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Snapshots: DeKeyser, Subban, 2019 Draft

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Some fans might have noticed this morning when the Detroit Red Wings recalled Brian Lashoff from the minor leagues, that they actually were over the NHL’s salary cap. Even though Lashoff makes just $650K, the team had already used nearly all the extra space provided by Johan Franzen’s long-term injured reserve stint. Well, the salary cap sleuths at CapFriendly have figured out how they were able to work it. Danny DeKeyser has been placed on long-term injured reserve for the time being, even though he’s expected to return before long (perhaps even this weekend)Reqo.

The Red Wings are playing with fire this season as they push right up against the cap ceiling, and could be forced before long to make a move to get rid of some salary. They already moved Riley Sheahan to clear a few million off the cap, and still they needed to use LTIR again so early on. Luke Witkowski’s suspension makes it tough, as though he forfeits the salary he would have earned the team does not receive a cap break. Even with the short-term injury to Trevor Daley, the team can’t afford to put him on IR and call up another player. They simply don’t have the money, unless DeKeyser is out much longer than expected.

  • Speaking of injured reserve, Malcolm Subban has been activated by the Vegas Golden Knights. The team has sent Dylan Ferguson back to his junior club, happy to have gotten into a game (and earned an NHL paycheck). Subban is a welcome sight for the Golden Knights, even with Maxime Lagace earning the win last night over Vancouver. Lagace has played admirably, but an .864 save percentage still won’t cut it for long in the NHL. Though Subban has little experience himself, most believe he is an upgrade in net.
  • Craig Button of TSN has more information on the 2019 draft, giving us an early look at his rankings for the draft still more than 18 months away. Jack Hughes is the easy favorite on top as he continues to cruise through his season with the NTDP, but there are some very interesting others on the list. Bowen Byram is perhaps a surprising #2, but anyone that saw his U17 performance will understand why Button has him here. The 16-year old defenseman is already playing (and playing well) in the WHL with the Vancouver Giants, and looks like he’ll have the size and mobility to develop into an all-situations stud down the line. Obviously, projecting 16-year old players is never an exact science and several will see their stock drop off in the next two years. Still, you can make an impression on scouts at this age, like Nolan Patrick did before losing most of his draft-eligible season to injury.

Snapshots: Jagr, Iginla, Tatar

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The Prime Time Sports Management Conference, which was held in Toronto the past two days, featured several big names in the world of hockey including Commissioner Gary Bettman, IIHF President Rene Fasel, and of course, Calgary Flames President Brian Burke. With such a wealth of hockey knowledge and experience in one room, the interesting opinions and stories were constantly flowing. Yet, two tales stood out above the rest:

  • Burke, unsurprisingly, was the author of one of them. Burke told the crowd that Jaromir Jagr and Jarome Iginla, two future Hall of Famers who seemingly spent the summer with little attention paid to their free agent statuses, were in facts targets of the Flames all summer long. As we now know, Jagr was the end choice, as the 45-year-old signed on in Calgary in early October. Burke stated that the team evaluated and monitored both storied veterans throughout the off-season, waiting to see how things played out. Burke stated that, in the end, the team felt that Jagr had a much stronger 2016-17 season and brought a “charisma” to the team that they desired. It is no surprise that the team considered long-time captain Iginla, but after a difficult campaign where he looked lifeless at times, no one can blame the Flames for instead going with the ageless Jagr. In eight games thus far, Jagr already has a goal and four assists, as well as a +5 rating in Calgary.
  • The second intriguing story came from player agent Ritch Winter through sources at the NHL Players’ Association. It seems as though the current contract between forward Tomas Tatar and the Detroit Red Wings came much closer to not getting done than even the arbitration hearing time line indicated. The two sides went to salary arbitration this summer and were one of only a handful of cases to actually go to hearing. Yet, the two sides struck a deal prior to the arbitrator’s award – a four-year, $21.2MM bargain that even includes a no-trade clause beginning next season. Well, according to Winter, the fax from the arbitrator with his binding one-year decision came in to the NHLPA office mere minutes after the contract was signed. A few minutes earlier and any late agreement between the two sides would have been rendered null and void. It would come as no surprise if the Red Wings wish it had. Detroit filed at $4.1MM in arbitration, while Tatar’s side countered with $5.3MM. The eventual contract holds a $5.3MM AAV, meaning anything but an absolute finding for Tatar by the arbitrator would have resulted in a lesser cap hit than what the Wings are paying now. And what of the future? Yes, the long term deal keeps Tatar in Detroit longer, but with seven points in 18 games, the soon-to-be-27-year-old is on pace for the worst full season of his NHL career. The Red Wings may regret their long-term commitment and knowing they were only minutes ahead of a disqualifying decision only adds to the sting.

Snapshots: Free Agency, Soshnikov, Scandella

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While all eyes are on John Tavares of the New York Islanders as we get closer and closer to July 1, 2018, Craig Custance of The Athletic examines the impressive list of other top names headed for unrestricted free agency next summer. Custance updates us on the current situations for each one, including interesting notes on several impending KHL free agents.

The most intriguing one out of Russia will once again be Ilya Kovalchuk, who last year wasn’t able to find a deal because of the rights New Jersey still held. Those rights will expire after the season because he’s now 35, making him free to sign with anyone in the league. Custance expects it to take “a multi-year deal in the $6 to 7 million range,” but notes that he is still seen as a potential impact player around the league. Kovalchuk has 20 goals and 36 points in 31 games for St. Petersburg this season.

  • Also from The Athletic, Pierre LeBrun speaks directly to Toronto Maple Leafs GM Lou Lamoriello about the recent Nikita Soshnikov recall, and how it was partially forced by a clause in his deal that would have allowed him to go back to Russia. Interestingly, Lamoriello tells him that even had Soshnikov been assigned to the KHL the Maple Leafs would have retained the ability to recall him at any time. Instead, the team brought him up and are excited about how he’s played this season in the minor leagues. With 12 points in 14 games for the Toronto Marlies, Soshnikov was arguably their best player so far this year.
  • Marco Scandella has been fined $5,000 for slashing Patric Hornqvist last night, the maximum amount allowed under the CBA. It’s not the first time Scandella has been disciplined by the Department of Player Safety, as he was fined and suspended previously for checks to the head. Some New York fans might even be familiar with his slashing prowess (h/t @myregularface) from his days with the Minnesota Wild.

Snapshots: MacArthur, Predators, Matthews, Zajac

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Clarke MacArthur failed his physical before the season, and according to GM Pierre Dorion on TSN radio he likely won’t be playing at all this year. MacArthur is not with the team and has moved to Florida, which could signal the disappointing end to a solid career.

MacArthur came back for the Senators just before the playoffs last year, and was an integral part of their run to game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals. His career was derailed by head injuries, but he was once a consistent offensive producer and reliable top-six winger. In 552 games he scored 304 points. Dorion did admit that they’d look at bringing him back in should he want to play next season, as he’s under contract for $4.65MM per season through 2019-20. More likely he’ll spend the next few seasons on long-term injured reserve.

  • The Nashville Predators also have some bad news when it comes to injuries, as the team announced Yannick Weber and Scott Hartnell would each be out several weeks with their respective injuries. While Nick Bonino is back from his injured reserve stint, losing Weber and Hartnell will put some more stress on the Predators’ depth chart. Luckily, the team already relies so heavily on their top three defensemen that Weber’s role shouldn’t be too difficult to fill. While Hartnell is a bit tougher, there are several young wingers ready to step into the situation.
  • The New Jersey Devils and Toronto Maple Leafs could each get a boost to their forward group when they meet on Thursday night, as both Travis Zajac and Auston Matthews have a chance to play. Zajac was back at practice centering the top line for the Devils today, while Matthews was on the ice for an hour with a few teammates despite being given the day off. The Devils and Maple Leafs each have 24 points through the first part of the season, and it should be a good matchup on Thursday especially if both get their top centers back.

Evening Snapshots: Red Wings, Mantha, Slumping Blackhawks

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Heading home for a stretch where they play 13 of 15 at Little Caesars Arena, Detroit Red Wings bench boss Jeff Blashill says there is “zero excuse” for not winning tonight writes MLive’s Ansar Khan. After getting pushed around by Calgary Thursday night, Detroit looks to get back on track against a Columbus team mired in a four game winless streak. The goal for the Red Wings are to return to the playoffs after a one-year hiatus, and this stretch of hockey with games predominantly at home serves as the best chance to get a good jump on it. Currently sitting 8-8-1, impressive forward Anthony Mantha added that the team needs have at least a .750 or .800 mark during the stretch at home.

  • Speaking of Mantha, Khan reports that the goal-scoring forward is developing into a more complete player in his second NHL season. Dogged early in his career for lack of effort, Mantha has risen to the occasion, leading the Red Wings in goals and points through Friday. Blashill says that the 22-year-old is very motivated and is skating harder now than he had previously with the team.
  • The Chicago Tribune’s Chris Hine writes that the Blackhawk faithful are keeping their hopes up that Chicago will turn things around soon. Hine likens the current slump to a “crisis of faith” as they’ve struggled to score goals, registering just 12 goals in the last seven games. The culprit, Hine writes, are the “big money” players not getting on the score sheet regularly. He singles out captain Jonathan Toews (4-6-10), Brandon Saad (6-3-9), Patrick Kane (5-9-14), Duncan Keith (0-8-8), Brent Seabrook (1-4), and Patrick Sharp (2-2) as those players. Kane hasn’t scored in seven games while Saad is goal-less in his last ten games. Head coach Joel Quenneville has been toying with lines, trying to find the right combination to break the scoring drought.

Snapshots: 2019 Draft, Kase, Price

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Craig Button of TSN takes an early look at the top prospects for the 2019 draft, and leading the pack is Jack Hughes. We’ve mentioned Hughes before at PHR, but his name continues to come up as a potential first-overall pick in the 2019 discussion. The son of former NHL assistant coach and Toronto Maple Leafs Director of Player Development Jim Hughes, the 16-year old is dominating in the US Development Program after an eye-opening season in Toronto midget hockey.

Hughes scored 159 points in 80 games as the captain of the Toronto Marlboros, and is an elite center ice prospect. Amazingly the Hughes family even has a chance to go top-5 in back to back drafts, as eldest brother Quinton Hughes is an outstanding defenseman eligible to be selected in 2018. He’s playing at the University of Michigan already, where he’s put up five points in eight games.

  • The Anaheim Ducks have placed Ondrej Kase on injured reserve to join the rest of their injuries, which brings to mind an interesting case going into next summer. Kase is a pending restricted free agent, and has looked early on this season like he’s about to breakout. As a rookie last year he scored just 15 points, but he already has five goals and eight points in 12 games for the injury-ravaged Ducks. Anaheim has over $60MM owed next season to just 13 players, which is going to make things tough in the summer. Kase, Nick Ritchie and Brandon Montour (among others) are all RFAs, and with the injuries all three have been given more opportunity. That could cost the Ducks as the trio heads into the summer with higher counting stats. Too many good players is never a bad thing, but Anaheim will need to be careful with how they distribute their funds.
  • Speaking of injured reserve stints, the Montreal Canadiens have moved Carey Price to their IR list. Price hasn’t played since November 2nd so he won’t be kept out any longer than he needs to recover, as the stint will be backdated to cover the seven-day minimum. While you never wish for injury, perhaps this break will be exactly what Price needs to get his season back on track. In his first 11 games, Price registered a save percentage above .900 just three times. For a goaltender who averaged a .928 mark over the last four seasons, his performance so far this year was shockingly unfamiliar.

Snapshots: Flames, Hammond, Ekman-Larsson

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Tanner Glass has cleared waivers and been assigned to Stockton of the AHL, leaving room for the Calgary Flames to activate Jaromir Jagr prior to their game tonight. Glass signed a one-year, one-way deal with the Flames this summer but is at best a 13th forward used in especially physical matchups. It won’t surprise if the 33-year old is back up before long to serve in that role.

Jagr though will jump back into the lineup after a long layoff, and will look to recapture the early success he had found with his new team. The legendary winger’s already exquisite possession numbers were off the charts in his first five games for Calgary, and he should help the team continue their current win streak. Jagr is just 51 games behind Gordie Howe for the most all-time, a record he could break should he stay relatively healthy for the rest of the year.

  • Andrew Hammond was clearly a salary dump by the Ottawa Senators in their recent trade, to help even out the salary difference between Matt Duchene and Kyle Turris. Now, James Gordon of The Athletic reports that Colorado will look to flip Hammond somewhere else around the league. Hammond will remain with the Belleville Senators on loan until that happens, but it may not be so easy. “The Hamburgler” as he is so affectionately nicknamed, is owed $1.5MM this season and carries a $1.35MM cap hit. Though last year was a struggle for him before going down to injury, he’s played well early on for Belleville.
  • Oliver Ekman-Larsson has somehow become the center of much trade speculation, but Arizona Coyotes GM John Chayka wants to put an end to that. Speaking with Craig Morgan of AZ Sports, Chayka again said he won’t trade the All-Star defenseman, and revealed “I haven’t had a single conversation about Oilver that has lasted more than five seconds.” Ekman-Larsson is a free agent after next season and would be one of the top names on the market.

Snapshots: Three Stars, Calvert, Matthews

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The NHL has named its three stars for the previous week, with goaltender Corey Crawford taking top honors. Crawford earned two shutouts for the Chicago Blackhawks last week, and recorded a .919 save percentage. Unfortunately, Chicago is still just 7-6-2 on the season after dropping last night’s game against Montreal 2-0. They’ll need more solid performances from Crawford going forward if they’re to really climb towards the top of the standings.

Josh Bailey and Martin Jones took home second and third respectively, after impressive weeks of their own. Bailey had an incredible seven assists last week and now has 15 on the season, and Jones led the Sharks to three straight wins. Both the Sharks and Islanders have climbed out of early holes to establish themselves as relevant playoff possibilities once again.

  • Matt Calvert will be out three to four weeks with an upper-body injury according to the Columbus Blue Jackets’ GM Jarmo Kekalainen. Calvert was injured in Saturday’s loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning and has been placed on injured reserve. Losing Calvert will test the Blue Jackets’ forward depth even more, as they’re already without Lukas Sedlak and Cam Atkinson for the time being. The team has not made a corresponding move yet, and will take on the New York Rangers tonight.
  • Auston Matthews is a game-time decision for the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight as he deals with “soreness” according to head coach Mike Babcock. If Matthews does miss the game, it would be the first time in his career he failed to suit up. In 97 career regular season games, Matthews now has 50 goals and is showing he could be even more dominant than anyone expected when he was selected first overall. The Maple Leafs can’t afford to lose him for very long though, as their slide continued with a 6-4 loss at the hands of the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night.
  • Unfortunately for the fans in Stockholm, Carl Soderberg may not be in the lineup when the Colorado Avalanche and Ottawa Senators play NHL regular season games in Sweden later this week. The Swedish-born forward did not travel with the team, instead staying at home in Denver with his pregnant wife. Since the couple is expecting the baby on Tuesday, he hasn’t yet been ruled out for the back-to-back games.

Snapshots: Matheson, Vlasic, Hanzal, Luongo

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Michael Matheson’s eight-year, $39MM contract extension with the Panthers last month caught many by surprise.  He is the least-experienced player to receive a max-term deal and his is the cheapest by $7MM.  Alex Prewitt of Sports Illustrated reports that the eight-year contract wasn’t even on the mind of the team when they first approached him about an early extension as GM Dale Tallon proposed both a bridge deal and a longer-termed one of five or six years in length.  Instead, Matheson’s camp preferred to look for eight years, something that Tallon and the Panthers were clearly amenable to.  Despite their confidence in him, Matheson has struggled out of the gate this season with just one assist through 12 games while his ATOI is down by over two minutes a night but his new contract doesn’t get underway until 2018-19.

Elsewhere around the league:

  • Still with Florida, despite participating in practice this week, Panthers goaltender Roberto Luongo remains listed as week-to-week, notes Matthew DeFranks of the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. The veteran has missed the last six games with a right-hand injury while James Reimer and recently-claimed Antti Niemi have struggled lately in his absence.
  • Although Sharks head coach Peter DeBoer was initially very optimistic about defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic not needing to miss too much time due to a head injury, Paul Gackle of the Mercury News notes that the bench boss chose his words a bit more carefully on Friday. While he’s still hopeful that Vlasic won’t be out long, he did acknowledge that these injuries can be prone to setbacks.  The blueliner was injured on Wednesday night against Nashville and did not skate either Thursday or Friday.
  • Dallas center Martin Hanzal, who has missed the last two games with a lower-body injury, will miss at least the next two games as well, head coach Ken Hitchcock told Mark Stepneski of the Stars’ team website. As Gavin noted earlier, Hanzal has not started well with his new team after signing a three-year, $14.25MM contract early in free agency as he has just a lone goal through 11 games in the early going of the season.  The team is targeting November 10th as a potential return date.

Snapshots: Nyquist, Makar, Price

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The Detroit Red Wings have dropped below .500 again with their loss last night to the Ottawa Senators, and the groans from hockey fans in Michigan are beginning again. Yesterday, our Nate Brown took a look at the coaching staff’s part in the sluggish start, and today Craig Custance of The Athletic went in depth on the trade value of a certain first-line asset.

Gustav Nyquist is an interesting piece for the Red Wings, under contract through the end of next season. The 28-year old forward was once one of the hottest scoring threats in the league, registering 48 points in 57 games in the 2013-14 season. That garnered him some Hart Trophy votes and a place on the Swedish Olympic team, but he hasn’t had quite the same impact since. Custance has some great quotes from scouts and front office types around the league on his perceived value, which isn’t as high as it could be if he can find some kind of consistency over the next few months.

  • Cale Makar is off to quite a start at UMass reports Craig Button of TSN. The fourth-overall pick of 2017 is a shining light for the Colorado Avalanche in their continued defensive struggles. Makar is the kind of defenseman who can bring you to your feet at any moment, and is starting to adapt to playing against higher competition. It will be interesting to see how long he stays in the college ranks, before being recruited to jump to the NHL with the Avalanche.
  • Although it’s clearly not serious, Carey Price wasn’t present at Montreal Canadiens practice today as he nursed a lower-body injury. The team is expected to recall a goaltender and will have Al Montoya start on Saturday night against the Winnipeg Jets. It might be good for Price to get some time off, as he’s struggled mightily through the early part of the season. With an .877 save percentage through 11 games, he’s leading the league in goals allowed and losses. About to start an eight-year, $84MM contract extension next season, the Canadiens need Price to get back to his all-world ways as soon as possible.

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