Articles in NHL Teams

from Kevin McGran of the Toronto Star,

- Brad Treliving comes across with a fairly good sense of humour, combined with a decent big-picture take on the world. He’s certainly quotable. Like Brian Burke without the bleeps.

Treliving recalled a story in which he was asked about contract negotiations and whether the two sides were “close.” He told his questioner: “We’re getting there ... there’s only two issues left. We’ve just got to figure out the term and the money.”

- Speaking of uncomfortable, the same goes for Sheldon Keefe after the hiring of Guy Boucher to run the power play. Considering Treliving didn’t hire Keefe, it’s worth watching what kind of start the Leafs get off to. Boucher is an experienced NHL coach who took both Tampa Bay and Ottawa to the Eastern Conference final, and he was on Brendan Shanahan’s short list in 2015 before the Leafs hired Mike Babcock. He’d be the favourite to be the interim” coach if things go sideway for Keefe’s Leafs.

- Not sure what to make of the Leafs defence. John Klingberg wasn’t exactly the kind of blueliner they needed, unless the idea is for Morgan Rielly to play more of a shutdown role. Does Rielly-Klingberg, Jake McCabe-T.J. Brodie, Mark Giordano-Timothy Liljegren do it for you?

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via the YouTube page of the NHL Network,

Elliotte Friedman is back to give his last update of August. He joined NHL Tonight to talk about the Washington Capitals, the NHL's international plans, and the Edmonton Oilers.

via the Buffalo Sabres,

Owner Terry Pegula has been named President of the Buffalo Sabres. He will continue to work closely with COO John Roth leading the business side of the organization and general manager Kevyn Adams leading the hockey side of the organization.

In conjunction with these changes, Pegula Sports & Entertainment (PSE) will be separating resources between the Buffalo Bills and Buffalo Sabres, allowing each respective organization to focus singularly on their efforts.

"We are thankful for the work and effort so many individuals have put into PSE over the years, but feel it is the right time for them to return home to separate organizations," Sabres owner and president Terry Pegula said. "We feel that now is the right time to dissolve PSE and allow everyone to focus solely on their respective organization. It is a great time to be a Buffalo sports fan and we have a tremendous amount of confidence that this restructuring will allow our businesses to continue to elevate with our teams."

Pegula and Roth will continue to work collaboratively with the business leadership group at the Buffalo Sabres as they guide the organization towards its goal of winning championships.

via the Washington Capitals,

The Washington Capitals have promoted Brian MacLellan to president of hockey operations & general manager and Chris Patrick to associate general manager. In addition, the Capitals have appointed Dick Patrick to the position of chairman of the Capitals.

from Dan Rosen of the NHL's website,

They went to the Stanley Cup Final three straight seasons, winning the Stanley Cup in 2020 and 2021.

When the Lightning start training camp next month, they should be motivated and probably still angry about losing to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round last season. But they'll also be a veteran team that is rested, healed and healthy.

It might be what they need be a Stanley Cup contender this season.

"There was no doubt that the guys were absolutely crushed and bummed we lost, but two days later it was like, 'Oh my God, I need some rest,'" Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "You felt it with the players. Hopefully that will be the positive change for us, that our guys will come in rested, and first and foremost, our goalie."

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from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

... Who gets to the top of the mountain first?

McDavid is there already as an individual player. His flag is in the ground all by itself. It isn’t the flag he cherishes. That’s the Cup. Leafs president Brendan Shanahan won his first Cup in Detroit in his 10th season, which speaks sometimes for his overall patience, and he won that alongside Steve Yzerman, playing in his 14th year.

McDavid is one season away from a decade in the league. Matthews follows right behind him. The race isn’t first among equals, because McDavid and Matthews aren’t equals: But how much fun would a Stanley Cup final between the two be? Money isn’t what either is playing for anymore.

- Matthews did not score a goal against the Florida Panthers in Round 2 of the playoffs. He did not score a goal in Games 5, 6 and 7 against the Montreal Canadiens in 2021 and did not score a goal in the clinching Game 5 against Columbus in 2020. Goal-scoring is what he does best. He has led the NHL in goals since he entered the league in 2016. But he is just 25th in playoff goals scored in that time, just behind T.J. Oshie and ahead of David Perron.

- You can assume — or at least I am — that the Leafs, Lightning, Hurricanes, Rangers and Devils will all be in the Eastern Conference playoffs this season. But what about the Bruins without Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci? What about the Penguins with Erik Karlsson? What about the young, rising Senators and Sabres? What about the tight defensive, goaltending-rich Islanders? What about the Cup finalist Panthers? That’s 11 teams for eight spots without counting Washington. The meaningless regular season won’t be so meaningless this year.

more on the first topic plus additional hockey notes, most of them Toronto related but not all...

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

If the Edmonton Oilers were a cake, or some fantastic dessert that the recipe book promises will wow your guests, then Ken Holland is the chef, pacing the kitchen floor and glancing through the oven window.

Holland’s ingredients have long since been purchased, measured and folded into the bowl — give or take a one-year deal for Connor Brown, or the icing sugar that is a Brandon Sutter Professional Try Out.

Now he waits, confident in his ability to think on his feet with the right PTO, or a deadline deal come late February that can bring in the defenceman (or goalie?) he’ll need at that point on the season.

"We're going to start with the seven defencemen who finished last year. The goalies are set," Holland said over the phone on Friday afternoon. "Up front, we signed Brandon Sutter this summer. We’ll go to camp, see what they can do, watch the waiver wire …"

Look, if his team resembled a mud pie, you could criticize Holland for a summer that featured only the one major move in Brown — who will see $3.225 million of his $4 million earnings come off the 2024-25 cap in the form of bonus overages. It’s not perfect — especially if Jack Campbell doesn’t find his game this season — but it’s a pretty good roster Holland has built here in Edmonton.

And honestly, just keeping the younger players that a team has to keep has exhausted much of Holland’s ability to make material change in Edmonton, even if he wanted to.

“This is my fifth year here in Edmonton. The cap has gone up $2 million in five years,” he said. “We brought in (Zach) Hyman. We brought in (Evander) Kane. We brought in (Mattias) Ekholm — players who have had a high impact on the team. But it starts to add up.”

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from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

NHL training camps are getting ready to open, the new season is only some six weeks away, and that means Alex Chiasson is betting again, with both hands and both feet. No one in the NHL beats the house odds as consistently as this guy when it comes to wagering on himself.

Chiasson, 32, agreed to report to Bruins camp Sept. 20 on a professional tryout agreement, promised nothing but some space to pull on his skates at the club’s Brighton workout facility and a chance to catch the eye of coach Jim Montgomery.

Chiasson knows the auditioning drill better than anyone. A veteran of 651 NHL games, this will be the fifth time Chiasson has reported to an NHL training camp on a PTO. He landed a job the first three times, first with Washington (2017), then Edmonton (’18), and next in Vancouver (’21). Last September, after not securing a job with the Coyotes, he ultimately landed a late-season spot on Detroit’s NHL roster after a protracted tuneup with the Red Wings’ AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“I took my hockey bag, a backpack and suitcase,” said Chiasson, recalling his job-seeking journey last season that finally brought him to Detroit, where he cobbled together a respectable 6-3—9 line in 20 games, “and I lived out of a hotel room in Grand Rapids for almost three months. It was a good end of the year there, and I was hopeful things would work out, but the business end of things … it can be a tough business.”

The PTO path can be especially cruel. It worked out ideally here in the fall of ‘07 for journeyman forward Glen Metropolit, invited by then-Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli. Metro played all 82 games, the No. 3 center behind Marc Savard and Marco Sturm, and had 33 points.

continued plus more topics including Elias Lindholm would be a good fit in Boston...

Expanded

EDMONTON, AB - The Edmonton Oilers have signed defenceman Evan Bouchard to a two-year contract extension with an average annual value (AAV) of $3.9 million.

The 23-year-old has scored 23 goals and 66 assists in 184 career NHL regular season games, as well as seven goals and 19 assists in 28 career Stanley Cup Playoffs appearances.

The Oakville, Ont. native has reached 40 points in each of his past two seasons -- his first two full NHL campaigns -- recording 43 in 81 games in 2021-22, followed by 40 in 82 games last year.

Bouchard led all blueliners in scoring during the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs with 17 points (four goals, 13 assists) in 12 games. The next highest defencemen scorers were Florida's Brandon Montour and Vegas' Shea Theodore, each with 13 points in 21 games.

The right-shot rearguard was selected 10th overall by Edmonton at the 2018 NHL Draft.

from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

Auston Matthews, who didn’t score a goal against the Florida Panthers in the playoffs, will soon be the highest-paid player in the history of the National Hockey League.

That won’t happen for another season. But the pressure that has always surrounded Matthews, the pressure he has dealt with rather comfortably in his seven seasons with the Maple Leafs, will intensify come April — and every April after that for the duration of his deal.

This is just a beginning in a way for Matthews and the Leafs. We know the prime of his career will be played in Toronto. That much is certain now with his new four-year, $53-million extension with the Leafs, nicely equipped with the perfunctory no-movement clause.

Now it’s up to Matthews to make it count in a way that Hart Trophies, Rocket Richard trinkets and the individual hardware that he has earned matter less than victories in the post-season. The deal took almost 11 weeks to reach fruition. The negotiation was challenging, as many are.

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from Mollie Walker of the New York Post,

Alexis Lafreniere is set to continue his Rangers career after signing a two-year, $4.65 million deal on Wednesday, The Post has learned.

The Rangers’ 2020 first-overall pick is the last restricted free agent the club had to sign, officially bringing their in-house offseason business to a close with just under a month to go until training camp.

It became clear that no other team planned to present Lafreniere with an offer sheet, so there was no real sense of urgency to get a deal done.

As a result, negotiations came together a bit later in the offseason.

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from Tom Gulitti of the NHL's website,

William Nylander wants to remain with the Toronto Maple Leafs long term and the forward said he is unconcerned about heading into the final season of his current contract without signing a new deal.

"For me, the contract, obviously, I want it to work where I can stay there and be there," Nylander said at NHL European Player Media Tour on Wednesday. "There's no other place I want to play, but I still have one more year left. I don't understand why there's such a big rush to do something right now. I still have one more year left."

Nylander is heading into the final season of a six-year, $41.4 million contract (average annual value $6.9 million) he signed on Dec. 1, 2018, and will be eligible to become an unrestricted free agent when it expires.

But the 27-year-old said he has no interest in exploring the UFA market next summer.

"I want to be in Toronto as long as I can," he said. "That's just where my mind is at."

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SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA --- Arizona Coyotes General Manager Bill Armstrong announced today that the Coyotes have signed Head Coach André Tourigny to a three-year contract extension. As per club policy, the terms of the contract were not disclosed.

"We are very pleased to sign André to a three-year extension," said Armstrong. "He is an excellent coach, leader and communicator who has helped us establish a tremendous culture in our dressing room. Our players like him, respect him and compete hard for him. We are thrilled to have him signed as our head coach for the next three years."

from TSN,

Vancouver Canucks star Elias Pettersson has put extension talks "on hold" as he prepares for the upcoming season.

The 24-year-old centre is entering the final season of a three-year, $22.05 million deal, which carries a cap hit of $7.35 million. He is scheduled for restricted free agency next July.

"I've just put that on hold," Pettersson told NHL.com on Wednesday.(opens in a new tab) "I still have one more year left. I've been wanting to focus on training this summer and the contract will sort itself out."

Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin also took a passive approach to the contract situation in June, stating team would sit down with Pettersson's camp "when the time is right."

Pettersson scored 39 goals last season, topping the 30-goal mark for the second straight year, and also beat his career-best point total by 34 with 102 points in 80 games.

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from David Staples of the Edmonton Journal,

This in from the Edmonton Oilers, news that they’ve parted ways with head amateur scout Tyler Wright and brought in formers Avs head scout Rick Pracey to take his place: “The Edmonton Oilers announced Tuesday that Rick Pracey has been named Director of Amateur Scouting. The club also announced that it has mutually parted ways with Tyler Wright....

like this move. I like it a lot, but not for the obvious reason. The obvious reason, as we recently reported here, is that the Edmonton Oilers prospect pool was shut out of the NHL Network’s new list of Top 50 NHL prospects. Not one Oilers prospect was in the Top 50.

But is that Tyler Wright’s fault? Not so much. I’ll suggest it’s too early to judge his work in four seasons as Edmonton’s top scout.

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from Tom Gulitti of the NHL's website,

Spencer Carbery has almost another month to wait before opening his first training camp as an NHL coach on Sept. 20, but he is eager to get to work with the Washington Capitals.

"We're champing at the bit here," Carbery said last week. "When things first happened, there's a lot of obligations and you're trying to just get settled in … Now that that stuff has all been taken care of, now it sort of gets to, 'Let's get this thing rolling.'"...

In general terms, what will these structural adjustments be?

"We're going to make a few alterations to our neutral-zone play, a couple things in the defensive zone, and then also some of our O-zone tactics and forecheck, we'll make a few subtle adjustments there which aren't going to be massive changes but little tweaks that are going to be important to highlight and make sure everybody is on the same page in the details of it."

Evgeny Kuznetsov showed the kind of positive impact he can have two seasons ago when he had 78 points (24 goals, 54 assists), but he wasn't as consistent last season when he had 55 points (12 goals, 43 assists). What can you do to help him get back to the level he was at two seasons ago?

"I think he's a very, very important player for our team. What he's capable of when he's on his game is world class and that's my challenge to help identify parts of his game, things I can help him with, put him in positions to have success. I have a real appreciation for the game that he plays and the style of play. I think understanding and appreciating the impact that he can have on a nightly basis when he's on his game, there's not a lot of players that can do what he can do. I'm going to do everything I can to help him get back to that level."

more Q & A

TAMPA BAY - The Tampa Bay Lightning signed forward Brandon Hagel to an eight-year contract extension worth an average annual value of $6.5 million, vice president and general manager Julien BriseBois announced today. The contract extension will begin with the 2024-25 season.

from Jesse Granger of The Athletic,

Cassidy raised his hand high above his head.

“I think before, as a coach, you’re always thinking you have to be ‘here’ all the time,” he said. “There are a lot of highs and lows, and you just have to find your game at the right time, and we were able to do that.”

Cassidy referred to the Golden Knights as an “imperfect team” at different times throughout the season. Vegas finished with the fifth-best record in the league in the regular season. The team was 14th in scoring and 11th in goals against. The power play ranked 18th and the penalty kill 19th. The Golden Knights didn’t have a player in the top-70 for league-wide scoring.

Nothing about the team’s statistics screamed “Stanley Cup champions” but all of the pieces were there, and they came together at the exact right time. What stood out most to Cassidy about his team’s play during the Cup run was the timeliness of its best games.

“We were close to perfect in the second period of Game 5 (to clinch the Stanley Cup against Florida).” he said. “Game 6 in Dallas. The second period in the clinching game in Edmonton. The third period (of Game 5) in Winnipeg. All four clinching games, I thought we dominated.”

Vegas won its close-out games by a ridiculous combined score of 24-6. A championship isn’t necessarily determined by the best overall team, but by which team plays its best hockey at the right time of year. This isn’t a major revelation, but it certainly drives the point home for the Golden Knights, and it’s a valuable lesson they may need in the near future.

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from Ethan Sears of the New York Post,

Garth Snow is free to speak his mind.

It has been five years, after all, since he was let go as Islanders general manager.

“I’m not under anyone’s control,” Snow said, and proceeded to speak his mind on how the Islanders have fared in recent years.

On John Tavares leaving the Islanders a month after Snow was fired in June 2018: “He didn’t do anything wrong.”

On the Islanders playing home games at Barclays Center, starting in 2015: “If Charles [Wang] didn’t go to Barclays Center, the Islanders wouldn’t have remained on Long Island. … But logistically it was a hot mess.”

On co-owner Scott Malkin: “There were things I’d recommend that got shot down. And then I chuckled when Lou [Lamoriello] got hired and well, they’re gonna go do the things I recommended.”

Snow’s 12-year tenure as Islanders GM covered a strange era in team history.

The Islanders hadn’t seen much on-ice success until the last few years, they dealt with a disastrous arena situation and they changed owners.

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from Kevin Allen of Detroit Hockey Now,

With most of the NHL teams putting the final touches on their preseason rosters, it seems curious that the Calgary Flames have yet to make a major trade. Mikael Backlund, Elias Lindholm, Chris Tanev and Noah Hanifin will be unrestricted free agents next summer.

If the Flames aren’t going to get these players re-signed, do they want to risk letting them walk away next summer without compensation?

The Boston Bruins are looking for a center and both Lindholm and Backlund could help the Bruins. Sportsnet’s Pat Steinberg has speculated that the Detroit Red Wings could be interested in a possible trade with Calgary. It does seem clear that Yzerman is pushing to get into the playoffs.

What you hear around the league is that salary cap issues have been the biggest impediment to Calgary making a trade. The Flames reportedly are trying to make some hockey trades. They will take salaries back. But the offers haven’t been good enough to satisfy general manager Craig Conroy.

continue for more topics...

from Mike Zeisberger of the NHL's website,

The Ottawa Senators are looking to end their six-season Stanley Cup Playoffs drought, and they believe goalie Joonas Korpisalo is the one to help them do it.

Since the Senators last qualified for the postseason in 2017, goalies Craig Anderson, Filip Gustavsson, Matt Murray, Anton Forsberg and Cam Talbot are among the big names who've tried to get Ottawa back to the postseason but were not able to do so.

Now it's Korpisalo's chance after he signed a five-year contract with Ottawa as an unrestricted free agent on July 1.

"He's got size, he's athletic, he's powerful, he's played in the playoffs, he's won a series," general manager Pierre Dorion said. "I think we're really comfortable moving forward now with our goaltenders."

This much is certain: Ottawa's two goalies will be comfortable with each other.

Korpisalo and Forsberg were teammates in the Columbus Blue Jackets organization.

"We go a long way back," Korpisalo said. "When I first came over to the U.S. we played together in the minors in Cleveland (American Hockey League) for a couple of years. We won together there and then we spent some time in Columbus. So, we go a long way back and we became friends immediately when we met each other. I'm super happy we created this tandem again."

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from Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News,

Rick Jeanneret, the legendary play-by-play voice of the Buffalo Sabres who became one of the franchise's biggest icons over his 51-year career behind the microphone, died Thursday night, the Sabres announced.

Jeanneret had turned 81 on July 23. A cause of death was not immediately available.

Jeanneret's bombastic style and high-powered goal and fight calls made him a fixture on NHL highlight packages on both sides of the border throughout his career. Sabres fans can routinely imitate many of his most famous ones, a list that's almost always led by the "May Day, May Day" call of Brad May's overtime goal that gave the Sabres a four-game sweep of the Boston Bruins in the first round of the 1993 Stanley Cup Playoffs and ended Buffalo's 10-year drought without a playoff win.

Jeanneret, who formed a play-by-play pair for the ages with longtime voice of the Sabres Ted Darling, started his career as the analyst on the team's radio broadcasts during the 1971-72 season, Buffalo's second in the NHL. He moved full-time to television in 1995 and the team went to a simulcast in 1997, with Jeanneret calling the game on both radio and TV with partners Jim Lorentz, Harry Neale and Rob Ray.

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Below watch some of his top calls.