MONTREAL— It was short and bittersweet, delivered 15 minutes shy of a full week that started with Jesperi Kotkaniemi signing a $6.1-million offer sheet with the Carolina Hurricanes, and it was understated.
The Montreal Canadiens announced on Saturday they were walking away from the player they drafted third overall in 2018 and taking Carolina’s first- and third-round picks in the 2022 Draft for doing so, and general manager Marc Bergevin’s 18-word concession read, “Carolina has used a tool available to them in the collective bargaining agreement and we accept that decision.”
It was akin to a golf clap for a slam dunk, because the Hurricanes didn’t just “use a tool available to them” so much as they masterfully wielded it. They painted Bergevin into a corner and forced him to choose between overpaying Kotkaniemi and overpaying to replace him. They did it to avenge the offer sheet Bergevin tendered to Sebastian Aho in 2019, with Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon working a cheeky $20 signing bonus and tacking $15 onto Kotkaniemi’s salary as odes to Aho and Kotkaniemi’s respective jersey numbers before authorizing the team’s social media accounts to rub coarse salt in the wound, and they got what they wanted out of it.
First off, the Hurricanes got the player. If they didn’t want Kotkaniemi, they wouldn’t have offered to pay him close to three times what he was likely to earn this coming season.
“Jesperi Kotkaniemi is a player who has been on our radar since before his draft year,” said Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell in a statement that followed Bergevin’s announcement the Canadiens weren’t matching the offer. “We believe he will flourish in Rod Brind’Amour’s system and culture, and he will be an important piece of what we are building in Carolina for years to come.”
But even if that proves untrue, the Hurricanes still forced Bergevin to give up on one of the players he said he hoped to build around for years to come—a player his team developed over 200 games (regular season and post-season combined)—and they pushed him to give up more than he’d have liked to in a corresponding trade with the Arizona Coyotes. There’s no debating that’s a win for them.
But it’s not a total loss for Bergevin and the Canadiens. In fact, it could prove to be a win.
Sure, the price was steep to acquire 25-year-old Christian Dvorak from the Coyotes, but it was worth it. In the 25-year-old, the Canadiens have gained a versatile player who’s accumulated nearly a half-a-point per game over his first 302 in the NHL and done so on a team lacking the type of talent on the wings the Canadiens currently boast. They’ve given up on the better of their two first-round picks (their own or Carolina’s) in the 2022 Draft and their own second-rounder in 2024 to do it, but they’re also getting a player who’s better than Kotkaniemi is right now.
Dvorak, who makes $4.45 million per season, has also already proven he’s worth what he’s being paid, and he’s got an opportunity to prove he’ll be more valuable than Kotkaniemi over the four seasons he remains under contract—especially if Kotkaniemi remains locked in at the $6.1 million he needs to be qualified at as a restricted free agent, but even so if he signs an extension at a lower average salary.
Dvorak’s a player we’ve been digging into since well before his acquisition was made by the Canadiens and well before we reported earlier this week that he was their primary target to replace Kotkaniemi. The impetus for that was when former teammate Max Domi (who was traded to the Canadiens for another former third-overall pick, Alex Galchenyuk) told us, shortly after arriving in Montreal in 2018, he felt Dvorak was among the most underrated players in the league.
Domi had played alongside Dvorak and watched him score 109 points with the OHL’s London Knights in 2014-15. He made the jump with the Coyotes while Dvorak stayed behind and put up 52 goals and 121 points in 59 games the following season, and then he revelled in the opportunity to once again play with Dvorak when he graduated to the NHL for the 2016-17 season.
What we’ve seen since Domi told us about him is a strong, two-way centre who’s effective in the slot on the power play and capable as a penalty killer.
Dvorak has also proven to be nearly as efficient scoring goals as he has been at setting them up—he’s got 67 goals and 79 assists since debuting—and he’s won between 51.4 per cent and 55.3 per cent of his faceoffs in each of his last four seasons.
An Eastern Conference executive told us this past Wednesday that he felt Dvorak was unquestionably a second-line centre on a good team and added, “If that guy’s centering your third line, you’re contending for a Stanley Cup.”
A Western-based scout sung the Illinois native’s praises when we touched base with him two hours after Saturday’s news broke.
“I know the player really, really well,” the scout started. “I’ve watched him play a ton over the years. The one thing about him that people probably don’t know is he’s a very competitive, quiet sort of leadership guy. He doesn’t get a lot of credit for that because he’s quiet, but he’s very competitive. He’s not going to play necessarily with tons of physicality, but he’s got a lot of jam, and he’ll go to the net and he’ll take a punch in front of the net if he has to.
“He’s also got really, really good hands. He doesn’t get enough credit for how good his hands are. And lastly, he’s an outstanding kid. I know you hear that about a lot of guys, but he’s a hockey player. He loves the game and he’s a very hard worker.”
We’re talking about the overall profile of a player Kotkaniemi might become, but not the one he’s been for the majority of his time in Montreal.
The Pori, Finland native accumulated just 22 goals and 62 points in 171 regular-season games with the Canadiens, with totals of five and 20 in 56 this past season, and he bookended their run from the first round of the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs to the Final as a healthy scratch despite scoring five goals and eight points in 19 games.
When Bergevin was asked afterwards if he was prepared to commit to Kotkaniemi as his second-line centre for this coming season, he essentially said he only would as a last resort.
“As a player, we love KK’s potential, we love the peak of his game,” Bergevin said before attributing Kotkaniemi’s inconsistency to his youth and saying he’d ideally be able to better insulate him by acquiring another experienced centre.
But the GM also acknowledged he’d have a hard time doing that with the salary cap stagnating for years to come and Kotkaniemi and other young players on the Canadiens inevitably earning bigger paycheques. “I need to be careful,” he said.
The Hurricanes had no such restriction.
They’ve taken a massive gamble on Kotkaniemi’s potential, but one they’re comfortable with. They have the money to pay him, the depth to insulate him, and they have made him feel wanted and trusted and will give him a good opportunity to perform at his best.
If it doesn’t work and they end up signing and trading Kotkaniemi, or walking away from him after one season, they’ll have lost the money they’ve signed him for and the picks they surrendered to the Canadiens, and that won’t be a great look. But it won’t be a complete loss, either, after having successfully pulled one over on Bergevin and obtained the vengeance they were after.
As for the Montreal GM, he took his licks and moved on quickly and quietly after the Hurricanes yucked it up at his expense.
But Bergevin might be laughing hardest when all is said and done here.
CALGARY – The Calgary Flames have re-signed defenceman Ilya Solovyov and centre Cole Schwindt, the NHL club announced Wednesday.
Solovyov signed a two-year deal which is a two-way contract in year one and a one-way deal in year two and carries an average annual value of US$775,000 at the NHL level.
Schwindt signed a one-year, two-way contract with an average annual value of $800,000 at the NHL level.
The 24-year-old Solovyov, from Mogilev, Belarus, made his NHL debut last season and had three assists in 10 games for the Flames. He also had five goals and 10 assists in 51 games with the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers and added one goal in six Calder Cup playoff games.
Schwindt, from Kitchener, Ont., made his Flames debut last season and appeared in four games with the club.
The 23-year-old also had 14 goals and 22 assists in 66 regular-season games with the Wranglers and added a team-leading four goals, including one game-winning goal, in the playoffs.
Schwindt was selected by Florida in the third round, 81st overall, at the 2019 NHL draft. He came to Calgary in July 2022 along with forward Jonathan Huberdeau and defenceman MacKenzie Weegar in the trade that sent star forward Matthew Tkachuk to the Panthers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
KING CITY, Ont. – Oman scored 10 runs in the final over to edge Nepal by one wicket with just one ball remaining in ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 play Wednesday.
Kaleemullah, the No. 11 batsman who goes by one name, hit a four with the penultimate ball as Oman finished at 223 for nine. Nepal had scored 220 for nine in its 50 overs.
Kaleemullah and No. 9 batsman Shakeel Ahmed each scored five in the final over off Sompal Kami. They finished with six and 17 runs, respectively.
Opener Latinder Singh led Oman with 41 runs.
Nepal’s Gulsan Jha was named man of the match after scoring 53 runs and recording a career-best five-wicket haul. The 18-year-old slammed five sixes and three-fours in his 35-ball knock, scoring 23 runs in the 46th over alone when he hit six, six, four, two, four and one off Aqib Ilyas.
Captain Rohit Paudel led Nepal with 60 runs.
The 19th-ranked Canadians, who opened the triangular series Monday with a 103-run win over No. 17 Nepal, face No. 16 Oman on Friday, Nepal on Sunday and Oman again on Sept. 26. All the games are at the Maple Leaf Cricket Ground.
The eight World League 2 teams each play 36 one-day internationals spread across nine triangular series through December 2026. The top four sides will go through to a World Cup qualifier that will decide the last four berths in the expanded 14-team Cricket World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Canada (5-4) stands second in the World League 2 table. The 14th-ranked Dutch top the table at 6-2.
Oman (2-2 with one no-result) stands sixth, ahead of Nepal (1-5).
Canada won all four matches in its opening tri-series in February-March, sweeping No. 11 Scotland and the 20th-ranked host Emirates. But the Canadians lost four in a row to the 18th-ranked U.S. and host Netherlands in August.
Canada which debuted in the T20 World Cup this summer in the U.S. and West Indies, is looking to get back to the showcase 50-over Cricket World Cup for the first time since 2011 after failing to qualify for the last three editions. The Canadian men also played in the 1979, 2003 and 2007 tournaments, exiting after the group stage in all four tournament appearances.
The Canadian men regained their one-day international status for the first time in almost a decade by finishing in the top four of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier Playoff in April 2023 in Bermuda.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024
PENTICTON, B.C. – Rick Tocchet has already warned his Vancouver Canucks players — the looming NHL season won’t be easy.
The team made strides last year, the head coach said Wednesday ahead of training camp. The bar has been raised for this year’s campaign.
“To get to the next plateau, there are higher expectations and it’s going to be hard. We know that,” Tocchet said in Penticton, B.C., where the team will open its camp on Thursday.
“So that’s the next level. It starts day one (on Thursday). My thing is don’t waste a rep out there.”
The Canucks finished atop the Pacific Division with a 50-23-9 record last season, then ousted the Nashville Predators from the playoffs in a gritty, six-game first-round series. Vancouver then fell to the Edmonton Oilers in a seven-game second-round set.
Last fall, Jim Rutherford, the Canucks president of hockey operations, said everything would have to go right for the team to make a playoff push. That doesn’t change this season, he said, despite last year’s success.
“The challenges will be greater, certainly. But I believe the team that we started with last year, we have just as good a team to start the season this year and probably better,” he said.
“As long as the team builds off what they did last year, stick to what the coaches tell them, stick to the system, stick together in good times and bad times, this team has a chance to do pretty well.”
Some key players will be missing as Vancouver’s training camp begins, however.
Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin announced Wednesday that star goalie Thatcher Demko will not be on the ice when the team begins it’s pre-season preparation.
Allvin did not disclose the reason for Demko’s absence, but said the 28-year-old American has been making progress.
“He’s been in working extremely hard and he seems to be in a great mindset,” the GM said.
Demko missed several weeks of the regular season and much of Vancouver’s playoff run last spring with a knee injury.
The six-foot-four, 192-pound goalie has a career 213-116-81 regular-season record with a .912 save percentage, a 2.79 goals-against average and eight shutouts across seven seasons with the Canucks.
Allvin also announced that veteran centre Teddy Blueger and defensive prospect Cole McWard will also miss the start of training camp after each had “minor lower-body surgery.”
Vancouver previously announced winger Dakota Joshua won’t be present for the start of camp as he recovers from surgery for testicular cancer.
Tocchet said he’ll have no problem filling the holes, and plans to switch his lines up a lot in Penticton.
“Nothing’s set in stone,” he said. “I think it’s important that you have different puzzles at different times.”
The coach added that he expects standout centre Elias Pettersson to begin on a line with Canucks newcomer Jake DeBrusk.
Vancouver inked DeBrusk, a former Boston Bruins forward, to a seven-year, US$38.5 million deal when the NHL’s free agent market opened on July 1.
The glare on Pettersson is expected to be bright once again as he enters the first year of a new eight-year, $92.8 million contract. The 25-year-old Swede struggled at times last season and put 89 points (34 goals, 55 assists) in 82 games.
Rutherford said he was impressed with how Pettersson looked when he returned to Vancouver ahead of camp.
“He seems to be a guy that’s more relaxed and more comfortable. And for obvious reasons,” said the president of hockey ops. “This is a guy that I believe has worked really hard this summer. He’s done everything he can to play as a top-line player. … The expectation for him is to be one of the top players on our team.”
A number of Canucks hit milestones last season, including Quinn Hughes, who led all NHL defencemen in scoring with 92 points and won the Norris Trophy as the league’s top blue liner.
Several players could once again have career-best years for Vancouver, Tocchet said, but they’ll need to be consistent and not allow frustration to creep in when things go wrong.
“You’ve just got to drive yourself every day when you have a great year,” the coach said. “You’ve got to keep creating that environment where they can achieve those goals, whatever they are. And the main goal is winning. That’s really what it comes down to.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
