NHL Morning Coffee Headlines – February 1, 2025
Game recaps, the Penguins ship Marcus Pettersson to the Canucks in a multiplayer deal, analysis of J.T. Miller trade, Brandon Saad signs with the Golden Knights, updated salary-cap projections, and more in today’s NHL Morning Coffee Headlines.
RECAPPING FRIDAY’S NHL GAMES
NHL.COM: An overtime goal by Zach Werenski lifted the Columbus Blue Jackets to a 3-2 victory over the Utah Hockey Club. Kirill Marchenko and Kent Johnson scored as the Blue Jackets overcame a 2-0 deficit, setting the stage for Werenski’s game-winner. The Jackets picked up their third straight win and hold the first Eastern Conference wild-card berth with 59 points. Nick Schmaltz and Alexander Kerfoot scored for Utah, who are winless in their last four games (0-2-2).
Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski (NHL Images).
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Utah sophomore center Logan Cooley missed this game as he’s sidelined indefinitely with a lower-body injury.
Cooley is also part of Utah’s Quarter Century Team. He’s on the First Team with fellow forwards Dylan Guenther and Clayton Keller, defensemen Michael Kesselring and Mikhail Sergachev and goaltender Karel Vejmelka. The Second Team features forwards Nick Schmaltz, Alex Kerfoot and Jack McBain, defensemen Ian Cole and Olli Maatta, and goalie Connor Ingram.
A four-goal first period lifted the Colorado Avalanche over the St. Louis Blues 5-0. Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 19 shots for the shutout, Jonathan Drouin had a goal and an assist, and Nathan MacKinnon collected his league-leading 60th assist as the Avalanche hold the first Western Conference wild-card spot with 62 points. The Blues (50 points) have lost four straight and sit seven points out of the final Western wild card.
Buffalo Sabres forward Jiri Kulich snapped a 3-3 tie late in the third period to give his club a 4-3 win over the Nashville Predators. Kulich finished with two goals and teammate Rasmus Dahlin collected two assists for the Sabres. Predators defenseman Brady Skjei had a goal and an assist in a losing cause as his club has dropped three straight games.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Sabres inducted Rob Ray into their Hall of Fame in a pregame ceremony. Ray spent nearly 14 seasons as an enforcer with the Sabres from 1989-90 to 2002-03, becoming one of the most popular players in franchise history.
Predators goaltender Juuse Saros missed this game due to an illness while teammate Luke Evangelista returned to the lineup following an eight-game absence with a lower-body injury.
The Dallas Stars picked up their fourth straight victory by downing the Vancouver Canucks 5-3. Roope Hintz and Jason Robertson each had two goals and an assist for the Stars (67 points), who sit one point ahead of the Minnesota Wild in second place in the Central Division. Conor Garland, Jake DeBrusk and Carson Soucy replied for the Canucks (56 points), who remain one point behind the Calgary Flames for the final Western wild-card berth.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Stars placed defenseman Miro Heiskanen (knee) on injured reserve earlier in the day. Meanwhile, Canucks captain Quinn Hughes was banged up during this game. He told reporters following the game he’ll see how he’s doing over the next 48 hours.
The Canucks made bigger news off the ice on Friday. Read on to find out.
HEADLINES
NHL.COM: The Pittsburgh Penguins traded defenseman Marcus Pettersson and winger Drew O’Connor to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for forward Danton Heinen, defenseman Vincent Desharnais, prospect forward Melvin Fernstrom and a conditional 2025 first-round pick that originally belonged to the New York Rangers.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: This move came on the heels of the Canucks trading center J.T. Miller to the New York Rangers. That first-round pick sent to the Penguins was part of the return the Cancusk received in the Miller deal.
Canucks president Jim Rutherford and general manager Patrik Allvin were familiar with Pettersson and O’Connor during their tenure with the Penguins. Both are eligible to become unrestricted free agents on July 1 but could end up signed to contract extensions.
Heinen and Desharnais were off-season additions for the Canucks who didn’t pan out. Both have a year remaining on their contracts at a combined cap hit of $4.25 million, making them affordable stopgap additions for the retooling (rebuilding?) Penguins. The prize for the Pens is the conditional first, which is top-13 protected. They now have two first-rounders in this year’s draft.
THE PROVINCE: Patrick Johnston reports the hope for the Canucks in the wake of the Miller trade is Elias Pettersson will regain his scoring touch. A rift between the two players was blamed for the decline in both players’ performances.
NEW YORK POST: Larry Brooks believes Miller’s return to the Rangers is what the struggling club needs now and for the future. He will make them more formidable and consistent at center, keeping their Stanley Cup window open.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: It’ll be interesting to see how this deal affects both clubs over the remainder of this season and the foreseeable future.
LAS VEGAS SUN: The Vegas Golden Knights signed Brandon Saad to a one-year, $1.5 million contract on Friday. The 32-year-old winger became a UFA on Friday following the termination of his deal with the St. Louis Blues.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Golden Knights are considered a Stanley Cup contender but they’ve been struggling recently. Saad could regain his scoring touch in Vegas, which could improve their offensive punch and his stock in this summer’s free-agent market.
NHL: The league and the NHL Players’ Association announced their projected payroll ranges for the next three seasons.
The upper limit is expected to reach $95.5 million for 2025-26 with a lower limit of $70.6 million. For 2026-27, the upper limit could reach $104 million with the lower limit at $76.9 million. For 2027-28, the upper limit could be $113.5 million with the lower limit at $83.9 million.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Those numbers could be adjusted up or down depending on hockey-related revenue (HRR) fluctuations. Nevertheless, those projected figures indicate a significant rise in the cap after several stagnant years following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Big-market teams will be delighted with those increases as they build and maintain their rosters. However, this will inevitably result in bad contracts, as some teams overpay to retain or add big-name talent.
Meanwhile, some small-market clubs could have difficulty reaching the cap floor. Revenue sharing will help but it’s unlikely to get them to the cap ceiling. That could become an issue in the next round of collective bargaining scheduled to begin later this month.
THE SEATTLE TIMES: Kraken center Yanni Gourde underwent successful surgery to repair a sports hernia. He’s expected to be sidelined for five to seven weeks.
Gourde, 33, is UFA-eligible this summer and was frequently the subject of trade rumors. However, he’ll be out until after the March 7 trade deadline, which could see him finish the season with the Kraken.
DAILY FACEOFF: San Jose Sharks forward Nikolai Kovalenko is sidelined indefinitely with an upper-body injury.
NBC SPORTS PHILADELPHIA: The Flyers recalled goaltender Aleksei Kolosov on Friday and placed defenseman Egor Zamula (upper body) on injured reserve.
NEW YORK POST: The Islanders claimed defenseman Adam Boqvist off waivers from the Florida Panthers.
Hold the presses
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury
Dubas has finally had a clear win on a trade
2 UFAs (one of which was struggling very bad defensively) for 2 players WITH term; a 1st; and a prospect (rights to; and unlikely to make NHL; but an asset all the same)
Let me be clear; I am very sad to lose our best Defenseman. However, his exit seemed to be a foregone conclusion.
Heinan in; O’Connor out is an uptick for Pens; now and obviously next year.
Deharnais in…. Finally Pens get an RHD. 50 plus games in the season carrying only 2 RHDs was painful and costly.
A first (conditional but Rangers are now going to make playoffs so it won’t be top 13).
And…. We actually gained a bit of Cap space. Some, but anything counts.
Attention Eastern Wildcard teams; AND Devils
Rangers comin’
Big mouth Jim Rutherford handed Drury a glorious path back to the playoffs
By announcing something had to be done “now” vs later because of their internal issues, Rutherford basically was screaming “help me”. With a player needed to be moved; and a full NMC, and basically one realistic/viable trade partner; your not going to win the trade. Cannucks lost badly.
Drury pounced. Rangers got a big improvement to their team at pennies on the dollar.
Rutherford/Alvin still swooning from that trade; gifted the Pens a really nice win
Winners from all of this: Rangers, Pens, JT Miller, Heinen, Deharnais, Flames (very big boost in playoff odds)
Hopefully for Marcus Pettersson , he continues to showcase his abilities and gets rewarded appropriately as a UFA in July
8787 How about Bunting to Bostonfor Frederic and a 3rd round pick?
Hi Sr
I’d jump on that if Frederic was under contract next year. I doubt he’d re-up with Pens.
If Dubas somehow got permission (ahead of time) to negotiate an extension ; then good to go
Now that Dubas has started his exodus movement/re-tool; here (for your enjoyment and laughter) is a couple of big trades (get the popcorn out and prepare to giggle)
Wings on cusp of breaking through playoff drought. An established and highly productive top line winger (with term) and PP specialist D-Man; and checking line depth forward might be the answer
To Wings : *Rust, Grzylcyck, Accairi, McGroarty, 3rd (Wild’s in ‘25)
To Pens: Edvinnsson, Rasmussen, Danielson, 1st (‘25- top 10 protected)
*Rusty would have to approve (full NMC)
Then send Rangers’ 1st, Wings’ 1st, Pens’ 1st (top 10 protected); 3rd (‘25–later of Sens/Pens); Hayes , Lizotte , Graves to Sabres
For Cozens ; Byram; Aube-Kubell
Result for balance of this year:
Crosby Malkin Rackell
Cozens Bunting Tomassino or Rasmussen
Glass Beuvillier and Tomassino or Rasmussen or Heinen
Koivunen Puljaarvi and Rasmussen or Heinen
13th/14th: Aube-Kubel OR Katchouk OR Bemstrom
Letang Byram
Karllsson Edvinnsson
Deharnais P-O J
7th/8th: Pickering Hallowell
Pens younger, bigger, faster, stronger, waaaaaaaay better defensively ; much much better overall; and youth in place and rights owned through end of Crosby career
The above team is play-off bound in ‘26
Note in 25/26…. Danielson, Koivunen, Katchouk have fair chance to crack line-up;
Whoa there 8787 ! Your proposal to Detroit is pretty far out in left field ! Maybe not on the same continent. Let me explain point by point:
1. Yzerman has stated multiple times that he intends to stick with his plan of building from within’ and not trading our young assets / high picks just to make the playoffs. He stated that before the season, and repeated it at his presser when they hired McLellan.
2. Grzylcyck and Accairi have zero value to the Wings, or anyone else. And Detroit’s PP is already #4 overall at over 27%, so they are not in the market for any PP help.
3. Pittsburgh has nothing….zilch….in their system that gets them Edvinsson. He is a #1 LD youngster, and has more raw talent than Seider. He is not available – period !
4. That leaves Rust, McGroarty, and the Minny third, which would not get you Danielson and a first.
No thank you.
Pittsburgh has nothing that gets them Edvinnson, let alone Danielson and a 1st. Du(m)bas(s) has to scrap roster.
Iago and DTzak, you can’t enter logic into the thought processes of someone who is preoccupied with Fantasy League manoeuvres.
87, everybody and their dog knew Rutherford had to do something and quickly if he wants to have the Nucks make the playoffs and not waste the season. Which he obviously does. If I thought so did every GM in the league.
He knew what the return was before he had the presser, he was simply lowering expectations for the fans. It had zero impact on the return, the deal was done.
I thought those 2 could get over it, but it has been 2 months of this sh*t, it wasn’t going to change.
Iago
Did you not read “ for your enjoyment and laughter”?
You need to see when something is posted as a joke
Dubas lucked out with panicking Rutherford; not a chance Dubas finds another fool
Ray
You’re giving Rutherford way too much credit. There is no way two weeks ago he ever anticipated this poor of a return.
I can’t buy that his public statement was directed at tempering expectations.
He got reamed on two deals in the same day.
In the Pens deal he did get the best player in the deal; but Pettersson (Marcus) is aUFA; and now with Miller’s offence gone, playoff odds just dipped significantly. O’Connor (also a UFA)has struggled mightily this year.
If Rutherford had kept his mouth shut; I’m convinced the deal is not as lopsided. Still would not have beaten Drury, but should have gotten more.
Dtzak,
Agree. It was a joke (and dream) set of trades (19 assets moved in 2 trades)
Although very sad to see Marcus Pettersson leave; the net overall in the trade was definitely worth it.
Finally…….. You give some credit to Dubas the world may stop. LOL
Nice deal i left you a message on the other spectors article the one with 33 comments..
Dubas did well..
Dude why would you trade Rust and McGroarty now you are being silly…
Dylan Cousins is slow, unproductive, and certainly worth $7.1 million for 5 years
Bowen Byrum yes…you add him to Owen Pickering 20 and Harrison Brunicke 19 wow three young defenseman for to core and future..now your talking
McGroarty beefed up heating up, Ville Koivunen up to 14 goals in Wilkes Barrie and Ponomarev a hat trick last night both players in the Guentzel trade you said we lost
Why did VAN trade a first for 2 UFA players?
I understand they had limited destinations for JT but that 1st could not of brought them a better return?
I think VAN wanted Schneider but took Mancini and the 1st instead. Mancini has potential to max at 2nd pairing. smart kid with decent size.
Yesterday I posted the away records of the Eastern teams that are evenly split between those performing at a .500+ pace and those at various levels below .500. Here’s how the Western teams stack up, with 9 at various levers of .500 and up, with 4 at different stages of the .400 range and 3 struggling FAR below .400:
Top 9
Minnesota 28gp 20-5-3 – .768 (by far the best in the League)
Edmonton 23gp 14-7-2 – .652
Winnipeg 25gp 16-9-0 – .640
Vancouver 26gp 14-8-4 – .615
Dallas 24gp 14-10-0 – .583
Colorado 26gp 15-11-0 – .577
Vegas 24gp 12-9-3 – .563
Utah 26gp 13-10-3 – .558
St. Louis 27gp 12-12-3 – .500
Bottom 7
Calgary 24gp 9-11-4 – .458
Anaheim 26gp 10-12-4 – .462
Los Angeles 30gp 11-14-5 – .450
Seattle 25gp 10-15-0 – .400
Nashville 26gp 6-16-4 – .308
San Jose 28gp 6-17-5 – .304
Chicago 6-16-3 – .300
While each of Calgary, Anaheim and L.A. can get to .500 and above with marginal improvement in their road performances, for the rest of the bottom 7 it’s a hopeless cause.
The home records of the Western teams present even weirder, hard-to-understand stats in some cases:
Top 9
Los Angeles 19gp 15-5-1 – .816
Winnipeg 28gp 20-5-3 – .768
Vegas 28gp 19-6-3 – .732
Dallas 27gp 19-7-1 – .722
Edmonton 28gp 18-8-2 – .679
Calgary 26gp 16-7-3 – .673
Colorado 27gp 15-10-2 – .593
Nashville 24gp 12-9-3 – .563
Seattle 28gp 13-12-3 – .518
Bottom 7
Anaheim 25gp 11-12-2 – .480
Vancouver 25gp 9-10-6 – .480
Minnesota 24gp 11-12-1 – .479
St. Louis 25gp 11-13-1 – .460
Utah 25gp 8-11-6 – .440
Chicago 26gp 10-14-2 – .423
San Jose 26gp 9-16-1 – .365
L.A. having played just 19 games at home is accounted for by those devastating fires which resulted in a number being postponed, but their solid record in those 19 games, giving them 22 at home from here to the end bodes well for their final record if they can get a marginal uptick in their away record.
Where it gets weird is seeing the sub-.500 pace of Minnesota at home when compared to their league-leading away record! Others who seem to enjoy road cooking better than that at home to varying degrees include Vancouver, St. Louis and Utah.
Another puzzling situation is that of Nashville. A lot of teams – east and west – show reductions – to widely varying degrees – in their points percentage pace between home and away.
But the Predators take it to a whole new level. At home they are a rock solid .563, but when they hit the road they sink to a sub-.400 pace of .308!!
That is just inexplicable by any reasoning.
the cap ceiling has approached the spiraling amount pre-cap that led to a lockout and a loss of an entire season. not sure how small and mid-size teams will be able to keep up, especially with the downfall of RSN’s. I doubt there will be a constant money pit for nhl rights by ESPN/TNT/TBS etc in the future as the cable TV market falters and those channels turn to pure streaming. I see a big fight coming up in an upcoming CBA negotiations about the out of control cap amount
Yeah, for whatever reason(s) apparently they are rolling in cash these days and it’s easy for NHL and PA to agree. But everything is cyclical and it’s only a matter of time before the revenue growth slows or plain stupidity among the owners lands them all back in the 2005 end of the spectrum.
At any rate, I really enjoy the parity in the league at the moment and hope they don’t kill it off too quickly in the rush to pad their coffers or whatever the expression would be. That said, I have plenty of other good ways to spend time waiting for when things turn sour again.
and I know it’s local to the NY market, but MSG networks, which airs games for the NY Rangers, NY Islanders, NJ Devils, along with NY Knicks and NY Liberty (basketball), which pulled their networks in January off cable TV for the majority of cable subscribers in NYC and NJ, may be going bankrupt. MSG Networks is owned/run by Jim Dolan, the same owner who put in spy cameras in MSG to block entry for anyone (with paid tickets mind you) involved in lawsuits against him, and formerly the owner of Cablevision, the majority TV subscriber for NJ (Devils) and NY. MSG networks spawned up a streaming only app (Gotham) at a disgusting price of $30/month (??!!) which is more than ESPN+ or MAX.
The same channels were pulled off Comcast cable TV 2 years ago, which were the other main provider of cable TV to NJ. Because of all these lost cable rights they are losing $10M a month. Pig owner Jim Dolan may have to sell part/all of the sports channels to Amazon. Serves him right
https://nypost.com/2025/01/31/media/msg-networks-in-talks-to-avoid-bankruptcy-possibly-with-help-of-amazon-sources/