The Philadelphia Flyers traded feisty left winger Zac Rinaldo to the Boston Bruins for a third-round pick in the 2017 draft.
Rinaldo, 25, supplied energy but lots of ill-advised penalties during his five-year stint with the Flyers. He had a goal, six points, five fights, and 102 penalty minutes in 58 games last season.
Rinaldo, who made his Flyers debut during the 2011 playoffs, was a sixth-round pick in 2008. He has two years left on his deal with an annual salary-cap hit of $850,000.
The Flyers have $7.25 million in cap space. They are likely to re-sign unrestricted free agents Ryan White and Chris VandeVelde.
In 223 career games with the Flyers, Rinaldo had eight goals, 24 points, 572 penalty minutes, and three suspensions. He was fined twice. Rinaldo was suspended for eight games last season for charging and boarding Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang.
New Bruins General Manager Don Sweeney is hearing criticism in Boston for his draft selections and for failing to get enough when he dealt defenseman Dougie Hamilton to Calgary. But he traded a fairly early 2017 draft pick for Rinaldo.
HALL OF FAME: Stanley Cup winners Nicklas Lidstrom, Chris Pronger and Sergei Fedorov and former NHL star Phil Housley are among the seven newcomers in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The Hall announced Monday that Angela Ruggiero, Bill Hay and Peter Karmanos Jr. also were voted into the shrine.
Pronger, traded from Philadelphia to Arizona last weekend, hasn’t played since November 2011 because of post-concussion syndrome. He works for the league. The fearsome defenseman was eligible because of a bylaw that specifies a player’s final game must be three full seasons ago.
“Nothing I have done has been the easy way, so I guess this follows suit,” Pronger said on a conference call Monday afternoon.
Lidstrom earned seven Norris Trophies as the NHL’s top defenseman and won four Stanley Cups with Detroit. Fedorov was his longtime teammate. Lidstrom’s longtime Red Wings teammate Fedorov also made it in his first year of eligibility after putting up 483 goals and 969 assists in 1,248 career games.
Housley has the most points of any American defenseman.
“I’ve been patiently waiting and there’s been so many great players before me that have been inducted, but to finally get that call it’s surreal, it’s a shock,” Housley said.
Hay, a former president of Hockey Canada, and Karmanos, the owner of the Carolina Hurricanes, made it in the builder category.
Ruggiero was a defenseman on four United States teams in the Olympics and was the fourth woman to be elected to the Hall of Fame.
BLACKHAWKS: Chicago agreed to terms with defenseman David Rundblad on a two-year extension through the 2016-17 season.
The 24-year-old Rundblad, who played for the Portland Pirates in the 2011-12 and 2012-13 seasons, had three goals and 11 assists in 49 games with the Blackhawks last season along with a career-best plus-17 rating.
STARS: Former Stanley Cup-winning goalie Antti Niemi signed a three-year contract with Dallas.
CAPITALS: Center Jay Beagle re-signed with Washington, getting a $5.25 million, three-year contract.
SABRES: A person familiar with the decision told the Associated Press that Buffalo placed forward Cody Hodgson on unconditional waivers with the intention of buying out his contract.
DEVILS: New Jersey has given qualifying offers to forward Stefan Matteau and defensemen Eric Gelinas, Seth Helgeson and Adam Larsson.
COYOTES: A judge ordered the Arizona Coyotes’ ownership to increase its bond payment to Glendale by $750,000 while ordering the city to make its $3.75 million quarterly payment to the team. Bond was increased from $250,000 to $1 million and Glendale has to make its scheduled fourth-quarter payment by July 1.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
