Pekka Rinne appears to be the Predators goalie of the future.
The Nashville Predators will reportedly announce late Wednesday afternoon that they have agreed to an extension with goalie Pekka Rinne. Terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed. UPDATE: TSN is reporting Rinne’s extension is for two years and $6.8 million ($3.4 million each).
Nashville, like Montreal, was one of the teams that could become active in the trade market before the March 3 deadine because they had two netminders facing free agency this summer. The Preds were reportedly going to make a choice, based on both the on-ice performances of Rinne and Dan Ellis and the progress of contract negotiations, and then open up trade talks regarding the one they didn’t extend.
Which means Ellis is now trade bait.
The Blackhawks have been rumored to be close to a deal with Florida, upgrading their situation between the pipes to include Tomas Vokoun. If Vokoun is indeed available in a trade, however, there would be many potential suitors. The Philadelphia Flyers were one team that was allegedly looking for a new face to put at the top of their depth chart in goal, and they would likely have interest in Vokoun.
Nashville had also reportedly received offers for 26-year old defenseman Dan Hamuis, who will also become a free agent this summer.
The likelihood that a trade would go down inside the Central Division, either between the Blackhawks and Blues or Predators, is doubtful. But the potential of Ellis and Hamhuis being packaged could impact the trade market competing with the Blackhawks for Vokoun, if the Hawks aren’t interested in making an offer to Nashville along the lines that they had discussed with Florida.
The Predators are currently in second place in the Central, 16 points behind the Blackhawks, and are sitting in seventh place in the Western Conference.
We’ll see where the trade winds blow as the Olympic tournament continues, but Nashville might become a major player in both rumors and player movement in the coming weeks.
The Detroit Red Wings traded forward Ville Leino to the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday for defenseman Ole-Kristian Tollefsen and a fifth round draft pick in the 2011 draft.
Detroit then immediately placed Tollefsen on waivers.
Leino, 26, had disappointed the Red Wings this year by only scoring seven points and earning a -10 rating in 42 games. This move was simply a player dump to make room for some of the returning veterans that Detroit has had on the injured reserve, including Johan Franzen. In 55 games over two seasons with Detroit, Leino scored nine goals and seven assists.
Detroit enters Saturday in ninth place in the Western Conference, and has been bouncing back and forth with Calgary for the eighth and final playoff spot. The Red Wings haven’t been healthy all year, though, and should be near 100 percent after the Olympic break.
For Philadelphia, they receive an underachieving forward in exchange for Tollefsen, 25, who has missed a total of 30 games because of concussion and MCL injuries. Tollefsen signed with Philadelphia in July after spending three seasons in Columbus. If he clears waivers, he’ll be assigned to Grand Rapids.
Sometimes it’s good to be good, other times it’s good to be lucky. Right now, it appears the Hawks are both good and lucky.
On Saturday night, the Blackhawks blew a four-goal lead in Minnesota, eventually losing the game 6-5 in a shootout. While we don’t know yet the effect this loss will have on the confidence of the young Hawks, we do know that it won’t hurt them much in the Western Conference standings. Consider the following results from Saturday night action for the rest of the top teams in the West:
So on a night where the Hawks blew a huge lead, the one point the received in the standings actually extended their lead on San Jose for first in the conference and kept pace with everyone else in the conference’s playoff picture except Detroit, who added two points with a solid home win over the Sharks.
So, like the Beatles, the Hawks appear to be getting by with a little help from their friends on Saturday night.
The Hawks won't face Jason Chimera, front left, in Columbus again.
On Monday, the last-place Columbus Blue Jackets made a fairly substantial deal that could improve the youngest roster in the NHL and make them more competitive in the Central Division in 2010.
The Jackets traded veteran forward Jason Chimera to Washington for veterans forward Chris Clark and defenseman Milan Jurcina. Chimera, 30, was a well-respected leader in the Jackets’ locker room and had 17 points (8 G, 9 A) so far this season. Chimera, with 47 penalty minutes, becomes Washington’s new leader in that category. The struggling Jackets have enough holes that this was a move of necessity.
Clark had been the captain of the Capitals for the last four seasons and was enjoying a moderate renaissance this season with 15 points already (4 G, 11 A). The younger Jurcina, 26, has only four assists on the season while averaging over 17 minutes per game for the first place Capitals. Washington has the luxury of depth on the blue line, so Jurcina was an affordable loss.
It has been an interesting couple days in Washington. On Sunday, the team announced a one-year extension for emerging 25-year old forward Alexander Semin, and then traded their captain on Monday. It isn’t very often that a first place team trades a captain in the middle of the season, and Washington will not rush to select a replacement.
On Monday, without the traded players being available, the teams saw opposite results. The Jackets shut out the Red Wings 1-0 in overtime behind a fabulous 34-save night from Steve Mason. The Capitals, meanwhile, lost 6-3 at home to the bad Carolina Hurricanes.
While the Blackhawks have already wrapped up their season series with the second-place Nashville Predators, they have only played the last-place Blue Jackets once this year. The Hawks will get three shots at the Jackets before the Olympics, though, and will see Chimera again on March 14 when the Capitals come to Chicago.
With just under two minutes left in the first period on Thursday night, Detroit star forward and leading scorer Henrik Zetterberg needed help to leave the ice. After a hard, but legal, hit from Mattias Ohlund, Zetterberg was taken to the dressing room with what’s being called an “upper body injury” (of course). TSN is reporting that the initial prognosis isn’t good, however.
For a video of the hit, click here.
The Red Wings are also skating without injured forwards Johan Franzen, Valterri Filppula, Jason Williams and Dan Cleary. Defenseman Jonathan Ericsson was hurt on Monday night, joining Niklas Kronwall on the sidelines from Detroit’s defensive group.
As the injury to Zetterberg, and his timetable for return, are made more clear, we’ll update the story.
UPDATE: Reports on Friday morning are that Zetterberg will miss at least two weeks with a “slight left shoulder separation.” In the next two weeks, the Red Wings have a crucial stretch of games where they play two home-and-home series with Chicago and Columbus.
Reports out of Detroit on Sunday are that the Red Wings have lost another key player to injury.
Niklas Kronwall sprained the MCL in his left knee in an open-ice collision with Georges Laraque in Montreal on Saturday, and will reportedly miss the next four to eight weeks.
This news hits the Wings at a terrible time, as they have a busy schedule against good offensive teams coming up. This week, Detroit travels to Nashville on Monday before hosting high-scoring Atlanta on Wednesday and Calgary on Friday. The Predators sit just one point behind the Wings for third in the Central Division entering Monday night’s contest.
Kronwall, 28, is arguably Detroit’s most physical player. He has scored 13 points (5 G, 8 A) through Saturday’s game.
Kronwall joins Johan Franzen, Jason Williams and Valterri Filppula on the bench for the Wings.
