Senators Reassign Leevi Meriläinen, Recall Cole Reinhardt
The Senators announced Friday morning that they sent goaltender Leevi Meriläinen back to AHL Belleville and recalled winger Cole Reinhardt.
That indicates Linus Ullmark is ready to return from a muscle strain that’s kept him out of the lineup for nearly two weeks. He was widely anticipated to return against Utah on Tuesday but was ruled out on the day of the game, prompting Meriläinen’s recall a few hours before puck drop. Meriläinen didn’t play against Utah, instead backing up Anton Forsberg, who pitched a 31-save shutout.
Unsurprisingly, Meriläinen didn’t get to add to his two-game NHL résumé. The 22-year-old netminder was a third-round pick of the Sens in 2020 and made his major league debut in a brief call-up in the 2022-23 campaign, posting a .878 SV%, 4.23 GAA, and a 0-1-1 record. The 6’3″ Finn has fared decently well in the minors, where he has a career 2.82 GAA, .906 SV%, two shutouts, and a 15-10-1 record in 31 appearances with the B-Sens over the past three years. He also had a sparkling .926 SV% in 13 games for the ECHL’s Allen Americans last season.
Reinhardt has been ferried between leagues a couple of times this season, most recently being sent down on Tuesday to make room for Meriläinen on the active roster. He’s back up today, meaning Shane Pinto remains a game-time decision at best for tonight’s contest against the Golden Knights after sustaining an undisclosed injury in Utah, per Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch.
The 24-year-old Reinhardt has yet to be rostered for a Sens game in 2024-25 despite the transactions, but that will change tonight. They have 13 other forwards on the active roster, but with David Perron on personal leave, Reinhardt will make his season debut against Vegas if Pinto can’t play. The 2020 sixth-rounder has one NHL appearance to his name, coming against the Predators on April 7, 2022. He recorded a shot on goal and two hits in 8:35 of ice time. He’s been off to a hot start in Belleville, posting two goals and three assists through his first three games of the season.
Nick Ritchie Signs In Slovakia
Former NHL winger Nick Ritchie has found a place to play for 2024-25. Slovakia’s HC Nove Zamky announced on Facebook that he’d inked a one-year deal.
Ritchie, 28, last played in the NHL with the Coyotes and Flames in the 2022-23 season. He began the year in Arizona and was a decent depth scoring option, scoring nine goals and 12 assists for 21 points in 58 games. At the trade deadline, he was dealt to the Flames for his brother, Brett Ritchie, and finished the year with five points in 16 games for Calgary.
He wasn’t re-signed upon reaching unrestricted free agency. Ritchie had to settle for a professional tryout, inking a PTO to attend the Blues’ training camp in 2023 but was released and wasn’t offered a contract. That signaled the likely end of Ritchie’s NHL career unless he could dominate on an AHL contract or overseas.
The 2014 10th overall pick attempted to do the latter, signing with Finland’s Kärpät. It didn’t go to plan, though. He scored just once and posted a whopping 70 PIMs and a -7 rating in 10 games. They mutually terminated his contract, and he finished the year in Germany with the Iserlohn Roosters, where things didn’t go much better with two points and a -4 rating in eight appearances.
Unsigned for this year up to this point, Ritchie will now look to ply his trade in a slightly less competitive European professional circuit in Slovakia. He joins Nove Zamky’s roster as the only player with NHL experience besides defenseman Shawn Lalonde, who appeared in one game with the Blackhawks in the 2012-13 season.
Barring a significant resurgence overseas, Ritchie’s NHL stats will likely remain where they are until he retires. The 6’3″ left-winger made 481 appearances for the Ducks, Coyotes, Bruins, Maple Leafs, and Flames across eight seasons, scoring 84 goals and adding 102 assists for 186 points.
Submit Your Questions For The #PHRMailbag
Teams are in the process of getting their rosters set with some tough cuts to be made before the regular season officially gets underway. With that in mind, it’s a good time to open up the mailbag.
Our last mailbag was split into two segments. The first discussed the recent usage of deferred salary in contracts and if that’s a mechanism we should expect to see more often, RFA contract projections for Cole Perfetti and Lucas Raymond (coming in slightly below the actual amounts for both), if Anaheim can move two long-term veterans, and more. Among the topics in the second was my annual prediction for a breakout player, discussing Calgary’s potentially tradable veterans, and what to expect from Connor Bedard’s sophomore season.
You can submit a question by using #PHRMailbag on Twitter/X or by leaving a comment down below. The mailbag will run on the weekend.
Metropolitan Notes: Milano, Tsyplakov, Vesey
Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery isn’t enthused with winger Sonny Milano‘s performance thus far this preseason, calling his showing “just okay” (via NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti). Carbery added Milano has “the benefit of the doubt” as a veteran, but the 28-year-old’s standing in the lineup certainly seems to be on thinner ice.
Line rushes still indicate Milano has the inside track at a third-line left wing role alongside Hendrix Lapierre and Aliaksei Protas, though. Now entering his third season with the Caps, the former Blue Jackets first-rounder had a career-high 15 goals in 49 games last year but added only eight assists for 23 points. It also came on the back of an unsustainably high 30% shooting rate – he averaged just over one shot on goal per game, the lowest of his career.
Milano doesn’t offer a ton of upside outside of scoring chance generation, so if that continues to dip, he could find himself on the outside looking in sooner rather than later. He has two years left on his contract at a $1.9MM cap hit and is facing competition for top-nine duties from PTO invite Jakub Vrána and 2022 first-round pick Ivan Miroshnichenko, among others.
Elsewhere in the Metro:
- Islanders winger Maxim Tsyplakov is back at practice Sunday after sustaining a lower-body injury Friday, NHL.com’s Stefen Rosner relays. Recent line rushes indicate the 26-year-old free agent signing out of Russia’s Spartak Moscow is nearly a lock to make the opening night roster, potentially on a new-look fourth line with Casey Cizikas and Kyle MacLean. Viewed as the top international free agent on the market, Tsyplakov had a career-best 31 goals and 47 points in 65 games for Spartak last season.
- Rangers winger Jimmy Vesey sustained a lower-body injury in Sunday’s practice, head coach Peter Laviolette relayed (via the New York Post’s Mollie Walker). He’s being evaluated but doesn’t appear set to miss any significant time, he added. Vesey, 31, is entering the back half of a two-year, $1.6MM deal and had 13 goals and 26 points in 80 games for the Blueshirts last year.
Atlantic Notes: Matthews, Järnkrok, Dahlin, Ullmark, Eliasson
Maple Leafs forwards Auston Matthews and Calle Järnkrok remain absent from practice Wednesday after they were given injury designations by the club yesterday, per Kevin McGran of the Toronto Star.
Matthews’ ailment appears to be the most minor of minor injuries. He’s not listed as day-to-day by the club, which instead said he’s out for maintenance today. Head coach Craig Berube said Tuesday that he’d sustained a minor upper-body injury that caused him to leave practice early, but that there wasn’t much cause for concern.
Järnkrok, meanwhile, is still listed as day-to-day with a lower-body injury and is still a little bit away from returning. Both should be considered doubtful for Thursday’s preseason match against the Canadiens at this stage, especially for a game with no standings implications.
More news and notes from around the Atlantic Division:
- Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin is with his teammates in Germany today and has shed his non-contact jersey ahead of Friday’s exhibition game against EHC Munich, the team said. He’s been held out of preseason action thus far after sustaining an undisclosed injury one week ago. It appears he’ll be ready to go for the overseas contest later this week, and should be all systems go for their regular season opener against the Devils in Prague in nine days.
- Senators goalie Linus Ullmark is back at practice Wednesday, per Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch. He was held out of practice for the past couple of days while battling an undisclosed injury. He could be an option to play in Thursday’s home game against the Sabres’ B-squad, Garrioch added.
- Still with Ottawa, they now know where 2024 second-round pick Gabriel Eliasson will play this season. After being cut from their training camp roster earlier this week, the Swedish defenseman’s major junior rights were picked up by the OHL’s Barrie Colts today in a trade with the Niagara IceDogs. The hulking 6’7″, 216-lb 18-year-old is expected to sign a scholarship and development agreement and report to the Colts for his first season in North America after spending the last two seasons in his native Sweden in HV71’s junior system.
Central Notes: Ferguson, Korchinski, Buchnevich
The AHL’s Iowa Wild have inked goaltender Dylan Ferguson to a one-year deal, relays The Hockey News’ Dylan Loucks.
The 26-year-old joins the Wild organization after the Canucks released him from a professional tryout agreement on Sunday. He briefly provided his services in Vancouver’s camp as starter Thatcher Demko remains out with a lingering knee injury, but he became redundant after the Canucks landed free agent Kevin Lankinen on a one-year, $875K deal over the weekend.
Ferguson, a seventh-round pick of the Stars back in 2017, last saw NHL ice with the Senators in the 2022-23 season. He stopped 78 of 83 shots faced in two late-season starts for a .940 SV%, 2.52 GAA, and a 1-1-0 record.
The British Columbia native spent last season with Belarus’ Dinamo Minsk in the Kontinental Hockey League, recording a .904 SV% and 2.51 GAA in 23 games with a 9-9-0 record. The 2021 ECHL Kelly Cup champion with the Fort Wayne Komets now heads to Iowa, where he’ll compete with Minnesota prospect Samuel Hlavaj and Kyle McClellan to serve as veteran Troy Grosenick‘s backup. All indications point toward the Wild carrying three goalies on their NHL roster to begin the season, meaning top prospect Jesper Wallstedt won’t be back in Iowa.
Elsewhere in the Central Division:
- Training camp line rushes indicate that Blackhawks defender Kevin Korchinski continues to trend toward starting the season in the AHL, The Athletic’s Mark Lazerus points out. He’s been paired with depth defender Louis Crevier in recent scrimmages and “will have to do something spectacular over the next two weeks to earn an NHL job out of camp,” Lazerus said. It’s far from a new development – reports last month indicated this was the likely scenario for the 2022 seventh-overall pick. He managed just 15 points in 76 games with Chicago last season with a -36 rating, and a lengthy stint with the Rockford IceHogs to begin the season would allow him to once again dominate offensively.
- Blues star Pavel Buchnevich is back on the ice at practice Tuesday, relays Lou Korac of The Hockey News and NHL.com. He’d sat out the past couple days after blocking a shot from Stars defenseman Mathew Dumba in Saturday’s 2-1 exhibition game loss. It’s an important training camp for the natural winger, who projects to start the season at center after signing a six-year, $48MM extension over the summer.
Bruins Notes: Swayman, Montgomery, Poitras
Bruins RFA netminder Jeremy Swayman won’t be around the team to kick off training camp while he’s still waiting for a new contract, general manager Don Sweeney told reporters today (via Scott McLaughlin of WEEI).
There’s nothing stopping the Bruins and Swayman from agreeing to a tryout and having him take reps in camp while continuing contract negotiations. That’s the approach the Blues are taking with unsigned RFA forward Nikita Alexandrov, for example. But it isn’t in the cards here.
Sweeney said he’s “disappointed” there’s still no resolution to the contract stalemate, and he wouldn’t go so far as to say an agreement was imminent, either. The GM only said he was “optimistic” a deal would get done by the Dec. 1 RFA signing deadline, per McLaughlin.
Other updates from Sweeney as camp opens Wednesday:
- The Bruins have begun initial extension talks with head coach Jim Montgomery, Sweeney said (via Conor Ryan of The Boston Globe). He’s entering the final season of his reported three-year, $6MM deal, which he signed to take over as Boston’s bench boss in July 2022. He’s been an impeccable regular-season hire, leading them to a league-best 112-32-20 record (.744%) since landing behind the bench, but he’s 9-11 in 20 playoff games for Boston.
- Sophomore forward Matthew Poitras is fully cleared after shoulder surgery ended his rookie campaign in February, Sweeney confirmed (via Ryan). They’ll try him at both center and wing during training camp after he played mostly down the middle last season. A shift to wing could open up an opportunity for him to play higher up in the lineup, potentially alongside Charlie Coyle and Brad Marchand on the team’s second line. The 2022 second-round pick had 15 points (5 G, 10 A) in 33 games last season with a +4 rating while averaging 13:24 per game, posting good possession metrics but struggling in the dot with a 43.7 FOW%.
2024-25 Season Key Dates
September 18
Opening day of training camps
September 21
First day of preseason play
October 1
NHL Board of Governors meeting
October 4 – October 5
2024 NHL Global Series: Sabres vs. Devils (O2 Arena, Prague, Czechia) – first regular season contests
October 5
Last day of preseason play
October 7
Deadline for teams to submit opening-day rosters (4 p.m. CT)
October 8
Opening night of regular season
November 1 – November 2
2024 NHL Global Series: Stars vs. Panthers (Nokia Arena, Tampere, Finland)
December 1
Signing deadline for restricted free agents (4 p.m. CT)
December 9 – December 10
NHL Board of Governors Meeting
December 20 – December 27
Holiday roster freeze in effect.
“For all players on an NHL active roster, injured reserve, or with non-roster and injured non-roster status as of 11:59 p.m. (local time) Dec. 19, a roster freeze shall apply through 12:01 a.m. (local time) Dec. 28, with respect to waivers, trades and loans, subject to the exceptions provided for in CBA Article 16.5 (d).”
December 24 – December 26
Holiday break (no scheduled practices – dressing rooms closed)
December 31
NHL Winter Classic: Blues at Blackhawks (Wrigley Field, Chicago)
February 10 – February 21
Season pauses for NHL 4 Nations Face-Off. The tournament runs from Feb. 12 through Feb. 20.
March 7
2025 NHL Trade Deadline (2 p.m. CT)
April 17
Last day of regular season
April 19
Stanley Cup Playoffs begin
June 23
Last possible day of Stanley Cup Final
Latest On Alexei Kolosov
Flyers prospect Alexei Kolosov continues to be shrouded in uncertainty about whether he’ll report to the club for training camp next week, and speculation persists about where he’ll play this season.
Philly’s front office reportedly met with Kolosov’s camp, now led by agent Dan Milstein, late last month. Since then, it’s been reported that the Flyers still don’t have a firm answer on whether Kolosov will report to their AHL affiliate, the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, but they’re operating under the assumption that he won’t.
If he doesn’t report and instead signs a contract with Dinamo Minsk of the Kontinental Hockey League for 2024-25, Daily Faceoff’s Anthony Di Marco reports the final two years of his entry-level contract will likely be tolled to the 2025-26 and 2026-27 campaigns. Notably, the situation very nearly mirrors the one the Flyers found themselves in when netminder Ivan Fedotov, who was signed to a valid NHL deal for the 2022-23 season, was prevented from reporting due to required military service in his native Russia and remained under contract with KHL club CSKA Moscow.
Fedotov’s deal instead went into effect for 2023-24. Although he signed an agreement last year with CSKA in violation of his NHL contract (which resulted in hefty sanctions to both parties from the IIHF), he managed to get out of his contract with CSKA and make his NHL debut for the Flyers in the closing days of the season.
Kolosov, a Minsk native, has made it clear he wants the Flyers to loan him back to Dinamo this season. The Flyers are still intent on having him log starts for Lehigh Valley, though, and that disconnect is what’s fueling their current dispute.
If Kolosov signs a contract with Dinamo for 2024-25 (or longer), violating his contract with Philadelphia, it won’t result in the same sanctions that Fedotov’s deal spurred. That’s because the KHL’s directors voted in July to make the league independent from the IIHF and the Russian Ice Hockey Federation, meaning they no longer need either governing body’s permission to sign players from foreign leagues.
Kolosov, still just 22, was a third-round pick of the Flyers in 2021. While on the small end at 6’0″ and 185 lbs, that hasn’t stopped him from growing into his own as a starter in one of the world’s top professional leagues at a young age.
Before coming to Philadelphia to end last season, Kolosov recorded career-highs in appearances (47), GAA (2.39), shutouts (4), and wins (22) in the KHL regular season for Dinamo. He put a bow on the campaign with a spectacular .925 SV% in six postseason games as Minsk fell to Dynamo Moscow. However, he struggled in brief action after coming over to Lehigh Valley, limited to a .885 SV% and 3.03 GAA in a win and a loss in two appearances.
Submit Your Questions For The #PHRMailbag
With training camps on the horizon, we’re likely to see an uptick in transaction activity over the next couple of weeks as teams look to finalize their rosters. With that in mind, it’s a good time to open up the mailbag.
Our last mailbag was done in two segments. The first looked at what options the Stars could have to add to their roster and how Thomas Harley affects it, Jeremy Swayman’s contract situation, the status of the Blues’ defense, and more. Meanwhile, the second examined some potential coaching and GM candidates, the quiet summer in Anaheim, and assessing Rob Blake’s offseason, among other topics.
You can submit a question by using #PHRMailbag on Twitter/X or by leaving a comment down below. The mailbag will run on the weekend.