Welcome back hockey fans! Welcome to Week 16 of our news from around the world of hockey and around the league. We’ve had a busy time in the world of hockey, and I was busy myself with some personal things so I missed last week’s report, but let’s jump right in:
- The New York Rangers have traded their young forward Kaapo Kakko to the Seattle Kraken for defenceman Will Borgen and 3rd and 6th round pick in the 2025 draft. Kakko, 23, who was drafted 2nd overall in the 2019 draft and has amassed 61 goals and 70 assists in 330 career games. He also has 14 points (four goals, 10 assists) in 30 games this season and appears to be losing ice time with his head coach Peter Laviolette. The team continues to find solutions as they recently traded their captain Jakob Trouba to Anaheim but have struggled to win hockey games. Will Chris Drury make more moves before the roster free before Christmas (which begins on December 19 this season?)
- The Toronto Maple Leafs have announced that their starting goaltender Anthony Stolarz will be sidelined for the next four-to-six weeks to a due knee injury, specifically a ‘pebble’ found in his knee. Stolarz has played 17 games this season, putting up a 9-5-2 record and has a .927 SV% and allowing a 2.15 GAA. He has been an excellent piece for the team, but they will have to use Joseph Woll and Dennis Hildeby as their tandem. It was also noted that David Kampf is back into the lineup after missing 12 games to a lower body injury.
- It was also announced that Justin Schultz retired from the game of hockey, after the 34-year-old terminated his contract with HC Lugano in Switzerland. Schultz won the Cup back to back with the Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017 after first playing with the Edmonton Oilers. He played 745 games and put up 71 goals and 324 points in 745 games and during that time also played for Washington and Seattle Kraken. We wish him all the best in the future.
- The other trade we had was The Anaheim Ducks traded left-shot defenceman Cam Fowler and a 2027 fourth-round pick to the St. Louis Blues for prospect Jérémie Biakabutuka and a 2nd round pick in the 2027 draft for The Ducks will also retain $2.5 million of Fowler’s salary of 6.5 million. Fowler, 34, only has 4 assists in 17 games, while averaging about 21:04 of ice time per game. We wish both players all the best.
- The Calgary Flames have signed defenceman Brayden Pachal to a two-year contract extension with an AAV of $1,187,500. Pachal, 25, has a goal and an assist in 31 games for the Flames this season and has delivered 72 hits, ranked third on the team. CAlgary is 15-11-6 and continues to stay in the hunt. Congratulations to the young defenceman.
- The Buffalo Sabres are struggling as they have fallen in the standings are are winless in their last 11 games. This comes off a 6 to 1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens and after the owner Terry Pegula spoke to the team. This is a team struggling with finding it’s confidence and holding a lead so there possibly could be changes coming but I wonder what that will look like and if the fans will tune things out. We shall see.
- As always, there is a lot more news so make sure to tune in for our aired Season 6, Episode 16 of Two Guys & Hockey Talk. We dive into some of these great topics, and so much more.
Thoughts? Questions? Suggestions? Then remember to tune in each week to get all the latest news in the world of hockey. For more hockey news, different takes or if you want to chat about anything hockey give me a follow @hockey_two on TWITTER and give us a follow on YouTube, or at https://twoguysandhockeytalk.com/.
- Pawel ‘The Cat’
