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Snapshots: Three Stars, Greeley, Wild

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The NHL has released its Three Stars for last week, with Jordan Kyrou taking home the top spot. The St. Louis Blues forward had seven points in two games, including a four-point effort in the Winter Classic. With 79 points in 128 career games, including 32 in 29 this season, the 2016 second-round pick is establishing himself as a top offensive performer in the NHL.

Second and third place went to Jack Hughes and Jonathan Huberdeau respectively, after their own outstanding weeks. The New Jersey Devils center had eight points in three games and figured into two more overtime victories for the club. Huberdeau meanwhile continues his incredible run and is now up to 41 points in 32 games this season.

  • The Dallas Stars have hired Steve Greeley as their new Director of Hockey Strategy/Scouting and Development, bringing him in to oversee the club’s analytics department. Greeley was previously an assistant general manager with the Buffalo Sabres under Jason Botterill and an assistant director of player personnel with the New York Rangers.
  • The Minnesota Wild may be giving a young prospect their first chance at the NHL level, as Michael Russo of The Athletic tweets Matt Boldy and/or Marco Rossi could be coming up for Thursday’s game. The Wild placed Jordan Greenway in the COVID protocol today and are already without Joel Eriksson Ek. Boldy, as Russo points out, is the only top-20 pick from 2019 yet to play in an NHL game, while Rossi is only a year removed from his myocarditis diagnosis which put his career on pause.

Snapshots: Paquette, Zuccarello, Canadiens Quarantine

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The Montreal Canadiens are absolutely ravaged at the moment by injuries and COVID, and bad turned to worse today when forward Cedric Paquette didn’t finish Saturday’s game against the Florida Panthers due to a neck injury, per TVA’s Renaud Lavoie. Montreal dressed just 11 forwards and five defensemen for that game, a 5-2 loss. They had just three players dressed with a cap hit greater than $1MM, with the majority of their lineup filled out by rookies and AHL call-ups. Paquette played a third-line role, centering Lukas Vejdemo and Alex Belzile. Paquette’s only played in 18 games this season, missing some time due to injury and suspension, but he only has one assist while averaging 9:11 per game. More injury news is certainly concerning for the 28-year-old Paquette, who signed a one-year deal with Montreal this offseason.

More notes from around the league on the first day of 2022:

  • With the Minnesota Wild missing captain Jared Spurgeon from tonight’s Winter Classic due to a lower-body injury, The Athletic’s Michael Russo tweets that right wing Mats Zuccarello will serve as the third alternate captain for the outdoor spectacle. Matt Dumba and Marcus Foligno are healthy and will serve as the other two alternates, as per usual. Zuccarello fought back from an early-season injury to have one of the most productive starts of his career, posting 24 points through 24 games. The Norwegian winger will likely reprise his role on the team’s top line, playing alongside Kirill Kaprizov and Ryan Hartman.
  • The Canadiens aren’t playing again until January 12th at the earliest as their entire upcoming four-game homestand is postponed. The team won’t complain due to the aforementioned excessive amount of lineup absences, but now, head coach Dominique Ducharme says that a five-day quarantine for the entire team upon their return to Montreal is possible and will be discussed. While it won’t affect their playing schedule, it could give a chance for players to stay healthy and help their lineup get back to having experienced NHLers in the mix.

Snapshots: Canucks, Ruff, Canadiens, Robinson

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While Jim Rutherford has a tendency to swing big in trades, it doesn’t appear he’ll do that with the Canucks.  In an appearance on Sportsnet 650 (audio link), the team president acknowledged that any trades they make will be for draft picks and younger players, suggesting he won’t try to add some veterans in an effort to aid Vancouver’s push to get back into the playoff picture (they sit three points out of the last Wild Card spot).  Rutherford also mentioned that their new GM will likely be a first-timer in the role.  There’s no timeline for when they want to get that spot filled.

More from around the hockey world:

  • The Devils announced (Twitter link) that head coach Lindy Ruff has been placed in COVID protocol. Assistant coach Alain Nasreddine will take over as interim bench boss until Ruff is able to return.  It won’t be the first time that Nasreddine has been in charge of the bench for New Jersey as he served as interim head coach for them for 43 games back in 2019-20.
  • Canadiens prospect Jacob Olofsson has signed a contract through the 2022-23 season with IF Bjorkloven, the Allsvenskan team announced. The 21-year-old was a second-round pick of Montreal back in 2018 (56th overall) and must sign with them by June to retain his NHL rights.  This contract, along with a tough showing in 25 SHL games this season, suggests that’s unlikely to happen.
  • Still with Montreal, the Canadiens announced that winger Brandon Baddock has been placed in COVID protocol. The 26-year-old made his NHL debut last night in Carolina due to Montreal’s long list of injuries and COVID protocol, playing a little over eight minutes and recording six hits.
  • Blue Jackets winger Eric Robinson has cleared COVID protocol, relays Aaron Portzline of The Athletic (Twitter link). The 26-year-old has a dozen points in 28 games this season while averaging a career-high 14:04 per game.

Snapshots: QMJHL, Balcers, Niemela, Highmore

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The QMJHL announced that they have extended their holiday break through to January 14th with the season set to restart no earlier than January 17th.  With most teams not permitted to have any fans plus an increase in positive COVID tests, the move doesn’t come as much of a surprise.  With several games in the OHL and WHL being postponed as well plus more restrictions on attendance in recent days, it wouldn’t be surprising to see those major junior leagues hit the pause button on their seasons as well.

Elsewhere around the hockey world:

  • The Sharks are hoping to have winger Rudolfs Balcers back in the lineup on Sunday against Pittsburgh, relays Curtis Pashelka of The Mercury News. The 24-year-old has missed the last three weeks due to a lower-body injury after getting off to a decent start with 10 points in 24 games (a career high in points per game) while also averaging nearly 16 minutes a game, a mark that would also be a career best if maintained.
  • While it was a disappointing day for players at the World Juniors following their cancellation yesterday, there was a silver lining for Finnish defenseman Topi Niemela. Karpat of the SM-liiga announced that the Maple Leafs prospect has signed a one-year extension through the end of next season, meaning his arrival in North America will have to wait.  The 2020 third-rounder (64th overall) leads all Liiga blueliners in scoring with 24 points in 31 games this season.
  • The Canucks announced (Twitter link) that they have activated winger Matthew Highmore off long-term injured reserve. The 25-year-old had missed the last 23 games due to an upper-body injury.  Highmore had two assists in eight games before being injured and is in his first full season with Vancouver after they acquired him back at the trade deadline in April.

Snapshots: Canucks, AHL, Svejkovsky

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When Jim Rutherford took over the front office in Vancouver, he vowed that he would take his time to evaluate his new team and to choose from a multitude of potential GM candidates – and he is sticking to it. In an interview with Sportsnet’s Iain MacIntyre, Rutherford details his plans for the hockey operations hierarchy, including hiring two additional assistant GMs in addition to the GM, but shares that he is still evaluating a number of options for the top job. Rutherford is exploring some female options, as he tells MacIntyre that he appreciates the diversity within the Canucks organization and would not mind furthering those efforts. However, he has also been impressed with internal candidates as well, such as player development director Ryan Johnson and analytics lead Aiden Fox. Rutherford hopes to begin in-person interviews next month, but a hiring announcement could still be a ways away and to this point Rutherford has stuck with his plan not to make any major moves before bringing in another mind to share in the decision.

  • The NHL is not alone in dealing with the current COVID surge. The AHL has announced the postponement of three upcoming games, with the Stockton Heat and San Jose Barracuda on Wednesday and the San Diego Gulls and Tucson Roadrunners on Thursday and Sunday being moved to a later date. The league states that California clubs San Jose and San Diego are both in COVID-19 Protocols and unable to compete. Unlike the NHL, if rescheduling these games within the reasonable confines of the teams’ schedules, they could very well become cancellations rather than postponements.
  • Down another level, a Pittsburgh Penguins prospect has been moved in the WHL – and for a decent price. 2020 fourth-rounder Lukas Svejkovsky was traded to the Seattle Thunderbirds by the Medicine Hat Tigers in exchange for a 2022 first-round pick, a conditional 2023 second-round pick, and a conditional 2025 third-round pick. Though of Czech descent, Svejkovsky was in fact born in Florida and is an American citizen and even attended USA Hockey’s junior selection camp. While he did not make the WJC roster, Svejkovsky is still having a banner year. The small, but skilled forward recorded 30 points in 24 games with the Tigers before the move and now heads to a Seattle club that touts the fifth-best record in the WHL.

Snapshots: Jets, Zucker, Sourdif

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The Winnipeg Jets have had their next home game postponed and then are headed out for a four-game road trip, but when they return they’ll be coming back to an empty rink. The province of Manitoba has instituted a 250-person limit on attendance and the Jets responded by announcing that there will be no fans permitted at Canada Life Centre until at least January 11.

That would affect at least two games, January 8 and 10 against the Seattle Kraken and Minnesota Wild. Just as Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic suggested about the Montreal Canadiens, the Jets could potentially petition the NHL to allow them to reschedule those home games for later in the season, trying to avoid lost revenue.

  • The Pittsburgh Penguins have given Jason Zucker maintenance days throughout the season, so when he was absent from today’s practice it didn’t seem out of place. But when practice ended, head coach Mike Sullivan explained to reporters including Mike DeFabo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that Zucker will be out on a week-to-week basis with a nagging lower-body injury. That’s a disappointing result, given the team is also dealing with several COVID-related absences right now, but Zucker hasn’t been very effective even when he is in the lineup. With just four goals and 11 points in 30 games, he’s off to a disappointing start to the season. Perhaps some time getting fully healthy will allow him to produce more regularly down the stretch.
  • Justin Sourdif was skating as the extra forward today at Team Canada World Junior practice, and Mark Masters of TSN suggests that it might be because of a hit he threw in yesterday’s game that could result in a suspension. Sourdif, a Florida Panthers third-round pick, was given a two-minute minor for the hit in Canada’s 6-3 win over Czechia.

Snapshots: Canadiens, Kane, Sustr

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In their final game before being shut down, the Montreal Canadiens welcomed the Philadelphia Flyers to town. Things were going normally until the provincial government instructed that the game be played without fans. That caused “a lot of grumbling” according to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, who writes that there is real worry about the reduced capacity in Canadian markets affecting the league’s revenue projections.

Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic adds that if the Canadiens are still not allowed to have fans at their home games in January, some of them could be rescheduled to later in the season. Montreal is set to return after the holiday break on a three-game road trip, before the Washington Capitals come to town on January 4.

  • COVID-19 outbreaks are obviously not limited to the NHL, as many AHL teams have also seen players move in and out of the protocol throughout the year. One notable name today was Evander Kane, who entered the protocol along with Nick Cicek and Jasper Weatherby of the San Jose Barracuda. Kane, if you’d forgotten, has been playing in the AHL since his suspension ended last month and has eight points in five games with the Barracuda–the first five minor league games of his entire career. Now 30, Kane remains a potential trade candidate but he’ll have to isolate for the time being as he goes through the protocol.
  • There won’t be many minor league transactions today as the league goes dark, but the Tampa Bay Lightning did sneak in one more before things closed. Andrej Sustr has been reassigned to the AHL for the break, saving the Lightning a few dollars. The 31-year-old has been used in spot duty throughout the year, playing eight games for Tampa Bay and 12 for the Syracuse Crunch.

Snapshots: All-Star Game, Cooper, World Juniors, Rust

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While it appears the NHL and NHLPA will soon officially be pulling the plug on participating in the upcoming Olympics, it doesn’t appear as if All-Star Weekend will be doomed to a similar fate.  At least, not yet.  ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski notes that at this point, there haven’t been any substantial discussions about whether or not to delay or cancel that event which is scheduled for February 4th and 5th in Vegas.  Depending on what happens over the coming weeks when it comes to further postponements on the schedule, the league may need to utilize those dates for makeup games but after not having the event last season, it’s one they’ll likely try to keep intact if they can.

More from around the hockey world:

  • Prior to their game against Vegas tonight, Lightning head coach Jon Cooper was placed in COVID protocol, relays Eduardo A. Encina of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link). Tampa Bay was one of the few teams left that didn’t have anyone in COVID protocol before this placement.
  • The World Juniors will have considerably fewer fans than originally planned for following an announcement that Alberta will be limiting capacity to 50% at both arenas. There is no timeline for when those measures will be revisited and they will also affect the Flames and Oilers once their games resume although Edmonton comes out of the holiday break with a six-game road trip due to the tournament.
  • The Penguins and winger Bryan Rust held extension talks but have shelved them after being unable to find common ground in talks, reports Pittsburgh Hockey Now’s Dan Kingerski. It has been a tough season for the 29-year-old who has been limited to just a dozen appearances due to injuries after two strong years that saw him pot 49 goals in 111 games which doesn’t help his case as he looks to land a sizable raise on his current $3.75MM AAV.  Matt Vensel of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette mentions that Rust skated with the team in Monday – albeit in a non-contact jersey – which suggests that he could be back not long after play resumes following the holiday break.

Snapshots: Eichel, Ducks, Chychrun, Everberg

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Though complete or accurate information is not always available, one of the best things about major trades can be comparing the actual exchange to the alleged offers made by those teams who could not complete the deal. The Jack Eichel trade was one of the more prolonged negotiations in recent memory resulting in a sizeable return for the Buffalo Sabres: Alex Tuch, Peyton Krebs, a first-round pick, and a second-round pick. While it is safe to assume that nearly every team in the NHL kicked the tires on Eichel at some point in time, the combination of the Sabres’ asking price, Eichel’s contract, and the conversation surrounding his neck injury and preferred treatment thinned the list of suitors considerably toward the end of the saga. However, one of the other teams believed to be in the mix right until the end were the Anaheim Ducks. So why didn’t they best the Vegas Golden Knights’ offer?

On Sportsnet’s “32 Thoughts” podcast, Elliotte Friedman spoke about what he heard was the Sabres’ asking price from the Ducks, and it explains why Anaheim didn’t pull the trigger. Friedman reports that Buffalo requested Trevor Zegras, Jamie Drysdale, and two first-rounders to part with Eichel. Go back three years and that’s equivalent to asking for four first-round picks, including two top-ten picks. Zegras and Drysdale are already so much more than that, too. The super-skilled center, 20, and slick defenseman, 19, are already key pieces of a resurgent Ducks team, who hope to build around the duo and keep them in Southern California for years to come. Even for a player of Eichel’s caliber, giving up Zegras – who could end up being a younger version of Eichel – and Drysdale, not to mention two more first-round picks, is just too much and not nearly equal to what Buffalo eventually got from Vegas. Friedman also adds that the Ducks’ doctors were never quite comfortable with Eichel’s requested disc replacement surgery, which was of course a lynchpin in any potential trade. It just wasn’t a match for the star center and Anaheim, though they could both be better off for it.

  • Jakob Chychrun’s trade availability still exists, for whatever reason, and Friedman reports that a number of teams are interested in the talented, young Coyotes defenseman, as they should be. He notes that teams are starting to get serious as Arizona has not backed off of their willingness to move the 2016 first-round pick. However, one team that has fallen out of the running are the Edmonton Oilers, even though Friedman and colleague Jeff Marek both feel that he would be a great fit. Defense is a long-term need for the Oilers, but Friedman went so far as to say that Chychrun definitively will not end up in Edmonton. It is unclear if the asking price or cap complications forced the team’s hand or if they merely soured on him amidst a down year. Other teams continue to circle as the ’Yotes dismal season wears on and Chychrun, forced into the No. 1 role on a blue line that was completely dismantled in the off-season, unsurprisingly struggles. Yet, the 23-year-old is just one season removed from recording 41 points in 56 games and is averaging almost 25 minutes per night, which are impressive enough to overcome his ugly -29 mark so far this year.
  • Dennis Everberg burned bright but fast in the NHL. The Swedish forward was just an undrafted kid when he joined the Colorado Avalanche in 2014-15, quickly earned a roster spot, and recorded 12 points in 55 games as an unheralded rookie. Yet, as loudly as he made his entrance, Everberg quietly made his exit. He was held scoreless in 15 games with the Avs in his sophomore campaign and, though he was stellar in the AHL, opted to return overseas following the season. Everberg made a short-lived comeback attempt in 2018-19 with the AHL’s Manitoba Moose, but left the team after just 11 games. Now back in Sweden, the 29-year-old Everberg is one of the more consistent scorers in the SHL. With back-to-back 32-point seasons, Everberg is playing at the same pace this year with 19 points in 26 games. The two-way forward also carries a +36 rating in his SHL career. Rather than try again in North America or elsewhere in Europe, Everberg has realized that he has a good thing going with the league leaders, Rogle BK. The team has announced a five-year extension for Everberg, keeping him under contract through the 2026-27 season and into his mid thirties. This likely means that the capable forward will play out his days at home in Sweden.

Snapshots: Three Stars, Coyotes, Point

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The NHL has released their Three Stars for last week, with Dylan Larkin taking the top spot. The Detroit Red Wings captain scored five goals and seven points in three games, helping the club maintain a grip on the second Eastern Conference Wild Card spot. Larkin, seemingly rejuvenated by his upstart young teammates, has 29 points in 27 games this season. Should he finish with more than a point-per-game, it would be the first time in his seven-year career.

Vladimir Tarasenko and Nikolaj Ehlers took home second and third respectively after outstanding weeks of their own. The St. Louis Blues winger had four goals and six points in three games, proving once again that he’s healthy and ready to reclaim his place as one of the most dangerous offensive weapons in the league. After two seasons marred by injury, Tarasenko is up to 29 points in 31 games. Ehlers meanwhile has grown into one of the most consistent players for the Winnipeg Jets and tallied seven points in just three games. The 25-year-old now has 24 points in 30 games, split evenly between goals and assists.

  • The Arizona Coyotes have paid approximately $930K to the city of Glendale, Katie Sharp of The Athletic confirmed with city manager Kevin Phelps. The team has “satisfied” what the city asked for when they threatened to lock them out of Gila River Arena earlier this month. The Coyotes have now gotten up to date with debts owed to the city and state, while NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has repeatedly insisted that it wasn’t a problem and the team isn’t moving. In fact, Bettman suggested that Glendale had an “edge or agenda” in how they were dealing with the Coyotes. Phelps told The Athletic at the time that there was no agenda, only that the city wanted “assurances that the team pay all of their obligations to the city in a timely manner.”
  • Brayden Point was back on the ice at Tampa Bay Lightning practice today, and he was wearing a regular white jersey, according to team reporter Gabby Shirley. Point was not included in the regular lines but skated alongside Gabriel Fortier and Nikita Kucherov. The star center is expected to return soon after the holiday break; he last played on November 20 and was given a four-to-six-week timeline.

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