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Red Wings And Capitals Have Decisions Looming On Key Youngsters

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Generally speaking, most of the notable contractual elements that could come into play for key prospects occur at the beginning of the season.  However, that isn’t the case for the Red Wings and Capitals who are facing decisions on a pair of promising wingers.  For Detroit, Jonatan Berggren is one game away from becoming waiver-eligible while for Washington, Ivan Miroshnichenko is one game away from officially activating the first year of his entry-level contract.

Berggren was a regular for Detroit last season and fared pretty well, picking up 15 goals and 13 assists in 37 games while playing in their middle six.  However, GM Steve Yzerman opted to make several additions up front over the summer, pushing the 23-year-old to the outside looking in at a regular spot in the lineup.

Instead of keeping him as a spare forward, the Red Wings decided to send Berggren to AHL Grand Rapids and kept him there for most of the season.  Through 43 games with the Griffins, he has done quite well, scoring 19 goals while adding 47 assists.  That has earned Berggren a brief stint with the big club where he has been productive in limited action, notching two goals and four helpers in a dozen games despite averaging less than 11 minutes a night.

Berggren was papered to Grand Rapids at the trade deadline and subsequently recalled, permitting him to return to the Griffins.  The only way they can do that is by not playing him in another game with Detroit.  Grand Rapids is well-positioned to make the playoffs this season so there’s a case to make that his development would be best served by a long postseason run with them over being on the fringes of the NHL lineup while the Red Wings are trying to hold onto the last Wild Card spot in the East.

Detroit elected to punt on the decision for today as they scratched Berggren against Buffalo but they will have to make a call on either playing him and keeping him up for the rest of the season or sending him down for the rest of the year.

As for Miroshnichenko, he has played in nine games for the Capitals so far this season and as a junior-aged player, the ten-game mark is critical as he would officially burn the first year of his contract.  If he doesn’t, the year would slide and he would still have three seasons left on that deal – at a slightly lower cap hit – heading into 2024-25.

The 20-year-old is in his first season in North America after spending his post-draft campaign split between Russia’s junior league and two professional leagues after recovering from cancer.  The bulk of that campaign was spent in the KHL with Avangard Omsk who agreed to terminate his deal after the season ended, allowing him to join Washington’s system.

Miroshnichenko has spent the majority of this season with AHL Hershey and has done relatively well, collecting nine goals and 16 assists through 47 games so far.  That has earned him a handful of recalls, the most recent of which came nearly three weeks ago.  Miroshnichenko has been a regular the last couple of weeks, getting him to that nine-game mark where he has two goals while averaging nearly 12 minutes a night.

Washington will soon need to decide if their playoff push (they sit one point out of the last Wild Card spot heading into today) is best aided with Miroshnichenko in the lineup or if they should be taking the longer view and sending him back down to get the extra cheap year on his contract.  Either way, unlike Berggren, Miroshnichenko will be able to return to Hershey whether it’s in the coming days or at the end of their season as he’ll remain waiver-exempt either way.  Set to play Vancouver later today, Washington will have to make the decision soon unless they want to push the decision back a couple of days by making him a healthy scratch.

It’s not often that decisions like this come up this late in a season but for Detroit and Washington, they’ll have to make a call on their youngsters in the near future.

Aliaksei Protas Out With Lower-Body Injury

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  • Turning to the east coast of the United States, Sammi Silber of The Hockey News reports forward Aliaksei Protas of the Washington Capitals will miss tonight’s game with a lower-body injury. Signing a shiny new five-year, $16.875MM extension with the team back in January, Protas has come into his own as a playmaker, tallying 23 assists in 62 games for Washington this season.

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Capitals Activate T.J. Oshie Off Injured Reserve

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The Capitals welcomed back a veteran winger to their lineup tonight as Sammi Silber of The Hockey News relayed that T.J. Oshie was taken off injured reserve.  He took the place of winger Tom Wilson in the lineup with the team announcing (Twitter link) that Wilson was out due to an upper-body injury.

Oshie had missed nearly three weeks due to a non-contact upper-body injury.  While his numbers on the season (ten goals and eight assists in 38 games) are a bit underwhelming for someone who is used to being a key secondary scorer, the 37-year-old has been much more productive as of late.  Since the calendar turned to 2024, Oshie has tallied eight goals and six assists in 17 contests, way closer to the level of output that Washington needs and expects from the veteran.

As for Wilson, he is in the middle of a down year offensively as well.  Through 61 games, he has 15 goals and 13 assists while once again being among the league leaders in penalty minutes.  However, his 0.46 points-per-game average is his lowest since the 2017-18 campaign.  That’s not what the Capitals were hoping for when they signed him to a seven-year, $45.5MM contract extension back in August.  Oshie will take Wilson’s place on Washington’s second line.

While center Nic Dowd and defenseman Martin Fehervary have been cleared for contact in recent days, they both have not yet been activated off injured reserve.  When that time comes, the Capitals will be back up to 23 skaters on their active roster after carrying the minimum in recent days.

Stars Sign Justin Ertel To Entry-Level Contract

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The Dallas Stars have signed right-winger Justin Ertel to an entry-level contract. The three-year deal will begin next season and carries a $925,000 cap hit, per CapFriendly. Ertel is currently in his second season in the OHL, scoring 25 goals and 66 points in 61 games with the North Bay Battalion. It’s a step up in scoring from his rookie year when he managed 36 points in 46 games.

The Stars drafted Ertel well before his OHL career began, though, selecting him in the third round of the 2021 NHL Draft out of the Maritime Hockey League’s Summerside Western Capitals. Ertel, who was originally drafted by the Battalion in the 2019 OHL Priority Selection Draft, was spending the year in the MHL after the OHL canceled their season. And while the OHL returned for the 2021-22 season, Ertel instead opted to attend Cornell University in the United States, scoring one goal and nine points in 23 games. He’s likely now set to return to the States next season, after signing his first professional contract.

Ertel’s move to the pros should be interesting, with the 20-year-old winger boasting smooth skating, a strong understanding of how to get to open ice, and good grit along the boards – but showing room for improvement with the puck on his stick. He’s a hard-nosed forward who could fit well into professional systems. Dallas will hope that’s the case, as they look to continue profiting off their strong drafting as of late.

Capitals Will Not Trade Max Pacioretty

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The Capitals will not trade veteran winger Max Pacioretty will not be traded ahead of the 2 p.m. CT trade deadline, Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports.

Pacioretty is in the midst of an impressive comeback season, returning from the second tearing of his right Achille’s tendon in less than a year. The injury weighed heavy on the veteran forward, who told the Associated Press that rehab limited his ability to live a normal life. But a return to the NHL was always the goal, with Pacioretty sharing,”It’s important for me to do this for myself but also for my family and my kids to kind of show them that we can get through this together… I know I have so much more hockey in the tank.”

He’s proven that statement to be true this season, returning to a consistent role in Washington’s top-nine and scoring 15 points in 26 games. That puts him on pace for 47 points across 82 games – a particularly impressive feat given this season also marked the 35-year-old’s first time playing consistent games with a new team since his four-year stretch with the Vegas Golden Knights. Pacioretty has totaled 881 games through his 16-year career and continuously overcome barriers, winning the Masterton Trophy in 2012 after returning from a broken neck. He’s a flashy, scoring-winger who has passed the 30-goal mark six different times in his career, and scored 60 or more points in five times. Much of his career came during a decade with the Montreal Canadiens, where his 448 points in 626 games ranks third among all Canadiens in scoring since 2000, behind Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Markov.

Pacioretty was a tantalizing trade candidate, given his past precedent of dominant scoring, but teams decided to stay away – despite his $2MM cap hit being one of the cheaper on the open market. His next chance to move will come this summer, when Pacioretty becomes an unrestricted free agent. While he considered retirement after his second major Achille’s tendon injury, his claim that he has plenty of hockey left in the tank could continue his pursuit of 1,000 NHL games into next season.

The Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli shares that Pacioretty turned down multiple playoff-bound teams with his no-move clause, opting to instead stay close to his family and finish the year where he started – in Washington. The Capitals were happy to oblige.

Hurricanes Acquire Evgeny Kuznetsov

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The Hurricanes have acquired center Evgeny Kuznetsov from the Capitals, per a team announcement. A 2025 third-round pick is heading back to Washington, which is retaining 50% of Kuznetsov’s $7.8MM cap hit.

Kuznetsov and the Capitals clearly wanted a fresh start after the player exited the first stage of the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program and was subsequently placed on waivers last weekend. The 31-year-old has one season remaining on the eight-year, $62.4MM deal he signed with the Caps in the summer of 2017 and has a 10-team no-trade list. The Hurricanes will owe him half of his pro-rated $6MM salary this season, a $3MM salary next year, and a $1MM signing bonus this summer thanks to Washington’s retention, and he’ll cost $3.9MM against their salary cap this year and next.

A point-per-game threat at his peak during the Capitals’ run to the championship in 2018, it’s been a rather sharp decline in production this season. He’s tallied only six goals and 17 points in 43 games this season, tallying the worst points-per-game rate of his 11-year career. He’s never been a strong defensive player, either, and that hasn’t changed with a 43.6 CF% at even strength and a 39.3 xGF%.

Nonetheless, the Hurricanes could bank on surrounding him with much better wing talent and look to utilize him in a top-six role. The team has a gaping vacancy at center on their second line behind Sebastian Aho. Both Jack Drury and Jesperi Kotkaniemi have tried and failed to hold down the spot with acceptable production from a second-line pivot on a contending team, and while Kuznetsov’s numbers haven’t been any better, he at least has the history of holding down top-six minutes on a contending team. A hypothetical trio with Martin Necas and Andrei Svechnikov (or their other big deadline splash, Jake Guentzel) is far from a shutdown line, but playing with two highly skilled wingers should help restore Kuznetsov’s production closer to his former levels.

Carolina indeed views Kuznetsov as a potential top-six piece and is expected to recall him from the minors after the trade call is completed, per Emily Kaplan of ESPN.

The Capitals, meanwhile, free up half of Kuznetsov’s remaining money to spend elsewhere over the next 15 months. His departure opens up more guaranteed ice time for youngsters Hendrix Lapierre and Connor McMichael down the middle down the stretch and into next season, too. Notably, the Capitals are now utilizing all three of their salary retention slots this season and won’t be able to execute another retained salary transaction before today’s deadline.

Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet first reported the Hurricanes were trading for Kuznetsov.

Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic first reported the return and salary retention details.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Capitals Recall Hunter Shepard, Darcy Kuemper Battling Illness

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  • The Washington Capitals have recalled goaltender Hunter Shepard from the AHL. Shepard has been one of the minor league’s most productive netminders, posting 21 wins and a .919 save percentage in 26 appearances. His dominance has coincided with batterymate Clay Stevenson, who has 18 wins and a .932 save percentage in 27 games of his own. Shepard made his NHL debut earlier this season and has since posted two wins and a .894 save percentage. He’ll back up Charlie Lindgren for the Capitals, as starter Darcy Kuemper sits out with illness.

Maple Leafs Acquire Joel Edmundson From Capitals

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The Capitals and Maple Leafs have agreed on a trade to send left-shot defenseman Joel Edmundson from Washington to Toronto, per a team release. Two draft picks – the Islanders’ 2024 third-round pick and the Blackhawks’ 2025 fifth-round pick – are heading back to Washington in the deal. The Capitals are retaining 50% of Edmundson’s already-reduced $1.75MM cap hit, bringing his cap hit down to $875K for the Maple Leafs. In a corresponding transaction to create the cap space needed for the trade, the Maple Leafs moved defenseman Conor Timmins from injured reserve to long-term injured reserve, per CapFriendly.

Edmundson, 30, has slipped to a depth role this season and is a pending UFA. After picking up Ethan Bear on the free-agent market midseason led to a defensive logjam in Washington, Edmundson looked to be on his way out after failing to solidify top-four minutes in his first season with the Caps.

The Maple Leafs have been in the market for blue-line depth for weeks, and they weren’t done after acquiring Ilya Lyubushkin from the Ducks last week for his second stint with the team. For the past few days, they’ve been linked to Edmundson, who can play both left and right defense and stands at a hulking 6-foot-5 and 224 pounds.

Edmundson’s production and possession metrics don’t move the needle much. Still, he does carry a massive advantage in playoff experience over other Leafs blue-liners who have been in their bottom-pairing rotation as of late, like Maxime Lajoie and William Lagesson. He’s sitting on a goal and six points in 44 games this season, and the Manitoba native’s 16:26 average time on ice is the lowest in quite a while. His possession metrics don’t paint him as an extreme liability after a disastrous 2022-23 campaign with the Canadiens, posting a 1.2 relative CF% at even strength and 47.4 xGF% (per Hockey Reference). There were some better shutdown options on the market, though.

Over 521 career games with the Blues, Canadiens, Capitals, and Hurricanes, Edmundson has 29 goals, 81 assists, 110 points, and a +18 rating, averaging 18:30 per game. After winning the Stanley Cup with St. Louis in 2019 and spending the following season in Carolina, he signed a four-year, $14MM contract ($3.5MM cap hit) with Montreal that expires this summer. The Caps acquired him for a third-round and seventh-round pick last offseason, with Montreal retaining 50% of his cap hit. Since Edmundson’s contract had already been involved in a prior retained salary transaction, the Caps and Leafs could not have used a third party to retain additional salary in this trade.

He’s not afraid to use his body, blocking 822 shots and recording 979 hits throughout his nine-year career. However, that hasn’t translated into positive possession quality for Edmundson’s team with him on the ice. He’s recorded an xGF% above 50 twice in his career, not since 2021, when he reached the Stanley Cup Final with Montreal. Last season was an especially difficult campaign for him, recording 23 points in 61 games with a career-worst -29 rating and a 42.9 xGF%.

Edmundson now moves from one team with a defensive logjam to another. Lyubushkin has settled in nicely on a pairing with Morgan Rielly since his acquisition, meaning Edmundson, Timmins, Simon Benoit, Mark Giordano, and Timothy Liljegren will now all compete for the fifth and sixth spots on the Toronto blue line when everyone is healthy.

The Maple Leafs don’t have an open roster spot for Edmundson yet, although CapFriendly reports Lagesson has been removed from the active roster and will likely hit waivers at 1 p.m. CT.

Former NHL and AHL defenseman Jordan Schmaltz was first to report that Edmundson had been traded to Toronto.

Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic was first to report that the Capitals were retaining 50% of his cap hit.

Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet was first to report the return.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Trade Notes: Edmundson, Byram, Rangers, Panthers

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Washington Capitals defenseman Joel Edmundson is once again preparing for a trade, with TSN’s Darren Dreger reporting that multiple teams are interested in the 30-year-old. Dreger shares that the Boston Bruins likely lead the pack right now, though the Toronto Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lightning are also interested.

Edmundson has been traded three times since 2019, though he’s never been moved in-season before. The Capitals brought in Edmundson on July 1st, sending the Montreal Canadiens a third and seventh round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft. Washington marked the fourth team of Edmundson’s career. He’s served in a modest role for the club, scoring six points in 44 games and averaging just 16-and-a-half minutes of ice time – though he’s played as much as 22 minutes a night when Washington needs him.

The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun pointed out that Edmundson could carry a cap hit as little as $875K, if Washington retains half of his salary. That’s a cheap price to pay for a defenseman with over 500 NHL games and one Stanley Cup under his belt. Edmundson is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, likely making him a depth rental for a playoff contender.

Other trade notes from around the league:

  • Bowen Byram will join the Buffalo Sabres in Nashville for their Thursday night game against the Predators, per Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News. Head coach Don Granato also shared that Byram will be paired with star defender Rasmus Dahlin when he’s ready to play. Byram missed the Colorado Avalanche’s last game with an illness, something that could limit him on Thursday as well, though Lysowski reports that Byram is feeling better. The Sabres brought in the 22-year-old defenseman in a one-for-one trade with Colorado, sending Casey Mittelstadt the other way. Byram has 20 points in 55 games this season, playing in nearly 20 minutes a night for the Avalanche.
  • Alexander Wennberg was just the start of the New York Rangers’ deadline moves, per Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli. The Rangers still have their first-round picks in both the 2024 and 2025 drafts, as well as $2.91MM in cap space, per CapFriendly. That’s likely more than enough to land them some of the market’s top names. While the Rangers haven’t been tied to any specific names, they draw a clear connection with interdivision-rival Jake Guentzel and former Ranger Pavel Buchnevich. Both players are garnering plenty of interest ahead of the deadline, each offering dominant, point-per-game scoring on the wing. With the assets and cap space to make most moves work, it will be interesting to see if the Rangers once again shoot for the stars.
  • Seravalli also reported that the Florida Panthers were still searching for a scoring winger, mentioning Max Pacioretty as a potential option. The Panthers were also tied to Guentzel by Pierre LeBrun. Florida just acquired Vladimir Tarasenko from the Ottawa Senators, giving them five forwards in their top-six with at least 40 points this season. They also have Evan Rodrigues and Sam Bennett sporting 36 and 30 points respectively. Adding yet another scoring winger to the mix would give Florida high-production through their third-line, something they may deem necessary to get over teams like Vegas or Carolina. Pacioretty, who has 15 points in 25 games since returning from an Achille’s Tendon injury, would likely be one of the cheapest options on the market and carries a modest $2MM cap hit that would fit into Florida’s books.

Washington Capitals Injury Updates

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Taking the ice for practice this morning, Tarik El-Bashir of Monumental Sports Network provided several updates to injured members of the Washington Capitals. He reports that forward T.J. Oshie skated once again, but is still considered week-to-week, while Nic Dowd and Martin Fehervary both skated in non-contact jerseys and are confirmed to miss the team’s next game against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

All three players currently find themselves on the team’s injured reserve and have limited Washington’s depth up and down the lineup. However, even with all three members having been out since at least February 22nd, the Capitals have earned a 2-2-1 record in that stretch, maintaining their position near the Eastern Conference wild-card spot.

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