NHL Morning Coffee Headlines – September 25, 2024
Recapping Tuesday’s preseason action, injury updates on several notable stars, and more in today’s NHL Morning Coffee Headlines.
RECAPS OF TUESDAY’S PRESEASON GAMES
NHL.COM: A five-goal third period rallied the New York Rangers to a 6-4 victory over the New York Islanders. Chris Kreider and Zac Jones each scored twice and collected an assist. Mathew Barzal tallied two goals, and Anthony Duclair collected two assists in his debut with the Islanders.
New York Rangers winger Chris Kreider (NHL Images).
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Rangers winger Artemi Panarin (lower-body injury) and defenseman Ryan Lindgren (upper body) left this contest. Head coach Peter Laviolette said they were still being evaluated after the game.
The Boston Bruins doubled up the Washington Capitals 4-2. Goaltender Joonas Korpisalo stopped all seven shots he faced for the Bruins in this game.
Montreal Canadiens forward Michael Pezzetta netted two goals as his club blanked the New Jersey Devils 3-0. Samuel Montembeault and Connor Hughes combined for the 24-save shutout.
The Buffalo Sabres downed the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2. Sabres winger Tyler Tullio picked up two assists.
A shorthanded goal by Zack Ostapchuk in the third period lifted the Ottawa Senators to a 2-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs. Jake Sanderson also scored for the Senators.
The Carolina Hurricanes nipped the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 on a goal by Aleksi Heimosalmi with 45 seconds remaining in the third period.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: This was the first time Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour coached his son Skyler in an NHL game. The younger Brind’Amour is attending Hurricanes training camp on a professional tryout offer. He logged over 14 minutes of ice time and went seven-for-10 in the faceoff circle.
The Anaheim Ducks beat the San Jose Sharks 4-3. Carson Meyer and Mark Pysyk each scored a goal and collected an assist for the Ducks.
Vancouver Canucks goaltender Arturs Silovs stopped 18 shots in a 3-1 victory over the Seattle Kraken. Brock Boeser and Jonathan Lekkerimaki each picked up two assists.
HEADLINES
THE SCORE: Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews left practice on Tuesday with a minor upper-body injury. The injury isn’t considered serious.
SPORTSNET: Leafs forward Calle Jarnkrok is listed as day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
EDMONTON JOURNAL: Oilers winger Evander Kane isn’t expected to return to action until February at the earliest as he recovers from surgery for two sports hernias and four abdominal muscle tears. It’s possible he won’t return until the start of the playoffs in late April.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Some conspiracy-minded folks believe this is a ploy by the Oilers to garner cap relief by having Kane and his $5.125 million cap hit on long-term injury reserve, using the savings to add players at the trade deadline.
Kane’s recovery timeline was listed as five to six months. That puts his return as sometime in mid-to-late March, shortly following the trade deadline. If they have him on LTIR and exceed the cap to add players at the deadline, they must be cap-compliant if he’s medically cleared to play, meaning they must shed salary, which could be difficult to do after the deadline.
It’s better for the Oilers cap-wise not to place Kane on LTIR as they can accrue cap space throughout the season to put toward any roster additions by the March 7 trade deadline. That could be difficult as they have less than $1 million in cap space to start this season.
THE HOCKEY NEWS: Florida Panthers forward Tomas Nosek is expected to miss weeks with an upper-body injury suffered during Sunday’s preseason game against the Nashville Predators. It was thought he suffered a concussion but that’s not the case.
DAILY FACEOFF: San Jose Sharks center Thomas Bordeleau is week-to-week with a lower-body injury.
THE SCORE: Free-agent forward Phil Kessel is willing to sign a professional tryout offer if the fit is right. Kessel, 36, didn’t play last season after going unsigned. He’s the NHL’s reigning Ironman with 1,064 consecutive games. He’s also eight points away from 1,000 for his career.
TSN: NHL commissioner Gary Bettman dismissed recent rumors claiming the league is preparing to expand to 34 clubs.
“Everything that’s been written in the last week is categorically wrong,” said Bettman. “We’re not going through an expansion process.”. The commissioner said he’ll update the league board of governors on Oct. 1 about places that have expressed an interest, but there’s nothing else going on regarding expansion.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Recent media speculation claimed the league is considering returning to Atlanta and expanding to Houston. It can’t be ruled out but isn’t imminent because of the high expansion fees that could reach $2 billion and the lack of a suitable venue in Atlanta.
Should the preseason have so many games! Hardly any vets seem to play in more than 2 of the 7! Play the non roster players and PTO S in 3 and your opening night roster in 2!
7 games are about right for teams to iron out off-season kinks and, more importantly for teams that have undergone significant roster changes, develop cohesion for both the F lines and the D.
And, believe it or not, there are hard-fast rules on when and how often veterans must play – even to the point of setting out what constitutes a “veteran”
https://www.lighthousehockey.com/2013/9/24/4767462/nhl-rule-veteran-minimum-preseason-games-cba
MLB plays 18 games, the NBA 5 or 6, and the NFL 3.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. When expansion rumors are on some hockey news site or blog nearly daily, something’s up. Maybe it will take a few years, but expansion will happen. Which could mean Quebec City will finally have the team they crave when a third Atlanta team fails.
By the time Atlanta fails again phoenix will have a venue.
Re; expansion teams
Gary Betman shut that one down a few days ago in an interview …❗️
Nothing going on there, it’s was a slow day for the media
The area in Quebec City is quite small about 15,000 seats
In total…? Is that large enough to support an NHL team…❓
Down the road the Habs have +20,000 seats…..🤔
Quebec City’s Videotron Arena holds 18,259. It was constructed specifically to lure an NHL franchise.
Quebec City is never getting another NHL franchise for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is population – 557,375 with a miniscule growth rate of 0.59%
https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/pat-hickey-the-nhl-is-never-coming-back-to-quebec-city
Ottawa is considered a “small market” and the metro population here is 1,452,000.
Winnipeg is marginally larger than Quebec City (750,000) buy unlike Quebec City, the area has significant corporate support.
George
Though I would love to see a return of the Nords. I cannot see it happening for all the reasons you list
Mrbruin4, the so-called “battle of Quebec” was fun to watch … and actually got significantly more intense at times than did the “battles of Ontario and Alberta.”
But, ultimately, running a team there with virtually no marketability south of the border, the absence of any significant corporate backing, and undeniable difficulty in trying to maintain a competitive roster through the attraction of unilingual English UFAs of any note. made running the franchise untenable.
It is, in short, a small civil service city with a stagnant population.
Winnipeg doesn’t need saving, the team has never lost money, has super stable ownership, and has a clear understanding and mandate that they need more corporate season ticket holders. The expansion fee will be a nice windfall for the owners, but that gravy pipe will be dry soon enough – and will come at the expense of further watering down the league.
Quebec City has the fan base, it doesn’t have a corporate base that can funnel money into the team and buy out the expensive tickets.
Language isn’t as big a problem as it’s made out to be as players enjoyed playing there.
The battle of Quebec doesn’t have the shine as we are past the separatist bs federalist issue for the most part. The language war was one and only extremists push the issue.
Canada deserves more teams as the interest is there, 20,000 plus fans for a preseason game. At the press conference post game Laine was shocked at the number of reporters.
Canada is a hockey mad country with a lot of natural rivalries, demanding and knowledgable fans.
Thanks Lyle,
I must have got Quebec City and an other expansion team area mixed up
in Canada
I think the Toronto area has a much better chance of adding an other team
Unfortunately I do not see Quebec ever getting an NHL franchise. Small market, smaller than Winnipeg and Winnipeg struggled last year with attendance while icing a very good exciting team I loved the Nordiques and the rivalry with Montreal and I would love to see more Canadian teams but unfortunately if the NHL is to grow the rivalry with other major league sports they need a mega tv contract out of the US and need to expand more on that market. America has been producing amazing hockey players and that needs to keep growing to help grow hockey even more
Phil fan. let the guy hit 1000 points
Where?
Leafs!
Unfortunately I do not see Quebec ever getting an NHL franchise. Small market, smaller than Winnipeg and Winnipeg struggled last year with attendance while icing a very good exciting team I loved the Nordiques and the rivalry with Montreal and I would love to see more Canadian teams but unfortunately if the NHL is to grow the rivalry with other major league sports they need a mega tv contract out of the US and need to expand more on that market. America has been producing amazing hockey players and that needs to keep growing to help grow hockey even more
p.t.o. goalie Eetu Makiniemi signed a 1-year, 2-way deal with Philadelphia, while another p.t.o goalie. Dylan Ferguson, received a 1-year, minor-league deal with Iowa of the AHL after he was released by the Canucks from his p.t.o. there.
Give any expansion to Quebec. No more Houston, Atlanta/ especially no Phoenix talk. Canada deserves another team
Phoenix, with the right ownership group, and a suitable arena, would be better than Quebec. The two aforementioned factors being key.
The issue for Quebec is the expansion fee. No one is going to pay $1B+ for a team that makes a couple million a year when they could just leave that money in a bank account and make $50M in interest. As a Jets fan I can fully acknowledge we got super lucky getting a team for $150M because no one was paying $1B, let alone even $500M, to put a team in Winnipeg. The economics have priced out every part of Canada except the GTA for another team.
Brock it`s not a question of how much a team might make each year. It`s the value of the team when you buy it and what you think it would be when you sell it.. Roger`s just paid 4.75 billion Canadian to buy 1/3 of MLSE and they want to buy the last 1/3 they don`t own. That means MLSE in their opinion is worth almost 15 billion Canadian. They`re doing it because they think the value will go up when they sell it, especially if the Leafs somehow win a cup or the Rapters win another NBA title. I think Rogers paid about1 billion originally for the 1/3 they had owned. The value of the franchises is what they look at, not the yearly profit or losses.
You still have to have someone with deep enough pockets to want a team in that market. Beyond a GTA 2.0 team, no one is going to pay $1B+ for a team in a unserved/underserved Canadian market.
Ottawa just sold for what 900 million, if someone got the chance to put a franchise in lets say London, Ont, there would be a line up for that at 1.5 billion
Actually, a team in or near London or even the Kitchener-Waterloo area would be hugely successful and might be more palpable for the Leafs owners than a 2nd team within the GTA. Or Hamilton 🙂