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NHL Rumors Update
NHL Rumors Update for 03/16/2020
The latest NHL rumors from The Hockey Writers.
03/16/2020 edition:
By Jim Parsons on Mar 15, 2020 01:25 pm
In today’s NHL rumor rundown, there is news the Edmonton Oilers might be looking to bring back a familiar face, buzz about what will happen with New York Rangers’ veteran goaltender Henrik Lundqvist and what Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara might be thinking about his future.
Oilers Interested in Anton Slepyshev
Bruce McCurdy of the Edmonton Journal took a look at rumors the Edmonton Oilers are heavily considering bringing back former Oiler Anton Slepyshev. McCurdy writes that “Plan A — which a reliable source places at >50% — appears to be trying to find a fit for the player back with the Oilers.”
This is not the first time the Oilers have been linked to Slepyshev in the rumor mill but this is perhaps the first time such high odds of him returning have been thrown out there.
McCurdy writes:
For Slepyshev, that birthday remains just over a year away, leaving the Oilers one more summer to negotiate with the player just as his KHL contract expires. They also have an intriguing alternative of trading those rights for a pick if he is interested in returning to North America but not to Edmonton, not a bad Plan B for Ken Holland given the dearth of draft choices currently at his disposal.
The buzz is that the Oilers would be considering him for a top-nine role.
Related: 3 Best Trades in Senators History
Lunqdvist Done With the Rangers?
Rick Carpiniello of The Athletic took a look at what might happen between the New York Rangers and Henrik Lundqvist if the NHL regular season is over and ends up getting canceled. For the Rangers, they aren’t a playoff team and that could mean Lundqvist’s time in New York is done.
In the Rangers last 19 games, Lundqvist only started once. He only played four in their last 30 games. He’s clearly not in their top-two goaltender plans.
Carpiniello writes:
There is no way the Rangers want to go to training camp with three goaltenders, no way they want to drag this impossible tripod into another season. They didn’t even want it to happen this season, but the Rangers and team president John Davidson and GM Jeff Gorton really had no choice.
The next logical steps appear to be a buyout, which Carpiniello says “is certainly on the table” because it would provide the Rangers a cap savings ($3 million savings in 2020-21, and $1.5 million in ’21-22), and would make the sure-fire Hall of Famer an unrestricted free agent. Or, a trade option is there if Lundqvist agrees to waive. In that case, the Rangers would eat 50% of Lundqvist’s salary and move him along.
The only way this is not the likely future for Lundqvist is if another team decides that Alexandar Georgiev is worth giving up a first-round pick for. If that’s the case and the Rangers trade the Georgiev, Lundqvist could return as the backup next season.
Chara Uncertain About Next Season
Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe notes that Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara hasn’t given much thought to whether or not he’ll return next season. With the uncertainty surrounding resumption of the NHL season and the playoff picture being fuzzy at best, this stoppage might affect Chara more than most.
Now 43 years old, his longtime agent, Matt Keator said Chara isn’t thinking about it yet and said that he, Chara and Bruins GM Don Sweeney will sit down at some point “and figure out what’s next.”
Dupont writes:
Provided the salary cap goes up as projected recently — an assumption that may prove folly with the game now on coronavirus lockdown — Sweeney should have the financial space to bring him back.
The question then will be if Chara wants to give it another go. He politely said a lot of things when last asked about it, but he didn’t say yes.
The post NHL Rumors: Oilers, Rangers, Bruins, More appeared first on The Hockey Writers.
By Jim Parsons on Mar 14, 2020 01:30 pm
In today’s NHL rumor rundown, the New York Rangers have signed a new player, even though they were trying to keep it secret. There is news on what happens to some of the conditions on trades that took place this season should the regular season now be over. Plus, there is some hostility circling some of the NHL franchises that are electing not to pay their hourly or part-time employees and players who are stepping up to look after those employees.
Trade Conditions on Some Pretty Big Trades
While the season could conceivably still resume and knowing this is likely the last thing on the minds of NHL leagues offices today, there’s some buzz about what happens to some of the trade conditions if the regular season doesn’t get completed.
For example, the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames made a deal that included James Neal coming to Edmonton for Milan Lucic. Part of the trade condition was that if Neal scored 21 goals, the Flames would receive a 2020 third-round draft selection. Between injuries and the season pausing, Neal has been stuck at 19 goals for some time. The other part of the condition is that Lucic has to trail Neal by 10 goals or more. Unless there’s some kind of pro-rated version of that condition, it appears the Oilers will keep their pick.
This isn’t the only condition the Oilers have to think about as a number of players have conditions on their contracts based on games played, plus-minus and ice time.
The Toronto Maple Leafs, Los Angeles Kings, New Jersey Devils and Carolina Hurricanes had conditions on their trades as well. And, while I haven’t dug into every team, it’s logical to assume that each NHL franchise has at least 2-3 players with conditions and bonuses that will change if no more games are played.
Does the NHL look at these deals and try to figure something out for teams that may have put those conditions in place because they were likely? Can that even be assumed?
Some NHL Teams Not Willing to Pay Arena Staff
While things could change and it’s hard to judge too quickly as all of these delays and adjustments and mandates happen in real time, there is a growing list of NHL organizations that appear unwilling to pay their hourly part-time employees while games are on pause. It’s not going over well.
Some teams have come out and said they’ll find a way to ensure these employees don’t lose out because the arenas are closed while some players have actually put money in to help clubs compensate those employees. That said, there are close to 20 teams that aren’t willing to pay.
Players like Brad Marchand have pointed out that friends have started GoFundMe pages in cities where these teams aren’t willing to put forward the money. The backlash is that this shouldn’t fall on the players even though it was acknowledged players will continue to receive their paychecks as scheduled. Three pay periods remained when the pause was announced.
Related: 6 NHL Teams You Might Have Forgotten
Rangers Sign K’Andre Miller
Whether the season is on hold or not, business resumes for GM’s around the league. The New York Rangers have signed K’Andre Miller to an entry-level contract. Miller was a 2018 first-round pick (No. 22 overall) and spent the last two seasons playing for the University of Wisconsin under former Ranger Tony Granato.
Elliotte Friedman notes that the organization hadn’t planned on announcing the signing this weekend as they weren’t comfortable releasing the news with all that was going on in the NHL today. Unfortunately for them, word traveled fast.
The three-year ELC will begin in the 2020-21 campaign and is worth $925,000 with an AAV of $1.275 million. Miller will have a base salary of $832,500 along with a $92,500 signing bonus in all three seasons.
The post NHL Rumors: Oilers, Flames, Rangers, Hourly Staff, More appeared first on The Hockey Writers.
By Jim Parsons on Mar 13, 2020 01:21 pm
In today’s NHL rumor rundown, even as the NHL season essentially comes to a halt on the ice, off the ice things are busy and front offices will still be active looking for the best way to help their teams.
The Los Angeles Kings have made an offer to a KHL player with other KHL’ers getting some attention. The Edmonton Oilers have to be uncertain about the trade deadline deals and there are early projections on how the NHL Draft will work while the league is playing with options for the NHL playoffs.
Kings Offer Nesterov Deal
Nikita Nesterov had drawn some interest after a strong season with CSKA Moscow in the KHL. Just 26-years old, it appears the Los Angeles Kings have offered him a two-year deal worth $6 million to come back to the NHL, according to Igor Eronko of Sport-Express.
Unfortunately for the Kings, Nesterov reportedly has an agreement with CSKA on a five-year extension, and will be staying put. Other names like Kirill Kaprizov, Anton Slepyshev, Mikhail Grigorenko and Alexey Marchenko are getting attention too. All will become unrestricted free agents when their KHL contracts expire at the end of April.
A Long NHL Pause Could Impact Oilers Decisions
According to Allan Mitchell of The Athletic, a long NHL break could pose serious questions for the Edmonton Oilers and what they do with recent trade deadline acquisitions. They were among the busier of teams this season.
Mitchell writes, “The season’s interruption could be especially detrimental to Athanasiou’s future with the Oilers. He seemed to be more comfortable in recent games.”
Noting that Mike Green could be done in Edmonton if the season doesn’t return and that Athansiou could be flipped during the summer for a pick because he’s not shown what he needed to in a short time period to get a long-term extension, Mitchell suggests the test drive with these players might have only benefited Tyler Ennis, who has made a case to be re-signed.
Mitchell adds:
We don’t know the future. Both Ennis and Athanasiou have not yet established themselves as locks for employment in Edmonton next season and time might not allow for a full view of these two wingers.
Major Impact on the NHL Draft?
With the season on hold and some projections stating that this could be months, not weeks of inaction, questions will start forming around other events related to the upcoming season, including the NHL Entry Draft.
With the lottery expected to take place next month, how the draft itself will take place will need to be figured out. Early speculation is that it could take place online and/or at a later date instead of being held at Montreal’s Bell Centre on June 26-27.
Could the NHL hold the draft online, streaming it for fans to watch? This would be a first.
What will be interesting to see is how heavily scouts start to rely on video leading up to the draft. Most NHL teams are now telling their scouts to stay home or stopping them from traveling, and if teams start to heavily lean on video — which is something NFL teams tend to do to run their scouting departments — this becomes an interesting exercise for the NHL which could see a shift moving forward.
Related: Filip Forsberg Trade Revisited
What About NHL Playoffs?
At this point, with so little known about the “pause” in the NHL, how it will affect the playoffs is also unknown. That hasn’t stopped insiders from putting together projections and ideas.
When the league put things on hold, they did not explain what the plan was for the postseason even though a lot of teams asked while on the conference call that suspended the season. All that was directed by the NHL, according to TSN’s Frank Seravalli, was that teams were to provide an arena availability schedule through the end of July.
With no clear timeline on when things will resume, the consensus seems to be that playing playoffs is far more important than starting next season on time. Knowing owners want to get the games in and award the Stanley Cup to someone, how do they decide who gets in? How many teams? Where do they rank in the standings having all played different amounts of games?
Right now, the prevailing thought is that the season might go right into the playoffs, and seeding would be based on points percentage—rather than points in the standings.
Chicago Blackhawks beat reporter John Dietz tweeted that one suggestion the heard “was to allow 24 teams into the playoffs. Give the top 4 seeds in each conference a bye and make the 5-12 teams play a best-of-three.”
NHL and Team Employees Out of Work
In a move that will likely see a number of NHL teams follow, New Jersey Devils owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer say they have committed to paying hourly/event staff for postponed games and Prudential Center events. According to Elliotte Friedman, they released a statement “Employees are family…It’s important to band together and lift each other up during these times.”
Mark Cuban had done something similar in the NBA and it’s hard to imagine NHL teams won’t figure out ways to ensure their arena and staff team who rely on these hourly wages aren’t dramatically affected by the crisis.
The post NHL Rumors: Kings, Oilers, KHL, NHL Draft, NHL Playoffs, More appeared first on The Hockey Writers.
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