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Oilers Claim Alec Regula Off Waivers From Bruins

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Dec. 11: It turns out Regula may get an NHL opportunity sooner than he thought. The Oilers announced that they’ve claimed him off waivers from Boston, opening the door for him to play his first NHL action in well over a year in the coming days. Edmonton had a pair of open roster spots, so no corresponding move is necessary. For now, he’ll slot in as the eighth defenseman on Edmonton’s roster and will compete for depth minutes with players like Ty Emberson, Travis Dermott and Troy Stecher.

Dec. 10: The Bruins activated depth defenseman Alec Regula from season-opening injured reserve on Tuesday and subsequently placed him on waivers for the purpose of assignment to AHL Providence, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports.

Regula, 24, has yet to play this season after sustaining a knee injury over the offseason. It held him out of the entirety of Boston’s training camp and preseason schedule and earned him a non-roster designation when the regular season began.

It was an inauspicious start to the 2024-25 campaign for Regula, who spent all of last season in the minors after seeing NHL ice in his previous three professional seasons. Acquired from the Blackhawks in the 2023 Taylor Hall/Nick Foligno trade, Regula led the AHL last season with a +36 rating and added four goals and 26 points in 55 games for Providence, tying his previous career highs.

When Regula can expect to touch NHL ice next is anybody’s guess. The 6’4″, 211-lb righty made 22 NHL appearances while with Chicago, scoring one goal and logging a -5 rating while averaging 16:54 per game. Initially a 2018 third-round pick of the Red Wings, he’s firmly established himself as a top two-way threat at the AHL level, but has yet to demonstrate marginally positive possession impacts in his NHL minutes.

There are likely a few names ahead of Regula that are in line for a recall, namely Ian Mitchell, who leads Providence defenders in scoring with 13 points in 22 games. Whether or not he ends up seeing NHL action during the one-year, two-way deal he inked last summer remains to be seen, although a strong showing in his delayed start to the season should help him at least earn a qualifying offer at season’s end.

Kings’ Caleb Jones Clears Waivers, Reassigned To AHL

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12/9: The Kings organization confirmed Jones has successfully cleared waivers as the team announced they’ve reassigned him to their AHL affiliate, the Ontario Reign.

12/8: The Los Angeles Kings have placed defender Caleb Jones on waivers, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. Jones was placed on injured reserve on November 15th, after sustaining an upper-body injury in November 13th’s loss to Colorado. He’s missed nine games since, nearly double the five games he’s played in so far this season. Jones hasn’t recorded any scoring thus far. This move will give him a chance to find his health, and scoring, with more minutes in the minor leagues.

Jones played in 12 AHL games last season – scoring six points – but has otherwise been a full-time NHL defender since the 2019-20 season. He’s played with four different clubs in that span, starting his career in 2018-19 with Edmonton. Jones gradually climbed the Oilers’ depth chart, working from the AHL, to a role as a routine call-up, then eventually becoming Edmonton’s seventh defender. He scored 19 points across three seasons and 93 games in Edmonton, all before the age of 23. That was enough promise to make Jones a focal piece in the trade that sent an aged Duncan Keith from the Chicago Blackhawks to the Edmonton Oilers. The Blackhawks continued to rotate Jones through the lineup, awarding him 51 games in 2021-22 and 73 games in 2022-23. He scored 15 and 16 points in the respective seasons, prompting Chicago to leave Jones unsigned in the 2023 off-season. He signed in Carolina, but was traded to Colorado before the start of the 2023-24 season. Jones continued to serve a minor role with the Avalanche, recording five assists in 25 NHL games and six assists in 12 AHL games.

Blackhawks’ Joey Anderson Clears Waivers

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12/9: Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman confirmed that Anderson has successfully cleared waivers. A report by Scott Powers of The Athletic indicates Anderson will stay on Chicago’s active roster for now. The organization now has 30 days to reassign Anderson to the AHL without having to send him through waivers.

12/8: The Chicago Blackhawks have placed forward Joey Anderson on waivers per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. Anderson hasn’t played since November 23rd.

Anderson played in the first 12 games of Chicago’s season and rotated throughout the lineup – playing as little as 11 minutes or as much as 19 minutes through the start of the year. Despite the fluxing role, Anderson only recorded one assist, nine hits, and 13 shots.

It is Anderson’s second full season with the Chicago organization. He started last year in the minor leagues but earned a quick call-up after scoring 16 points in his first 14 games. He spent the rest of the season on the Blackhawks roster, stepping into 55 games and scoring 17 points. It was the longest he’s spent on an NHL roster in his seven-year pro career.

The New Jersey Devils originally drafted Anderson in the third round of the 2016 NHL Draft. He followed the draft with two years at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, where he scored 64 points in 77 games before signing his first pro contract in 2018-19. Anderson scored six points in his first 13 AHL games – enough to earn a quick call-up, though he wasn’t able to cement an NHL role. That’s since become a tendency, with Anderson producing well in the minors but failing to find footing at the top flight. It’s one that’s persisted through a 2020 move to Toronto, and a 2023 move to Chicago. History seems to be repeating itself once again, with Anderson set to return to the AHL, should he pass through waivers unclaimed.

Sharks Place Givani Smith On Waivers

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The San Jose Sharks are making a small change at the bottom of their lineup. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported earlier that San Jose had placed forward Givani Smith on waivers to reassign him to the AHL should he clear.

Smith’s usage has been dramatically slashed this year with the Sharks. He scored one goal and four points in 36 games last year for the Bay Area franchise but has gone scoreless in six games this year. His ice time has dropped by nearly 90 seconds this season which is a relatively large amount considering Smith was only averaging 7:49 last year.

He’s known for demonstrating a physical edge to his game from his tenure with the Detroit Red Wings. San Jose could theoretically use this toughness in their lineup to protect younger stars such as William Eklund, Macklin Celebrini, or Will Smith but they haven’t found a real need for it yet.

Smith’s skill set unfortunately isolates him in this role. If a team doesn’t need toughness, he won’t have a genuine place on the roster.

This makes Smith a relatively cheap and reliable option for any team looking to add toughness to their lineup, however. At the very least, if he goes unclaimed within the next 24 hours, Smith should find a much more consistent role with the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda. It would be Smith’s first AHL action since the 2022-23 season when he scored two goals and five points in 22 games split between the Charlotte Checkers and Grand Rapids Griffins.

Brendan Lemieux Clears Unconditional Waivers

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Saturday: Lemieux has cleared waivers, reports James Mirtle of The Athletic.  In the team’s announcement of his waiver placement yesterday, GM Eric Tulsky indicated that Lemieux requested the release to pursue a new opportunity.  A report from Puck Empire in Switzerland suggests that Lemieux is likely to sign with HC Davos of the Swiss NL.

Friday: The Carolina Hurricanes are expected to place forward Brendan Lemieux on unconditional waivers for the purpose of contract termination, per Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff. Lemieux signed a one-year, league-minimum contract in Carolina this summer but has spent the entirety of the early season in the minor leagues. He has just two goals, 30 penalty minutes, and a -4 through 12 AHL games this season. He’s the lowest-scoring forward among Chicago Wolves with 10 or more games this season.

Lemieux made a name for himself as a sharp-edged bruiser with the drive to play at the NHL level. That’s what kept him in the top league from 2017 to 2024 – through trips with the Winnipeg Jets, New York Rangers, Los Angeles Kings, Philadelphia Flyers, and Carolina. He served a fourth-line role at every stop, making more noise with his penalty minutes than his scoring. Lemieux has 548 penalty minutes through 307 career games, with his statement year coming in 2019-20 – when he posted 111 PIMs in 59 games with the Rangers. He’s only added 74 career points – 36 goals and 38 assists – in those outings, with 18 points in 2019-20 also standing as a career-high.

This season marks Lemieux’s second in the Carolina organization, after playing through last year on a separate one-year contract. He earned 32 games on the deal, recording five points and 64 penalty minutes. That wasn’t enough to stick in the Hurricanes’ lineup with the emergence of top youngsters Jack Drury and Jackson Blake, pushing Lemieux to the minor leagues this season – his first time playing AHL hockey since 2017-18. With both scoring and meaningful penalties hard to come by this year, Lemieux will now look forward to more productive minutes in his next landing spot.

Golden Knights Place Daniil Chayka On Unconditional Waivers

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Dec. 3: Chayka went unclaimed and is now an unrestricted free agent, Friedman said.

Dec. 2: It appears that the Golden Knights will be parting ways with one of their prospects.  Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports (Twitter link) that defenseman Daniil Chayka has been placed on unconditional waivers for the purpose of contract termination.

The 22-year-old was a second-round pick by Vegas back in 2021, going 38th overall.  He signed his entry-level deal just three months later though he spent his post-draft season with OHL Guelph where he had an impressive 39 points in 53 games.

However, point production has not come as easily for Chayka at the professional level.  After putting up eight points in 57 games with AHL Henderson in 2022-23, he followed that up with just seven in 64 appearances in his sophomore year.  This season, Chayka has split time between the Silver Knights (five games) and ECHL Tahoe (four games), recording an assist with each franchise.

Assuming he isn’t claimed, Chayka will be walking away from more than half of his entry-level deal as he’s signed through next season.  If he’s unclaimed and released, he’ll become an unrestricted free agent and could try to catch on with another NHL franchise or look to return to Russia; he played in CSKA Moscow’s system in 2020-21 when the OHL didn’t play that season.

Carolina Hurricanes Sign, Waive Dustin Tokarski

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Dec. 3: Tokarski passed through waivers unclaimed, per Friedman. He’ll return to AHL Chicago with Martin remaining on the NHL roster for now, unless Kochetkov can’t go tonight.

Dec. 2: The Carolina Hurricanes are adding more goaltending depth to the NHL roster due to injuries to Frederik Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov. TSN’s Chris Johnston reported that the Hurricanes have signed goaltender Dustin Tokarski to a one-year, two-way agreement. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman followed up the report by sharing that Carolina has placed Tokarski on waivers.

Placing Tokarski on waivers is a prudent move by the Hurricanes organization. Team reporter Walt Ruff shared earlier that Kochetkov still needs to pass one more test to be medically cleared from concussion protocol. The team is hopeful he’ll be able to return tomorrow night against the Seattle Kraken. Tokarski will back up Kochetkov tomorrow night, assuming he passes through waivers and Kochetkov is medically cleared. He won’t need to go through waivers again for another 30 days, giving the team more flexibility with their netminders.

Tokarski isn’t unfamiliar with the Hurricanes organization either. Up to this point in the season he’s been playing on an AHL contract with the team’s AHL affiliate, the Chicago Wolves. The veteran netminder has managed a 4-1-0 record in five games for the Wolves with a .933 save percentage and 1.61 goals against average.

The signing of Tokarski also sheds some light on the team’s lack of confidence in third-string goaltender Spencer Martin. Carolina acquired Martin from the Columbus Blue Jackets last year for situations like this and he hasn’t been able to hold his own at the NHL level. Martin appeared in nine games for the Hurricanes in November but disappointed with a .846 SV% and 3.89 GAA.

The organization will now take a different approach to their goaltending with Tokarski. He hasn’t played in an NHL contest since his time with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2022-23 regular season but could get into action again should Carolina deal with continued injuries in the crease.

Canadiens Place Rafaël Harvey-Pinard On Waivers

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12/1: Harvey-Pinard has cleared waivers and been assigned to the AHL’s Laval Rocket.

11/30: According to a team announcement, the Montreal Canadiens are ready to activate forward Rafaël Harvey-Pinard from the long-term injured reserve. Harvey-Pinard won’t return to the Canadiens once his LTIR conditioning loan concludes as the organization shared they’ve placed him on waivers.

It’s been a long road to recovery for Harvey-Pinard after undergoing surgery in late July to repair a broken leg. He’s been on the shelf ever since with his last game in Montreal coming on the final game of the 2023-24 regular season.

His offensive output depressed last season going from scoring 20 points in 34 contests during the 2022-23 season to scoring 10 points in 45 games last year. His recent conditioning stint in Laval didn’t do much to inspire confidence as Harvey-Pinard only managed one goal in five games with a -4 rating.

He’ll get an extended look in the AHL should he clear waivers by tomorrow afternoon. It’s been two years since Harvey-Pinard spent significant time with the AHL Rocket scoring 16 goals and 31 points in 40 games during the 2022-23 AHL season. Montreal will also eliminate $1.1MM from their LTIR pool no matter what happens with Harvey-Pinard.

The Canadiens will have a home for Harvey-Pinard should he recover his confidence in the AHL. Montreal is 21st in the league in scoring with a number of their goals coming from the combination of Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. The organization hopes that Harvey-Pinard will regain his offensive capabilities in the AHL to re-capture a consistent role in the team’s middle six.

Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports was the first to report that Montreal had placed Harvey-Pinard on waivers. 

Flames Place Ilya Nikolaev On Unconditional Waivers

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Nov. 29: The Flames announced Friday that Nikolaev has been released from his contract, confirming that he cleared unconditional waivers. They now have five open contract slots.

Nov. 28: It appears that the Flames will be parting ways with one of their prospects.  James Mirtle of The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that the team has placed forward Ilya Nikolaev on unconditional waivers, a move that is generally made to pave the way to terminate a player’s contract.

The 23-year-old was a third-round pick by Calgary back in 2019, going 88th overall.  Nikolaev spent the next two seasons in Russia before coming to North America for the 2021-22 campaign where he joined USHL Tri-City.  A strong showing there that saw him record 23 goals and 49 assists in 58 regular season games helped earn him an entry-level deal soon after.

However, things haven’t gone well for Nikolaev since then.  He spent his first two professional seasons split between AHL Calgary and ECHL Rapid City.  In 2022-23, he played the bulk of his outings with the latter while last season, it was the other way around.  The hope was that he’d at least be able to move up to the AHL level full-time this year but that didn’t happen.  Nikolaev got into a pair of games with the Rush plus nine more with the Wranglers where he had four assists but clearly, he hadn’t cemented a full-time spot with them yet.

Nikolaev is in the final season of his entry-level contract and with how things had been going to this point, he was likely heading for a non-tender in June.  Assuming that he clears waivers on Friday, he’ll become an unrestricted free agent and will likely look for another opportunity overseas.  Once the deal is terminated, he’ll come off Calgary’s contract list which will bring them down to 45 out of the maximum of 50.

Blue Jackets Sign, Waive Joseph LaBate

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The Blue Jackets announced Friday that they’ve signed unrestricted free agent center Joseph LaBate to a two-way contract for the remainder of 2024-25. The team subsequently placed him on waivers for assignment to AHL Cleveland.

LaBate, 31, has 13 games of NHL experience to his name. However, they came quite some time ago – seven years, to be exact, suiting up in a fringe fourth-line role for the 2016-17 Canucks.

Since then, he’s spent most of his time in the minors. After his NHL contract with Vancouver ran out following the 2017-18 campaign, he spent the next five seasons on AHL contracts with Belleville, Milwaukee and Chicago.

The Minnesota native ventured overseas for the first time last season, inking a one-year pact with Kazakhstan’s Barys Astana in the Kontinental Hockey League. The 6’5″, 209-lb enforcer posted 18 points and 53 PIMs in 49 games before deciding to take his talents back stateside.

LaBate had technically already been in the Columbus organization before today. He landed a tryout with Cleveland last month, and after scoring once and adding three assists through five games, he’s earned a contract and the opportunity for his first NHL call-up since his age-23 season.

The Blue Jackets didn’t disclose LaBate’s NHL or AHL salary, but the contract is presumably worth the prorated league minimum of $775K at the NHL level. In any event, he’ll be an unrestricted free agent next summer. Columbus now has 46 of a maximum of 50 contracts on the books.

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