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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.

Ilya Mikheyev Out Week-To-Week

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Sep 29: After initial fears that he may have suffered a torn ACL, it looks as though Mikheyev avoided serious injury altogether. Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK TV reports that he had two opinions and could resume skating as soon as tomorrow.

Sep 27: One of the big free agent signings for the Vancouver Canucks is in danger of missing the start of the season, as Ilya Mikheyev is out “week-to-week” according to head coach Bruce Boudreau. Mikheyev suffered a lower-body injury in his preseason debut with the team on Sunday.

Signed to a four-year, $19MM contract in the offseason after a 21-goal campaign with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Mikheyev has been one of the impressive players at Canucks camp, with J.T. Miller referring to the Russian’s speed as “humbling.” The 27-year-old forward has had some pretty unfortunate injury luck in his short NHL career so far, including a sliced wrist and a broken thumb.

That has limited him to just 146 regular season games in three years, though it was his production in those matches and his versatile profile that made him such an appealing target in free agency. With 21 goals in just 53 games last season, he is the kind of perfect secondary scoring option that teams crave. His speed, length, and puck protection make him a great option on the penalty kill, and he can often create offense without the help of teammates.

Still, at some point, he’s going to need to be able to put together a full campaign, especially now that he is carrying a cap hit of $4.75MM. The Canucks need him to be everything he was last season and more if they are going to get their money’s worth, especially given he will play this season at 28 and the final season of this contract at 31. The hope was that they were buying his best years – a weeks-long injury isn’t a great start.

Given the team will also be without Brock Boeser after he underwent hand surgery, there will be plenty of minutes up for grabs in Vancouver.

Brock Boeser Undergoes Hand Surgery

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After signing a new three-year, $19.95MM contract this summer, there was plenty of excitement around a potential bounce-back season for Brock Boeser and the Vancouver Canucks. Unfortunately, his debut will have to wait, as Boeser suffered a hand injury at practice on Saturday and underwent surgery today. He is out for three to four weeks.

The 2021-22 season was something of a disappointment for Boeser, who dealt with injury and the death of his father. He still scored 23 goals in 71 games, but his 46 points were the worst per-game pace of his career. With contract security in tow, it seemed likely that he could make it back to the dynamic offensive piece he was in years past.

Now, with another training camp disrupted by injury, it’s not clear what the Canucks will receive from Boeser for the first part of the year at least. A hand injury is certainly not what you want to hear for a player that relies so much on his shot, but hopefully, the three-week timeline has him back on the ice after missing just a few games.

With Boeser out – and Ilya Mikheyev, who is still being evaluated – there will be some minutes up for grabs in the top six. General manager Jim Rutherford did tell Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK TV today that Nils Hoglander has impressed him, and that Andrei Kuzmenko still has some adjustments to make with the North American game.

Vancouver Canucks Activate Nils Hoglander, Tucker Poolman Off Of IR

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  • A number of players have been officially activated off of injured-reserve today. Though many of these are not a surprise, some did come with question marks and in the wake of the recent injury updates around the league, particularly Sean Couturier of the Flyers, not everything can always be taken as a given. The Pittsburgh Penguins activated recently-signed forward Drake Caggiula (link). Moving out west, the Vancouver Canucks have activated forward Nils Hoglander and defenseman Tucker Poolman off of IR (link). In the desert, the Vegas Golden Knights activated forwards Brett Howden and Reilly Smith (link).

Hurricanes Shopping Ethan Bear

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Earlier this summer, Carolina gave Ethan Bear permission to speak to other teams heading into restricted free agency.  At the time, it seemed like he was a candidate to be non-tendered but in the end, the Hurricanes qualified him and signed the 25-year-old to a one-year, $2.2MM deal.  However, Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that even with the new contract, Carolina is still trying to move the young defender.

Last season was a tough one for Bear.  After being a regular in a top-four role for Edmonton back in 2019-20, he battled some injury issues the following season and dropped down the depth chart which helped contribute to him being traded to Carolina a few days after the draft in 2021.  The hope was that he’d rebound but instead, history repeated itself.  Bear was banged up at times last season and when he was in the lineup, he struggled.  Overall, he had five goals and nine assists in 58 games with a career-low 16:05 ATOI.  While he underwent a minor procedure after the playoffs, Bear was available to play if needed but was scratched for every contest.

In a recent appearance on CHEK (video link), Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that the Canucks are among the teams that have shown interest in Bear.  There is a definite opening on the right side of their back end but making the money work could be tricky.  They’re less than a million below their LTIR ceiling (with Micheal Ferland not playing again this season) which is considerably less space than Bear’s contract.  Tucker Poolman’s availability for the start of the year is in question but he’s expected back at some point which takes the option of adding Bear to slide into Poolman’s vacated spot off the table as well.

Meanwhile, Carolina has no such cap concerns.  With Max Pacioretty and Jake Gardiner LTIR-bound to start the season, they have the ability to find him in without an issue.  However, Dylan Coghlan is also in the fold and could push for a spot on the third pairing which could have Bear on the fringes of the lineup once again; Brett Pesce and Brent Burns are clearly locked into the right-side spots on the top two pairings already.  By qualifying him, the Hurricanes determined that there was still some value but if he sits a lot early on, that will change in a hurry.

Whether it’s Vancouver or another team, it looks like Bear is a candidate to be on the move over the coming weeks and with the situation he’ll likely be in with Carolina where he’ll be battling for a spot in the lineup, it might be a move that the Hurricanes will want to make sooner than later.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Afternoon Notes: Crosby, Allvin, O’Reilly

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When the Pittsburgh Penguins signed Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang to extensions this summer, they committed themselves to a “win-now” short-term competitive plan, focusing the energy and resources of their franchise into squeezing one last Stanley Cup victory out of their three franchise pillars. The face of the franchise, Sidney Crosby, has three years remaining on his current contract, and as things currently stand he’s not thinking beyond that point.

In an interview with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek for their 32 Thoughts Podcast, Crosby was asked about his playing future and whether he’d like to play into his forties as Zdeno Chara has. Crosby responded that he wouldn’t, and added on that he’s “thinking about [the] three more years” remaining on his contract before considering the next step for his career. At 35 years old, Crosby isn’t “Sid the Kid” anymore, but he did score 84 points in 69 games last year and remains an elite player. But based on these comments, the Penguins will need to consider that Crosby may not be playing for the entirety of Malkin or Letang’s new extensions.

Now, for some other notes from across the NHL:

  • Vancouver Canucks GM Patrik Allvin has been a busy man this summer, signing major contracts with J.T. Miller, Ilya Mikheyev, and Andrei Kuzmenko. And despite the fact that training camps are close, he may not be done. In a conversation with The Athletic’s Thomas Drance, Allvin stated that the team would still be looking to add to its current group of players, saying that there is enough “cap space, and roster spots, and contract slots” to be able to facilitate an addition. (subscription link) We’re certainly late into the offseason free agent market, but with the preseason waiver wire set to be active and a few free agents still remaining, it’s possible that the Canucks get a new face or two into the mix before they open their 2022-23 campaign.
  • The St. Louis Blues have signed some major extensions recently, specifically with their two top young players: Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou. While the Blues are undoubtedly better off having signed those deals, they could come with a cost. As Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch writes, the byproduct of these extensions is that the team could find it difficult to match the sort of offer captain Ryan O’Reilly could receive on the open market. Since both O’Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko will be unrestricted free agents next summer, the Blues seem to have made retaining their two franchise pillars a more difficult task with their recent moves.

Canucks Could Shift Elias Pettersson Back To Center

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  • The Canucks are leaning towards using Elias Pettersson back at center this season instead of keeping him on the left wing, notes Sportsnet’s Iain MacIntyre. Head coach Bruce Boudreau feels that Vancouver’s additions up front – including wingers Ilya Mikheyev and Andrei Kuzmenko – give them the potential for three scoring lines.  If Pettersson does indeed shift back down the middle, that will only boost his value heading into extension talks next summer as centers often cost a premium to sign long-term.

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