Snapshots: Bergeron, Vilardi, Rielly
Patrice Bergeron was back on the ice today for the Boston Bruins as they prepare for training camp, but he won’t be going to China with the team for their upcoming preseason games. The Bruins are scheduled to open the preseason on September 15th in China against the Calgary Flames, but instead of travelling with the team Bergeron will be continuing his rehab after offseason surgery.
Bergeron is aiming to be ready for the start of the regular season, but as Joe McDonald of The Athletic writes he may have a different winger beside him to open the year. Danton Heinen has apparently been preparing to play either wing this offseason, and could get a look on the top unit beside Bergeron and Brad Marchand if the Bruins decide to move David Pastrnak onto a different line. Heinen may have been overlooked in an incredible rookie class last year, but still recorded 47 points in his first full-season which led all forwards outside of the top line.
- Los Angeles Kings fans may have to wait even longer to see top prospect Gabe Vilardi on the ice as his back injury could keep him out of rookie camp next week. That’s according to Curtis Zupke of the Los Angeles Times, who reports that the 19-year old forward experienced a “flare-up” of the injury this summer. Vilardi missed a good chunk of his junior season last year with this chronic injury, and the Kings want to be as careful as possible. The 11th-overall selection in 2017, Vilardi has the talent to become a dominant offensive player in the NHL if he can stay healthy enough to continue his development. He is a “day-to-day” situation at this point, just two weeks until training camp begins.
- Kristen Shilton of TSN sat down with Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly recently, and asked the alternate captain about the recent news that Auston Matthews would accept the captaincy if offered it by the coaching staff. Rielly spoke incredibly highly of Matthews’ maturity and drive, and admitted that he’d already a leader on the team. The Maple Leafs have been without a captain since trading away Dion Phaneuf in the middle of the 2015-16 season, and lost two alternates in Tyler Bozak and Leo Komarov to free agency this summer.
Snapshots: Top 100, KHL, Lindholm
Sportsnet released its full ranking of the Top 100 NHL Players of 2018-19 today, and to almost no one’s surprise Connor McDavid is at the very top. The Edmonton Oilers star center edged out Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Victor Hedman and Nathan MacKinnon in the top five, after winning his second consecutive Art Ross Trophy as the league’s top scorer. The Boston Bruins, Winnipeg Jets and Nashville Predators lead the way with six players each, while the Detroit Red Wings were the only team to not have a single appearance on the list.
Amazingly, the New Jersey Devils had just a single player—Taylor Hall—appear on the list despite reaching the playoffs last season. Hall was awarded the Hart Trophy as league MVP after registering 93 points, and clearly the Sportsnet staff believes he deserved it for carrying the team without any other top 100 player on the roster.
- The KHL have moved to a different point system for this season according to Russian reporter Aivis Kalnins, just days before games are about to begin. The league will abandon their previous scoring system that awarded three points for a regulation win, two points for an overtime or shootout win, and one point for an overtime or shootout loss in favor of the same two-point model the NHL currently uses. This system, critiqued by fans at times in North America, creates a level of virtual parity among all teams by keeping the standings squashed together for a longer period of time. In the KHL last season the first place team, SKA St. Petersburg, finished with 138 points in 56 games while last place, HC Yugra, collected just 48. In the new system, those extremes would have been 98 to 41.
- Par Lindholm is ready to fight for a spot in the NHL this fall, but that wasn’t true just a year ago. As Kristen Shilton of TSN reports, Lindholm had an offer to come over from the SHL in the spring of 2017, but decided it was better for his career to stay in Sweden for another season. It looks like he was right, as the now 26-year old center registered a career-high 47 points in 49 games during the 2017-18 season and proved that he was one of the most dependable offensive leaders in the entire league. Those 47 points put him fourth in the SHL and only nine points behind young phenom Elias Pettersson. He’ll now try to battle for the fourth-line center role with the Maple Leafs, behind a trio of stars that should get the vast majority of minutes.
Morning Notes: Rampage, Lindholm, Samsonov
The San Antonio Rampage have a new NHL affiliate this season in the St. Louis Blues, and will be debuting a new coaching staff as well. The team announced today that Daniel Tkaczuk and J.J. Daigneault have been hired as assistant coaches under Drew Bannister, while Ryan Ward has been hired as video assistant coach. Tkaczuk and Daigneault both come from the NHL ranks, spending time with the Blues and Montreal Canadiens respectively in recent years.
The Rampage were the AHL affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche previously, but with the Colorado Eagles joining the league it made sense to realign the partnerships. St. Louis operated last season without a primary affiliate, instead lending players to the Rampage, Chicago Wolves and Providence Bruins among others. This time around they’ll have more ownership in their player development, an important step as they look to transition some top prospects to professional hockey.
- Par Lindholm had interest from several NHL clubs before signing with the Toronto Maple Leafs, according to Kristen Shilton of TSN. The 26-year old center signed out of the SHL and has the inside track for a fourth-line role with the Maple Leafs this season. He told Shilton that he wanted to sign with a “classic” NHL team, and will get to be part of this group that is attempting to bring success back to a franchise that has struggled for so long. The fourth-line center role might not be a perfect opportunity given the huge minutes likely assigned to Auston Matthews, John Tavares and Nazem Kadri, but Lindholm could still be a valuable piece for the team going forward.
- Tom Gulitti of NHL.com spoke with new Washington Capitals head coach Todd Reirden about several things including the backup goaltender position for this season. The Capitals currently have minor league goaltender Pheonix Copley penciled into the role behind Braden Holtby, but Reirden is still calling it a competition with KHL standout Ilya Samsonov. The 21-year old Russian is among the best goaltending prospects in the world after dominating at the KHL level for the last few years. Expected to start in the AHL this season, it might not be long before he’s pushing for a full-time NHL role.
Maple Leafs And William Nylander Still Fairly Far Apart In Contract Talks
While some restricted free agents such as Calgary’s Noah Hanifin and Winnipeg’s Josh Morrissey appear to be getting closer to inking new deals, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman noted in a segment on Sportsnet 960 (audio link) that there is still a considerable gap to bridge between the Maple Leafs and winger William Nylander. Toronto is hopeful to find a way to lock up Nylander and extension-eligible forwards Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner to long-term deals and still leave themselves some financial wiggle room even after the addition of John Tavares earlier this summer. Inking Nylander to a bridge contract would buy them a bit of extra space beyond 2018-19 when the new deals for Matthews and Marner kick in but it will cost Toronto considerably more on his third deal. There are a lot of variables for GM Kyle Dubas to work through here so it’s not shocking to see that there is still some work to do here.
Poll: Who Will Win The Atlantic Division?
We’re just over a month away from the 2018-19 NHL season, and players are hitting the ice with teammates to start forming chemistry. All over the league there are individual workouts underway, and rookie tournament rosters being announced. The excitement for the upcoming season is starting to bubble up to the surface, and even the smallest NHL news has fans in a frenzy.
Today, Bovada released their over/under numbers for each team’s point totals and there are some interesting results. Though these aren’t to be taken exactly as predictions for the upcoming season—since betting odds also take into account popularity trends and other factors—fans of the Tampa Bay Lightning should still be extremely satisfied to see their club at the very top with an over/under of 107.5 points. The Lightning are expected to be Stanley Cup contenders once again in 2018-19, and have brought back nearly their entire roster.
The odds though tell a story of competition for the Lightning, as the Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins also find themselves with 100+ point expectations. All three clubs reside in the Atlantic Division and will have to battle each other for the right to go to the Stanley Cup Finals. Not to be forgotten in the Atlantic are the Florida Panthers, who are expected to contend for the playoffs and the Buffalo Sabres who should be much improved.
Who do you think will come out on top of the Atlantic Division in the regular season? Can Toronto take that next step and topple their rivals in Boston? Will Aleksander Barkov and the Panthers take a big leap and contend for the Stanley Cup? Can Rasmus Dahlin turn around a Buffalo blue line? Cast your vote below and explain how you think the season will play out in the comments!
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Fourteen Restricted Free Agents Remain Unsigned
We’re now just a few weeks away from the start of training camp, and there are still 14 restricted free agents without contracts. Many of those who remain unsigned are key players for their teams, and starting training camp without them isn’t a desired situation for either side. That means early September should be filled with new contracts, including several that should be quite substantial.
The full list of unsigned RFAs, thanks to CapFriendly:
Nick Ritchie (ANA)
Marek Langhamer (ARZ)
Sam Reinhart (BUF)
Noah Hanifin (CGY)
Matt Puempel (DET)
Darnell Nurse (EDM)
Michael McCarron (MTL)
Miles Wood (NJD)
Jordan Schmaltz (STL)
William Nylander (TOR)
Shea Theodore (VGK)
Eric Comrie (WPG)
J.C. Lipon (WPG)
Josh Morrissey (WPG)
As CapFriendly points out, there is still technically a possibility of an offer sheet for these players given their status as restricted free agents but it seems extremely unlikely at this point. Offer sheets are so rarely used in today’s NHL and would require a team to have ample cap space this late in the summer. Remember too that an offer sheet is not something a team can do without the player’s consent, and none of these situations seem contentious currently.
Instead, these contracts are taking a long time because they have real impact on their team’s cap situations going forward. William Nylander wants a long-term deal from the Toronto Maple Leafs, but with Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, Jake Gardiner and others needing new contracts within the next year there are plenty of reasons to think a bridge deal could be more beneficial. Nylander’s cap hit is extremely important for the Maple Leafs going forward, and given that it will likely fall somewhere around Dylan Larkin‘s $6.1MM and David Pastrnak‘s $6.67MM it takes time to work out.
For a team like Edmonton, locking up Darnell Nurse provides perhaps even more challenges. The team needs Nurse desperately this season given their already ailing blue line, but also has to worry about how they’ll add to the team down the line if they buy out any of his free agent years. That would send his cap hit skyrocketing, and the team has just $3.9MM left for this season and more than $62MM already committed for 2019-20. A bridge deal in Edmonton might be the only possible contract, but it might not be what Nurse is looking for.
The same could be said in Calgary, where the Flames can’t be exactly sure what they have in Noah Hanifin. While he has a high draft pedigree and has been a fine player in Carolina through the early part of his career, there’s no indication yet that he can be a franchise defenseman capable of leading their blue line down the road. With many of their other defensemen closing in on unrestricted free agency and the back half of their careers, the Flames have to be careful where they commit the most dollars.
Overall, this is a very talented group that is still unsigned as we inch closer to September and should make for some fireworks just before camp. In the worst case scenario some of them will miss camp and perhaps even hold out into the season, at which point we’ll be looking at a December 1st deadline instead of mid-September. That’s when every RFA needs a contract by or else they forfeit the entire 2018-19 season.
Hayley Wickenheiser Hired By Toronto Maple Leafs
One of the most legendary women to ever play the game of hockey is still breaking new ground, as today Hayley Wickenheiser was hired as the Assistant Director of Player Development for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Wickenheiser was a guest coach earlier in the summer at the Maple Leafs rookie development camp, and had told reporters that she had discussed a potential role with the team going forward. The Maple Leafs also announced that Scott Pellerin has been promoted to Senior Director of Player Development, and Stephane Robidas to Director of Player Development. Victor Cameiro and Noelle Needham have also both been added as amateur scouts.
Wickenheiser of course is one of the very best to ever play women’s hockey, winning four Olympic gold medals, seven World Championship gold medals, a CWHL Championship, three WWHL Championships and seven more various silver medals in international competition. She famously played in several men’s leagues in Europe for a time, and even won a CIS Championship with the University of Calgary late in her career, while returning to continue her education. There is very little that Wickenheiser hasn’t done in the game of hockey, and will now join a small but growing group of women with full-time hockey operations roles in the NHL.
The Maple Leafs have an advantage over many teams in the NHL given their financial might, but since the salary cap was instituted cannot use their full strength to buy players on the ice. Instead, sinking money into high profile executives and development systems is the way the team will continue to find an advantage, and perhaps build a contender for the Stanley Cup.
Lou Lamoriello Limited Toronto's Interest In Luke Glendening; William Nylander Contract Could Be Several Weeks Away
Red Wings center Luke Glendening was linked to the Maple Leafs towards the trade deadline as the team was seeking fourth line center help and head coach Mike Babcock is certainly familiar with him from his own time in Detroit. However, MLive’s Ansar Khan notes that former Toronto GM Lou Lamoriello wasn’t as enamored with the 29-year-old which was why they were only offering up a late-round pick for his services.
- Maple Leafs winger William Nylander remains unsigned and is the most prominent restricted free agent remaining on the market. In an appearance on the Steve Dangle podcast (video link), Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston suggested that it may still be a few more weeks before a deal gets done. He viewed the opening of training camp (September 13th) as an artificial deadline to get something done and that it’s certainly possible that it could go a day or two beyond that as well. Nylander’s case has been well documented already and it will be interesting to see if Toronto can reach a long-term agreement or if they opt for a bridge deal to keep his cap hit down in the short-term.
Overseas Notes: Sandin, Taffe, Garbutt
Murray Pam of Sporting News Canada is reporting that Toronto Maple Leafs first-round pick Rasmus Sandin will not return to the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds of the OHL next season, and is currently with Rogle of the SHL preparing for the season. The Maple Leafs could still assign Sandin to the AHL’s Toronto Marlies if they chose to, because the 18-year old defenseman was playing on loan to the CHL.
Toronto brought top pick Timothy Liljegren over right away and allowed him to play all season in the AHL last year, and could potentially do the same with their latest first rounder. That would allow the two to potentially play together on a Calder Cup-winning squad, but may block Sandin from receiving the same type of minutes that he would in the SHL. The Marlies currently project to have some combination of Martin Marincin, Calle Rosen, Andreas Borgman and Andrew Nielsen on the left side this season, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for Sandin to play big minutes.
- HC Slovan Bratislava of the KHL have signed Jeff Taffe, the epitome of a professional hockey journeyman. Taffe, 37, played pro for more than a decade in North America, suiting up for 180 NHL games split between the then-Phoenix Coyotes, New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Florida Panthers, Chicago Blackhawks and Minnesota Wild before heading overseas to play in Europe and the KHL. He’s played in the SHL, KHL and NLA the last few seasons and will return to Slovakia to suit up for Slovan Bratislava this season. Once a first-round pick by the St. Louis Blues, Taffe has always been an incredibly talented offensive performer in the minor leagues and internationally, and will try to continue that at his advanced age in the KHL.
- Speaking of HC Slovan, Ryan Garbutt won’t be playing for them again this season after signing in Germany’s DEL. Garbutt, a veteran of over 300 NHL contests, played for three different KHL teams last season after failing to find a job in North America. Once a 17-goal man for the Dallas Stars, the offense dried up for Garbutt fairly quickly and he found himself in the minor leagues for a good chunk of the 2016-17 season. At 33, it seems unlikely he’ll make a return to the NHL and will finish his career with 87 career points.
Snapshots: Corsi, Ramo, Matthews
The Columbus Blue Jackets have hired a pair of new faces for the coaching staff, bringing in Jim Corsi as goaltending development coach and Carey Krug as an assistant for the Cleveland Monsters. Corsi of course is the coach that the statistic is named after, but also has a long history of developing NHL goaltenders including working with Dominik Hasek and Ryan Miller after taking over from legendary coach Mitch Korn in Buffalo.
Krug, another familiar name in the hockey world, is the uncle of Boston Bruins defenseman Torey Krug and has been a skills development coach working with various players for more than a decade. He’ll join Columbus’ AHL affiliate and work with head coach John Madden for the upcoming season.
- Karri Ramo will miss the next six months thanks to a knee injury, keeping him out of a good portion of the KHL season. After posting outstanding numbers with Jokerit last season, Ramo was set to start for Avangard Omsk this season. Instead, that job will likely go to hulking goaltender Igor Bobkov, who also came over to Omsk this offseason. Bobkov was selected back in 2009 by the Anaheim Ducks in the third round, but never did crack the NHL. Now 32, it seems unlikely that Ramo will ever return to the NHL during his playing career.
- Auston Matthews has been the center of several rumors this offseason regarding his perceived attitude towards Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock and the arrival of John Tavares in town. He sat down with Jonas Siegel of The Athletic (subscription required) to put some of that speculation to rest, and admitted that he is ecstatic about the team adding a star of Tavares’ stature. Matthews also admitted that if the Maple Leafs brass asked him if he was ready to be the next captain of the team already, he would tell them yes—an admission that is only going to start more speculation about the 20-year old superstar.