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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.

Jets Activate David Gustafsson And Loan Him To AHL

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Colorado Avalanche announcer Conor McGahey tweeted that Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon is okay after hitting his face on the ice on Saturday night in a game against the Florida Panthers. The 28-year-old superstar didn’t practice today due to a different minor tweak, but the team is hopeful that he’ll be able to play tomorrow night against the Washington Capitals.

MacKinnon is currently second in NHL scoring with 32 goals and 53 assists in 53 games but has been held pointless in three straight games.

In other Central Division notes:

  • Chicago Sun-Times reporter Ben Pope tweeted that the Chicago Blackhawks expect to get rookie phenom Connor Bedard back into the lineup next week. Bedard has a final imaging appointment a week from today and if the appointment goes well Bedard could be back into action by the middle of next week. Bedard’s return will be a welcome development for himself and the Blackhawks as the 18-year-old hasn’t played since January 5th and has 15 goals and 18 assists in 39 games this season.
  • The Winnipeg Jets have activated forward David Gustafsson off the injured reserve and loaned him to their AHL affiliate the Manitoba Moose for conditioning purposes. The 23-year-old has missed the previous 18 games with a lower-body injury and hasn’t dressed since December 22nd. He has just two assists in his last 21 games and hasn’t scored a goal since October 30th. In 27 games this season the native of Tingsryd, Sweden has just two goals and two assists.
  • The Arizona Coyotes have extended the contract of Director of Amateur Scouting Darryl Plandowski. No terms of the deal were released, but the extension will keep Plandowski with the Coyotes for the foreseeable future. Plandowski was a big part of the Tampa Bay Lightning as he spent 12 years with the organization and was part of the club during their two Stanley Cup championships. He worked his way through the Lightning organization into the role of Assistant Director of Amateur Scouting before eventually joining Arizona in 2020.

Jets Place Dominic Toninato On Waivers

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Feb. 12: Toninato has cleared waivers and will be assigned to Manitoba today, Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Free Press reports.

Feb. 11: The Jets placed center Dominic Toninato on waivers Sunday and intend to assign him to AHL Manitoba if he clears, per TSN’s and The Athletic’s Chris Johnston.

Winnipeg needed to open a roster spot with forward David Gustafsson now ready to come off injured reserve. Toninato, who’s been a healthy scratch in three straight, is the odd man out and finds himself on waivers for the third time this season.

The 29-year-old Minnesotan has been a serviceable fourth-line center when called upon for the Jets, appearing in 99 games over the past four seasons since signing as a free agent before the 2020-21 season. He’s played in 15 games this season, the most since he played in a career-high 77 contests in 2021-22, and has a goal and four assists while averaging 10:11 per game. His possession metrics are quite respectable, too, with a 53.4% Corsi share at even strength and an expected +1.3 rating.

Having already cleared waivers twice in the past few months, the risk of Toninato being claimed this time around still seems low despite his solid showing this year. He’s not a pending free agent – he’s signed to an affordable two-year, two-way deal with a $775K cap hit through the 2024-25 season, but that second year certainly dissuades some teams from putting in a claim.

Toninato has two goals and six points in nine games on the farm with Manitoba this season. In 50 games with the Moose in 2022-23, he posted a career-high 19 goals and 35 points.

Brenden Dillon Receives Three-Game Suspension

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After conducting a phone hearing with Jets defenseman Brenden Dillon earlier today, the Department of Player Safety has issued its ruling, handing the blueliner a three-game suspension for an illegal check to the head.  The incident occurred early in the second period of last night’s game against Pittsburgh’s Noel Acciari, a match penalty was assessed on the play.  Acciari left the game and did not return; there is no word yet on the severity of his injury.

In the Department’s video ruling, they indicated that Dillon’s hit satisfied both ends of the criteria in Rule 48 for an illegal check to the head.  The principal point of contact was the head while the hit itself was avoidable, leading to the suspension.

It’s the second suspension of Dillon’s career as he received a one-game ban back in 2017 for slashing.

As a result of the suspension, Dillon will be out of Winnipeg’s lineup until February 17th when they take on Vancouver.  He will forfeit just under $61K in salary which instead will go to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

Winnipeg Activates Mark Scheifele, Axel Jonsson-Fjällby Clears Waivers

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2/7: Jonsson-Fjällby has cleared waivers. He will be assigned to the AHL’s Manitoba Moose, per the Winnipeg Free Press’ Ken Wiebe.

2/6: The Winnipeg Jets have placed forward Axel Jonsson-Fjällby on waivers to make space for the return of star forward Mark Scheifele. Scheifele has been out since January 11th, missing the team’s last six games. Winnipeg has felt the effects of Scheifele’s absence, going 2-3-1 without the forward, getting outscored nine to 14. The team’s performance has been a far, far cry from the dazzling 16-1-2 record they set in Scheifele’s most recent 18 games.

Scheifele was nursing a four-game point streak prior to his injury, helping build his season total to 14 goals and 41 points in 41 games – a mark that still leads the team in scoring despite his absences. Scheifele has been Winnipeg’s most-used forward, averaging just over 20 minutes of ice time this season. The mark has brought his career average ice time to an even 20 minutes through 764 career games. Every single one of those games has been spent with the Jets, who drafted Scheifele seventh overall in the 2011 NHL Draft. He has since played in the 10th-most games of anyone in that draft class, though he’s scored the fourth-most points. Scheifele was part of a loaded 2011 Draft that also featured Nikita Kucherov, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Mika Zibanejad, and Dougie Hamilton.

With Scheifele returning, the Jets will now risk losing winger Jonsson-Fjällby, who is in his second season with the organization after being claimed off of waivers from the Washington Capitals. Jonsson-Fjällby was drafted by Washington in the fifth round of the 2016 NHL Draft and made his professional debut with the AHL’s Hershey Bears in 2018-19. He’s since played in 99 career NHL games, scoring 23 points. Jonsson-Fjällby has five points in 26 NHL games this year, as well as five points in 10 AHL games. He will look to jump back into the NHL lineup soon, eyeing the 100th game of his NHL career.

Brenden Dillon To Have Hearing With Department Of Player Safety

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The NHL’s Department of Player Safety tweeted this morning that Winnipeg Jets defenseman Brenden Dillon will have a hearing today for his illegal check to the head of Pittsburgh Penguins forward Noel Acciari. According to Frank Seravalli of DailyFaceoff, the hearing will be a phone hearing, meaning that Dillon will receive a suspension of five games or less.

The hit happened at the 4:15 mark of the second period in a game that was 1-0 Pittsburgh at the time. Dillon was originally given a two-minute penalty and then received a match penalty on the play after it was reviewed.

Acciari hit the ice hard and in a scary moment tried to get up to his feet but fell back to the ice. He eventually skated off with assistance from the Penguins training staff and left the game with an undisclosed injury. Acciari was visibly bloody from the incident. The Penguins scored twice on the five-minute powerplay and eventually beat the Jets 3-0.

It wasn’t Dillon’s first run-in with the Penguins as Dillon has had some tough battles with Pittsburgh while he was a member of the Washington Capitals. He also had an incident back in January 2022 where he broke the jaw of former Penguins’ center Teddy Blueger with what appeared to be a check to the head. Dillon escaped discipline for that hit, but that doesn’t appear to be the case this time around.

Dillon’s absence will create a hole on the Jets’ backend as he has been playing over 18 minutes a night this season and is having one of his better offensive seasons while still providing sound defensive play for the team.

Snapshots: Kochetkov, Monahan, Cousins, Hughes

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Pyotr Kochetkov has been confirmed as the starter for the Carolina Hurricanes’ Tuesday night game against the Vancouver Canucks, per head coach Rod Brind’Amour. This will be Kochetkov’s first game since suffering a concussion on January 11th. He was red-hot before the injury, going 7-1-2 and setting a .924 save percentage in his last 11 games. That includes a four-game winning streak leading up to the injury that saw Kochetkov post a .936 save percentage on 110 shots against.

Carolina has felt the impact of Kochetkov’s absences, seeing their average goals-against jump from 2.45 in Kochetkov’s last 11 appearances to 2.71 in the seven games that he’s missed. That hasn’t been enough of a difference to stifle the red-hot Hurricanes, though the team’s goal-differential has gone from +17 to just +1 in the same periods. The Hurricanes have relied on five different goalies through the 2023-24 season, facing multiple injuries and absences in net. They will hope to find their starting goalie for the second half of the season soon, with both Kochetkov and Frederik Andersen progressing in their return from injury. Andersen has been out since November 2nd with a blood clotting disorder.

Other notes from around the league:

Jets To Activate Mark Scheifele From Injured Reserve

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The Jets will activate Mark Scheifele off injured reserve before Tuesday’s game against the Penguins, head coach Rick Bowness told reporters Sunday (via Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press). Winnipeg’s leading point-getter has not played since he sustained a lower-body injury against the Blackhawks on Jan. 11.

Scheifele, 30, will resume a first-line role between Kyle Connor and Gabriel Vilardi as the Jets aim to regain the top spot in the Central Division. They were 6-3-1 in their last 10 games heading into the All-Star break and trail the division-leading Avalanche by two points with two games in hand.

It will be a bit of a new look for Scheifele, who’s rarely played with both Connor and Vilardi together at even strength this season. His return will give the Jets a fully healthy top-six for Sean Monahan’s debut with the team on Tuesday after an All-Star break acquisition from the Canadiens.

Winnipeg’s all-time leader in goals since the franchise moved from Atlanta in 2011 has recaptured his point-per-game form, posting 14 goals and 27 assists for 41 points in 41 games. He leads all Jets forwards in ice time by averaging 20:16 per game, narrowly ahead of Connor’s 20:10 mark.

His goal-scoring may not be at last year’s 42-goal pace, but he is shooting 1.8% below his career average. His finishing should improve marginally in the second half of the campaign.

Scheifele is in the final season of an eight-year, $49MM deal signed in 2016. He’s already inked a seven-year, $59.5MM extension that will keep him in Winnipeg through 2031.

The Jets have a full 23-player roster, so they’ll need to reassign someone tomorrow to create space for Scheifele to come off IR. That could be Dominic Toninato, who will require waivers for the third time this season if he’s the odd man out. He’s spent more than 30 days on the active roster since his last recall on Dec. 27, removing his temporary exemption.

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