NHL Thread Because There Isn't An NHL Thread

The seven teams excluded from the NHL's return-to-play postseason over the summer will get to hit the ice sooner to get back into the groove of things.

The NHL and NHLPA have tentatively agreed to allow the Anaheim Ducks, Buffalo Sabres, Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings, New Jersey Devils, Ottawa Senators, and San Jose Sharks to get extra training time before regular training camps resume for all teams, TSN's Pierre LeBrun reported on Tuesday's edition of "Insider Trading."

The clubs' general managers reportedly requested the extra training camp time in August. While the extension's details are still unknown, their proposal has reportedly requested a minimum of two additional weeks of camp.


The NHL paused its season on March 13 due to the coronavirus pandemic. After the league agreed on a 24-team format to finish the campaign, it eliminated the bottom-seven clubs. Players that participated in the return-to-play had the opportunity to join voluntary workouts and condensed training camps before games resumed.

With the NHL aiming to begin the 2020-21 season on Jan. 1, it could be nearly a full year between games for the teams that did not participate in the return-to-play.
 
The Ottawa Senators signed forward Connor Brown to a three-year deal with an average annual value of $3.6 million, the team announced Thursday.

The sides were scheduled to have an arbitration hearing Thursday. Brown filed for a one-year contract with a value of $4.8 million and the team filed for one year at $2.25 million, according to the Ottawa Sun's Bruce Garrioch. Brown made $2.1 million annually on his previous deal.

The 26-year-old enjoyed a career season in his first year with the Senators, amassing 16 goals and ranking second on the club with 43 points through 71 games.


He also logged a career-high 20:07 of average ice time per game last season and was a key player on Ottawa's penalty kill while also contributing on the power play.

The Senators acquired Brown from the Toronto Maple Leafs in July 2019.

Ottawa has $17.8 million in projected cap space with only one outstanding restricted free agent in forward Chris Tierney.
 
The NHL has postponed the 2021 All-Star Weekend and the Winter Classic, the league announced Thursday.

The Minnesota Wild were scheduled to take on the St. Louis Blues at Target Field in Minneapolis on New Year's Day, and the Florida Panthers were slated to host All-Star Weekend on Jan. 29-30. The league adds that it intends to return to each city for these signature events in the near future.

"Fan participation, both in arenas and stadiums as well as in the ancillary venues and events that we stage around the Winter Classic and All-Star Weekend, is integral to the success of our signature events," said NHL senior executive vice president Steve Mayer.

"Because of the uncertainty as to when we will be able to welcome our fans back to our games, we felt that the prudent decision at this time was to postpone these celebrations until 2022 when our fans should be able to enjoy and celebrate these tentpole events in-person, as they were always intended," he added. "We are also considering several new and creative events that will allow our fans to engage with our games and teams during this upcoming season."


The postponements don't impact the league's targeted start date of Jan. 1 for the upcoming season.
 
Longtime NHL defenseman Trevor Daley is hanging up his skates after 16 seasons in the show, the Pittsburgh Penguins announced Monday.

Daley is joining the Penguins' front office as a hockey operations advisor. He'll report directly to general manager Jim Rutherford and assist in player evaluations at the NHL and AHL level, in addition to acting as an "eye in the sky" for the coaching staff during games.

The 37-year-old spent the last three seasons with the Detroit Red Wings but won back-to-back Stanley Cups with the Pens in 2016 and 2017.


Daley was valuable to those Cup teams. In 2016 he averaged 22:08 per game during the playoffs (second-most among Pens blue-liners), and in 2017 he played 19:07 per contest in the postseason (fifth-most).

The Toronto, Ontario, native played with the Dallas Stars in his first 11 seasons in the NHL. In total, Daley ends his career with 309 points in 1,058 regular-season games.

Pittsburgh further shook up its front office on Monday by firing assistant GM Jason Karmanos. In a corresponding move, director of hockey research Sam Ventura will assume Karmanos' duties on an interim basis, and manager of hockey operations Erik Heasley has been named interim GM of the AHL's Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.
 
Pittsburgh is exploring the possibility of hiring former Florida Panthers general manager Dale Tallon to assist Penguins GM Jim Rutherford.

Tallon is a candidate to join Pittsburgh "in some capacity," sources told The Athletic's Rob Rossi.

The Panthers and the 70-year-old agreed to part ways in August following the club's qualifying-round loss to the New York Islanders.


Less than three weeks later, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed the league was investigating Tallon for his conduct in the Toronto bubble, and It was reported the longtime executive was being probed for making racially insensitive remarks on multiple occasions. However, Tallon's departure from the Panthers reportedly had nothing to do with his alleged comments.

He believed the inquiry centered around observations he made about Minnesota Wild defenseman Matt Dumba, who is Filipino Canadian. The NHL has not provided an update on the situation since confirming the investigation on Aug. 28.

Tallon spent 10 years with the Panthers after serving as GM of the Chicago Blackhawks from 2005-09.

The Penguins hired Trevor Daley - who won two championships with Pittsburgh - as a hockey operations advisor after the blue-liner retired Monday. The team fired assistant GM Jason Karmanos earlier in the day.
 
BjorgenFjorgen said:
Not sure I would consider Dale Tallon "help."
Click to expand...
The Penguins are really building something over there... some of the most brain numbing moves by Rutherford over the past several years, and now they bring in Daley who has no managerial experience and who is a member of the Hockey Diversity Alliance, immediately followed by potentially hiring Tallon who is about 2 months removed from spouting off racial slurs about Matt Dumba during the NHL playoffs and getting fired for it (despite Florida saying it wasn't because of this.... sure.) Those should be fun meetings...
 
Mather said:
The Penguins are really building something over there... some of the most brain numbing moves by Rutherford over the past several years, and now they bring in Daley who has no managerial experience and who is a member of the Hockey Diversity Alliance, immediately followed by potentially hiring Tallon who is about 2 months removed from spouting off racial slurs about Matt Dumba during the NHL playoffs and getting fired for it (despite Florida saying it wasn't because of this.... sure.) Those should be fun meetings...
Click to expand...
maybe use that Washington team name that became available ?
 
The Colorado Avalanche inked defenseman Devon Toews to a four-year contract, the club announced Tuesday.

Here's a year-by-year breakdown of the pact, according to TSN's Pierre LeBrun:

YEARSALARY
1$2.35M
2$3.55M
3$4.6M
4$5.9M
Based on those figures, the average annual value would be $4.1 million.


Toews was a restricted free agent who had a salary arbitration hearing scheduled for Oct. 31.

The Avalanche acquired Toews in a trade with the New York Islanders on Oct. 12, with two second-round picks heading the other way.

He collected six goals and 28 points over 68 games with the Islanders in 2019-20. It was his second NHL season, and he spent both with New York.

The 26-year-old ranked fifth on his former club in average ice time (20:30) this past campaign.

Toews essentially replaces Nikita Zadorov on Colorado's blue line. The Avalanche traded Zadorov to the Chicago Blackhawks for forward Brandon Saad in a four-player swap on Oct. 10.
 
The Arizona Coyotes are renouncing the rights to 2020 fourth-round draft pick Mitchell Miller, the team announced Thursday.

Arizona said on Oct. 26 that the organization wouldn't cut ties with Miller despite having knowledge that in 2016 he bullied Isaiah Meyer-Crothers, a former classmate who is Black and has a developmental disability. However, the club has since reversed course.

"We have decided to renounce the rights to Mitchell Miller, effective immediately," Coyotes president and CEO Xavier Gutierrez said in a statement. "Prior to selecting Mitchell in the NHL draft, we were aware that a bullying incident took place in 2016. We do not condone this type of behavior but embraced this as a teachable moment to work with Mitchell to make him accountable for his actions and provide him with an opportunity to be a leader on anti-bullying and anti-racism efforts.


"We have learned more about the entire matter, and more importantly, the impact it has had on Isaiah and the Meyer-Crothers family. What we learned does not align with the core values and vision for our organization and leads to our decision to renounce our draft rights. On behalf of the Arizona Coyotes ownership and our entire organization, I would like to apologize to Isaiah and the Meyer-Crothers family. We are building a model franchise on and off the ice and will do the right thing for Isaiah and the Meyer-Crothers family, our fans, and our partners. Mr. Miller is now a free agent and can pursue his dream of becoming an NHL player elsewhere."

Meyer-Crothers said Miller consistently harassed him, beat him up, and frequently called him the N-word and "brownie" while the two grew up together in Ohio.

Miller is slated to join North Dakota as a freshman for the 2020-21 season. Fighting Hawks head coach Brad Berry said in a statement the school knows about Miller's past but hasn't disciplined him to this point.

"We made a decision that our program could provide him the necessary infrastructure and culture to hone not only his hockey abilities but most importantly, assist him in his continuing growth as a human being which will last him the remainder of his life," Berry said in a statement, according to Brad Elliott Schlossman of the Grand Forks Herald.
 
The NHL won't consider anything less than 48 games if the league plays a shortened campaign in 2021, sources told ESPN's Emily Kaplan and Greg Wyshynski.

The NHL is targeting Jan. 1 as a start date for next season. Awarding the Stanley Cup before the Summer Olympics begin July 23 is ideal, but it's not necessary for the league.

"I think there is some flexibility if we were to choose that route. There's a lot left to be played out on the Olympics front too," deputy commissioner Bill Daly said. "We have models that extend past the Olympic time period. Those are alternatives that are on the table. I can't tell you they're the ones that are necessarily going to be pursued, but I think there's some flexibility there."


There are obvious incentives to having a full 82-game season in 2021-22 for the Seattle Kraken's inaugural campaign and the first year of a new U.S. TV contract. NBC's television deal with the NHL expires after 2020-21.

The league previously used a 48-game schedule for the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign. Teams play 82 games in a typical regular season.

Regardless of how long next season is or the format used, fans could potentially return to arenas.

"I think the ultimate goal is to end up with fans in the arenas. I don't think we'll get to capacity, but I think we'll have enough socially distanced fans," an NHL source told Wyshynski.

The league definitely wants fans in the stands for the playoffs if local restrictions allow it, sources told Wyshynski.

Fans have made their way back into stadiums across North America. Select NFL cities have hosted spectators at a limited capacity, and Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas reached about 25% capacity during the 2020 World Series.
 
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