Avalanche Reassign Keaton Middleton, Jere Innala
With their pre-holiday break schedule wrapped up, the Avalanche announced this morning that they’ve assigned defenseman Keaton Middleton and right-winger Jere Innala to AHL Colorado. Their active roster is now at 20.
Middleton’s demotion seems unlikely to be reversed when the Avs return to action on Friday. That’s because defenseman Josh Manson is expected to return from an upper-body injury after the break and come off injured reserve, knocking Middleton off the roster. All of Colorado’s other demotion options would require waivers, while Middleton hasn’t been on the roster for long enough since last clearing them to necessitate hitting the wire today.
The 26-year-old younger brother of Wild defender Jacob Middleton has played in the Avalanche’s last nine games, his first in the NHL since making his debut with the Avalanche in April of 2021. The longtime Colorado farmhand was a fourth-round pick of the Maple Leafs back in 2016 but never signed, waiting until 2021 to land his first NHL contract with the Avs. He’s been in their system ever since, racking up 59 points and 390 PIMs with a +27 rating in 251 showings for the AHL side over the last five seasons.
Middleton, who’s slated to become an unrestricted free agent next summer, had four assists in 17 AHL games before being recalled. In his nine appearances with the Avs, he went without a point but logged a +1 rating and 13 hits while averaging 10:31 per game. The Avalanche controlled 47.6% of shot attempts in Middleton’s limited 5-on-5 minutes.
Meanwhile, Innala was summoned for the first time on Thursday as Colorado rotates depth forwards in the absences of Jonathan Drouin and Miles Wood. The 26-year-old signed with the Avs as a free agent over the offseason after spending the last two seasons with Frölunda HC of the Swedish Hockey League, where he accumulated 54 points in 94 games and represented his native Finland at the 2021, 2022 and 2024 World Championships. He averaged 7:57 across two contests, posting a -1 rating and four shot attempts (none on goal). He had five goals and 10 assists for 15 points in 21 AHL games prior to the recall. He could find himself back on the roster when the holiday break concludes.
Kraken Reassign Ben Meyers, Gustav Olofsson
Dec. 23: After being rostered for their back-to-back over the weekend, the Kraken returned Meyers and Olofsson to Coachella Valley this morning, per a team announcement. Olofsson didn’t play during his recall, while Meyers posted a -1 rating in 8:52 of ice time in last night’s loss.
Dec. 21: Seattle has added some reinforcements to its roster in advance of their game tonight against Vegas. The team announced (Twitter link) that forward Ben Meyers and defenseman Gustav Olofsson have been recalled from AHL Coachella Valley.
This is the second recall of the season for Meyers who got into three games with the Kraken back in November but was held off the scoresheet while averaging just under eight minutes a night. The 26-year-old has been productive with the Firebirds, collecting nine goals and ten assists in 22 games with them. Signed to a one-year, one-way contract in unrestricted free agency this summer, Meyers could be heading back there next year unless he gets into ten more NHL games this season which would then make him a restricted free agent with arbitration rights.
As for Olofsson, it’s his first time up with Seattle in 2024-25. The 30-year-old has played in 27 games with Coachella Valley this season, picking up four goals and seven assists, putting him one point shy of his total from last year in barely half as many games. Olofsson has 63 career NHL contests over parts of seven seasons, four of which have come with the Kraken over the past two years.
Seattle had two open roster spots following the recent demotion of Mitchell Stephens so no further moves were needed to bring Meyers and Olofsson onto the active roster.
Wild Activate Yakov Trenin From Injured Reserve
The Wild will have winger Yakov Trenin‘s services for tonight’s game against the Blackhawks. The team announced this morning that he’s been activated from injured reserve, ending a nine-day absence due to an upper-body injury.
Trenin, 27, became an unrestricted free agent for the first time last summer and landed a four-year, $14MM contract with Minnesota. The 6’2″ Russian forward was a second-round pick of the Predators in 2015 and spent his entire career there until last year’s trade deadline when he was flipped to the Avalanche as a rental.
Unfortunately, Trenin hasn’t come as advertised. Usually a decent secondary option offensively in a checking role, he has just two goals and an assist in 29 showings this year. He’s averaging 13:37 per game, which is his lowest usage since his rookie season, although he ranks second on the team with 82 hits. That physical play hasn’t translated to two-way dominance, as Minnesota only controls 44.4% of shot attempts with Trenin on the ice at 5-on-5. That’s the lowest such share of his NHL career.
He’ll return to the lineup in a fourth-line role with AHL call-ups Ben Jones and Devin Shore, Daily Faceoff projects. That’s a demotion from where he spent most of the year prior to his injury, skating as the third-line right wing alongside Marcus Foligno and Frédérick Gaudreau. The reduction in role also comes despite Minnesota still being without two regular forwards, Joel Eriksson Ek and Jakub Lauko, due to lower-body injuries.
The Wild freed up the roster spot for Trenin’s activation yesterday by assigning Travis Boyd and Jesper Wallstedt to the AHL. As expected, they’re also getting netminder Filip Gustavsson, who’s missed four games with a lower-body issue, back today against Chicago, reports Jessi Pierce of NHL.com.
Blue Jackets Recall Denton Mateychuk For NHL Debut
The Blue Jackets are recalling top defense prospect Denton Mateychuk from AHL Cleveland, reports Aaron Portzline of The Athletic. He’ll be making his major league debut as soon as he gets into a game, which could be as soon as tomorrow against the Canadiens. The team later announced that forward James Malatesta was returned to Cleveland in a corresponding transaction, while Justin Danforth also landed on injured reserve. Additionally, goaltender Jet Greaves was added on an emergency recall and will be available tomorrow against Montreal.
As Portzline notes, it’s unclear if Mateychuk’s recall is in response to an injury to star blue-liner Zach Werenski. He sustained an apparent knee injury early in the third period of yesterday’s overtime loss to the Flyers after getting tangled up with Philadelphia winger Owen Tippett but only missed a couple of shifts before returning. Head coach Dean Evason confirmed postgame that Werenski wasn’t 100%, though, calling his status for tomorrow “hopeful” (via Brian Hedger of The Columbus Dispatch).
Mateychuk, 20, is now undoubtedly the highest-caliber defense prospect in the Blue Jackets organization after they traded David Jiříček to the Wild last month. McKeen’s Hockey ranked him as the second-best prospect in the system behind center Cayden Lindstrom at the beginning of the season, while Scott Wheeler of The Athletic listed him as the No. 35 prospect in the league over the summer. Columbus selected him 12th overall in 2022 after taking Jiříček sixth, and he responded with eight goals, 57 assists and 65 points in 63 games while captaining the Moose Jaw Warriors of the Western Hockey League in his post-draft year.
The Winnipeg native improved further in 2023-24, posting 75 points and a +35 rating in 52 games with Moose Jaw while winning the Bill Hunter Trophy as the WHL’s top defenseman. He added 11 goals and 30 points in 20 playoff games as the Warriors captured their first-ever WHL championship, and he was crowned playoff MVP after leading the postseason in assists with 19. He headed to AHL Cleveland for his first taste of professional hockey after his Memorial Cup run with Moose Jaw was over, posting three assists in four postseason contests.
That showing had Mateychuk in contention to land a spot on the Blue Jackets’ opening night roster, but a logjam of names ahead of him meant he was one of the final cuts from their training camp. He took the demotion in stride and then some, racking up nine goals and 16 assists for 25 points through his first 27 regular-season games with Cleveland. That’s good enough for the league lead in scoring among defensemen – obviously a major accomplishment for a rookie.
A left-shot defenseman, Mateychuk checks in at 5’11” and 192 lbs. He’s in the first season of his entry-level contract, which was signed in 2022 but slid twice due to a lack of NHL service team. He’ll be eligible to test restricted free agency in 2027.
Malatesta, 21, was recalled last Wednesday amid a lower-body injury to Danforth, who hasn’t played since Dec. 10. The 2021 fifth-round pick played in the Jackets’ last two games, posting a -1 rating and averaging 10:34 per game while failing to register a shot on goal. The Montreal native is producing 0.48 points per game through 25 appearances with Cleveland this season, up from last year’s 0.39 mark.
Since Danforth has missed more than seven days with his lower-body injury, he’ll be eligible to come off IR at any time. The Sacred Heart product has three goals and five assists for eight points in 25 games this season and is averaging a career-high 15:20 per night.
Greaves’ recall coming under emergency conditions suggests either Elvis Merzļikins or Daniil Tarasov will be unavailable to dress for tomorrow’s game. Tarasov has been healthy by all accounts but hasn’t appeared in a game since Dec. 5, when he surrendered six goals on 36 shots to the Oilers. The 25-year-old is in danger of losing the No. 2 spot on Columbus’ goaltending depth chart to Greaves after logging a poor .857 SV% and 4.26 GAA through nine starts. The 23-year-old Greaves, meanwhile, has a .896 mark through three games.
Panthers Recall Rasmus Asplund
The Panthers announced that center Rasmus Asplund has been recalled from AHL Charlotte. They’ve been rolling with an open spot on the active roster for quite a while, so no corresponding move is necessary.
Asplund, 27, will play in his first NHL game in 618 days this afternoon against the Lightning. He enters the lineup in place of winger Jonah Gadjovich, who head coach Paul Maurice said is unavailable due to an upper-body injury (via the team’s Jameson Olive). Center Jesper Boqvist is also day-to-day with an upper-body issue, so they would’ve only had 11 forwards on hand for today’s intra-state rivalry matchup without a recall.
Asplund is in his second season in the Panthers organization. Briefly an everyday player with the Sabres early in the decade, he fell out of a regular role in the 2022-23 campaign and, after an uneventful post-trade deadline stint with the Predators, wasn’t tendered a qualifying offer and settled for a two-way deal with Florida in free agency. After spending all of last season on assignments to Charlotte, he signed a duplicate extension aside from a slightly higher salary guarantee in late June to remain in South Florida and stay off last summer’s free agent market.
The Buffalo second-round pick back in 2016 was a decent two-way player near the bottom of the lineup in his days as an NHL roster fixture. The Swede posted 18 goals, 49 points and a -14 rating in 183 NHL appearances with the Sabres and Preds from 2019-20 to 2022-23, including a career-best 27 points in 80 games with the Sabres in 2021-22. He averaged over 14 minutes per game that season and posted a strong 52.8% shot-attempt share on a defensively challenged Sabres team, earning himself some outside Selke Trophy consideration.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep up that play in more shutdown-oriented minutes at even strength the following season and has since ended up as a minor-league fixture. He’s been a decent top-six piece in Charlotte, posting 19 goals, 41 assists and 60 points with a -2 rating in 92 appearances over the past two seasons. He’s got 10 goals and 16 points in 25 showings thus far in 2024-25.
Asplund can remain on the roster for up to 30 days or play in 10 games until he requires waivers to return to Charlotte. It’s likely that he’ll be returned to the AHL once Boqvist or Gadjovich is ready to return barring an unexpectedly strong showing.
Wild Reassign Travis Boyd, Jesper Wallstedt
The Wild have returned forward Travis Boyd and goaltender Jesper Wallstedt to AHL Iowa, per the team’s public relations staff. The move leaves them with two open active roster spots and no extra forwards for tomorrow’s game against the Blackhawks, suggesting one of their injured reserve-bound forwards, either Joel Eriksson Ek or Yakov Trenin, might be able to return to the lineup, as Michael Russo of The Athletic relays.
Boyd, 31, was recalled Friday for Minnesota’s back-to-back against Utah and the Jets. It was the veteran’s fourth summons of the season after clearing training camp. None of his recalls have lasted for an extended period of time, with the longest totaling nine days in late November. That’s meant he’s been able to avoid hitting waivers again when the Wild return him to the minors since he hasn’t accumulated enough days on the active roster nor NHL appearances to make his temporary exemption expire.
The Minnesota native was scratched for Friday’s loss to Utah but entered the lineup for last night’s 5-0 drubbing at the hands of Winnipeg, posting a blocked shot in 8:08 of ice time in what was his third NHL appearance of the season and his first since Nov. 27. The 2011 sixth-round pick of the Capitals has averaged a career-low 7:48 per game when dressed, going without a shot on goal and skating on the wing while starting a whopping 88.9% of his even-strength shifts in the defensive zone. That’s naturally led to some pretty horrid possession numbers. The Wild have only controlled 23.5% of shot attempts and 20% of expected goals with Boyd on the ice, but in such a small and biased sample, those numbers shouldn’t be read into much.
The right-shot forward has never posted very favorable possession metrics, though. This far into his professional career, he is what he is – a valuable depth scorer in limited minutes who’s currently being miscast in a defensive role. With forwards ahead of him on the depth chart returning to health, he’ll return to Iowa, where he leads the club in scoring with 18 points in 17 games in his first AHL action since the 2019-20 campaign.
Boyd has averaged 13 goals and 32 points per 82 games throughout his eight-year NHL career, including a career-high 17 goals and 35 points in 74 games three years ago with the Coyotes. After spending most of last season with Arizona on injured reserve with a pectoral muscle tear, he signed a one-year, two-way deal with the Wild when free agency opened to return to his home state for the first time since his senior season at the University of Minnesota a decade ago.
Wallstedt’s demotion suggests Filip Gustavsson could be ready to return to the crease, at least in a backup role, after missing the last four games with a lower-body issue. He never landed on IR, so Minnesota has continuously considered him day-to-day throughout his absence. Wallstedt, the Wild’s top goaltending prospect, allowed five goals on 24 shots against the Jets last night in his second start of the season. It’s been a difficult year for the 22-year-old Swede, who now has a .843 SV% in his two NHL appearances and a subpar .874 mark in 12 AHL games.
That stark regression comes after Wallstedt was an AHL All-Star each of the last two seasons, prompting Minnesota to sign the 2021 20th overall pick to a two-year, $4.4MM extension in October. At least for now, the stumbling Wild will be ecstatic to get Gustavsson’s services back instead. The 26-year-old has returned to his 2022-23 form, logging a stellar .922 SV%, 2.24 GAA, and two shutouts in 22 starts.
New Jersey Devils Reassign Colton White
Colton White‘s time with the New Jersey Devils is on pause after 10 days on the active roster. The organization announced the reassignment of White to their AHL affiliate, the Utica Comets. New Jersey also added that White will join Team Canada for the upcoming Spengler Cup instead of joining the Comets roster.
The 2024-25 season is his eighth professional season and his sixth with the Devils organization. New Jersey drafted White with the 97th overall pick of the 2015 NHL Draft and he’s been with the organization since aside from two years with the Anaheim Ducks organization.
Most of White’s value centers around his physicality. He’s tallied 10 assists in 84 games at the NHL level since the 2018-19 season with 57 blocked shots and 65 hits. He’s understandably scored more at the AHL level with 17 goals and 78 points in 274 games but has a dismal -69 rating throughout his career.
His inclusion on Team Canada’s roster for this year’s Spengler Cup will be the first international competition of White’s career. He’ll assist the Canadians in pursuing their first Spengler Cup victory since the 2019 tournament. The tournament will take place from December 26th to December 31st in Davos, Switzerland.
The Devils will likely make a corresponding roster move on defense after the Christmas break. They have one more game tomorrow night against the New York Rangers but will want more than six healthy defensemen on the active roster by the weekend.
Jets Activate David Gustafsson From Injured Reserve
The Jets announced that they have activated center David Gustafsson from injured reserve. They had a pair of open roster spots after assigning Nikita Chibrikov and Dylan Coghlan to AHL Manitoba on Thursday.
Gustafsson, 24, had missed the last four games while in concussion protocol. The 2018 second-round pick left his last appearance, a Dec. 10 trouncing of the Bruins, after fighting Boston forward Trent Frederic. It was his second appearance since Oct. 20 after sitting out most of the season as a healthy scratch.
Last year, he stuck primarily on the NHL roster for the second season in a row aside from a brief conditioning assignment in February. He scored three goals, his first since notching his first NHL marker in 2019-20, and added four assists for seven points with a +1 rating in 39 games. He averaged 9:16 per game and won a career-best 54.6% of his faceoffs, often skating down the middle of Winnipeg’s fourth line when in the lineup.
Gustafsson has now appeared in parts of six NHL seasons, skating in a top-level contest in every season since arriving in North America in 2019. He’s played sparingly in all of them, though, averaging 19 appearances per season and just 8:44 per game. The 6’2″ pivot has been a relative non-factor offensively, averaging only 10 points per 82 games. The Jets have also rarely controlled the puck in Gustafsson’s even strength minutes, posting a 45.9% shot-attempt share and 41.9% expected goals share throughout his career.
With a fully healthy forward lineup tonight against the Wild, Gustafsson will return to his usual seat in the press box, the team said. He’s the 13th forward on the active roster and will be the first player to enter the lineup if an injury strikes, however.
International Notes: Leipsic, Bitten, Timashov, Gagner
The current roster freeze will prevent several roster moves in the NHL over the next few days. However, that won’t stop roster moves on the international stage, particularly in the Kontinental Hockey League. A couple of those transactions overseas include notable former NHL talent.
Longtime NHL veteran Brendan Leipsic has been traded in the KHL from Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg to Sibir Novosibirsk, per a release from the latter. In his first season with Yekaterinburg, Leipsic scored six goals and seven points in 25 KHL contests. It’s been six years since Leipsic suited up in the NHL, most recently for the Capitals. The former third-round pick of the Nashville Predators played in 187 games in the NHL from 2016 to 2020, scoring 16 goals and 59 points overall. He’s been far more productive in Russia, scoring 46 goals and 114 points in 197 games since joining the KHL ranks in 2020-21.
Other international transactions:
- Former NHL prospect William Bitten is on the move in the KHL. Anton Nekrasov of Championat confirmed that HK Sochi has claimed Bitten off waivers from Spartak Moscow. Only a year removed from scoring 39 goals and 78 points in 133 games for the AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds and debuting in the NHL with the St. Louis Blues in 2022-23, Bitten’s transition to the KHL has been nothing short of disastrous. He scored one goal and five points in 21 games for Moscow, leading the team to move on relatively quickly.
- In a corresponding move, Sochi released former Maple Leafs, Red Wings, and Islanders winger Dmytro Timashov, the team announced on Telegram. The 28-year-old Swede has been a non-factor in his first season in Russia, posting a goal and three assists in 22 games. He last suited up in the NHL with the Isles in 2020-21 and has quickly established himself as a European journeyman since, suiting up in Sweden and Switzerland before arriving in Sochi over the offseason. A fifth-round pick of Toronto in 2015, Timashov recorded four goals and five assists in 45 NHL contests while averaging 8:30 per game across the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons.
- Unrestricted free agent center Sam Gagner is in Sweden training with Djurgårdens IF of the second-tier HockeyAllsvenskan, reports Andreas Hanson of HockeyNews.se. Gagner, 35, has yet to play in 2024-25 but was recently named to Team Canada’s roster for this year’s Spengler Cup. The veteran of 1,043 NHL games could sign overseas for the first time since playing in Austria during the 2012 lockout if he has a decent showing at the tournament. After posting 10 points in 28 games in a limited role with the Oilers last season, Gagner signed a professional tryout with the Hurricanes in September but was released at the end of training camp.
PHR’s Josh Erickson contributed to this article.
Chicago Blackhawks Activate Seth Jones From IR
The Chicago Blackhawks are getting a major boost to their blue line. The organization announced they’ve activated defenseman Seth Jones from their injured reserve after missing the last 16 games with a right foot injury.
Jones’ activation couldn’t come soon enough for the Blackhawks. Through the first 17 games of the year with Jones on the roster, Chicago managed a 6-10-1 record with a -10 differential. In the 10 games following Jones’ exit from the lineup, the Blackhawks only had two wins while producing an identical -10 rating. The team has played better of late meaning Jones will only add to the current momentum.
The injury also came at a bad time for Jones personally. He got off to a solid start to the 2024-25 NHL season with two goals and 10 points in 17 games. Should he have continued his scoring pace throughout the regular season unencumbered, he would have finished with 10 goals and 49 points.
Jones can only finish the season with 66 games played meaning his eventual output should be similar to recent campaigns. He’s finished the last two years with 37 and 31 points respectively, a far cry from his five-goal, 51-point performance from 2021-22.
Still, Jones has unequivocally the most responsibility on Chicago’s blue line. He’s averaged 25:26 of ice time over 234 games played with the Blackhawks while playing in all situations. It might be a difficult transition for Jones tonight in his first game in over a month but it’s what’ll be required of him on a needy Blackhawks’ roster.
No corresponding roster move is necessary for Chicago given they only had 21 players on the active roster. However, one player is coming out of the lineup as Jones’ activation gives them seven defensemen.
According to Daily Faceoff’s projected lineups, that player is understandably youngster Kevin Korchinski. He’s scored zero points in six games for the Blackhawks this season and will likely head to Chicago’s AHL affiliate, the Rockford IceHogs, in due time.