There’s a lot going on around the NHL right now. In the wake of the Frozen Frenzy with all 32 teams in action on Tuesday night, there are injuries piling up around the league and trade rumors swirling already — and it isn’t even Halloween yet.
Let’s take a quick lap around the league with some non-Blackhawks specific news and notes from across the NHL.
2025 Draft Watch List
NHL Central Scouting released its preliminary watch list of players for the 2025 NHL Draft. As a reminder, they rank players with letter ratings, not in a 1-TBD rank. An “A” rating indicates the player has a first-round grade at this point. This year’s class has only 24 players with a first-round grade in late-October. Note: they’re (hopefully obviously) listed in alphabetical order.
4 Nations Face-Off Tickets, Jerseys
If you want to watch the 4 Nations Face-Off in person in Montreal of Boston, tickets will go on sale on Oct. 29 and 30. That was announced by the NHLPA and NHL on Wednesday. And, in doing so, they apparently were cool with showing us the jerseys the four countries will be wearing at the same time. Thoughts?
🧵👀@Fanatics x #4Nations pic.twitter.com/slEenkyuvC
— NHLPA (@NHLPA) October 23, 2024
Injuries Piling Up
We’ve already had a long list of significant injuries hit early this season. And Wednesday was especially brutal around the NHL.
- St. Louis announced center Robert Thomas suffered a fractured ankle and will be re-evaluated in six weeks.
- Utah announced defensemen Sean Durzi (shoulder surgery, 4-6 months) and John Marino (lower-back surgery, 3-4 months) are going to miss extended time.
- The Islanders announced forward Anthony Duclair will miss 4-6 weeks on Thursday morning.
- When they were in Chicago, the Canucks indicated Dakota Joshua is still 1-2 weeks away from making his season debut.
Those are four new injuries to three teams that want to be in the playoff picture this season. And, while Duclair isn’t a guy who drives the offense for the Isles, they’re all fairly important to the long-term 2024-25 season hopes for their respective teams. This could impact the trade market perhaps being a little warmer sooner than later.
Tampa Bay Ownership Plans
How would you like a rough annual return of 18 percent on an investment? That’s approximately what Jeff Vinik stands to realize (partially) with the announced sale of a stake in the Tampa Bay Lightning. Vinik acquired the Lightning in 2010 for a reported $110 million and is now selling 50 percent of the franchise at a valuation or reportedly $1.8 billion (according to Kurt Badenhausen of Sportico).
Other NHL Notes
- The Vegas Golden Knights locked up defenseman Shea Theodore for seven more years at a $7.425M AAV.
- Since we brought up the draft earlier, this from Elliotte Freidman’s “32 Thoughts” column on Thursday:
The last possible day of the Stanley Cup Final is June 23. The draft dates are not yet set, but the June 27-29 weekend in Los Angeles is the target. (Remember, it will be decentralized this season, teams staying in their markets instead of all in one place.) That tight window means the NHL will try something different with the awards. No show.
- I shared earlier on Thursday multiple reports that the Blackhawks are in the market for a top-six center. David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period also reports the Nashville Predators (and Calgary Flames) are looking for the same thing.
- Pagnotta also reports the Maple Leafs and former Blackhawks defenseman Jake McCabe have been talking about an extension but are not currently close to a deal.
- Finally, Jim Montgomery got on Brad Marchand pretty good on the bench and the cameras caught it. And, of course, there was social media outrage that the Bruins captain was getting torched by his coach. I love Marchand’s response when asked whether or nit it’s a big deal for a coach to light a guy up.