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Waivers: 10/8/22

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With Monday’s season-opening roster deadline quickly approaching, the activity on the waiver wire is likely to pick up as teams get closer to making their final cuts.  We’ll keep track of today’s waiver placements here.

Buffalo Sabres

D Kale Clague
D Jeremy Davies
D Chase Priskie

Calgary Flames

D Dennis Gilbert
D Juuso Valimaki
F Radim Zohorna

Colorado Avalanche

F Shane Bowers
F Martin Kaut

Detroit Red Wings

F Austin Czarnik
D Steven Kampfer
F Matt Luff

Edmonton Oilers

F Brad Malone

Pittsburgh Penguins

D Mark Friedman

Toronto Maple Leafs

F Joey Anderson
D Mac Hollowell

Seattle Kraken

G Joey Daccord
F Alexander True

Vancouver Canucks

F Sheldon Dries
D Christian Wolanin

With the exception of Winnipeg’s Johnathan Kovacevic (claimed by Montreal), all other players from Friday’s group passed through unclaimed.

Canucks Notes: DiPietro, Dermott, Di Giuseppe

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Back in the offseason, it was revealed that Canucks prospect Michael DiPietro had requested a trade.  To this point, there hasn’t been a move made but as president Jim Rutherford told Ben Kuzma of the Vancouver Province (Twitter link), it wasn’t for a lack of effort on their end:

We were open to it and when a player like that requests it, Patrik made teams aware that we would be willing to give him a chance (with) someone else, but nothing came along.

DiPietro was once a fairly highly-touted goalie prospect after a strong junior career but that has yet to translate into much success in the pros.  Last year, he posted a .901 SV% along with a 2.95 GAA in 34 games with AHL Abbotsford, numbers that don’t scream NHL-ready by any stretch.  He accepted his qualifying offer this summer and he’ll be battling for the backup job in the minors as things stand this season.

More from Vancouver:

  • Tyler Myers isn’t the only Vancouver defender dealing with an injury as Travis Dermott has been out of the lineup recently as well. As Patrick Johnston of the Vancouver Province relays, the team has now acknowledged that Dermott is dealing with a concussion which means he’s out indefinitely.  It feels like a make-or-break year for the 25-year-old.  He’s in the final year of his contract and has had a limited role the last few seasons with limited offensive production (seven points in 60 games last year).  Owed a $1.75MM qualifying offer next summer, that might be a bit pricey for a depth defender but Dermott will have to wait for a little while now to start making his case.
  • GM Patrik Allvin told reporters including Harman Dayal of The Athletic (Twitter link) that winger Phillip Di Giuseppe is expected to miss two-to-four weeks with a lower-body injury. The 28-year-old had a nice season with Abbotsford in 2021-22, collecting 36 points in 42 games.  Injured players can’t be waived so he’ll start the year on season-opening injured reserve and then be waived for assignment when he’s cleared to return.

Vancouver Canucks Acquire Riley Stillman

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We have a trade to announce. Per a team release, the Vancouver Canucks are trading center Jason Dickinson and a 2024 second-round pick to the Chicago Blackhawks for defenseman Riley Stillman. The Canucks have also announced the deal.

From both the Canucks’ side of the trade and the Blackhawks’, the deal makes a lot of sense. From Chicago’s point of view, this swap fits their overarching organizational vision. The Blackhawks are undergoing a full-scale rebuild, and this whole past offseason they proved they would leave no stone unturned in their quest to accumulate as many draft picks and prospects as possible.

At a time when the value of cap space is at an absolute premium, the Blackhawks, by acquiring Dickinson, (who has a $2.65MM cap hit for the next two seasons) have cashed in some of their cap space in order to land a valuable draft pick from another club.

Additionally, the acquisition of Dickinson fits in with some of their other additions from this offseason, in the sense that he is a player whose value has declined from previous seasons and has room to rebound. In the summer of 2021, the Canucks thought highly enough of Dickinson to surrender a third-round pick for his services, and now after just one season he’s relegated to being a negative-value asset in a cap-shedding trade.

While Dickinson’s lone season in Vancouver was admittedly a poor one, the Blackhawks are now hoping that he will respond well to greater opportunity on their team and rehabilitate his value enough to possibly be flipped for even more draft picks either at this trade deadline season or this summer.

Dickinson, 27, was a 2013 first-round pick and has at times shown the ability to be a quality defensive center. But in Vancouver his offense almost completely dried up, meaning improving Dickinson’s play offensively will likely be the first priority for head coach Luke Richardson and his staff.

From Vancouver’s perspective, this deal seems less about acquiring Stillman and more about clearing Dickinson’s contract off their books. Just a few hours ago, we covered how 22-year-old Swedish import Nils Aman was in pole position to seize the Canucks’ fourth-line center role, a development that, prior to this trade, would have left Dickinson either without a regular spot in the lineup or perhaps even on waivers and headed to AHL Abbotsford. Now, the Canucks’ roster decision-making process will be a lot simpler.

While clearing Dickinson’s deal off the cap-strapped Canucks’ books was likely the main purpose of this trade, acquiring Stillman is not without its usefulness as well. Today we learned that Tyler Myers would be out with an injury for the start of the regular season, so perhaps Stillman was acquired in part to help the team make up for his absence.

Stillman, 24, played 52 games last season in Chicago and scored 12 points. The former Oshawa General is a defense-first, physical defenseman who saw some time on the Blackhawks’ penalty kill as well. While it’s unlikely that he’ll climb the Canucks’ competitive defensive depth chart, he’ll be a useful reinforcement as Vancouver looks to pick up where they left off under Bruce Boudreau last year.

Pictures courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Latest On Nils Aman

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  • The Colorado Avalanche drafted Swedish forward Nils Aman in the sixth round of the 2020 draft, but didn’t sign him to an entry-level deal, letting his rights expire. The Vancouver Canucks scooped him up in June on an entry-level deal, and now it’s beginning to look like that was a savvy move on the part of GM Patrik Allvin and his front office. Thomas Drance and Rick Dhaliwal of The Athletic report (subscription link) that there is “increasing industry buzz” that Aman has done enough to cement himself as the Canucks’ opening-night fourth-line center. If that ends up being the route the team chooses to go, it will be a major step forward for the 22-year-old, as he has no experience in North American pro hockey. Aman spent the last two seasons as a full-time player for Leksands in the SHL, scoring 14 points in a limited role.

Latest On Sonny Milano

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Milano was recently released from his PTO after an underwhelming preseason, but that may not mean the end of his NHL journey. Per Thomas Drance and Rick Dhaliwal of The Athletic, (subscription link) the Vancouver Canucks invited Milano to their training camp before he ultimately chose to go to Calgary, and they “still like” Milano as a player. But given the complex roster and cap situation that the Canucks’ front office will need to manage in the coming days, Drance and Dhaliwal do state that the team isn’t able to acquire Milano at this moment. The bottom line, though, is that despite how rapidly his stock seemed to decline over the course of this summer and preseason, there still are teams who believe Milano can contribute in the NHL.

Tyler Myers Out 2-4 Weeks With Lower-Body Injury

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The Vancouver Canucks will be without another one of their key players for the start of the season, as Tyler Myers has been ruled out for the next two to four weeks. Myers is dealing with a lower-body injury according to head coach Bruce Boudreau.

The Canucks are already without Brock Boeser and Ilya Mikheyev, though there was some optimism surrounding both players when Boudreau spoke with the media. Harman Dayal of The Athletic relays that both will be with the team on the season-opening road trip and that Boeser could practice in full contact as soon as Sunday.

While Myers continues to be a source of frustration for Canucks fans, given his performance since arriving in Vancouver, there’s no denying his place in the lineup. The 6’8″ defenseman carries a huge amount of responsibility, averaging 22 minutes a night including more short-handed time than anyone else.

Without him (and Travis Dermott, while he continues to work back from his own injury) the team is currently working with a less-than-ideal defense group that likely includes Quinn Hughes, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Kyle Burroughs, Tucker Poolman, Luke Schenn, Christian Wolanin, and Jack Rathbone on opening day.

That is of course unless another move is made in the days ahead. If Myers were sure to miss four weeks, the team could place him on long-term injured reserve and gain some extra flexibility to add a defenseman off waivers – today’s group includes several interesting names – or the free agent market.

Either way, Myers won’t be in the lineup for a while.

Waivers: 10/07/22

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It’s an important day for waivers as the regular season approaches, and several potential targets are available. With the preseason wrapping up, teams will try to sneak players through at the last second and keep them in the organization for the time being.

Many of these placements are due to salary cap restrictions or LTIR machinations to give teams maximum flexibility as the season begins. Everyone from yesterday’s list cleared.

Here is today’s group of waiver additions:

Carolina Hurricanes

Jordan Martinook

Dallas Stars

Anton Khudobin

Edmonton Oilers

Mattias Janmark
Dmitri Samorukov

Minnesota Wild

Steven Fogarty

New Jersey Devils

Andreas Johnsson
Brian Pinho

Philadelphia Flyers

Kevin Connauton
Troy Grosenick

St. Louis Blues

Martin Frk
Klim Kostin
Matthew Highmore

Vancouver Canucks

Justin Dowling

Winnipeg Jets

Johnathan Kovacevic

Waivers: 10/04/22

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After all of the players from yesterday cleared, there is a new batch of talent on waivers today. Placement here is usually indicative of a training camp cut, though not necessarily. It gives teams the option to send a player to the minor leagues, but that doesn’t have to happen right away. Until a player spends 30 days on the active roster or plays in ten regular season games, they won’t have to clear waivers again.

Here are the players on waivers today:

Boston Bruins

Oskar Steen
Nick Wolff
Connor Carrick

Buffalo Sabres

Sean Malone

Chicago Blackhawks

Luke Philp
Nicolas Beaudin
Dylan Sikura
Brett Seney

Columbus Blue Jackets

Brendan Gaunce

Minnesota Wild

Zane McIntyre

Montreal Canadiens

Alex Belzile
Anthony Richard
Mitchell Stephens

New Jersey Devils

Tyler Wotherspoon
Robbie Russo
Joseph Gambardella
Jeremy Groleau

Pittsburgh Penguins

Taylor Fedun

Vancouver Canucks

Collin Delia
John Stevens
Noah Juulsen
Brady Keeper
Guillaume Brisebois

Danny DeKeyser Released From PTO

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The Vancouver Canucks have released Danny DeKeyser from his PTO, leaving him now searching for another opportunity just a week out from the regular season. The veteran defenseman got some action in the preseason with the Canucks but apparently didn’t do enough to earn a contract with the club.

DeKeyser, 32, has spent his entire career to this point with the Detroit Red Wings, playing 547 regular season games over parts of ten seasons. Undrafted, he was a hometown kid that made good, attending Western Michigan University before making an impact with the Red Wings right away. Now, a decade later, it is not at all clear if DeKeyser’s career will continue.

Landing a spot in Vancouver did always seem like a longshot, given how many bodies they already have for the blue line. With the continued emergence of Jack Rathbone, it was even tighter for a veteran defender like DeKeyser. Perhaps he showed enough in his short Canucks outing to land a deal somewhere else, or maybe he’ll have to wait for an injury to pop up.

Either way, there isn’t much time for him to catch on if he wants to start the season on an NHL roster. DeKeyser joins Thomas Hickey and James Neal, who were cut from their PTOs yesterday, as veteran names who may have to settle for minor league jobs if they want to continue their playing careers.

Vancouver Canucks Reportedly Shopping Michael Ferland's Contract

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There’s really no way around it: expectations are high for the Vancouver Canucks this season. After a slow start to the 2021-22 season, the team fired head coach Travis Green and replaced him with Bruce Boudreau and proceeded to go on a sensational run that took them from the NHL’s basement to the fringes of a playoff spot. This offseason, the organization made moves to build upon the core they had and solidify it in the long-term, adding forwards Andrei Kuzmenko and Ilya Mikheyev, then extending J.T. Miller. After all is said and done, the team finds itself $2.75MM over the salary cap ceiling. However, that is without factoring in injured forward Michael Ferland, who holds a $3.5MM cap hit for this season. While the team could utilize LTIR for Ferland and be alright, Frank Seravalli of The Daily Faceoff says Vancouver prefers not to go that route.

Instead, Seravalli says, the Canucks are actively looking to move Ferland’s contract. The reason for doing so is two-fold: one, Vancouver would prefer not to operate in LTIR, and two, because Ferland is injured, the insurance on the contract will not kick-in and whatever team has Ferland will have to pay the entirety of the $2.75MM in salary remaining on his deal. Though there are some teams that would actually benefit from taking on Ferland’s contract for salary cap purposes, similar to the Vegas Golden Knights acquiring Shea Weber this summer, Seravalli says the $2.75MM of real money owed is likely acting as a barrier to getting a deal done and would force the Canucks to give something up to move Ferland. The 30-year-old wing signed a four-year, $14MM deal with the Canucks during the 2019 offseason, but has managed to play just 14 games in that span, all coming in the first half of the 2019-20 season.

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