The waning days of summer yielded plenty of original content over the past seven days here at PHR as we eagerly wait for an uptick in transactions with training camps on the horizon. In case you missed them earlier, we’ll run through the pieces here. And if you have suggestions for content or features for the upcoming season, please note them here.
As is always the case, last season saw some players have breakout years and other long-time producing veterans wound up struggling. Josh Cybulski took a look at some of the players who could be in line for bounce-back seasons with Pittsburgh goaltender Tristan Jarry, Vancouver center Elias Pettersson, and Los Angeles winger Andrei Kuzmenko among the candidates to see their performance tick back up in the right direction.
Josh Erickson held his usual weekly chat plus an extra one on Labor Day. In the first, topics included the state of the Devils and the Luke Hughes negotiations, whether St. Louis should look into moving Jordan Binnington, and Filip Chytil’s potential as he’s set to begin his first full season in Vancouver. In the second, discussion points including Wyatt Kaiser remaining unsigned in Chicago, Berkly Catton’s potential to make Seattle’s roster next season, and who the first head coach to be fired might be this season.
Our Summer Synopsis continued as I examined Seattle’s offseason while Brennan McClain and I did the same for San Jose. The Kraken were busy early on with the hiring of a new coach and the promotion of Jason Botterill to GM but there wasn’t a lot of roster turnover although they added some grit on the wing in Mason Marchment and some defensive depth in Ryan Lindgren. Meanwhile, the Sharks were quite active this summer, swinging five trades while bringing in several veterans on short-term deals, including Dmitry Orlov, Jeff Skinner, and John Klingberg. San Jose isn’t expected to be in contention for a playoff spot but with so many short-term contracts on their books, they could be active on the trade front over the coming months as well.
Marc-Edouard Vlasic wasn’t expecting to be in this summer’s free agent class but he was among the few players who were bought out in June, sending him to the open market for the first time. Josh Cybulski looked at the veteran blueliner’s options while noting that a guaranteed NHL deal is going to be difficult for him to come by at this time. Vlasic made it clear he intends to keep playing but at this time,…
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