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Snapshots: Senators, Slepets, Rossi

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As the Ottawa Senators look to finally move past their extended rebuild and take a step toward relevance this season, it is about time they name a leader of this next stage for the franchise. Speaking with the Ottawa Sun’s Bruce Garrioch, Senators head coach D.J. Smith stated that “It’s time for someone to be the leader of this group.” Smith believes that Ottawa is ready to name a captain after a three-season hiatus and tells Garrioch that he intends to speak with owner Eugene Melnyk and GM Pierre Dorion about making a decision before the end of training camp. The last player to wear the “C” was Erik Karlsson during the 2017-18 season and the Senators have used only alternates in the years since. However, with young defenseman Thomas Chabot signed long-term and young forward Brady Tkachuk hoping to join him for years to come, the Senators have two players that can be the face of the franchise for many years and either one would be a good pick as captain. Which one will be a difficult and important decision for the young locker room, which is why the organization’s leaders have taken their time and will still wait to name a captain until closer to the beginning of the season.

  • The odds of Carolina Hurricanes prospect Kirill Slepets making the jump to North America any time soon took another hit today. Just two weeks ago, Slepets re-signed in the KHL on a one-year deal with Spartak Moscow. The move came on the heels of a poor season for Slepets in which he played exclusively in the second-tier VHL rather than the KHL and led some to believe that the 22-year-old may cross the pond to continue his development. Instead, he stayed in Russia and after today’s trade may be settling in for an extended stay. Spartak has traded Slepets to his hometown team, Amur Khabarovsk, the club announced. Going the other way was former NHL forward Andrei Loktionov, proving that Slepets still has value in the KHL despite a down year. He has even more value to Amur, who are very excited to bring the prodigal son home and could be able to convince him to stay long-term. The 2019 fifth-round pick remains an interesting project to watch for the Hurricanes, especially given the ability he flashed at the junior level, but his NHL future is more in doubt now than ever.
  • Minnesota Wild prospect Marco Rossi has no doubt that he is ready to compete for an NHL roster spot after missing this past season due to an extensive battle with COVID-19. The 2020 No. 9 overall pick has been working out hard to get back into game shape and will get his first test this week suiting up for Austria in the Olympic qualifiers. However, he is already looking ahead to Wild training camp and is confident that he can make impact in Minnesota this year. Talking to The Athletic’s Michael Russo, Rossi stated the following:

I know I haven’t played a lot of games in the last year, year and a half, but now that I can see my fitness level and my shape, I know I’m better in shape than a lot of NHL players. I see no doubt about it that I can play in the NHL. I know I can play there. I know how good I am, but I have to prove myself in training camp that I’m ready for that. I know it’s going to be up to me to show I’m ready to play right away.

Snapshots: Power, Belanger, Lipon

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When the Buffalo Sabres secured the first-overall pick in this year’s draft, they had a decision to make. Usually, the top pick in a draft steps directly into the NHL and is given a full-time role on his team. This year, things were different with Owen Power, the consensus top prospect. The big defenseman had already hinted publicly that he was leaning toward a return to the University of Michigan, meaning he wouldn’t be able to help the Sabres during the early part of the season. As revealed today in a behind the scenes video from their pre-draft interview, Power didn’t just hint, he made it quite clear that he wanted to go back to school.

The Sabres, even then, were on board with the idea. GM Kevyn Adams told Power that he loved what he had said about returning to school to chase a national championship and dominate the college scene with no rush to get to the NHL. Michigan should be a powerhouse this season with not only Power returning, but also second-overall pick Matty Beniers and fifth-overall Kent Johnson also returning to the program. Add in fourth-overall Luke Hughes, who will be a freshman with the Wolverines, and it’s easy to see why Power would want to take at least one last crack at an NCAA title before turning pro.

  • The Montreal Canadiens have appointed France Margaret Belanger to the position of President, Sports and Entertainment of Groupe CH. Belanger has been with the organization since 2013 and already served as an alternate governor of the club. As Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports tweets, Geoff Molson remains the team’s owner and president, but it is Belanger who will be in charge of the day to day operations now. She is the first woman to serve on the Canadiens’ executive in its 104-year history, according to a press release.
  • J.C. Lipon went to the KHL last season and it appears as though he’s going to stay for another year. The former NHL forward has signed a one-year deal with Sochi for the 2021-22 season, after scoring 20 points in 37 games for Dinamo Riga this year. Originally selected 91st overall by the Winnipeg Jets in 2013, Lipon played nine games 2015-16 but has mostly been in the minor leagues. In 2019-20 he scored 13 goals and 31 points with the Manitoba Moose, racking up 100 penalty minutes (his sixth AHL season with at least that many).

Snapshots: Khovanov, Schwartz, Knight

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The Minnesota Wild are expecting Alexander Khovanov back in North America for the 2021-22 season, according to Michael Russo of The Athletic. The 21-year-old forward played in Russia this year on loan from the Wild, suiting up mostly in the VHL where he was once again a dynamic offensive presence.

Selected in the third round in 2018, Khovanov turned into a superstar with the Moncton Wildcats of the QMJHL, scoring 32 goals and 99 points in just 51 games during the 2019-20 season. He also helped team Russia to a silver medal at the World Juniors that year, and this season posted 24 points in 30 VHL games. With two years still remaining on his entry-level deal, Khovanov is likely ticketed for the AHL should he spend this year in North America, but his future is still bright in the Minnesota organization.

  • Jaden Schwartz endured a poor season on the ice in 2020-21, but he almost didn’t play at all. The new Seattle Kraken forward spoke with Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic and acknowledged that after the sudden passing of his father last year, he considered forfeiting his salary and skipping this season. Now heading into a new chapter in his career, leaving the only team he has ever known in the St. Louis Blues for an expansion club, Schwartz tells Rutherford he feels “fresh again.” The 29-year-old Schwartz signed a five-year, $27.5MM contract with the Kraken on the first day of free agency.
  • The U.S. team took home a 3-0 victory over Finland at the IIHF Women’s World Championship last night and there was some history made in the process. Hilary Knight scored her 44th goal in tournament history, tying her with Cammi Granato for the most all-time. The 32-year-old Knight already has eight World Championship gold medals to her name and will almost certainly cement herself as the all-time goals leader at the Worlds over the next few days. Granato meanwhile was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011 and is now working as a pro scout for the Kraken.

Snapshots: Redraft, Cronin, Wellwood

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A few years after any NHL draft it is a fun exercise to look back and see how players would rank if the selections were made today. While it takes some time to get a real perspective of the impact each player in the class brings, it’s also a good tool for scouts to look back and see where they may have made mistakes. That’s exactly what Scott Wheeler of The Athletic did by examining the 2018 class and noting just how accurately he ranked the players now that they have a few years of professional experience under their belts.

The headline-grabbing change is at the top, with Rasmus Dahlin replaced by Quinn Hughes as the first pick, but there are several interesting changes beyond that. Perhaps most notable is Joel Farabee’s placement at fifth after breaking out this season for the Philadelphia Flyers. The entire piece is certainly worth the read, especially for the new thoughts on each player that Wheeler provides.

  • The Colorado Eagles have extended head coach Greg Cronin for the next three years, keeping him behind the bench through 2023-24. Cronin has been with the team since 2018 and has a long, varied coaching career that includes time with USA Hockey at the IIHF World Championship. In his first three seasons with the team, he has an 85-60-12 record. The team has also signed assistants Aaron Schneekloth and Brett Clark to two-year deals.
  • Speaking of minor league head coaches, the Newfoundland Growlers have hired Eric Wellwood as their next bench boss. The ECHL affiliate of the Toronto Maple Leafs won the 2019 Kelly Cup and will now hand the reins to the 31-year-old coaching prospect. Wellwood spent the last three seasons as head coach of the Flint Firebirds, turning a program that was in disarray into one of the strongest teams in the OHL in 2019-20. Philadelphia Flyers fans may remember Wellwood from his time as a player, appearing in 31 NHL games over three seasons before an unfortunate, gruesome injury cut his career short at the age of 24.

Snapshots: Sweater Ads, Penguins, Sabres

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The NHL board of governors has unanimously approved a policy that will add a small advertisement to player sweaters for the 2022-23 season, another move to help the league recoup some of the revenue it has lost over the last 18 months. Sportico was first to break the story that has since been confirmed by multiple sources, and reports that the ad must fit in a rectangle of three by three and a half inches. This follows the move to have advertisements on helmets this season, a change that will continue moving forward.

While fans may not like the idea of ad space being rented out on their favorite sweater, the league is looking for any opportunity to create revenue streams. The move, albeit indirectly, is another step towards increasing the salary cap down the line, which would, in turn, lead to higher player salaries as well.

  • The Pittsburgh Penguins have hired Alec Schall as director of hockey operations, hiring the long-time player agent that previously represented James van Riemsdyk, Alec Martinez, and others. Schall will be responsible for “aiding Pittsburgh’s hockey operations department with player contract negotiations, managing the salary cap, as well as assisting with other hockey-related duties.” He will report directly to GM Ron Hextall, who took over the team earlier this year.
  • The Buffalo Sabres continue to bring back former players, this time hiring Tim Kennedy and Nathan Paetsch as development coaches. Both spent time with the Sabres during their playing days and will get a chance to work with Adam Mair and Dan Girardi in the Buffalo development team. Paetsch, who played 167 games at the NHL level, also served as a sort of player-coach with the Rochester Americans between 2017-20.

Snapshots: NHLPA, Copp, Jagr

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The NHLPA has strongly encouraged its players to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and warned of the potential for loss of pay for those who don’t do so, reports Michael Russo and Katie Strang of The Athletic (subscription link).  The main scenario where this could happen is flying into Canada where border travel is facing heightened restrictions; commercial travelers will require proof of vaccination by the end of October and while NHL teams fly charter, they could be subjected to that same policy and not allowed into the country.  In that situation, teams could have the ability to withhold salaries for the players not allowed in.  Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly noted that over 85% of NHL players have been fully vaccinated already so this wouldn’t necessarily affect many players but it’s a scenario the NHLPA wants to prepare its membership for.

Elsewhere around the hockey world:

  • Jets forward Andrew Copp acknowledged to reporters, including Postmedia’s Paul Friesen, that his preference was to sign a long-term deal. However, Winnipeg’s cap situation after some of their additions on the back end basically forced their hand and the two sides settled on a one-year, $3.64MM pact that will walk the 27-year-old to unrestricted free agency next summer.  With roughly $63.5MM tied up in a dozen players for 2022-23 per CapFriendly (excluding Bryan Little’s LTIR-bound contract), a strong showing next season could result in Copp playing his way out of Winnipeg entirely.
  • Veteran winger Jaromir Jagr will turn 50 late in the 2021-22 season and the future Hall of Famer will spend it playing with his hometown team in Kladno in the Czech Extraliga. The overwhelming majority of players hang up their skates by that age but in an interview with Pavel Barta of The Hockey News, the veteran indicated that he’s continuing to play out of obligation more than anything else.  Jagr happens to be the owner of the team and is worried about a loss of sponsorship that could put the team in jeopardy if he decided to call it a career.  While he isn’t the top scorer he once was, Jagr had a dozen points in 19 games last season to help lead Kladno back to the top level.

Snapshots: Stalberg, Wisdom, Schedule

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After a long, productive professional career, Viktor Stalberg is hanging up his skates. The 35-year-old forward last played in the NHL during the 2016-17 season and has been suiting up in Switzerland for the last several years. Originally selected 161st overall by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2006, the Swedish forward took the unusual route (especially 15 years ago) of playing for the University of Vermont to continue his development, passing up the opportunity to play pro hockey at home.

After three years in the NCAA, he signed and quickly stepped into the Maple Leafs lineup, recording nine goals in his rookie season. A few years later he would be hoisting the Stanley Cup overhead with the Chicago Blackhawks. In all, he played for the Maple Leafs, Blackhawks, Nashville Predators, New York Rangers, Carolina Hurricanes, and Ottawa Senators over an eight-year NHL career spanning 488 regular season games.

  • Philadelphia Flyers prospect Zayde Wisdom has undergone shoulder surgery and will be out indefinitely. The 19-year-old forward played 28 games for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms this season when the OHL failed to hold a season, and impressed everyone with an excellent 18-point campaign. Wisdom was a fourth-round pick of the Flyers in 2020, but has already shown an ability to score at the minor league level. He would be one of the players that could potentially become eligible to return to the AHL next season on a one-time exemption, even though he would normally be required to return to the CHL. That obviously also now depends on his recovery from shoulder surgery.
  • The league has announced the start times for the 2021-22 regular season, which will kick off with a banner raising in Tampa Bay on October 12 before the Lightning take on the Pittsburgh Penguins. That game will be followed by the Seattle Kraken’s first contest, taking on the Vegas Golden Knights in the late slot. The regular season will conclude on April 29.

Snapshots: Kaprizov, Elias, Robert Morris

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While no one wants to see dynamic and entertaining talent Kirill Kaprizov leave the NHL after just one year, especially after waiting so long for his arrival, the ongoing negotiations between he, the Minnesota Wild, and allegedly the KHL’s CSKA Moscow has been an intriguing storyline to say the least. However, the recent report that CKSA has an eight-figure offer out to Kaprizov is almost certainly a farce. As first pointed out by Bally Sports’ Andy Strickland, the KHL salary cap is equivalent to about $12MM, making an eight-figure offer one that eats up at least 83% of the team’s payroll on just one player. Even if they did want to make that kind of unrealistic commitment to Kaprizov, the perennial contenders are already flush with talent, including recent NHLers Joakim Nordstrom, Lucas Wallmark, Mikhail Grigorenko, Nikita Nesterov, and several others. There is no possible way that CSKA can afford Kaprizov for anything more than Minnesota’s best offer, leading Strickland to call this “one of the worst bluffs in sports history.” So, rest easy Wild fans. Minnesota maintains all of the leverage in this negotiation and isn’t about to lose Kaprizov and certainly not to an imaginary KHL offer.

  • Following a strong performance at the recent Hlinka-Gretzky Cup, Sports Illustrated’s Steven Ellis reports that talented young Slovakian goalkeeper Rastislav Elias has decided to make the move to North America and will play in the USHL this season. Unlike the past few draft classes, which have featured elite goaltending prospects that were long considered first-round picks, the title for top goalie prospect in the 2022 NHL Draft is still up for grabs. Elias hopes that by joining the Green Bay Gamblers and testing himself in a new league, having only played in Slovakian juniors to this point, will earn him some consideration for that label. The spotlight will be on Elias in 2021-22, who is already considered one of the top prospects in net alongside Canadian Tyler Brennan and Russian Sergei Ivanov in particular. Not only will NHL teams be eying Elias, but NCAA programs will also be heavily scouting the talented prospect, who is still eligible to go the college route if he so chooses.
  • Robert Morris University made waves this spring – and not the good kind – when they shockingly terminated their men’s and women’s hockey programs. The decision spurned numerous outside efforts to raise money to bring the programs back before the coming season, but there had been no update as to whether those attempts had been successful. That official word came down today, as the Pittsburgh-area university announced that they will not be icing hockey teams in 2021-22. Robert Morris reports that they have raised $1.34MM in contributions and pledges, but would require $1.4MM in immediate contributions and another $1.4MM in future pledges in order to reinstate the programs. The school notes that it is “eyeing [a] comeback in 2022-23” if fundraising continues, but by then the players from both teams likely will have transferred and the program will be starting from scratch. It is a disappointing result and seeming lack of dedication and effort on the part of Robert Morris, especially as schools around the country are adding Division I hockey programs, not subtracting them.

Snapshots: Kane, Saros, Pettersson

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With an investigation ongoing into allegations that he bet on NHL games, Evander Kane’s future with the San Jose Sharks isn’t clear. But it was long before that things started to deteriorate between the $7MM forward and his team. Kevin Kurz of The Athletic published an explosive piece today examining the situation in San Jose, reporting that “several key players” told the Sharks management that if Kane remained with the team, they didn’t want to stay.

Kurz writes that the Sharks did explore trading Kane earlier this offseason, but that obviously didn’t come to pass. Now with this new allegation, the reports of locker room turmoil and a bankruptcy case continuing in the background, the 30-year-old forward is “virtually untradeable.” Kane is currently signed through the 2024-25 season and holds a modified no-trade clause that allows him to list just three clubs he could be traded to. He also is coming off arguably his best season as a professional, with 22 goals and 49 points in 56 games.

  • The Nashville Predators are approaching an arbitration hearing with starting goaltender Juuse Saros, scheduled for August 18. Adam Vingan of The Athletic breaks down the case that both sides have, but notes that Saros’ camp is looking for a long-term deal, while the Predators are hoping for a three to four-year contract if things can be worked out before the hearing. Saros truly broke out this season, finishing sixth in the Vezina Trophy voting and even receiving some Hart Trophy recognition, after posting a 21-11-1 record with a .927 save percentage. The 26-year-old goaltender is just a year away from unrestricted free agency, meaning any multi-year contract would be buying out almost exclusively UFA seasons. An arbitration ruling on the other hand could only be one year in length, taking him right to the open market next year.
  • Elias Pettersson is another restricted free agent without a contract, but he doesn’t seem too worried about it. The Vancouver Canucks forward spoke to Uffe Bodin of Hockeysverige and explained that though the two sides are not in agreement on a deal yet, he’s confident they will find a solution. Pettersson also clearly indicated that he wants to be on a winning team, meaning if they want to keep him long-term, the Canucks better start making the playoffs more often.

Snapshots: Baptiste, Letowski, Kalamazoo

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Nicholas Baptiste found new life with the Texas Stars this season, getting his career back on track with 23 points in 34 AHL games. The 25-year-old forward will now head overseas to play for Ilves in Finland, where he could find even more offensive success. A third-round pick of the Buffalo Sabres in 2013, Baptiste played 47 games with the team between 2016-18, scoring ten points. He’s been stuck in the minor leagues ever since, suiting up for the Milwaukee Admirals, Toronto Marlies and Belleville Senators in addition to the Stars.

An unrestricted free agent that was playing under an AHL deal, Baptiste is still young enough to go to Europe, boost his value and potentially return on an NHL contract down the line. He’ll have to perform, obviously, but this may not be the last we’ve heard of Baptiste in North American pro hockey.

  • The Montreal Canadiens have hired Trevor Letowski as an assistant coach for the upcoming season, adding him to Dominique Ducharme’s staff. Letowski, who played more than 600 games in the NHL, was the head coach of the Windsor Spitfires for four seasons before this new appointment, though he didn’t get to serve during the canceled 2020-21 OHL season. Letowski joins a staff that already had assistants Alexandre Burrows and Luke Richardson, the latter of which signed a new three-year contract recently.
  • The Columbus Blue Jackets have reached an affiliation agreement with the Kalamazoo Wings of the ECHL, joining forces once again. The two were affiliates between 2014-16, but the Wings had other agreements with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Vancouver Canucks since then. For the 2021-22 season, after opting out of the ECHL season this year, they’ll be linked to the Blue Jackets, meaning they’ll receive some of their lower-end prospects. The ECHL is especially important for goaltending prospects, who need playing time above all else for their continued development.

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