with a lower-body injury.

Senators Recall Zack MacEwen, Move Josh Norris To LTIR

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10:03 a.m.: Norris has been placed on LTIR, per CapFriendly. The Senators are now cap-compliant.

9:21 a.m.: The Senators recalled right-winger Zack MacEwen from AHL Belleville on Friday, per a team statement. The 27-year-old enforcer had been on a minor-league assignment since clearing waivers over two weeks ago.

Ottawa doesn’t have cap space for any recalls, so a corresponding transaction must be made to accommodate MacEwen. That will likely be moving center Josh Norris, who’s expected to miss “extended time” with an upper-body injury, to long-term injured reserve.

Moving Norris to LTIR rules him out through most of March. If his pending placement is retroactive to the date of the injury, Feb. 27, the earliest he could return would be March 23 against the Devils, satisfying a minimum 24-day absence.

That would cause him to miss Ottawa’s next 11 games. Norris also missed four games in January with an upper-body injury, plus the first three games of the season while he was completing his recovery from shoulder surgery that limited him to eight games last season.

MacEwen returns from Belleville to serve in a fourth-line role for tonight’s game against the Coyotes. The lack of any recalls on defense indicates that Jake Sanderson and Artem Zub, who were questionable with undisclosed and lower-body injuries, respectively, will play.

The Prince Edward Island native has struggled to lock down an everyday role after signing a three-year, $2.325MM deal to join the Sens in free agency. He has two goals, one assist and 46 PIMs in 22 games but has been productive in limited AHL action with five goals and two assists in 10 games for Belleville.

That’s nothing new for MacEwen, who has been a solid point producer in the AHL despite his limited scoring and enforcer role at the major league level. He has 43 goals, 63 assists, and 106 points in 167 minor-league games since turning pro in 2017.

MacEwen’s recall puts the Senators at 21 players on the active roster. With Norris on LTIR, they would have cap space to fill their two vacant slots if they so choose.

Senators Assign Zack MacEwen To AHL

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Feb. 13: MacEwen passed through waivers unclaimed, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports. The team assigned him to AHL Belleville later on Tuesday.

Feb. 12: The Senators placed Zack MacEwen on waivers Monday, per Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch. This is the veteran grinder’s second time on the wire this season.

MacEwen, 27, is in his first season with the Senators after signing a three-year, $2.325MM deal in free agency. His $775K cap hit is fully buriable in the minors, where he’ll likely spend a significant amount of time during his tenure in Canada’s capital.

The waiver placement comes ahead of netminder Anton Forsberg’s pending return to action from a groin injury that’s kept him out for the last month, per Garrioch. Forsberg will likely dress Tuesday against the Blue Jackets, and the Senators need to clear $1.55MM in cap space to take him off long-term injured reserve. Assigning MacEwen to AHL Belleville, plus returning backup netminder Kevin Mandolese to Belleville from his emergency loan, will clear the necessary space.

MacEwen has played in 22 games with Ottawa, scoring twice and adding an assist while averaging 6:23 per game. He hasn’t been a significant defensive liability in his limited minutes, although his point-producing ability at the junior- and minor-league levels still hasn’t translated to the NHL.

Prior to landing on waivers, MacEwen was a healthy scratch in six of Ottawa’s last eight games, including five straight.

Snapshots: Vilardi, MacEwen, Foudy, Willman

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The Winnipeg Jets have shared that Gabriel Vilardi is not yet ready to return, although he is continuing to progress in his recovery from a knee injury. The forward is expected to be a game-time decision for the Jets’ Thursday night matchup. Vilardi suffered an MCL sprain early on in the season and was expected to miss four to six weeks.

The 24-year-old Vilardi has only managed three appearances with Winnipeg this season, netting one assist and a -1. It’s his first year with the club after joining via trade in June, moving to Winnipeg alongside Alex Iafallo and Rasmus Kupari in the deal that sent Pierre-Luc Dubois to the Los Angeles Kings. Winnipeg tendered a qualifying offer to Vilardi and was headed towards salary arbitration, before the avoided arbitration with a two-year, $6.9MM contract.

Vilardi had the best season of his young career last year, netting 23 goals and 41 points in 63 games with the Kings. He also added four points in five playoff games. The scoring brings his career totals up to 41 goals and 79 points through 155 games, stretched across the last four seasons. Vilardi was previously drafted 11th overall in the 2017 NHL Draft and made his NHL debut in the 2019-20 season. He is one of four players from the 2017 draft class’ Top 15 to not yet eclipse 200 career NHL games, alongside Cody Glass, Cal Foote, and Lias Andersson.

Other notes from around the league:

  • Ottawa Senators forward Zack MacEwen has been fined $2,018.23 – the maximum allowed under the CBA – for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty taken in Monday’s game against the Florida Panthers. MacEwen targeted Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk late in the game, receiving a five-minute match penalty for a check to the head in the game. MacEwen has appeared in six Senators games this season, scoring one assist and totaling 25 penalty minutes.
  • Colorado Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar shared that forward Jean-Luc Foudy is suffering from a lower-body injury. Bednar also shared that the team doesn’t yet know when to expect Foudy back. Foudy has yet to play this season and is currently on the team’s injured reserve. He scored 36 points in 46 AHL games last season. He was also rewarded his first nine NHL games last year, going without a point and recording a -3.
  • The New Jersey Devils have assigned forward Maxwell Willman to the Utica Comets of the AHL. Willman has appeared in four games with the Devils this season, netting one goal. He’s also appeared in seven AHL games, scoring four goals and seven points. The 28-year-old forward has totaled 54 NHL games and seven points across his career, making his debut with the Philadelphia Flyers in the 2021-22 season.

Ottawa Senators Recall Roby Järventie, Zack MacEwen

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The Ottawa Senators have added two players to their NHL roster, forwards Roby Järventie and Zack MacEwen. These recalls give the Senators a full roster of 23 players, while increasing their number of rostered forwards from 11 to 13.

While both players are wingers and bring decent size to the Senators, that’s about where the similarities between the two end. Järventie is a 21-year-old prospect who was the 33rd overall pick at the 2020 draft. Järventie played a season in Liiga after he was drafted and then one in the AHL before he authored a breakout AHL campaign last season.

The Tampere native scored 16 goals and 30 points in 40 games last season, which is a 54-point pace across a full 72-game AHL season. Although Belleville struggled as a whole last year, Järventie made significant strides in his play and began to show more of an ability to leverage his size and strength to survive the immense physicality of the North American game.

Now recalled to Ottawa, Järventie has a chance to make his NHL debut for head coach D.J. Smith’s side. The Senators don’t appear to have any vacancies in their top nine, although Järventie could fill in on the fourth line due to Mark Kastelic’s injury.

As for MacEwen, the 27-year-old is a more familiar face for NHL fans, as he’s played nearly 200 career games in the league. Owner of a contract lasting through 2025-26, MacEwen is a true grinder, a six-foot-four, 240-pound wrecking ball capable of dealing some serious hurt to the opposition while also racking up quite a few penalty minutes in the process.

MacEwen appears the more conventional choice to take the fourth-line winger role vacated with Kastelic out, although it’s likely that Järventie offers more offensive upside in the role.

Ottawa Senators Return Jacob Bernard-Docker To AHL

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Saturday: Following their game against Detroit, the Senators announced that Bernard-Docker has been returned to Belleville.  With Ottawa off until Tuesday now, the move will allow them to bank a little bit of extra cap space between now and then.

Friday: The Ottawa Senators have announced that defenseman Jacob Bernard-Docker has been recalled from the club’s AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators. In a corresponding move, Zack MacEwen, who cleared waivers earlier today, was reassigned to Belleville.

Earlier today, we covered the fact that Senators blueliner Artem Zub’s status for the team’s Saturday game is currently in doubt. If Zub ends up missing Saturday’s contest, the Senators will need an extra defenseman on their roster to dress in his place. With this recall, Ottawa has positioned Bernard-Docker as that player.

Bernard-Docker, 23, is a 2018 first-round pick who cleared waivers near the start of the season. The owner of a $805k cap hit through next season, Bernard-Docker has so far skated in two games this season at the AHL level. Last season, he scored six points in 41 AHL games, and got into 19 contests with the NHL Senators.

Since Zub is currently slotted into the Senators’ second pairing on defense next to Jake Sanderson, it’s possible that Bernard-Docker will end up on that pairing due to this recall.

Should Bernard-Docker end up slotted directly into Zub’s role, this recall will serve as a major opportunity for Bernard-Docker to showcase his skills in front of an NHL audience, as Zub averages nearly 18:00 time on ice per game.

Senators Place Zack MacEwen On Waivers

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The Ottawa Senators are waiving forward Zack MacEwen today for the purpose of assignment to AHL Belleville, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports.

This is certainly not the start MacEwen, 27, envisioned for himself in Canada’s capital after signing a three-year, league-minimum salary deal this summer. Offering long-term deals to enforcers nearly always results in a waiver placement over the life of the deal, but rarely does it come just two games into that player’s tenure with the team.

An undrafted free agent, MacEwen got his NHL start with the Canucks, who signed him to an entry-level contract in 2017. He may be solely in the NHL as an enforcer, but he did flash decent offensive promise early on in the minors and got his first look with Vancouver the following season.

Since then, he’s scored 13 goals, 16 assists, 29 points, and added 245 penalty minutes in 188 NHL contests between Vancouver, the Flyers, Kings, and Senators. His last AHL appearance came when the Flyers waived him at the beginning of last season, and he potted three points in two contests with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms before the Flyers brought him up for the rest of the season.

MacEwen has one assist in two contests with Ottawa, as he was banged up for the team’s season opener and was a healthy scratch in last night’s decisive 6-1 win over the Capitals. While defenseman Artem Zub sustained an injury that’s not expected to keep him out long-term, he may still miss time, and assigning MacEwen to Belleville would free up the cap space to recall a defenseman in his stead.

Atlantic Notes: Norris, MacEwen, Mittelstadt, Brown

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Injury troubles have been a persistent issue for Ottawa Senators center Joshua Norris, as since his 35-goal breakout campaign he’s only managed to play in eight NHL games. Despite undergoing shoulder surgery all the way back in January, Norris’ status remains in question as the Senators prepare for an extremely important 2023-24 season.

Sportsnet’s Wayne Scanlan relays word from Senators head coach D.J. Smith that there is currently still no timeline on Norris’ recovery, though the hope remains that he will be back shortly. At this point, no LTIR placement is being considered and Scanlan adds that Norris will travel with the team to Carolina for its game against the Hurricanes. The Senators’ center depth is currently in somewhat rough shape, as Rourke Chartier and Ridly Greig are the team’s projected middle-six centers (they combine for just 39 games of NHL experience) so getting Norris back in action is going to be a major priority for the team as they look to start the season on the right foot.

Some other notes from the Atlantic Division:

  • Another Senator currently battling injury is winger Zack MacEwen. Scanlan reports that MacEwen is currently unavailable on a day-to-day injury timeline, and as a result, the Senators may be forced to start the season with an opening-night lineup short a player. Ottawa currently does not possess the necessary cap space to recall a replacement player from the AHL’s Belleville Senators, so the club could be forced to play with just 11 forwards tomorrow in Raleigh.
  • According to The Buffalo News’ Mike Harrington, Buffalo Sabres forward Casey Mittelstadt “tweaked something” in his upper body yesterday and as a result sat out of practice today. Head coach Don Granato reassured reporters saying that Mittelstadt’s absence is not expected to extend into the team’s opening-night contest Thursday against the New York Rangers. Mittelstadt is an important cog in the Sabres’ offense, and is coming off a breakout 2022-23 season where he scored 15 goals and 59 points.
  • Just shortly after he cleared waivers and was assigned to the AHL’s Providence Bruins, Boston Bruins forward Patrick Brown was recalled back to the NHL roster today. The 31-year-old veteran forward will likely be in the TD Garden press box for the Bruins’ opening-night contest against the Chicago Blackhawks, though he could end up claiming the fourth-line center role on the team should rookie John Beecher fail to carry over the momentum he built in the preseason into regular-season action.

Ottawa Senators Agree To Terms With Zack MacEwen

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The Ottawa Senators have added some physicality to their bottom six, signing forward Zack MacEwen to a three-year contract worth $2.325MM. It’s a one-way deal, which carries the league-minimum average annual value of $775K.

MacEwen, 26, split his playing time between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Los Angeles Kings during the 2022-23 season. After being acquired by the Kings prior to the trade deadline, he recorded 10 points (four goals, six assists) and 66 penalty minutes in 56 regular-season games with both teams. He also played 6:44 in his lone playoff appearance in Game 3 of the first round against the Edmonton Oilers. He also played two games on assignment to start the season with the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms, recording a goal and two assists.

Senators general manager Pierre Dorion gave a statement on the signing:

Zack’s a player with strong character who adds increased physicality to our lineup. He’s a hard-nosed, competitive player who’s a tenacious forechecker and who demonstrates a routine willingness to go to the hard areas.

MacEwen may be an enforcer at the NHL level, but he’s shown heaps of offensive upside in juniors and in the AHL. In his 186-game NHL career to date, he’s accumulated 13 goals and 15 assists for 28 points and 245 penalty minutes.

His journey to the NHL was unconventional, going undrafted after playing in the QMJHL for the Moncton Wildcats and Gatineau Olympiques. Despite not even seeing extended QMJHL action until his age-19 season, he quickly made an offensive impact which he parlayed into an entry-level contract with the Vancouver Canucks in 2017. MacEwen’s professional career began with the Canucks’ AHL affiliate, the Utica Comets, where he broke out for 33 points in 66 games during his rookie pro campaign before making his NHL debut in 2018-19.

MacEwen went on to spend four seasons in Vancouver before being claimed off waivers by the Philadelphia Flyers in October 2021. He was dealt to the Kings for another enforcer, Brendan Lemieux, in March.

He provides a much more affordable replacement at the bottom of Ottawa’s lineup for Austin Watson, who remains an unrestricted free agent after making $1.5MM per year over his three seasons with the Senators. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent in 2026.

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