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Senators Acquire Wyatt Bongiovanni From Jets

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The Senators acquired center Wyatt Bongiovanni from the Jets in exchange for future considerations on Friday, per a team announcement. The team promptly reassigned Bongiovanni to their AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators. Belleville will likely send a player signed to an AHL contract to Winnipeg’s affiliate, the Manitoba Moose, to complete the trade. Since he was traded after the March 8 deadline, Bongiovanni will not be eligible for recall to Ottawa for the remainder of the 2023-24 season.

[Related: Post-Deadline Transaction Restrictions]

Bongiovanni, 24, signed with the Jets as an undrafted free agent in 2022 and has played for the Moose ever since, scoring 21 goals and 33 points in 93 games. However, the former Quinnipiac University captain has been one of Manitoba’s worst defensive forwards, posting a team-worst -17 rating in 2022-23 and a -12 rating this season. He has not received an NHL recall since turning pro nearly two years ago.

The Michigan-born center was once a solid contributor with Quinnipiac, racking up 50 goals, 90 points and a +43 rating across 123 appearances between 2018 and 2022. His shot was always the most intriguing aspect of his game, and while he’s managed to flash it at times with Manitoba, the rest of his game hasn’t reached the level required for a major-league summons.

Bongiovanni is exempt from waivers and will remain so for two more seasons or until he plays 60 NHL games, whichever comes first. His two-year, $1.605MM entry-level contract expires this summer, and if the Senators issue him a qualifying offer, he’ll be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights.

Jets’ Gabriel Vilardi Out Indefinitely With Enlarged Spleen

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Winnipeg Jets forward Gabriel Vilardi has an enlarged spleen and will be out indefinitely, shares head coach Rick Bowness after the team’s Friday practice. Vilardi has missed the team’s last seven games and will now miss at least five more, as the Jets take off on an extended road trip that Vilardi won’t join. Bowness added that this issue was recently discovered and that Vilardi is receiving treatment.

Vilardi has been limited to just 38 games this season, missing six weeks of play earlier in the season after suffering a sprained MCL and suffering scattered day-to-day injuries throughout the year. It’s been far from an ideal start to Vilardi’s time in Winnipeg, after joining the team alongside Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari, and a 2024 second-round pick in the deal that sent Pierre-Luc Dubois to the Los Angeles Kings. It’s unfortunate to see injuries marring Vilardi’s season, which has been incredibly productive when he is healthy. The 24-year-old centerman has 16 goals and 30 points on the year, scoring at an 82-game pace of 35 goals and 65 points. It’s the highest scoring-pace of Vilardi’s career, continuing the strong pace he set last season when he totaled 23 goals and 41 points in 63 games.

Missing Vilardi has left a notable hole in the Jets’ top-six. And while extra ice time to Adam Lowry and Mason Appleton helped supplement that absence, the Jets were still in need of an extra spark – leading them to acquire the New Jersey Devils’ leading goal-scorer in Tyler Toffoli. Winnipeg sent a second and third round pick to New Jersey for Toffoli and, while he hasn’t scored a point in two games with the Jets, the 31-year-old veteran is clearly feeling comfortable, maintaining his high-volume shooting with nine shot attempts in his pair of games. The Jets will hope that comfortability turns into goals very quickly, as they’re now down Vilardi for the short term, at least.

Western Notes: Scheifele, Vilardi, Dunn, Kovalenko

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The Winnipeg Jets could be getting major reinforcements back soon, with the team hopeful that Mark Scheifele will return to the lineup on Friday, per Scott Billeck with the Winnipeg Sun. Billeck also shared that Gabriel Vilardi will remain out on Friday. Vilardi has been out since February 29th with an upper-body injury, missing the team’s last seven games. The extended absence has continued a season of injuries for Vilardi, who has now missed 27 games on the season.

Scheifele missed Winnipeg’s Wednesday night game with illness. He continues to lead the Jets in scoring, with 19 goals and 57 points in 58 games. The Jets simply haven’t been the same team without Scheifele, averaging a measly 1.57 goals-per-game in his absence compared to 3.22 goals-per-game with him in the lineup – leading Winnipeg to a 2-5-0 record without their top forward.

Scheifele’s importance to the Winnipeg roster can’t be understated, placing plenty of weight on his game-time decision ahead of Friday’s matchup. If he can’t go, the Jets will need to rely on one of David Gustafsson or Rasmus Kupari. Gustafsson has been Winnipeg’s de facto fill-in this year, with four points in 31 games, though Kupari’s role as a natural center could earn him a leg-up, even despite his sole assist through 27 games this season.

Other notes from around the league:

  • The Seattle Kraken will be without defenseman Vince Dunn for the fourth straight game, per Scott Malone with Root Sports. Dunn has been Seattle’s top defender this year, averaging over 23 minutes of ice time for the second-straight season. Dunn has managed 11 goals and 45 points in 57 games on the season, scoring at nearly the exact same pace as he did last season, when he posted a career-high 14 goals and 64 points in 71 games. Without Dunn, Seattle has promoted top young defender Ryker Evans back into an NHL role. Evans has five assists in 19 games this season – the first games of his NHL career – though he’s still searching for his first career goal. Evans has also managed two goals and 15 points in 25 AHL games this year.
  • The Colorado Avalanche could be adding a major boost even after the Trade Deadline, with Russian forward Nikolai Kovalenko reportedly headed to America soon, per Evan Rawal of Colorado Hockey Now, as well as a social media post from Kovalenko’s barber. The Avalanche drafted Kovalenko in the sixth-round of the 2018 NHL Draft, with the winger since emerging as a strong option for the KHL’s Nizhny Novgorod Torpedo. The 24-year-old scored 11 goals and 35 points in 42 KHL games this season, after posting a career-high 21 goals and 54 points in 56 games last season. He will look to carry that same scoring energy onto the high-offense Colorado lineup.

Mark Scheifele Out With Illness

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  • Before the puck dropped in the team’s game tonight against the Nashville Predators, the Winnipeg Jets announced that center Mark Scheifele would be absent from the game due to an illness. In Scheifele’s stead, utility forward Vladislav Namestnikov slid into the center role on the team’s top line. Since his return from injury on February 6th, Scheifele has been the heart and soul of the Jets’ offense, scoring five goals and 16 points in his last 17 games.

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Jets Acquire Colin Miller From Devils

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The Jets have shored up their defensive depth, acquiring blue-liner Colin Miller from the Devils for a mid-round pick, Darren Dreger of TSN reports.

Miller will now move to his fourth team in the last three seasons, spending last season with the Dallas Stars and this year with the Devils after three years in Buffalo. He’s carved out a hardy role everywhere he’s gone, with his strong puck-moving and heads-up defense lifting up his batterymates well. This has made him a great safety net for rookie defenders, with his most common linemate this season being top prospect Luke Hughes. The pair have recorded a 52.29 xGF% (expected goals-for percentage) per Evolving Hockey (subscription required), a mark that ranks third among New Jersey pairings to play in 150 minutes or more. Miller has managed to stay on the positive side of expected-goals despite managing just eight points, split evenly, in 41 games this season. While he’s never been known for his scoring acumen, this year has marked a notable step down from his standard rivaling of 20 points. His career year came in 2017-18, when Miller scored 10 goals and 41 points in 82 games on Vegas’ second pairing.

Now with Winnipeg, Miller will have to compete with Nate Schmidt and Dylan Samberg for the team’s final lineup spots. Both Schmidt and Samberg have outscored Miller this season, with 10 and 15 points respectively, but Miller’s two-way style could prove a healthy match for the Jets’ pass-heavy system. If he can’t force his way into the lineup, Miller will have to battle with Logan Stanley for the team’s seventh-defenseman role. Stanley has just one point, an assist, in 14 games this season.

Jets Acquire Tyler Toffoli

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11:41 a.m.: The trade call between the Devils and Jets is complete, per TSN’s Darren Dreger. All the details of the reported trade below are accurate.

10:27 a.m.: The Jets already made a top-six addition when they acquired Sean Monahan from Montreal last month.  They’re now set to make another one as TSN’s Darren Dreger reports (Twitter link) that they are closing in on a trade with New Jersey for winger Tyler Toffoli.  Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press adds (Twitter link) that the Devils are expected to receive second and third-round picks in return.  The Jets don’t have their own second-round pick this year but they do have Montreal’s, a well-traveled pick that has already been involved in trades for Christian Dvorak, Sean Durzi, and Pierre-Luc Dubois so far. Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff confirms it’s a 2025 second-rounder and a 2024 third-rounder heading to New Jersey.

Toffoli was in his first season with New Jersey who acquired him from Calgary in the summer after the two sides weren’t able to agree on a contract extension.  The Devils had tried to extend Toffoli as well but clearly, those talks weren’t able to yield a new deal, resulting in this trade instead over the risk of him leaving in free agency in July.

The 31-year-old was productive with the Devils, leading the team in goals with 26 through 61 games while chipping in with 18 assists as well; his goal total ties him for the Winnipeg lead with Kyle Connor.  He surpassed the 30-goal mark last season for the second time in his career and appears to be well on his way toward doing so once again this year.  In the playoffs, Toffoli has had some success with 44 points in 88 games, including 14 in 22 playoff appearances with the Canadiens in their run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2021.  He’ll be counted on to provide some extra scoring punch on a Winnipeg team that is outside the top 20 in goals scored so far this season.

Despite being a consistent contributor offensively, Toffoli has bounced around in recent seasons.  This will be the sixth team that Toffoli has played for since 2020, joining Vancouver, Los Angeles, Montreal, Calgary, and New Jersey.  Barring an extension, the number may increase to seven in the coming months.

Toffoli has a $4.25MM cap hit, one that Winnipeg can work in without needing salary retention.  However, if they take on the full freight of the deal, that won’t leave them with much more cap room to work with so it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Devils at least retain a portion of his contract once the deal is made official. Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports that the Devils have indeed retained half of Toffoli’s deal, making him a $2.125MM player for Winnipeg.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Western Conference Notes: Eichel, Myers, Vilardi, Stankoven

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Vegas Golden Knights star Jack Eichel won’t make his return from injury on Saturday, says head coach Bruce Cassidy. His next chance to return will come when Vegas visits the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday. Eichel has been out since January 11th, missing the team’s last 18 games with a knee injury that required surgery. He made his return to the team’s practices on Wednesday, quickly upgrading to a full-contact jersey and nearing a return.

Eichel’s return will offer major relief to a Vegas lineup that’s gone 2-5-1 in their last eight games – with opponents outscoring the Golden Knights 31-to-27. Eichel is the only Golden Knight scoring above a point-per-game pace this season, with 44 points in 42 games. Vegas has set a much more commanding 24-13-5 record in games Eichel has been healthy for.

Other notes from around the league:

  • Vancouver Canucks defenseman Tyler Myers has been designated as week-to-week with an undisclosed injury. Mark Friedman will slot into his spot in the lineup. That will bring Friedman up to 21 NHL games this season, spending much of the year as an injury fill-in. He’s managed just one assist alongside 21 penalty minutes and a +5. Myers has so far appeared in all 62 Canucks games this season – a feat that, impressively, eight different Canucks have managed, including three defensemen.
  • Winnipeg Jets forward Gabriel Vilardi has returned to Winnipeg to seek further evaluation for an upper-body injury suffered in the team’s Thursday night loss to the Dallas Stars. Vilardi left the game after just 10 minutes of ice time. He missed Winnipeg’s Saturday morning win over the Carolina Hurricanes and will now miss one more game as the Jets round out their road trip on Sunday. Vilardi has scored 16 goals and 30 points in 38 games this season, though he’s been heavily limited by a string of injuries. The Jets have gone 26-10-2 in games Vilardi has appeared in this season.
  • The Dallas Stars have recalled impressive rookie Logan Stankoven, who was briefly sent down to the minors after the team’s Thursday night game. But with this recall, Dallas shows that move was purely transactional, and that Stankoven will indeed continue in an NHL role after recording three goals and four points in his first four career games. Stankoven has also recorded 57 points in 47 games this season, battling for the league’s top scorer title all season long.

Afternoon Notes: Eichel, Monahan, Liljegren, Timmins

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Star Vegas Golden Knights forward Jack Eichel returned to the team’s practices today, donning a no-contact jersey. It’s his first appearance on the ice since January 11th, as Eichel has been facing a knee injury that required surgery. The injury earned him a spot on long-term injured reserve in mid February, though he’s missed enough games to be eligible to return. Now in a no-contact jersey, it seems Eichel is just awaiting clearance to resume contact and a full practice. The 27-year-old has joined Vegas on their current four-game road trip across the Atlantic Division, which will feature a matchup against Eichel’s former Buffalo Sabres on Saturday. It’s not yet clear if he’ll be able to play in that matchup, though his return to practice suggests he’ll return soon.

Eichel’s return will illicit a big sigh of relief from Vegas’ top brass. The team recently lost star winger Mark Stone to a lacerated spleen that earned him a spot on injured reserve. Vegas is also down William Carrier, Brett Howden, and Pavel Dorofeyev – forcing the club to lean on depth options like Brendan Brisson, Byron Froese, and Sheldon Rempal.

In Eichel, Vegas is getting back their only player still scoring at, or above, a point-per-game pace. Eichel has 19 goals and 44 points through 42 games this season, while leading the team’s forwards in ice time. The Golden Knights will hope he can quickly bounce back to the role of lineup star and save them from the 1-4-1 stretch they find themselves on.

Other notes from around the league:

  • The Winnipeg Jets are expecting Sean Monahan to slot back into the lineup, after missing the team’s Sunday game with illness, per team reporter Scott Billeck with the Winnipeg Sun. Monahan has played in eight games since being traded to the Winnipeg Jets, scoring five points but still searching for his first assist. The scoring brings Monahan’s totals up to 40 points in 57 games this season – the most he’s scored since the 2019-20 season.
  • Timothy Liljegren is slated to miss the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Tuesday night game against the Vegas Golden Knights with an undisclosed injury, per head coach Sheldon Keefe. Keefe added that Liljegren got banged up in the team’s Saturday game against the Colorado Avalanche, with Liljegren leaving the bench later into the third period. The 24-year-old defenseman has 16 points across 40 games this season.
  • Conor Timmins has returned to skating, though he’s not yet cleared to skate with the team, per team reporter David Alter. Timmins has been out since January 24th with mononucleosis. It’s another halt in Timmins’ season, which kicked off with a lower-body injury that held him out until late November. He’s since sat out due to being a healthy scratch and dealing with illness. Timmins, 25, has six points in 16 games this season.

Sean Monahan Out Sunday With Illness

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Jets center Sean Monahan is not in the lineup for Sunday’s game against the Coyotes due to illness, the team’s communications department said.

This is Monahan’s first absence since Winnipeg acquired him from the Canadiens for a 2024 first-round pick and a 2027 conditional third-round pick on Feb. 2. The 29-year-old is on a tear with five goals in his last four games, his only points in a Jets uniform.

Snapshots: Tuch, Jets, Othmann

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Teams are reportedly interested in Buffalo Sabres winger Alex Tuch but the team isn’t eager to trade him, per Elliotte Friedman in the latest 32 Thoughts article. Friedman adds that Buffalo, “values him”. That comes as no surprise, as Tuch has established himself as a pillar of the Sabres offense. He scored a career-high 36 goals and 79 points in 74 games last season, ranked third in scoring on Buffalo’s most productive team since 2006-07. Tuch has been similarly productive this season, again ranked third on the team with 16 goals and 38 points in 49 games. That’s an impressive mark on a low-scoring Buffalo team. What’s more, Tuch carries a modest $4.75MM cap hit through the end of the 2025-26 season.

It’s a lucky contract for the Sabres, who have a top-scorer cost controlled for the foreseeable future. Continued struggles might encourage Buffalo to trade away their older veterans but, even with a focus on the future, it’s hard to think Tuch will be pried away without a serious return coming the other way. Tuch was a focal piece of the trade that sent Jack Eichel to the Vegas Golden Knights, joining Buffalo alongside Peyton Krebs and two draft picks.

Other notes from around the league:

  • Winnipeg Jets chairman Mark Chipman acknowledged that the franchise may not be sustainable, based on current attendance and sale numbers, in an interview with The Athletic’s Chris Johnston. Winnipeg is averaging the lowest attendance of any team in the league, save for the Arizona Coyotes who are operating in an arena that only seats 5,000 fans. Chipman shared that he has been directly calling season ticket holders, trying to identify ways that the Jets can improve for fans, but NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is still slated to visit Winnipeg on Tuesday to assess the team’s situation. Winnipeg had an NHL team from 1979 to 1996, but lost their team to the Phoenix Coyotes after the 1995-96 season. They received a second chance in 2011, when the Atlanta Thrashers relocated to Winnipeg. The Jets will hope to not spoil that opportunity, especially with the list of cities interested in hosting an NHL team growing.
  • The New York Rangers have sent forward Brennan Othmann back to the minor leagues. Othmann was recalled on Thursday and served as a healthy scratch in the team’s win over the New Jersey Devils. Othmann previously played the first three games of his NHL career in early January, going without a point but adding six shots, six hits, and one block. He currently ranks second on the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack in scoring, with 14 goals and 36 points in 44 games.

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