NHL Morning Coffee Headlines – September 25, 2025
The latest on Islanders captain Anders Lee, Stars captain Jamie Benn, Senators winger Drake Batherson, and more in today’s NHL Morning Coffee Headlines.
NEW YORK POST: Islanders captain Anders Lee will be sidelined for one to two weeks with an upper-body injury. The timeline is precautionary, and there’s little concern that he’ll miss their season opener on Oct. 9.
DAILY FACEOFF: Speaking of the Islanders, goaltender Semyon Varlamov is not close to rejoining his teammates. His last game was in November 2024, and he underwent knee surgery in December. He’s been skating individually during training camp.
New York Islanders captain Anders Lee (NHL Images).
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Islanders signed goalie David Rittich this summer to a one-year contract as insurance in case Varlamov remained out of the lineup.
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Stars captain Jamie Benn is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury. He was held out of practice on Wednesday as a precautionary measure, but there’s no indication that the injury is serious.
OTTAWA SUN: Senators winger Drake Batherson has been ruled out for two weeks after pulling an upper-body muscle. He could miss their season-opening game on Oct. 9.
TSN: Milan Lucic is day-to-day with a suspected groin injury. He’s attending the St. Louis Blues training camp on a professional tryout offer. Head coach Jim Montgomery suggested the 37-year-old winger could get into a couple of preseason games next week if he returns to the lineup by then.
THE TENNESSEAN: Nashville Predators defenseman Nicolas Hague will miss the next four to six weeks with an upper-body injury. He left the second game of a doubleheader against the Florida Panthers on Sept. 21 and didn’t return. The Predators acquired the 26-year-old Hague in a trade with the Vegas Golden Knights and signed him to a four-year contract on July 1.
SPORTSNET: Vancouver Canucks forward Nils Hoglander left Wednesday’s game with the Calgary Flames after suffering a lower-body injury. He was wearing a walking boot after the game and will be evaluated on Thursday.
PITTSBURGH HOCKEY NOW: Penguins goalie Joel Blomqvist is day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
DAILY FACEOFF: Edmonton Oilers forward Vasily Podkolzin is taking a leave of absence after his father, Alexander, died suddenly on Tuesday. Earlier this week, Podkolzin signed a three-year contract extension with the Oilers.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: My condolences to Podkolzin on the passing of his father.
Fascinating stuff.
Big Save Dave eh? Who knew the Isles had him!?
Bummer about Drake. Sens have had a bit of a ho-hum preseason.
Lucic should retire.
..and Blue Jays. Ughh…taking a page out of the other big Toronto sports franchise’s playbook. Great regular season full of promise, limp into the playoffs and are about to get stomped on by Boston in the wildcard round.
When it comes to goaltending one team to keep an eye on is Anaheim, currently with 3 on the roster:
Dostal $6.5 mil per and the acknowledged # 1 – Mrazek $4.25 mil and a UFA at season’s end – Husso $2.2 mil and acquired in Feb deal with Detroit.
Since it’s unlikely Verbeek will choose to go with 3 during the season (although with the way he manages, who knows?), he’ll likely either waive Mrazek – and hope someone claims him – or if unclaimed, assign him to the AHL, despite the fact his cap hit will remain on the books.
It’s not as if he doesn’t have the cap reserve to do that, with $20.5 mil. And that fact makes it hard to understand why he’s playing hardball with one of THE best young players in his system! He needs to s^%t or get off the pot there.
With the Podkolzin signing, the Oilers have a hair over 41 million in cap space for next year with 1.945 million in potential bonuses.
The will have to re-sign or replace the following players:
McDavid, Henrique, Kapanen, Tomasek, Lazar, Ekholm, Walman, Kulak, Stectcher, Skinner and Pickard.
Only three defensemen signed and no goalies.
I think the team looks weaker this year (just my opinion) but next year could be worse.
Dave – i actually feel the team is stronger entering this season than it was last season. Of course I say that with the benefit of hindsight and the disappointments that were Skinner and Arvidsson.
Also their top 4 is better with Walman.
I really think they will have their best regular season in the mcdavid era. Now before anyone comes after me…I am not planning any parade speaking only to how I think they do in regular season all things remaining equal.
As for the contracts…Walman may be signed soon by all accounts. Ekholm I suspect follows soon after. The rest, outside maybe Kulak (mcdavid not withstanding) can be handled after the season if there is mutual interest.
Skinner is the one that scares me. Goalies scare me lol. He is likely going to get 5.5 and up just for having a solid year.
Assuming he has a solid year.
He should scare you. He isn’t exactly elite and sometimes not even solid. As you said, that’s the way of goalies. They are always the Gumpian box of chocolates.
Lucic? Why? To slowly play 5 min on the 4th line at the expense of someone else. Seems kind of dumb to me to even entertain a PTO for him.
Not to mention nothing left in the way of being any kind of effective “physical presence.” If that’s what they were looking for they’d have been better off giving UFA Klim Kostin a shot as a P.T.O.
GeorgeO,foleyd7,in regards to Lucic he has had his problem with alcohol in the past and Monty is a recovering alcoholic so I see this as a guy helping a friend by giving him a chance.They were both in Boston for a short time.
Off Subject, but I thought I’d share. HOCKEY WILL NOT WORK IN UTAH.
I just spent a week in Salt Lake City performing at a Pumpkin Patch that had over 10,000 visitors this past week (actually a slow opening weekend for them)…Anyway, I also lived in SLC from 2007-2018 and ran some radio stations there. I used to talk about Hockey now and then in my radio show. The GM of the Grizzlies used to listen to my show and invited me to do some on ice announcements and host some games and such between periods. There was NEVER more than 1500 people at any of the games, and to be honest, no one in the city ever talked or care about hockey…
So the reason, that I’m giving you so much back round is because when I say this, you don’t think I’m just pontificating….
Out off those 10,000 + people (mom’s, dad’s, grandma’s, grandpa’s kid, etc.) that I saw, NOT ONE of them had on anything that said Utah Mammoths…NOT EVEN ONE… and i know it sounds like an exaggeration, but literally ZERO.
So, I’ve said this before in previous posts, but hockey will not work in Utah… their ONLY hope is that they win to create a few fans, and can stick around long enough to make it to the 2034 Olympics, which I believe is in Utah again. Maybe that will create some interest.
It’s really a shame, because I saw their practice facility and drove by the arena, both beautiful… just no pulses at all. And with such a young and exciting team that they will put on the ice this year, it could have gone to a city that cares.
That’s All…. thanks for reading
A couple notes. I pulled this off a search that says all their games were sold out:
The official attendance figure for the Utah Mammoth’s 2024-25 season was 11,131, which is the seating capacity for unobstructed views at the Delta Center. Although not a part of the official capacity, an additional 4,889 obstructed-view seats were available, and the team was reported to sell out all home games, with the Delta Center selling out every night.
As for Jersey’s, a few points: last year they were just the “hockey club” which to me as just a waste of time for merch sales when everyone knew another name was still coming. The Mammoth name and jerseys are new to this season so new sales might need to build.
Having said that, I would not find it odd to attend a non-hockey event and not see any hockey jerseys on people, especially adults.
I don’t disagree with anything you said or found on line…The seats were almost ALL corporate.
I promise you there is ZERO pulse in that city…I must have had 15 conversations with people from all walks of life…and not one said they ever have a conversation about the Utah Hockey team.
Also, I travel the country to perform at Pumpkin Patches all over North America during the Halloween Season…And when I do my week in Chicago…TONS of Blackhawk Jerseys. When I’m in Nashville, tons of Preds Jersey’s. When I’m in St. Louis, tons of Blues Jersey’s….Still hoping that the Farms I work with in Lacombe, Calgary, Vancouver, and Toronto will have me out some year.
Interesting perspective, Starsfan … thanks.
Be equally interesting to see what effect the arena adjustments will make on their average attendance:
https://sports.betmgm.com/en/blog/nhl/best-and-worst-nhl-attendance-bm30/
Also off-topic is the fact that no less than 9 new head coaches (at least “new” to the teams in question) will be behind the benches to start the season. Not sure if there were ever that many at the beginning of a new season.
Wonder which will result in marked team improvements … and who’ll be the first to get axed
NYR Mike Sullivan; Anaheim Joel Quenneville; Philadelphia Rick Tochet; Dallas Glen Gulutzan; Boston Marco Sturm; Chicago Jeff Blashill; Seattle Lane Lambert; Pittsburgh Dan Muse; Vancouver Adam Foote.
Chance of success,Sullivan,Quenville,Tocchet,veteran coaches. Can t miss because of talent,Guluztan.Foote and Lambert have something to work with.Blashill.Sturm,Muse,can t make chicken salad out of chicken …..
An earlier post about the Oilers D saying they have a better top 4 now, citing Walman and Ekholm.
I admit that I don’t see that many Oiler regular season games but those two were seriously exposed in the playoffs.
Ekholm was slow and frequently out of position, unable to recover. Maybe he should have stayed out with injury, but he looked bad.
Walman seemed to be trying too hard to fill a role he’s not made for with frustration making him take some stupid penalties.
Habfan30 Florida exposed everyone in the playoffs!
Habfan30 Florida exposed everyone in the playoffs!
Habsfan30
Ekholm was either still hurt or healthy and just could catch up to the pace missing a few weeks before the playoffs and all but one game 1 in the 1st 2 rounds.
He was a shade of the steady dependable player he normally is. When I go on about thier top 4 I am talking about that player before last years injury.
Keep in mind Walman is taking a spot that was previously held down by names like Ceci, Stetcher, Embersson, and occasionally Kulak the last 2 seasons. That is a noticeable step up imo and he was extremely good for us down the stretch and in the playoffs
When we talk playoffs, it is rare than any Dman will look good in games that their team loses 😉
The Senators cut their roster down to 31 by placing Wyatt Bongiovanni, Xavier Bourgault, Cameron Crotty, Garrett Pilon, and Hunter Shepard on waivers, while Tyler Boucher, Jake Chiasson, Oskar Pettersson, Djibril Toure, Matthew Andonovski, Jorian Donovan, Tomas Hamara, Jackson Parsons, Jamieson Rees, Phillippe Daoust, Landon Hookey Keean Washkurak have all been assigned to Belleville (AHL).
The 31 left in camp are C Stutzle, Cozens, Pinto, Eller, Halliday and Jenik, LW Tkachuk, Perron, Greig, Cousins, Lycksell and Hodgson, RW Giroux, Batherson, Zetterlund, Amadio, Kalliyev and MacEwen, LD Sanderson, Chabot, Kleven, Sebrango, RD Zub, Jensen, Spence, Yakemchuk, Matinpalo and Thompson, and Goalies Ullmark, Merilainen and Sogaard.
And, as expected, goalie Connor Ingram is being waived.