Maple Leafs Recall Maxime Lajoie
The Maple Leafs recalled defenseman Maxime Lajoie from AHL Toronto on Friday, per the team’s public relations department.
Toronto’s 23 active roster slots are all full, so a corresponding move must happen for the recall to be registered with the league. It’s unclear whether that will come in the form of an injured reserve placement or another move, such as a trade. The Hockey News’ David Alter reports center David Kämpf may be heading to IR to create space for Lajoie.
Kämpf, 29, has not played since the All-Star break with an undisclosed injury and is expected to miss at least one more game. He will be eligible to come off IR at any time.
For now, the Maple Leafs will have only 12 forwards and nine defensemen on the active roster. The lopsided totals won’t last long – veterans Jake McCabe and Mark Giordano were absent from practice yesterday for maintenance, so Lajoie comes up in the worst-case scenario that both are ruled out for Saturday’s game against the Senators.
The 26-year-old has four appearances with Toronto this year, last suiting up in the NHL in December. He’s averaged just 9:32 per game and has no shots on goal, although he does have a respectable 52.5% Corsi share at even strength in his limited minutes.
Lajoie will be a restricted free agent upon completion of his one-year, two-way deal this summer. Through 31 AHL games with the Marlies, he has two goals and 17 points with a +5 rating.
Pacific Notes: Arvidsson, McTavish, Jones
Kings winger Viktor Arvidsson skated in a full-contact jersey Friday for the first time since sustaining back and lower-body injuries during the preseason, Zach Dooley of the team’s official site reports. The 30-year-old’s return to the lineup is not imminent, but it’s a major step forward toward Arvidsson making his season debut before the March 8 trade deadline.
The 5-foot-9 sniper has not played since Los Angeles’ loss to the Oilers in Game 6 of last year’s first-round series. His absence has left a significant hole in the cap-strapped Kings’ top-nine, and as such, their 18th-ranked offense has performed under expectations.
Arvidsson has been skating with a non-contact designation for a few weeks, so his conditioning is likely close to game action after the extended absence. Interim head coach Jim Hiller has not commented on when Arvidsson could make his season debut.
The Swede is in his third season in Hollywood, notching 46 goals and 108 points in 143 games since a 2021 trade brought him West from Nashville. He’s in the final season of a seven-year, $29.75MM deal signed with the Predators in 2017 and will be an unrestricted free agent this summer.
Other updates from SoCal:
- Ducks sophomore Mason McTavish is out Friday against the Oilers with an upper-body injury, head coach Greg Cronin said. It’s unclear whether this is a recurrence of the upper-body injury that sidelined McTavish for seven games in December. The 2021 third-overall pick looks well on his way to holding down a long-term center spot in Anaheim’s top six, ranking fourth on the team in scoring with 13 goals and 31 points in 43 games. His 54.2 faceoff win percentage is the highest on the team, and while his possession metrics this season are mediocre, they don’t suggest he’s been a defensive liability.
- Replacing McTavish in the lineup will be winger Max Jones, who was activated off injured reserve Friday, according to the NHL’s media portal. The 25-year-old has not played since sustaining an upper-body injury on Jan. 5 against the Jets that caused him to miss Anaheim’s last 12 games. A pending RFA upon completion of his three-year, $3.885MM deal, the 2016 first-round pick has four goals and eight points in 34 games.
Canadiens Reassign Lucas Condotta
Feb. 9: The Canadiens reassigned Condotta to AHL Laval on Friday, per a team announcement. He logged a +1 rating and one shot on goal in a season-high 10:34 of ice time against the Capitals on Tuesday.
Feb. 4: The Montreal Canadiens have recalled forward Lucas Condotta to the NHL roster. Condotta was up with the Canadiens roster for three days last week, playing in two games and going without a point. It was just the second and third games of Condotta’s career, with the 26-year-old making his NHL debut and scoring his first career goal last season.
Condotta has otherwise spent the entire 2023-24 season in the AHL, playing in 40 games and scoring 13 points with the Laval Rocket. He’s in just his third professional season, joining the Canadiens organization following the end of UMass-Lowell’s 2021-22 season. The undrafted free agent appeared in 17 AHL games through the end of the year, between the end of the regular season and the postseason, scoring a combined five points. He had a much stronger showing in his official rookie AHL season last year, netting 16 goals and 31 points in 72 games.
Condotta isn’t the only new face at Montreal’s Sunday practice, with the team also inking Brandon Gignac to a two-year NHL contract and recalling him to the top club. Gignac is currently leading the Rocket in scoring, with 42 points through 43 games. It’s a career year for the 26-year-old, who has already outscored his previous career-high of 33 points set in 49 games last season.
Gignac and Condotta will battle for a spot in a Montreal lineup that’s opted to ice 11 forwards and eight defensemen since recalling Arber Xhekaj on January 22nd. The Canadiens are without Brendan Gallagher for their next four games, after the winger earned the first suspension of his career with an elbow to Adam Pelech‘s head. They are also without Christian Dvorak, Alex Newhook, and Kirby Dach, with all three forwards on injured reserve for varying amounts of time. These absences could provide a chance for the pair of minor-league forwards to find ice time, though which of the two will slot in and for how long is yet to be seen.
Islanders To Activate Casey Cizikas, Reassign Kyle MacLean
The Islanders will activate center Casey Cizikas from long-term injured reserve ahead of tonight’s game against the Lightning, as implied by his full participation in Thursday’s morning skate (via Newsday’s Andrew Gross). Center Kyle MacLean has been returned to AHL Bridgeport to open a roster spot.
Cizikas, 32, is still listed as a game-time decision after being upgraded Wednesday night. However, with Hudson Fasching still out with a lower-body injury, the Islanders don’t have an extra healthy forward on the roster and would need to dress seven defensemen if Cizikas is a late scratch.
As expected, Cizikas will return to his long-time home on the team’s fourth line between Matt Martin and Cal Clutterbuck. Now in his 13th season with the team, Cizikas has five goals and 11 points in 39 contests while averaging 13:30 per game. He remains under contract until 2027 with a $2.5MM cap hit.
Meanwhile, the 24-year-old MacLean returns to Bridgeport on a more permanent basis after being ferried up and down in Cizikas’ absence. The son of Isles assistant coach John MacLean scored his first NHL goal Monday night against the Maple Leafs, his only point during the first six games of his NHL career.
MacLean saw limited action under new head coach Patrick Roy, averaging 8:11 per game. He struggled in the faceoff dot, winning 14 out of 44 draws, and recorded a 47.8% Corsi share at even strength.
The New Jersey native has six goals and 19 points in 38 games with Bridgeport this season, on pace for AHL career-highs. He will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights this summer upon completion of a one-year, two-way contract worth $800K in the NHL and $82.5K in the AHL.
Blues Recall Calle Rosén
The Blues recalled defenseman Calle Rosén from AHL Springfield on Thursday, per a team release.
Rosén, who turned 30 earlier this month, joins the Blues with Justin Faulk and Scott Perunovich out of the lineup with lower-body injuries. The recall gives them seven healthy defensemen on the active roster in case their two injured defenders can’t re-join the team by Saturday’s game against the Sabres, their first after the All-Star break.
This is Rosén’s first recall since clearing waivers during training camp and heading to the minors in October. He’s scored twice and added 23 assists – which ranks first among Springfield defensemen – in 44 games, along with a +3 rating.
23-year-old right-shot defenseman Matthew Kessel drew into the lineup in 14 straight games before the break, averaging 17:17 per contest. He didn’t get on the scoresheet, however, and despite his even rating, his 43.1% Corsi share at even strength left something to be desired. If the Blues opt to replace Kessel with Rosén in the lineup, or if one of Faulk or Perunovich is ready to return, Kessel would not need waivers to return to Springfield.
After playing in a career-high 49 NHL games last season, it’s surprising it took until February for Rosén to see his first recall of 2023-24. He was quietly one of the best depth defenders in the league, posting eight goals and 10 assists for 18 points with a +19 rating despite logging only 15:36 per game. His 46.8% Corsi share at even strength was third among Blues defensemen behind Torey Krug and Tyler Tucker, and his expected +2.5 rating was second on the entire team behind depth winger Josh Leivo.
The Blues’ roster size is now at the 23-player maximum after Rosén’s recall. He is in the second season of a two-year, $1.525MM extension signed in 2022 that carries a $762.5K cap hit. A pending UFA, Rosén can return to Springfield without clearing waivers if he plays less than 10 games and stays on the roster for less than 30 days.
Joining the league as an undrafted free agent signed by the Maple Leafs in 2017, Rosén has since appeared in 87 games across five seasons for Toronto, Colorado and St. Louis. He’s played more of a role since coming to St. Louis in 2021, recording 10 goals and 25 points in 67 appearances.
East Notes: Jeannot, Grzelcyk, Svechnikov
To make room for the activation of Mikhail Sergachev from LTIR earlier today, the Lightning quietly placed winger Tanner Jeannot on LTIR, reports Erik Erlendsson of Lightning Insider (Twitter link). The 26-year-old has missed more than a month already with his lower-body injury so this placement is simply procedural but it allows them to avoid any salary cap-related transactions for a little longer. However, Jeannot is expected to be activated at some point on their current road trip so the roster will need to be trimmed down soon enough. Jeannot has a dozen points in 41 games in his first full season with Tampa Bay after being acquired from Nashville before last year’s trade deadline.
More from the Eastern Conference
- Nick Goss of NBC Sports Boston examines the Bruins’ trade options, or, more specifically, the lack thereof. With them missing several draft picks and a thinned-out prospect pool as a result of their consistent win-now approach, GM Don Sweeney may exercise some caution before moving any of what he has left out. Meanwhile, with cap space at a premium, they might be in a spot where they would have to move out a contract to make a move; Goss pegs blueliner Matt Grzelcyk as a potential candidate to be moved. The pending UFA has a $3.6875MM cap charge which would give Sweeney some flexibility to take a player back if he opts to add to his roster in the next month.
- Hurricanes winger Andrei Svechnikov has missed the last five games due to an upper-body injury but it seems as if he’s close to a return. Team reporter Walt Ruff relays (Twitter link) head coach Rod Brind’Amour’s comments today which noted that Svechnikov is simply waiting until he feels 100% before returning to the lineup. The bench boss feels that Svechnikov’s return should be just around the corner, meaning he could be a possibility to play against Colorado on Thursday. The 23-year-old has been limited to just 29 games so far this season due to injuries but certainly has been productive, notching 11 goals and 19 assists.
Calgary Flames Sign Martin Pospisil To Two-Year Extension
The Calgary Flames have signed forward Martin Pospisil to a two-year, $2MM contract extension. The new deal will carry a $1MM cap hit through the 2025-26 season.
Pospisil has become a fan-favorite since playing in his NHL debut on November 4th. He scored his first career goal in his first game, kicking off a hot streak that saw Pospisil net three goals and five points in his first seven NHL games. He’s lost his scoring touch since, totaling just 11 points through 34 games up to this point. His role has become much grittier, with Pospisil tallying 23 penalty minutes since January 1st – more than any other Flame. He’s up to 37 penalty minutes on the season, ranking second on the team to Andrew Mangiapane.
Calgary drafted Pospisil in the fourth round of the 2018 NHL Draft. He’s already played more NHL games than all but two players taken that round, behind Philipp Kurashev and Paul Cotter. Pospisil turned pro soon after getting drafted, playing 26 games with the Flames AHL affiliate, the Stockton Heat, in the 2019-20 season. He recorded 10 points and 56 penalty minutes that season – ranking third on the team in penalty minutes despite playing roughly 20 fewer games than anyone else in the top five.
Pospisil made his professional debut soon after his draft, playing in 26 games with the AHL’s Stockton Heat in the 2019-20 season. He quickly established himself as a physical presence, ranking third on the team with 56 penalty minutes, despite sitting out 29 of the team’s 45 games. That presence has followed him, with Pospisil setting a career-high 95 penalty minutes in 47 games during the 2021-22 season. He’s now proving his physicality at the top level, throwing hits at a rate greater than any other Flame and earning his first million-dollar contract. That physicality got him into some trouble last night against Boston when he received a major penalty for cross-checking but Sportsnet’s Eric Francis relayed earlier today that there would be no supplementary discipline heading his way.
Injury Notes: Nosek, Spurgeon, Toffoli
Earlier today, the New Jersey Devils announced that the team has activated forward Tomas Nosek off of long-term injured reserve. After signing a one-year, $1MM contract with the Devils as an unrestricted free agent this past offseason, foot surgery has kept him out of the lineup since early November, limiting him to only six games on the season.
Nosek was originally brought in to be an effective fourth-line center option for the Devils, a title that has since been held by multiple different players. In his six games on the year, Nosek has gone scoreless while averaging a career-low in average time on ice.
With top forward Jack Hughes still out of the lineup, Nosek will not exactly fill in any void left by Hughes, but nonetheless fills a hole in the forward unit. For a team that has had very little stability down the middle of the ice at the bottom of the lineup, the return of Nosek will at least give them that moving forward.
Other injury notes:
- On January 18th, it was announced that Minnesota Wild captain Jared Spurgeon would miss the rest of the 2023-24 season due to surgery on his back and his hip. Today, Michael Russo of The Athletic reports that Spurgeon underwent successful surgery on his back, and will undergo hip surgery in approximately a month. In a lost season for both player and team, Spurgeon will have finished with a career-low 16 games played for the Wild, only tallying five assists overall.
- Back in New Jersey, before their game tonight against the Colorado Avalanche, Ryan Novozinsky of Star-Ledger reported that forward Tyler Toffoli would miss the action tonight due to illness. In his stead, depth forward Maxwell Willman will draw back into the lineup, lining up on the wing next to Curtis Lazar and Nathan Bastian against their Central Division-leading opponents.
Sabres Place Mattias Samuelsson On Injured Reserve, Activate Erik Johnson
One man in, one man out for the Buffalo Sabres as the team announced they have placed defenseman Mattias Samuelsson on injured reserve, and have officially activated defenseman Erik Johnson. It will be the second time this season that the organization has placed Samuelsson on the IR, as he suffered an undisclosed injury from November 4th to November 11th.
In the middle of the pack of man games lost to injury throughout the 2023-24 regular season, Buffalo has seemingly dealt with a consistent slate of injuries for much of the year. With the team having already played 49 games this season, Casey Mittelstadt, Owen Power, and John-Jason Peterka remain the only players to have appeared in every game.
Once again primarily playing with Sabres’ defenseman Rasmus Dahlin this season, Samuelsson has been relatively successful as a two-way defenseman for the club. His Corsi For % in All Situations and his On-Ice Save Percentage in All Situations are both at career highs, with his Expected +/- being at a career-high over a full season, according to HockeyReference.
On the other hand, Johnson has struggled considerably during his first year in Buffalo. After multiple successful seasons with the Colorado Avalanche, Johnson’s transition to the Eastern Conference has not gone swimmingly. Primarily playing with Connor Clifton, the two have produced an Expected Goals Against Per 60 minutes of 3.5 on the season, the worst of any defensive combination deployed by the Sabres this season according to MoneyPuck.
Not completely out of the playoff picture yet, Buffalo currently sits 10 points back of the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, with only one game in hand of the Detroit Red Wings, who currently occupy the spot. Depending on the Sabres’ approach to the deadline, they will need to pick up some quick steam in order to have a shot at the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Philadelphia Flyers Activate Owen Tippett Off Injured Reserve
Spending two weeks on the team’s injured reserve with a lower-body injury, Owen Tippett will be back in the lineup tonight for the Philadelphia Flyers as the team announced they had activated him from the injured reserve. The news of his return also comes 11 days after Tippett signed an eight-year, $49.6MM extension in Philadelphia that will run through the 2031-32 NHL season.
Returning to the lineup tonight, it will be the first time playing his former team, the Florida Panthers, as a visiting player. Before his trade to the City of Brotherly Love during the 2021-22 season, Tippett played in 94 games for the Panthers spread out over three seasons, scoring 14 goals and 33 points altogether.
Now in a more elevated role with the Flyers, Tippett surpassed his totals in Florida relatively quickly in Philadelphia, scoring 27 goals and 49 points over 77 games last season. In a similarly productive season this year, Tippett has played in 46 games for the Flyers up to this point, scoring 18 goals and 30 points.
On a rather interesting note, even though Tippett is producing slightly better this season than last, he has lost nearly two minutes in average time on the ice as compared to last year. In a 10-game stretch from November 4th to November 25th, Tippett scored five goals and eight points but only played about 14 and a half minutes of those games on average. However, in his most recent 10-game stretch, head coach John Tortorella has seemingly extended his leash, playing Tippett nearly 18 minutes a night on average.
Nevertheless, while taking his recent playing time as well as the contract extension into consideration, it goes without saying that the Flyers view Tippett as being a long-term fixture in their forward core. Even though he has not scored 30 goals yet in a singular season, Tippett is well on his way to becoming one of the select few players who can average the mark over several years.