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Metropolitan Notes: Devils Coaching Search, Hurricanes, Ovechkin

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With several big-name coaches on their wish list, many people didn’t put much thought into a report that Lindy Ruff was a fifth candidate for the New Jersey Devils. After all, the Devils were also considering Peter Laviolette, Gerard Gallant, Mike Babcock, John Stevens, Bruce Boudreau and current interim head coach Alain Nasreddine. However, on his most recent 31 Thoughts column, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman writes that Ruff is hardly an afterthought and is a serious candidate for the team’s head coaching position.

What’s interesting about that statement is that New Jersey still doesn’t have a general manager in place and has been interviewing candidates for that position too. Friedman notes that many of those candidates have requested input in the team’s head coaching search, which would likely alter the team’s plans in hiring a head coach. However, the scribe notes that it looks like regardless on what the team decides, Ruff is highly favored within the organization.

Ruff served as head coach of the Buffalo Sabres from 1997 to 2013, while taking the same role in Dallas from 2013 to 2017 and has 736 coaching victories in the NHL.

  • With many teams having shutdown voluntary skating in their facilities recently due to a number of positive tests for COVID-19, the Carolina Hurricanes announced they will open up PNC Arena to players who wish to begin voluntary small-group training, starting on Tuesday, June 30. The team is expecting 16 players to be ready to go on that date, with that group to be split in half during on-ice workouts. So far, no word on what players will hit the ice in Carolina.
  • Speaking of teams that have been on the ice for some time, the Washington Capitals, who have been skating at MedStar Capitals Iceplex in Arlington, VA since June 8, got a familiar face on the ice as star forward Alex Ovechkin skated with some teammates Saturday. The 34-year-old, who tallied 48 goals in just 68 games last season, has been training in Florida before now. He was joined by Evgeny Kuznetsov, Lars Eller, Garnet Hathaway, John Carlson and Braden Holtby.

Capitals Sign Hunter Shepard To An AHL Deal

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Goaltender Hunter Shepard was one of the top remaining undrafted college free agents on the market but he wasn’t able to land an entry-level contract.  Instead, his now-former college team, the University of Minnesota-Duluth, announced that the Capitals have inked the netminder to an AHL contract.

The 24-year-old wrapped up a stellar career with the Bulldogs this season, posting a 2.18 GAA and a .918 SV% in 34 games.  Those numbers were pretty strong in their own right but they actually represented a step back from the previous two years.  Those performances helped earn Shepard NCHC Goalie of the Year and first all-star team honors in each of the last two seasons while he won the NCAA title in 2018 and 2019.  He also showed that he was durable as he made 115 consecutive starts for Minnesota-Duluth spanning from October 2017 to this past March which is an NCAA record.

Playing time may be hard to come by for Shepard as their current AHL tandem of Pheonix Copley and Vitek Vanecek are both signed through 2021-22.  However, if Braden Holtby moves on, one of those two could presumably move up to the NHL level as Ilya Samsonov’s backup which would give Shepard a chance at earning the backup role with AHL Hershey.

Martin Fehervary And Vitek Vanecek Likely To Be Among Washington's Recalls

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  • Capitals blueliner Martin Fehervary and goalie Vitek Vanecek are on their way to Washington in advance of rejoining the team for return workouts, notes J.J. Regan of NBC Sports Washington. While the team hasn’t confirmed that either will be among the ones that will be on their expanded roster, both seem like safe bets to be there.  Fehervary played in six games with the Caps in his rookie season and held his own, averaging 15:59 per night.  Meanwhile, Vanecek split time with Pheonix Copley with their AHL affiliate in Hershey this season and with the expectation of there being no limits to the number of goalies that teams can carry, it’s logical to think he’ll be among their netminders that are recalled.

Metropolitan Notes: Rangers, Brodeur, Holtby

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With dates set now for training camp (July 10) and playoff start (July 30), pending an official agreement, many players currently residing in Europe will have to eventually make their way back to North American soil to prepare for the playoffs. While it might be too early for some to begin that process, Newsday’s Colin Stephenson writes that several New York Rangers’ players are preparing to start that process soon.

Forward Pavel Buchnevich will be the first to cross the ocean with his agent confirming that the 25-year-old, who has spent the pause in Russia, is expected to be in New York on Sunday. Other Rangers’ players are expected to follow, including Henrik Lundqvist, Mika Zibanejad and Jesper Fast, who are currently in Sweden; Kaapo Kakko and Alexandar Georgiev in Finland; and Filip Chytil from the Czech Republic. Artemi Panarin and Igor Shesterkin both opted to stay in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Players are expected to be tested for the coronavirus when they arrive in New York and then tested again in a week. If both tests are negative, they will then be cleared to practice.

  • Matt Larkin of the Hockey News writes that former New Jersey Devils’ goaltender Martin Brodeur is not interested in becoming general manager of the New Jersey Devils at this time. The longtime Devils goaltender moved from a hockey business position to a hockey operations role on Jan. 12 after the team fired Ray Shero as their general manager and replaced him with Tom Fitzgerald on an “interim basis.” However, Brodeur said that while that role interests him down the role, he’s not ready to take on that challenge yet. The 48-year-old currently lives in St. Louis and made it clear he might not be ready to take on a rigorous role as a general manager. “I’m not saying that one day, I won’t say, ‘You know what? This is the time for me to do it, maybe,’ Brodeur said. “But right now, I value my time off too much to get myself involved. Not that I’m not involved, as in my role I need to be pretty much present, but I’m able to kind of make my own schedule and not rely on the general manager setup.”
  • Sportsnet’s Luke Fox writes that while many people still envision goaltender Braden Holtby to be the Washington Capitals starting netminder when the playoffs resume, it will be critical for the upcoming unrestricted free agent to perform well. With the salary cap not likely to go up this year due to COVID-19, many UFA’s aren’t likely to score big free agent contracts. Holtby, who was outplayed by rookie Ilya Samsonov and posted poor regular season numbers with a career-low .897 save percentage, could benefit if he dominated in the playoffs.

Swiss Club EV Zug Offers 2020-21 Update On NHL Alumni

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NHL fans are not alone in missing hockey and looking for any news from their favorite teams to fill the void created by COVID-19. EV Zug of the Swiss NLA has published an update for their fans courtesy of GM Reto Klay on the future plans of some of their more recent NHL draft picks. These fan-favorites include Columbus Blue Jackets forward Calvin Thurkauf, Washington Capitals defenseman Tobias Geisser, and former New York Rangers prospect Nico Gross.

Of the three, EV Zug offered little hope that fans would see Thurkauf back with the team any time soon. The big, two-way forward has exceeded expectation as a 2016 seventh-round pick, making his NHL debut this season with the Blue Jackets. The 22-year-old left Zug the year before he was drafted to play two seasons with the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets. During that time, he was also a standout for Switzerland’s entries at the World Junior Championship. Now in his third pro season, Thurkauf has recorded 52 points in 154 AHL games and suited up for three games with the NHL club this year as well. On paper, Thurkauf may not seem like a top prospect, but he has the chance to make a career out of his size and physical presence on an NHL checking line. A restricted free agent following this season, Klay suggests that Columbus is interested in an extension with Thurkauf. Expect the young forward to be back with the organization next year and possibly spending more time with the Blue Jackets.

Geisser is the name that EV Zug fans are most familiar with right now, as the 21-year-old defender played on loan with the team this season. A fourth-round pick of the Capitals in 2017, Geisser spent one more year with Zug in the NLA before signing on with Washington and spending the entire 2018-19 season with the AHL’s Hershey Bears. He began this season in the minors as well, but a logjam on defense prompted the Capitals to loan him back to Zug. If it were up to Klay, the same would happen next season. Not only does Zug value the big shutdown defenseman, but Klay feels that the ice time and responsibility that the club affords him is needed for his continued development. However, he admits that the decision is entirely up to Washington. Fortunately for Zug fans, due to Geisser’s entry-level contract sliding in his first year, there is no rush to get him back to North America if he is better off in Switzerland, as he still has a couple years left on his current deal.

In a much different place that Thurkauf or Geisser is Gross. The Rangers recently made the decision – scrutinized by some – to allow Gross’ draft rights to expire on June 1st. A fourth-round pick in 2018 who has been a solid two-way defenseman for the OHL’s Oshawa Generals for the past three years, Gross appeared to be the type of prospect who would be worthy of an entry-level contract. Instead, New York opted not to use the contract slot on one of more highly-regarded Swiss prospects in recent years. Because Gross is still 20 years old, he will re-enter the draft later this year, but the odds are likely low that he will be selected and will likely end up as an unrestricted free agent. While his NHL career outlook might look bleak, Klay believes that there will be opportunities for Gross in North America next season. He would like to see the capable blue liner return to Zug, but notes that Gross will have other options.

One Trade The Islanders Would Like To Have Back

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While we await the return of the NHL, it’s a great time to look back at some of the influential transactions in NHL history. Yesterday we looked at the Capitals ill-fated midseason acquisition of winger Martin Erat. The deal cost them Filip Forsberg, who has developed the way Nashville hoped he would, while Erat provided little value at all during his short stay in Washington. But if we’re going to look at trades that helped shape our current era of NHL hockey – for better or worse – we should start at the top (or the bottom).

For trades worth second-guessing, there are very few as satisfying as the deal made between the Islanders and Senators way back in 2001. The deal sent Zdeno Chara to Ottawa along with Bill Muckalt and a 1st-round pick in exchange for Alexei Yashin. It’s frankly amazing that a deal from 2001 would include players still contributing in the NHL today, some nineteen years later, but that speaks to the impact of this transaction.

To find where the Islanders went wrong, there’s no better place to start than with Chara. Lots must go right for a player to reach his full potential, but that’s exactly what happened after Chara went to Ottawa. The deal came after Chara spent parts of four seasons in Long Island, and the then-23-year-old hadn’t really taken off. He was coming off a season in which he played in 82 games, but managed only 9 points and a plus/minus of -27. The Islanders weren’t a playoff team, finishing the 2000-2001 season in fifth place with 52 points.

Of course, things went much better for Chara from that point forth, as the hulking blueliner earned six Norris nominations (one win), seven All-Star honors, and he won a Stanley Cup with the Bruins in 2011. He’s also the NHL’s active leader in Plus/Minus (288) and Defensive Win Shares (99). The Senators only got four seasons from Chara, but they were among the best regular-season teams in the NHL during those years, making the playoffs each of those four seasons, and even managed to beat the Islanders in the first round of the 2002-2003 playoffs.

To make matters worse, Chara wasn’t the only piece the Islanders sent out on that ill-fated day in 2001. Bill Muckalt also went north in that deal, though the right-winger is at least one piece Islanders’ fans don’t have to lose sleep over. He played just one season in Ottawa, and he would be out of the league not two years later.

There’s one final piece. The Islanders sent the 2nd overall selection in the draft to the Senators, a pick that turned into center Jason Spezza. Spezza starred in the middle for eleven years in Ottawa, making two All-Star teams as one of the game’s stellar goal creators. He’s 91st all-time in the NHL now in Adjusted Points (1015) and 92nd all-time in Assists (599). At age-37, he’s a veteran presence on a Toronto Maple Leafs team that will look to enter the playoff field with a win against Columbus whenever play resumes.

Considering the Senators nabbed two all-timers from New York, this has to qualify as a pretty good deal for them. But there’s a give-and-take to every good deal right? Perhaps not so much. The Senators sent Alexei Yashin to the Islanders. Yashin was a fine player, just a year removed from a second-place finish for the Hart Trophy, but they gave up a lot to get him. To make matters worse, the Islanders doubled down and gave him a 10-year, $84MM contract less than three months after the trade, a contract that would have paid Yashin through his age-37 season. For examples of players remaining viable that deep into their careers, we need not look any further than Chara and Spezza. Unfortunately, the Islanders bet on the wrong horse. Yashin wouldn’t come close to recouping the value the Islanders poured into him. They bought him out after the sixth year.

One Trade The Capitals Would Like To Have Back

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While we await the return of the NHL, let’s take this opportunity to look back at some of the influential transactions in NHL history. For no particular reason, let’s jump to the trade deadline of the lockout-shortened 2012-2013 season.

On the date in question (April 3, 2013), the Washington Capitals were two points out of a playoff spot, looking to boost their chances of returning to the postseason for the sixth consecutive season. The Caps had been banged up to start the year, but at the deadline, they were on the rise and rounding into form. To get that little bit of extra oomph, the Caps traded top prospect Filip Forsberg to Nashville for LW Martin Erat and prospect Michael Latta.

The deal made a certain amount of sense at the time, as the Caps were trying to get over the hump and capture their first Stanley Cup. Led by all-world 27-year-old winger Alex Ovechkin, the pieces to make a run were in place, even if they hadn’t lived up to those lofty expectations as of yet. Forsberg, the 11th overall selection of the draft in the year prior, had a bright future, but he wasn’t anticipated to add value to the Caps for some time. Erat led the Predators with 21 points and 17 assists at the time of the deal.

Caps General Manager at the time George McPhee said this of the deal (from Katie Carrera of the Washington Post): “You’re here to win. We’ve been in that mode for a while. This is six years of trying to win a Cup. We had our rebuild phase, we sort of rebuilt things on the fly here, but we’d like to continue to make the playoffs while we’re doing it.”

Sure enough, adding a top-six winger like Erat to a line with Matthieu Perreault and Joel Ward could very well have made the difference for Washington. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but Erat did not end up making the difference. He manages just two goals in 62 games with the Caps before requesting a trade the following season, which the Caps granted. They did manage to get back to the playoffs in 2012-2013, but they were bounced by the Rangers in the first round.

Latta lasted with the Caps for longer, though he never made much of an impact on the ice. He scored four total goals for Washington in parts of three seasons from 2013 to 2016.

As for the Predators, they are happy with their end of this deal. So much so that five years later, they took a victory lap with a gloat tweet.

Forsberg has made good on his prospect status in developing into a capable top-liner for Nashville. Still just 25-years-old, he’s averaged 0.36 goals per game and 0.41 assists per game over his NHL career. He’s a big piece of the Predators success over the years, and a player the Caps would certainly love to have back.

Goalie Notes: Fleury, Holtby, Lundqvist

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The Vegas Golden Knights will presumably embark on a four-team round-robin to determine playoff seeding whenever play resumes. Given that it’s unlikely any team will play in front of a home crowd, the seeding doesn’t have quite the same impact as most years. Nonetheless, the mini-tournament will be an import return to play. For the Golden Knights, that means solidifying certain roster decisions, such as determining who is going to be in goal come playoff time. Peter DeBoer will be working with GM Kelly McCrimmon and President of Hockey Operations George McPhee to make final roster decisions, per The Athletic’s Jesse Granger. Marc-Andre Fleury is a living legend who led Vegas to the Stanley Cup Final in their first season, but time makes a mockery of us all, and just two years later, he could lose his starting gig to midseason acquisition Robin Lehner. Both netminders are likely to get a start during the round-robin phase, but it’s still probably Fleury’s job to lose, given his veteran status both in the league and on this particular team.

  • In Washington, Caps’ coach Todd Reirden spoke with a number of reporters, including JJ Regan of NBC Sports, who reported that Braden Holtby will be in net – at least for now. Ilya Samsonov stands by should Holtby struggle. Holtby started 47 games this season to just 22 for the rookie Samsonov, but with Holtby’s .897 save percentage versus .913 save percentage for Samsonov, there’s at the question whether the Caps would be better off with the youngster in goal. The Caps are hoping for a better playoff result than last year’s disappointing first-round loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. It wasn’t exactly the title defense Alex Ovechkin and company had planned, but the Caps will get another chance to make good in the playoffs this season. They’ll need Holtby at his finest to make a run.
  • In another potential changing of the guard, the Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist landed on a list of potential buyout candidates this offseason from Sean Leahy of NBC Sports. There’s no doubt that Lundqvist is expensive next season with a cap hit of $8.5MM, but it’s difficult to imagine Rangers games without the Swede minding the net. Still, even if the Rangers deem apparent successor Igor Shesterkin to be ready, they’d still have to buyout Lundqvist for $5.5MM, which might not present enough savings to make the move worthwhile, not when they’d still need a second goalie. Alexander Georgiev, 24, is the other piece of this puzzle, the primary backup for the last couple of seasons and a restricted free agent this offseason.

Washington Capitals Assistant Reid Cashman Hired By Dartmouth

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The Washington Capitals will have Reid Cashman serving in his assistant coach role through the completion of the 2019-20 playoffs, but not thereafter. Cashman has been hired as the new head coach of the Dartmouth hockey program, which he will join whenever the Capitals season is over.

Cashman, 37, started his coaching career in 2011 at Quinnipiac University, serving as an assistant or associate for five seasons. He then joined the Capitals organization, first as an assistant with the Hershey Bears and then with the Capitals. The former AHL defenseman is an up-and-coming coaching prospect that could find his way back to the NHL eventually.

This isn’t the first assistant coach that has already committed to a new program, as the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Paul McFarland will be heading back to the OHL. The suspended season has changed a lot of plans for staff all across the league and the delayed start to 2020-21 could potentially lead to even more departures.

Metropolitan Storylines: Washington Capitals

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While the stretch run is officially over with the NHL’s declaration that the play-in games won’t be part of the regular season, we still have one division left to get to in our Stretch Run Storylines series.  We now shift the focus to the Metropolitan Division with an eye on things to watch for in the postseason.  We begin with a look at Washington.

The Capitals faltered a little bit down the stretch but still managed to hold onto the top spot in the Metropolitan by a single point.  Once again, they’re one of the top-scoring teams in the league which will be what they rely on as they play their seeding games while the play-in series are being held.  Here is what else to watch for from Washington when play resumes.

Which Version Of Kovalchuk?

Veteran winger Ilya Kovalchuk didn’t get much of a chance to show what he could bring to the Caps before the pandemic shut play down.  Acquired just before the trade deadline, he only got into seven games, scoring once while picking up three assists.  That continued a similar drop-off from his time in Montreal after he was quite productive for them after being signed.

There is some room for optimism when it comes to Kovalchuk’s production when the puck drops though.  He started off strong with the Kings this season following an extended break with seven points in eight games.  He had five points in his first seven games with Los Angeles in 2018-19 as well.  When he signed with Montreal after being unsigned for nearly two months, he had eight points in as many contests.  It certainly seems that a well-rested Kovalchuk can still make an early impact which bodes well for Washington.

His role will be more limited than he is accustomed to; he was averaging less than 15 minutes a night before the shutdown, well below his 18:54 per game average with the Canadiens or 21:20 average for his career.  However, it’s a role that the 37-year-old may be best suited for at this stage of his career and on a team that has enough firepower to make him a secondary scorer instead of one that’s counted on to shoulder a large part of it, that will make Kovalchuk, a pending unrestricted free agent, an interesting wild card for them.

Goaltending Decision

Heading into this season, the question was how much ice time Braden Holtby would be ceding to his expected successor in Ilya Samsonov.  Despite the rookie outperforming him for most of the season though, Holtby still received the lion’s share of the starts (47-22).  One benefit of being at or near the top of the division with a top offense is the ability to give the veteran a chance to play through his struggles.

But that only works in the regular season.  The Capitals are now three games away from the playoffs so the time to let a veteran play out of a slump is over.  Statistically, there is a case to make that Samsonov should get the nod when those get underway as he had the much better numbers (2.55 GAA, .913 SV% compared to 3.11 and .897 for Holtby).  Holtby is certainly a well-regarded veteran but it may be tough to justify putting someone with a save percentage below the league average in there each game.

There are certainly questions about Holtby’s future as well.  Washington was already looking like they were going to be a cap-strapped team before the pandemic began; with the projected cap increase looking exceedingly unlikely, it’s even harder to foresee a scenario where he’ll be able to return for 2020-21.  This is probably his swan song with the team…if he gets a chance to play at all and if he doesn’t, that certainly won’t help his case on the open market this summer.

Carlson Continuing?

Who led the Capitals in scoring this season?  It wasn’t Alex Ovechkin, or Evgeny Kuznetsov, or Nicklas Backstrom, one of which had paced the team offensively in every year since Ovechkin entered the league back in 2005-06.  Instead, it was defenseman John Carlson.  After a breakout career year in 2017-18, he followed that up with another career-best offensive performance last season and despite only playing in 69 games this season, he set another new top mark with 75 points.

To further put that number in perspective, the rest of Washington’s back end combined for a total of 78 points (11-67-78).  In other words, Carlson was basically their only offensive threat defensively.  In the regular season, the level of attention he received won’t be as high as it will be in their first round series as their opponent will have more time to key in on him.  In the past two postseasons, there hasn’t been much falloff in terms of his production in the playoffs.  With an even bigger target on his back this time as the top-scoring blueliner in the league and presumptive Norris favorite, will Carlson be able to produce at or a near a point-per-game level this postseason?  The answer to that will go a long way in determining their success this summer.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

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