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Edmonton Oilers place James Neal on waivers, welcome back Jesse Puljujarvi from COVID protocol – Edmonton Journal

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Even as the other six Canadian team take to the ice in Hockey Day in Canada action, the Edmonton Oilers have a well-deserved day off on Saturday. The Oilers did make some news this morning, however.

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Winger James Neal has become the latest Oilers forward to find himself on the waiver wire as GM Ken Holland looks to maximize flexibility up front. Holland reduced the number of forwards on his active roster to 12 some time ago, with game day changes occurring directly from the taxi squad to the active roster. The waiver of Neal will add him to an extended list that already includes Jujhar Khaira, Tyler Ennis, Alex Chiasson, Devin Shore, Joakim Nygard, and Patrick Russell. All of them cleared waivers earlier in the season, even as the 30-day exemption period after a successful waiver starts to apply to some of them. As an example, Khaira, who cleared back on Jan 12, would need to be waived again at this point in the unlikely event that the Oilers felt the need to send him back to the taxi squad.

The first four of those bolded names, along with Neal himself, played in Edmonton’s most recent game, a 3-0 win over the Canadiens right in Montreal. With other forwards including Zack KassianGaetan Haas, and (temporarily) Jesse Puljujarvi on the injury/COVID lists, the Oilers have made extensive use of their taxi squad options.

Some good news on that last front, as Puljujarvi has been cleared to rejoin the team after some ambiguous test results on Thursday.

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For his part Neal actually contracted COVID just before he was slated to travel to Edmonton from Nashville before the season. That caused a late start to his season as he endured an extended quarantine in each city while he recovered from the illness. He was finally activated in Game 6 and has subsequently played 9 of 11 games, posting boxcars of 2-1-3, -2 in a bottom six role with close to three minutes per game on the first powerplay unit. The Oilers have had about 45% of both shots and goals during his 89 minutes of action at 5v5.

Neal moved up the line-up in the Montreal game, taking Puljujarvi’s spot at 1RW alongside Connor McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. He managed a couple of decent shots on goal but struggled to keep up to the pace of play, as he has generally done throughout much of the season to date. There has been precious little sign of the lethal hands which have produced 291 NHL goals in his accomplished career.

How much of that is due to his late start and his general health vs. the fact his skills are in decline at age 33 is an open question. But it seems that the team wants to open up the option to sit him out for a given game here or there.

The Oilers technically have a 23-man roster but Holland has chosen to use all three of his “extra” spots on defencemen, in a lopsided 12 F / 9 D / 2 G distribution. But there is method to his madness. With all three of youngsters Ethan BearCaleb Jones, and William Lagesson having graduated from their Entry Level Contracts this season, all would need to clear waivers before being assigned to the taxi squad, and Holland has plenty of reason to believe that they wouldn’t. Same goes for young veteran Slater Koekkoek, another useful defender with a sub $1 million cap hit. The one vet who has been in and out of the line-up, Kris Russell, remains protected from waivers by the No Movement Clause to which he and Peter Chiarelli agreed in 2017. Finally, young Evan Bouchard is on the first year of his ELC and can be moved to the taxi squad freely, but for now he is a regular in the game night line-up.

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That leaves the Oilers in a tight spot at both forward and, famously, in goal, where they have already lost two would-be #3 stoppers via the waiver route. To this point they have been unscathed by waiver claims up front and that is virtually certain to remain the case tomorrow morning.

While Neal is technically available to any NHL team that might wish to put in a claim in the next 24 hours, the chances of that actually happening are effectively zero. The winger is on an expensive ticket of $5.75 million for the remainder of this and two additional seasons. There are few NHL teams with the cap space to even consider it, and frankly zero reason why they should.

From an Edmonton perspective such a claim would be a massive break, but don’t get your hopes up, Oil fans. Time has proven the Oilers can’t get out from under the Milan Lucic contract that easily, even as Lucic himself was moved along for Neal in the summer of 2019. The biggest advantage to that “real deal” — which cost the Oilers in terms of cap retention ($750,000), a draft pick (third round in 2021), and $7 million in actual cash paid out on Lucic’s front-loaded contract — was that Neal’s pact had no restrictive clauses that would force the Oilers to protect him in the upcoming expansion draft, or preclude them from buying it out at some future point. That latter issue will no doubt be a topic for discussion in the upcoming off-season.

The absence of a NMC in Neal’s pact is not only critical to the upcoming expansion, it enables them to place the player on waivers today. The Oilers would have had no such option with Lucic were he still with the team.

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At such time as Neal is placed on the taxi squad, only marginal salary cap savings can be achieved and even those are uncertain. A maximum of $1.075 million of any contract can be buried off-roster, while any replacement called up to the roster will have at least the league minimum cap hit of $700,000. There are further complications due to the fine print of Long Term Injured Reserve legalese which the Oilers invoked when they placed Oscar Klefbom on LTIR at season’s start.

For now James Neal will surely remain an Oiler, even as he seems destined to join the rotation of depth forwards who can be cycled in and out of the line-up based on team need and recent form. Nothing saying such a move is imminent; the Oilers waived Chiasson a couple of weeks ago, then placed him right back in the line-up. I frankly expect the same respect is shown to Neal next game as a sign he is still in the team’s plans even after enduring the indignity of the waiver wire.

Recently at the Cult of Hockey

Follow me on Twitter @BruceMcCurdy

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Allen on trade to Devils from Habs: 'Sometimes you've got to be a little bit selfish' – Yahoo Canada Sports

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Jake Allen loved being a member of the Montreal Canadiens.

The hockey-mad market, the crackling Bell Centre on a Saturday night, the Original Six franchise’s iconic logo.

The 33-year-old goaltender is also realistic.

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With the Canadiens still in full rebuild mode — and two young netminders in Sam Montembeault and Cayden Primeau ready for more playing time — Allen could see the writing on the wall.

Desperate for help in their own crease, the New Jersey Devils asked Montreal about the veteran’s availability. But the team, general manager Tom Fitzgerald told reporters earlier this month, was initially on Allen’s no-trade list.

There wasn’t anything the Fredericton product disliked about the organization or city. The Devils simply appeared to have their crease set for years to come.

But when the club that finished with 112 points and made the second round of the playoffs in 2022-23 was badly hampered by poor play from Vitek Vanecek, Nico Daws and Akira Schmid — each netminder owned save percentages below .900 — the Devils circled back.

And Allen had changed his tune.

“Loved my time as a Hab,” he said of pulling on Montreal’s red, white and blue threads. “I always will cherish that. Put on probably the most special jersey in hockey, in my books. But you realize in your career, it doesn’t last forever.

“You’ve got to make decisions sometimes.”

Allen, who is signed through next season, eventually agreed to a deal that sent him to New Jersey ahead of the NHL’s March 8 trade deadline for a conditional third-round pick at the 2025 draft.

Apart from playing meaningful hockey on a team trying to claw its way back into the Eastern Conference playoff race, the swap gave him more runway to get his family settled in a new city instead of waiting to see what this summer’s crowded goalie market might bring.

“Sometimes you’ve got to be a little bit selfish,” said Allen, a Stanley Cup champion with the St. Louis Blues in 2019. “Look yourself in the mirror and wonder what’s best for you and your family.”

He’s been really good for his new team.

Allen was lights out in Tuesday’s first period against the Toronto Maple Leafs, making an eye-popping 25 saves in what would turn into New Jersey’s 6-3 victory.

So far he’s 4-2-0 with a .925 save percentage and a 2.51 goals against average in six starts for the Devils, who sit five points back of the East’s second wild-card spot.

“A real pro,” said interim head coach Travis Green.

Allen is a combined 10-14-3 in 2023-24 with a .900 save percentage and a 3.39 GAA. Across his 11 seasons with St. Louis, Montreal and now New Jersey, he’s 193-164-41 with a .908 save percentage and 2.75 GAA.

“Makes the saves we need to get some momentum back,” Devils captain Nico Hischier said. “If you have a solid goalie in the net, that makes your work easier.”

Allen is also 11-12 with a .924 and a 2.06 GAA all-time in the playoffs — a good sign for his new club should New Jersey manage to make the cut.

For now, though, he’s just enjoying being back in a post-season race.

“I thought this was a good opportunity to come in the rest of this year, play some games,” Allen said.

“It’s been a good start.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 28, 2024.

___

Follow @JClipperton_CP on X.

Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press

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Matthews game-time decision for Maple Leafs against Capitals with illness – NHL.com

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TORONTOAuston Matthews will be a game-time decision for the Toronto Maple Leafs against the Washington Capitals at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; SN1, MNMT) because of an illness.

“It’s going to be on how he feels throughout the day,” Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said.

The forward did not participate in Toronto’s morning skate. Max Domi took his place as the center on a line between Tyler Bertuzzi and Mitch Marner, a right wing recovering from a high-ankle sprain sustained March 7 and will be out the next two games.

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Matthews leads the NHL with 59 goals, one from becoming the ninth player in NHL history with at least two 60-goal seasons. He scored 60 in 73 games in 2021-22, when he won the Rocket Richard Trophy, Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award. He had one goal and nine shots in 23:44 of a 6-3 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday, which extended his point streak to five games (four goals, seven assists).

He missed one game this season with illness, a 7-0 win against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Dec. 16.

“Of course, it’s an adjustment when your best player is out of the lineup,” Domi said, “when anybody is out of the lineup, but I think we’ve done a great job all year of guys stepping up when they have to, and we just have to continue to do that.”

Toronto defenseman Morgan Rielly will miss his second straight game with an upper-body injury.

“He just remains day to day,” Keefe said. “We’re hopeful he’s going to bounce back here. The one thing that is good is once he gets through this day or two here, it’s not going to be a lingering situation. It’s not going to be an injury that’s ongoing. Once he’s past it, he’s past it so we just need to give him some time.”

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Canucks place goalie Thatcher Demko on long-term injured list

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The Vancouver Canucks have placed all-star goalie Thatcher Demko on the long-term injured reserve list retroactively.

“It’s just cap related,” coach Rick Tocchet said after practice Wednesday. “We get some cap relief, that’s all it is.”

The 28-year-old netminder has been considered week to week since being sidelined with a lower-body injury midway through Vancouver’s 5-0 win over the Winnipeg Jets on March 9.

That injury designation hasn’t changed, Tocchet said.

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Demko boasts a 34-18-2 record this season, with a .917 save percentage, a 2.47 goals-against average and five shutouts.

Casey DeSmith has taken over the starting job for Vancouver, going 3-2-1 since Demko’s injury. He has a .899 save percentage on the season with a 2.73 goals-against average and one shutout.

The earliest Demko could be back in the Canucks’ lineup is April 6 against the Kings in Los Angeles.

He’s expected to be a key piece as Vancouver (45-19-8) prepares for its first playoff appearance since the COVID-shortened 2019-20 campaign.

Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin also announced Wednesday that the club has called up forward Arshdeep Bains from the Abbotsford Canucks of the American Hockey League.

“I’d like to see where [Bains is] at,” Tocchet said, noting he isn’t sure whether the 23-year-old winger will slot into the lineup when the Canucks host the Dallas Stars on Thursday.

WATCH | Bains makes NHL debut

 

Surrey, B.C.’s Arshdeep Bains makes Canucks debut

1 month ago

Duration 2:20

Arshdeep Bains from Surrey, B.C., has made his NHL debut with the Vancouver Canucks Tuesday night against the Colorado Avalanche. As CBC’s Joel Ballard reports, it’s been a hard-fought journey for the hometown kid to the big leagues.

Bains played five games for the NHL team in February before being sent back to Abbotsford.

“He went down, he’s done a couple of things that we like, and he’s got some speed,” Tocchet said.

Vancouver may get another forward back in the lineup Thursday.

Dakota Joshua practised in a full-contact jersey on Wednesday for the first time since suffering an upper-body injury in Vancouver’s 4-2 win over the Blackhawks in Chicago on Feb. 13.

The physical winger, who’s set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, has a career-high 26 points (13 goals, 13 assists) this season.

Sitting out injured “hasn’t been fun,” Joshua said.

“It feels like forever,” he said. “But at this point, that’s behind me and I’m moving forward.”

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