Saturday Headlines with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and Damien Cox on Hockey Night in Canada, October 10th, 2015.
Elliotte Friedman on Mike Richards…
- Mike Richards will be on the Los Angeles Kings salary cap until the 2030-31 season. The first five seasons will pay a $1.32 million cap penalty, plus the settlement. The rest of the term is just the settlement. It is believed, but not confirmed, that the settlement is in the neighbourhood of $500,000 on average, although it varies year-to-year.
- There are a lot of teams in the NHL that are not very happy about this. The leagues position is, if the Kings would have won the grievance, there would have been no cap hit.
Damien Cox on what PTO’s mean for the future…
- 12 players got contracts off PTOs (professional tryouts) this fall. That’s about a third of the number of players who had tryouts. You are going to see a lot more of these going forward, and you’re also going to see a lot more players on July 1st sign for less than a million dollars because they don’t want to be left in that situation.
Cox on Jimmy Vesey…
- Keep your eye on Harvard Senior Jimmy Vesey. He’s a Nashville Predators draft pick who scored 32 goals in 37 games last year. He will be an unrestricted free agent in April and teams are lining up already to hopefully sign him.
- The Toronto Maple Leafs have hired his father as a scout.
Friedman on Sabres goalie update…
- The Buffalo Sabres haven’t announced anything regarding goaltender Robin Lehner, but he will be out months with what’s believed to be a high ankle sprain. Tim Murray is expected to go with Chad Johnson in goal, and maybe he will also give a chance to Linus Ullmark, one of their top prospects, who’s playing in Rochester (AHL).
Friedman on Nikitin…
- There were rumours this week that Edmonton’s Nikita Nikitin may go back to Russia instead of playing in the AHL. That is not the case. He is staying.