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Joe Veleno, Moritz Seider To Remain In Europe

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Detroit Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman held a conference call with reporters (video link via the Detroit Free Press) and among the major announcements was that both Joe Veleno and Moritz Seider will be staying in Sweden until the end of the SHL season instead of returning for training camp. Filip Zadina, Filip Hronek, Gustav Lindstrom, and Mathias Brome, who are all also out on loan, will be brought back.

Veleno, 20, is playing for Malmo in the SHL where he has 11 points in 21 games so far. The 30th overall selection in 2018 had an up-and-down AHL debut last year when he scored 23 points in 54 games, but still has a very high ceiling as a two-way center that could be a staple in the Red Wings lineup for years to come. Leaving him in Europe certainly would suggest that the Red Wings believe he has more developing to do before really pushing for an NHL roster spot, though Yzerman did note there are still so many questions about what the AHL season will look like this season.

Seider meanwhile is still just 19 but is looking right at home at the SHL level. Playing with Rogle, he has 12 points in 17 games and was not released to the German World Junior squad. Selected sixth overall in 2019 to the surprise of many, Seider has quickly become one of the top prospects in the entire world and is a key to the Detroit turnaround. The 6’4″ defenseman has all the attributes of a true number one option, meaning his development is absolutely crucial to the Red Wings.

Speaking about all of the players who have suited up overseas, Yzerman noted that though playing in Europe has likely sharpened the games of Zadina and others, it isn’t the NHL and they’ll still have to prove themselves on this side of the pond.

It’s important to remember too, that though they will stay for the rest of the year, Veleno and Seider could potentially be late-season recalls for the Red Wings once things end overseas. The SHL regular season schedule completes at the beginning of April while the NHL regular season isn’t expected to be completed until May.

Nikita Kucherov Dealing With Injury

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The Tampa Bay Lightning may be without one of their best players when the season begins, as Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports that Nikita Kucherov is dealing with an injury that may keep him out “awhile.” The Lightning are expected to clarify the specifics later this week, but Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic adds that Kucherov got a hip injection last week.

Notably, as Friedman suggests, this could potentially be a fix for Tampa Bay’s cap problems. If Kucherov is forced onto long-term injured reserve, the team would theoretically not need to move any of their other high-priced assets to get under the $81.5MM salary cap ceiling. A return at any point during the regular season would obviously complicate the situation, though as James Mirtle of The Athletic points out with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, there is no salary cap come playoff time (which is only a few months away in a shortened season).

Still, losing Kucherov is obviously a huge blow for a team looking to repeat as Stanley Cup champions. The 27-year-old forward is one of the very best offensive players in the entire world and scored 85 points in 68 games last season. That, amazingly, only landed him the 13th spot in Hart Trophy voting, but the year prior he took home the Hart, Art Ross, and Ted Lindsay awards as the undisputed best player in the league. He recorded 41 goals and 128 points in 2018-19, a true example of how dominant Kucherov can be when healthy and surrounded by talent.

It may be some time before we get to see that Kucherov on the ice again.

Lightning Sign Gage Goncalves To Entry-Level Deal

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The Tampa Bay Lightning announced they have signed second-round pick Gage Goncalves to a three-year entry-level deal. He is the second 2020 second-round pick that the Lightning has signed in the last 24 hours as Tampa Bay inked Jack Finley (#57) Saturday to an entry-level contract. Goncalves was chosen five picks later at #62.

Goncalves has taken the long road to get where he was. The forward was signed by the WHL’s Everett Silvertips as an undrafted free agent as he was considered a weak skater, who lacked size or physicality back when he was 14 years old. He was given a camp invite in 2016 and 2017 to make the Silvertips and was cut both times. However, he never gave up, continuing to work on his game and constantly working on building up his body.

He was given a third chance in 2018 and made the team. Even then, Goncalves didn’t produce much, posting just a goal and 15 points in the 2018-19 season. Then suddenly last year, everything changed for him as he broke out for 33 goals and 71 points and showcased skills that many had not seen before. One reason for the change was a growth spurt that pushed his height to 6-foot-1. That production prompted the Lightning to grab Goncalves in the second-round, something that seemed impossible just one year before that.

Despite signing a three-year deal, Goncalves is expected to return to Everton next season, which will allow his contract to slide at least one more year.

Lightning Sign Jack Finley

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Tampa Bay has signed their top pick from October’s Entry Draft, announcing the signing of center Jack Finley to a three-year, entry-level contract.  Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The 18-year-old was the 57th-overall pick of the Lightning after they dealt a pair of picks (a 2020 fourth-rounder and a 2021 second-rounder) to Montreal to secure his rights.  Finley is coming off of a strong sophomore campaign with WHL Kelowna where he tripled his offensive production from his rookie year, going from 19 points to 57 (19 goals, 38 assists) in 61 games.  While there were more productive forwards still on the board at that time, size down the middle is an element that many teams covet and at 6’5, he certainly brings that to the table.

Last month, Finley was loaned to West Kelowna of the BCHL in an effort to get him some playing time but he was only able to get into a pair of game with the Warriors before that season was shut down.  With the WHL still aiming at opening up next month, he’ll likely be returned to the Rockets before too long.

It’s unlikely that Finley will see any game action with Tampa Bay this coming season so as a result, his contract will wind up sliding a year and will still have three years remaining on it after the 2020-21 campaign.

Tampa Bay Lightning Hire Rob Zettler

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The Tampa Bay Lightning have added an assistant coach to the mix, hiring Rob Zettler to join Jon Cooper’s staff. General manager Julien Brisebois released a short statement about the hire:

Rob brings extensive coaching experience to the Lightning organization and is very familiar with a lot of our players and coaches. We believe our players will benefit from Rob’s wealth of experience, both as a long-time NHL defenseman and as a veteran coach in the NHL.

Zettler, who may be best remembered as an in-your-face defenseman that played nearly 600 NHL games for several different organizations, has been an assistant coach with the San Jose Sharks and Toronto Maple Leafs previously. He also served, notably for this position, as the head coach of the Syracuse Crunch as recently as 2016. The Crunch of course is the AHL affiliate of Tampa Bay and where Cooper cut his teeth before taking over the Lightning.

In fact, Zettler took over as head coach of the Crunch from Cooper when the latter was promoted to the job in Tampa Bay during the 2012-13 season. That team, which had been 39-18-8 when Cooper was bumped up, went all the way to the Calder Cup Finals under Zettler, eventually losing despite the efforts of young Ondrej Palat and Tyler Johnson.

That familiarity and experience will come in handy for Zettler as he joins the NHL staff.

Maxim Cajkovic Removed From Slovakia WJC Camp

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Tampa Bay Lightning prospect Maxim Cajkovic will not be taking part in the World Junior Championship this year after being expelled from the Slovakian training camp. In a release, the team explains (via Google translate) that Cajkovic has been removed for a gross violation of sports and human values. Matej Deraj of Dennik Sport in Slovakia tweets that Cajkovic delivered several dirty hits on his potential teammates in a split-squad game.

Selected 89th overall by the Lightning in 2019, Cajkovic actually already took part in a WJC last season, recording two assists for Slovakia in five games. Though he had played the last two seasons for the Saint John Sea Dogs of the QMJHL, he was spending this first part of this year with the Bratislava Capitals in the ICEHL, where he had nine points in 12 games.

The 19-year-old winger possesses a lethal shot but will obviously have to avoid these kinds of situations in the future if his professional hockey career is to take off. The World Juniors is a chance for many young players to show off their skills against the best in the world and can only help the prospect stock of a player like Cajkovic. Given he’s still waiting on his entry-level contract from the Lightning, this certainly won’t help things. It will obviously also weaken the Slovakian squad, who aren’t loaded with NHL prospects like Cajkovic and were relying on him to provide some offense at the tournament.

BriseBois: Progress Being Made On Freeing Up Cap Space

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Even if Cirelli and Cernak take short-term contracts to keep the AAV down (which is the likeliest scenario at this point), it’s doubtful that moving out one player will be enough to get them back into compliance.  Tyler Johnson is known to be available but he passed through waivers unclaimed earlier this offseason.  With few teams having the ability to take on pricey contracts, BriseBois and the Lightning still have a lot of work to do.

Snapshots: CBA Talks, Cirelli, Smirnov

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The heads of the NHL and NHLPA haven’t spoken directly in almost a week, according to Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic who tweets commissioner Gary Bettman and executive director Donald Fehr last talked on Thursday, November 19. LeBrun notes that the “communication stalemate is noteworthy” because of the near-constant dialogue the two had through the first part of the offseason.

While LeBrun once again tweets his confidence something will finally get done and points at the next week as an important stretch, Darren Dreger of TSN adds that it has been that way for a while now. Many have pointed to the end of November as a key threshold if the NHL still wants a January 1. start, something that looks more and more difficult to accomplish with every passing day. The biggest issue in talks continues to be amending the CBA that was agreed to just a few months ago.

  • After the Tampa Bay Lightning re-signed Mikhail Sergachev this afternoon, LeBrun reached out to the agent for Anthony Cirelli, who remains a restricted free agent without a contract for the 2020-21 season. Pat Morris of Newport Sports told LeBrun that there is “nothing new to report” in Cirelli’s contract talks. With the Lightning now close to $2MM over the salary cap ceiling, contracts for Cirelli and Erik Cernak will be very difficult to fit in without a corresponding move.
  • Denis Smirnov, a sixth-round pick of the Colorado Avalanche in 2017, has signed his first professional contract, inking a deal with the Utah Grizzlies of the ECHL. The Grizzlies signed a trio of players today, including the 23-year-old Smirnov who became an unrestricted free agent when the Avalanche failed to sign him this summer.

 

Mikhail Sergachev Re-Signs With Tampa Bay Lightning

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The Tampa Bay Lightning have locked up one of their incredible young talents for another few years, signing Mikhail Sergachev to a three-year contract. The deal will carry an average annual value of $4.8MM. Sergachev was a restricted free agent without arbitration rights. Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic reports the full breakdown:

  • 2020-21: $2.4MM
  • 2021-22: $4.8MM
  • 2022-23: $7.2MM

Technically, this move takes the Lightning about $2MM over the $81.5MM salary cap ceiling for the upcoming season, with Anthony Cirelli and Erik Cernak still to sign. Still, getting Sergachev under contract for a reasonable amount was imperative, especially with the threat of an offer sheet still theoretically out there.

Make no mistake, even at $4.8MM, Sergachev still represents some excess value for the Lightning. The 22-year-old defenseman, who the Lightning acquired in exchange for Jonathan Drouin in 2017, would likely be a top-pairing player already on many of the teams around the league. That hasn’t been required in Tampa Bay where Victor Hedman and Ryan McDonagh continue to soak up huge minutes on the blue line, but Sergachev has still seen substantial increases in playing time each season. This year, his third with the Lightning, he recorded a career-high 10 goals in 70 games, racking up 34 points and logging more than 20 minutes a night. That performance carried over to the postseason where he was even more effective, averaging more ice time than any Tampa player not named Hedman or McDonagh en route to a Stanley Cup victory.

Not only could Sergachev probably shoulder a heavier offensive load, but his defensive game has also improved enough to believe he could be an all-situations star. He became a legitimate option on the penalty kill this season, producing excellent results whenever trusted to be out there short-handed, while still playing a strong second fiddle to Hedman on the team’s powerplay units. Financially, he’ll now slot in behind Hedman ($7.875MM cap hit) and McDonagh ($6.75MM) in a tricky cap puzzle for GM Julien BriseBois.

That puzzle has a few extra pieces right now, making it even more challenging to finish. The team will have to at some point move out one or more of their expensive contracts like Tyler Johnson, who was shopped and placed on waivers earlier this summer. There is of course the chance that a player could be injured and placed on long-term injured reserve to help them become compliant, but with Cirelli and Cernak to come the team simply can’t afford everyone.

Sergachev will still be a restricted free agent when this contract expires, though he’ll be just one year away from UFA status and arbitration-eligible. If his career continues down its current path, he’ll have an incredible amount of leverage in his next negotiation. One would have thought the offer sheet scenario would have been extremely enticing to a player like him, who could have certainly made more elsewhere, but Joe Smith of The Athletic reports that Sergachev actually agreed to a three-year structure with the Lightning shortly after the season ended and wanted to “give it another go” with the Cup champions in Tampa.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Atlantic Notes: Johnson, Fabbri, Kotkaniemi

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While news out of Tampa Bay has been extremely quiet, many fans are waiting for the Lightning to get their offseason underway. The team has three key restricted free agents, including Mikhail Sergachev, Anthony Cirelli and Erik Cernak, that it must deal with and little to no cap room with which to work with.

In his most recent mailbag, The Athletic’s Joe Smith (subscription required) writes that with no confirmation yet on when the season will start, most teams have taken a break, leaving the Lightning with moves to make and no one to turn to until training camps get underway at some point. Much of that speculation points to whether Tampa Bay can find a taker for forward Tyler Johnson and the four years at $5MM AAV. The team was not able to find a trade partner at the start of the offseason and no team attempted to claim him when the Lightning put Johnson on waivers.

With rumors that teams are demanding a first-round pick to take Johnson off their hands, Smith writes that the Lightning have little interest in doing that considering they already traded away their 2021 second-rounder. It is possible if the Lightning can’t find an alternative solution, that they might have to retain some salary in order to trade him. Johnson, who has a full no-trade clause, has given the team eight or nine teams he’s willing to go to, but so far the team has had no luck finding a taker. Even if the Lightning can find a trade partner to take all of Johnson’s $5MM AAV, the team is also likely to make other moves to get all three RFA’s under contract.

  • In a Q&A with Detroit Red Wings head coach Jeff Blashill, The Athletic’s Max Bultman (subscription required) gets the head coach to comment on the team’s potential lineup when the 2020-21 season starts. One interesting nugget in the interview is that Blashill said he wants to take a look at Robby Fabbri at the center position. “I’m intrigued by giving Robby Fabbri an opportunity to play center too. So we’ll see, we’ll see where the best fit is. But the fact he can do it, I think is a real positive to have on your roster,” said Blashill. Although more roster moves are possible, it is believed that there are a number of players who will vie for the second-line center position. Fabbri had a solid campaign last year with 14 goals and 31 points in 52 games and could be ready to return to the center position where he played before injury history began.
  • The Athletic’s Arpon Basu (subscription required) looks at the play of 20-year-old Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who is currently playing for his hometown team of Assat in Finland’s Liiga. The forward went scoreless in his first four games before getting his first point. He now has three assists in seven games, but is still looking for his first goal. While the numbers aren’t there, Basu writes that Kotkaniemi is still trying to adjust to Finland’s top league where every team they play is completely focused on him, something he hasn’t had to deal with in his two years in the NHL. Adjusting back to the Liiga after two years on North America’s smaller rinks also has been an adjustments for a player who was enjoying doling out hits in the NHL. That’s much harder to do in the larger rinks where a hit could take him out of the play too, meaning he can’t really work on that part of his game much.

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