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Alex Pietrangelo Out Day-To-Day

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The Vancouver Canucks made a couple of roster moves today, assigning forward Jonathan Lekkerimäki to the Abbotsford Canucks of the American Hockey League while recalling forward Max Sasson. Lekkerimäki was called up to Vancouver on November 10th after Brock Boeser was injured during a game against the Los Angeles Kings on November 7th. His demotion could signal that Boeser is ready to return to the lineup, but Sasson’s call-up indicates that he might not be quite ready to play yet.

Lekkerimäki initially filled in for Boeser alongside J.T. Miller and did get some extended looks on the Canucks power play. However, he struggled at even strength as the Canucks were dominated on the possession front (CF% of 45.5% as per Hockey Reference) whenever Lekkerimäki’s line was on the ice. The 20-year-old has a single goal in five NHL games this season and averaged just under 15 minutes of ice time per game.

In other Pacific Division notes:

  • The Vegas Golden Knights have announced that defenseman Alex Pietrangelo is out day-to-day with an upper-body injury. The news gives the recent Robert Hagg recall some context as Vegas will need another body on the backup, particularly now that they are missing three NHL regulars from their defensive core. Pietrangelo joins Nic Hague and Ben Hutton who are both out of the lineup due to injury. Pietrangelo has had a strong start to the season posting two goals and 12 assists with a +5 plus/minus in 19 games.
  • San Jose Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky tells the media that he isn’t aware of any discussions to send Sharks forward Will Smith to the World Juniors to play for Team USA (as per Max Miller of The Hockey News). Smith has struggled considerably in his first NHL season, registering just two goals and two assists in 17 games to go along with an abysmal -12 plus/minus rating. Given his play, it’s fair to wonder if the 2023 fourth-overall pick is NHL-ready, but it doesn’t appear the Sharks have any plans to have Smith play in the Juniors tournament this season.

Golden Knights Recall Robert Hägg

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The Golden Knights announced Thursday that they’ve recalled defenseman Robert Hägg from AHL Henderson. They returned winger Jonas Røndbjerg to Henderson after a brief recall to create a spot on the active roster, per the NHL’s media site.

Vegas was carrying 15 forwards and six defensemen, so the swap gives them an extra defenseman for the four remaining games on their road trip. Nicolas Hague is dealing with an undisclosed injury and has been on injured reserve for nearly two weeks, while the team placed Ben Hutton on LTIR on Tuesday after he sustained an upper-body injury against the Capitals over the weekend.

It’s Hägg’s first time being recalled since clearing waivers and heading to the AHL during preseason. The 29-year-old lefty signed a one-way, league-minimum deal on the second day of free agency to give Vegas some reinforcements on the back end, although it was clear he was low enough on their depth chart heading into camp that he would end up on waivers despite the one-way structure indicating otherwise.

Hägg has nearly 350 games of NHL experience, although his five appearances with the Ducks last year were his fewest since 2016-17, indicative of his decline into a minor-league fixture. He’s one of just four players to play in all 14 games for Henderson so far this season, ranking second among their defensemen in scoring with eight points (1 G, 7 A) and a -1 rating.

Meanwhile, Røndbjerg’s second recall of the young season ends without an appearance. The 25-year-old Dane appeared twice for Vegas earlier this month, posting a -1 rating in under 15 minutes of total ice time. The 2017 third-round pick has six points in 10 games for Henderson.

Ilya Samsonov Easing Back After Undisclosed Injury

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  • Ilya Samsonov won’t get the chance for a revenge start when his Golden Knights face the Maple Leafs tonight, in part due to the undisclosed injury that kept him out for much of November, head coach Bruce Cassidy told reporters including Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun. Samsonov returned to action Sunday against the Capitals after two weeks out of the lineup, allowing four goals on 24 shots in his second regulation loss of the season. After spending the last two seasons in Toronto, the 27-year-old Russian landed a one-year, $1.8MM contract with Vegas in free agency to platoon with Adin Hill. He has a 3-2-1 record, .897 SV%, and 3.15 GAA in his first six games for the Knights, who have gotten subpar goaltending overall but are still 11-5-2.

Golden Knights Make Multiple Roster Moves

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The Golden Knights announced Tuesday that they placed defenseman Ben Hutton on long-term injured reserve with an upper-body injury and moved captain Mark Stone, who hasn’t played since Nov. 6 with a lower-body injury and remains day-to-day, to standard IR. Those roster spots were filled by the recalls of forwards Callahan Burke, Mason Morelli and Jonas Røndbjerg from AHL Henderson, per the NHL’s media site.

Per PuckPedia, the order of transactions here is especially relevant. Vegas assigned winger Victor Olofsson, who had been on LTIR since last month, to AHL Henderson on a conditioning loan yesterday but activated him before doing so, keeping them briefly cap-compliant without using LTIR.

This resets their capture, allowing them to re-optimize how much temporary flexibility they could achieve from Hutton’s LTIR placement. They moved Stone to IR and recalled Morelli and Røndbjerg all before placing Hutton on LTIR, then recalled Burke as the final transaction. After the moves, the Knights have a full active roster with 15 forwards, six defensemen and two goaltenders with $200K left in their LTIR pool.

For Stone, the IR placement is purely for roster management purposes and doesn’t affect his return timeline. He can be activated at any time since he’s already missed more than seven days, and since he’s on IR and not LTIR, his $9.5MM cap hit still effectively counts against Vegas’ books. The captain shouldn’t be too far off from a return after starting the season on a tear with six goals and 15 assists for 21 points in 13 games.

Hutton, 31, sustained the injury early in Sunday’s game against the Capitals and left after just four shifts and 2:40 of ice time. Vegas’ seventh defender for the past four years was a healthy scratch for 12 games in a row to begin the season but had played in five of their last six games, posting no points, five hits and three blocks while averaging 11:40 per contest and occasionally suiting up at right wing while Vegas dressed only 11 forwards.

He’s listed as week-to-week and won’t be eligible to return until Dec. 12 at the earliest now that he’s on LTIR. It’s far from a monumental loss, given how little he’d played, but it still stretches their defensive depth thin with Nicolas Hague already on IR with an undisclosed injury.

The moves mean that the Golden Knights’ recent stretch of running 11 forwards and seven defensemen is over, with only six blue-liners available on the roster. That means that one of Burke, Morelli or Røndbjerg will enter the lineup Wednesday against the Maple Leafs, likely the latter.

The 25-year-old Røndbjerg has played in a pair of games already for Vegas this season amid some short-term call-ups, posting a -1 rating and averaging just 7:33 per night. The Danish winger was a third-round pick in the Knights’ inaugural 2017 draft class and has three goals and seven assists for 10 points in 65 career NHL games dating back to his debut in 2021-22.

Burke, 27, is in his first season in the Vegas organization after signing a two-way contract as a UFA over the summer. The 5’10” forward has two goals and four assists for six points in 11 appearances with Henderson this season. The undrafted Notre Dame product is still looking for his first NHL point despite playing in a trio of games with the Avalanche and Hurricanes in spot duty over the past two years.

Morelli, 28, made his NHL debut for the Golden Knights last season amid a rash of forward injuries, scoring three times in nine games while adding an assist. The North Dakota native spent the first four seasons of his professional career on AHL contracts before earning an NHL deal with Vegas last year. He now serves as an alternate captain for Henderson and is tied for the team lead with five goals in 13 games, adding four assists for nine points.

Golden Knights Assign Victor Olofsson On Conditioning Loan

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The Vegas Golden Knights should only be a few days away from the return of an injured forward. The organization announced they assigned forward Victor Olofsson to their AHL affiliate, the Henderson Silver Knights, for a conditioning loan. This confirms the Golden Knights are quickly expected to activate Olofsson from the long-term injured reserve.

It’ll be interesting to see how much playing time Olofsson can manage once he returns from injury despite the strong scoring pace to begin the season. The Golden Knights will have a clearer picture of their roster construction once Mark Stone returns to the lineup but Olofsson may become a healthy scratch upon activation. He projects as an upgrade on the right wing as the lineup is currently constructed but the team might prefer continuity as they’ve risen to the top of the Pacific Division standings.

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Golden Knights Assign Akira Schmid And Grigori Denisenko To AHL

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The Golden Knights have made a pair of roster moves heading into tonight’s matchup against Utah.  The team announced (Twitter link) that goaltender Akira Schmid and winger Grigori Denisenko have been assigned to AHL Henderson.

Schmid was recalled two weeks ago to take the place of Ilya Samsonov, who was dealing with an undisclosed injury.  Samsonov returned to practice on Sunday and evidently has been cleared to return but won’t get the start.

Schmid got into one game while on recall, playing 33 minutes earlier this week in relief duty against Carolina, stopping all 12 shots he faced.  The 24-year-old has a career 2.85 GAA and a .900 SV% in 44 career NHL appearances and has a 3.56 GAA with a .885 SV% in six appearances with the Silver Knights so far this season.

As for Denisenko, his time with the big club was short-lived as he was only brought up on Wednesday.  However, he did suit up that night against Anaheim, receiving a little more than eight minutes of ice time in his first NHL game of the season.  The 24-year-old has been productive in Henderson this season, picking up a goal and six assists in ten appearances with them.

With the assignments, Vegas now has two vacancies on its active roster.

Golden Knights Sign Brayden McNabb To Three-Year Extension

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12:36 p.m.: McNabb’s extension will be in the three-year, $9MM range, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. The team later confirmed a three-year term with a $3.65MM AAV, meaning it’s worth $10.95MM in total.

9:38 a.m.: The Golden Knights are closing in on a multi-year extension to keep defenseman Brayden McNabb off next year’s unrestricted free agent market, Chris Johnston of TSN and The Athletic reports.

It’s the second time in as many months that Vegas will announce a fresh contract for a member of the franchise’s inaugural blue line back in the 2017-18 season. Shea Theodore inked a seven-year, $51.975MM deal just over three weeks ago.

McNabb’s extension won’t be nearly as rich or as long, but it’s still an important bit of business for a franchise looking to extend what’s been a nonstop championship contention window since they entered the league. His 518 games played for the Knights are a franchise record, passing Jonathan Marchessault earlier this month. His +104 rating is second in franchise history to William Karlsson and his 300 PIMs are the most, as are his 1,256 hits and 1,144 blocks.

McNabb and Theodore have been regular defense partners since the Knights traded away Nate Schmidt and signed Alex Pietrangelo in the 2020 offseason. The 33-year-old left-shot defender has averaged 19:42 per game since arriving in Sin City in 2017, compiling 22 goals and 89 assists for 111 points.

The 6’4″, 215-lb defender has continued to serve in a top-four capacity this season, especially with Nicolas Hague spending about half the season on the shelf with lower-body and undisclosed injuries. Through 16 games, he has two points and leads the club with a +11 rating despite a pedestrian 46.2% share of shot attempts at even strength. Per usual, his 36 blocked shots lead the team while his 28 hits lead Vegas defensemen.

This will be the third contract McNabb, represented by O2K Management’s Dean Grillo, signs with the Knights. He signed a four-year, $10MM extension early on in Vegas’ inaugural season after being plucked from the Kings in the expansion draft before inking a three-year, $8.55MM deal a few months before his previous extension was set to expire in 2022.

His previous deals with the Golden Knights have carried cap hits of $2.5MM and $2.85MM, respectively. It’s hard to imagine his new deal differing much from that figure, especially as he enters the twilight of his 13-year, 756-game NHL career.

It’s fair to wonder what McNabb’s extension means for Hague’s future in Nevada. The 25-year-old, who was a second-round pick in Vegas’ inaugural 2017 draft class, is a restricted free agent next summer with arbitration rights and is due a $2.7MM qualifying offer. That’s reasonable for his services, but with McNabb in tow, the Golden Knights now already have seven defensemen signed to one-way contracts for 2025-26, including depth options Ben Hutton and Kaedan Korczak. Hague is the only defenseman on the active roster without a contract past this season.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Evening Notes: Stone, Eller, Milano

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Vegas Golden Knights forward Mark Stone will remain out of the lineup tonight when Vegas takes on the Anaheim Ducks tonight (Twitter link). Alexander Holtz will take Stone’s spot on the top line as Stone is dealing with a lower-body injury and will miss his third straight game. The Golden Knights play again on Friday against Utah and will presumably update Stone’s status before then. The 32-year-old has been exceptional this season when healthy, posting six goals and 15 assists in 13 games.

Stone has long had issues with his health, having played 80 or more games only once in his 13-year NHL career. His health has been a major concern over the past three seasons as Stone has missed 110 games dating back to the 2021-22 season.

In other evening notes:

  • Newly acquired Washington Capitals forward Lars Eller didn’t participate in the team’s optional morning skate today and did not dress for their game against the Toronto Maple Leafs this evening (as per Sammi Silber of The Hockey News). Eller was acquired yesterday by the Capitals in exchange for two draft picks and likely won’t suit up for his new team until Friday night when they take on one of Eller’s former teams, the Colorado Avalanche.
  • Injured Capitals forward Sonny Milano is still not skating and remains sidelined with an upper-body injury (as per Sammi Silber). Milano remains on the injured reserve and has no definite timeline to return to the lineup (as per Silber). Milano has played just 21:38 this season in three games and has been a scratch even when healthy. His spot in the NHL lineup was precarious at best, and now with the Eller trade, it’s possible that the 28-year-old could be the odd man out.

Olofsson Turned A Corner In Recovery But Won't Play On Road Trip

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  • Golden Knights winger Victor Olofsson has turned a corner in his recovery, head coach Bruce Cassidy told reporters including Jesse Granger of The Athletic (Twitter link). However, he won’t suit up on their two-game road trip that begins on Wednesday.  Olofsson has been dealing with a lower-body injury for the last four weeks, pausing what was a strong start to his first season with Vegas as he had three goals in his first four games.

Mark Stone Injury Not Considered Serious

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  • The Vegas Golden Knights were dealt a blow a few days ago after captain Mark Stone went down with a lower-body injury. Thankfully there won’t be any long-term concern for Stone as Elliotte Friedman reported the injury isn’t considered serious. Stone hasn’t participated in a full season since the 2020-21 campaign. Still, the Golden Knights will want to get him as close as possible this year with Stone scoring six goals and 21 points already in only 13 games.

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  • The Vegas Golden Knights were dealt a blow a few days ago after captain Mark Stone went down with a lower-body injury. Thankfully there won’t be any long-term concern for Stone as Elliotte Friedman reported the injury isn’t considered serious. Stone hasn’t participated in a full season since the 2020-21 campaign. Still, the Golden Knights will want to get him as close as possible this year with Stone scoring six goals and 21 points already in only 13 games.

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