NHL Notebook: Arizona Coyotes seek to terminate Alex Galchenyuk’s contract after facing charges made by Scottsdale Police
By Zach Laing
1 year agoThe Arizona Coyotes placed forward Alex Galchenyuk on unconditional waivers for the purpose of terminating his contract Thursday morning just four days after he was arrested and charged by the Scottsdale Police Department.
Galchenyuk, 29, signed a one-year contract for the league minimum, $775,000, on July 1st, but an incident on July 9th has him facing numerous charges.
The Athletic’s Katie Strang reported Thursday afternoon, hours after Galchenyuk was placed on waivers, that Galchenyuk is facing charges including private property hit and run, disorderly conduct, failure to obey, resisting arrest and threatening or intimidating. Earlier in the day, ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski reported the Coyotes discovered an “off-ice situation” impacting Galchenyuk that was previously unknown to them.
Strang added that in regard to the hit-and-run incident, police said: “it was only property damage and no injuries.”
The forward has struggled to find a home at the NHL level after being drafted third overall by the Montreal Canadiens in the 2012 draft. While his first number of years in the league were successful seeing him score 108 goals and 255 points in 418 games, he landed with the Coyotes by way of a June 2018 trade that saw Max Domi sent to the Habs.
Since then, Galchenyuk has been traded four times and signed four contracts as a free agent.
Galchenyuk lasted only a season in the desert before being traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins in June 2019 alongside Pierre-Oliver Joseph for Phil Kessel, among other pieces. The following February, after Galchenyuk scored five goals and 17 points in 45 games. He scored seven points in 14 games that year with the Wild, but spent the 2020-21 season splitting time with the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs.
In 2021-22 he returned to the Coyotes scoring six goals and 21 points in 60 games. Last year, he played just 11 games for the Colorado Avalanche scoring no points, but saw 42 games with their AHL affiliate, the Colorado Eagles, in which he scored 16 goals and 42 points — his largest totals in four years.
THE NHL NOTEBOOK IS PRESENTED BY BETWAY
Value free agents
There’s more than enough teams around the NHL strapped for cash these days with the Edmonton Oilers among them.
In fact, there’s 14 of 32 clubs who sit with under $1-million in cap space today, with another eight over the cap, as noted by Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis. It means that if you’re still a free agent, you’re unlikely to be signing for much more than the league minimum.
And on Thursday, Ellis made note of some of the top value free agents still available.
Sam Gagner, RW/C, 332022-23 Salary: $750,000
AFP Projection: $917,348What a career Gagner has had. After going sixth overall to Edmonton in 2007 and recording at least 41 points in each of his first five seasons, Gagner has bounced around teams ever since. He had a career-high 50 points in 2016-17 with Columbus after recording a career-low (at the time) 16 points in Philly the year before, a campaign that saw him head to the AHL for the first time.Gagner never hit 50 again and had trips down to the Toronto Marlies and Bakersfield Condors, but he found a bit of a revival with 31 points in Detroit two years ago. Gagner reached a major career milestone by playing in his 1,000th NHL game while with Winnipeg last year, with the 33-year-old sitting at 519 points in 1,015 games. Through all the ups and downs, Gagner has managed to carve out a spot for himself in the big leagues, most recently as a bottom-six goal scorer with the Winnipeg Jets. At under a million bucks, he’d be an excellent fit for quite a few teams still.Alex Chiasson, RW, 322022-23 Salary: $750,000
AFP Projetion: $941,912Chiasson was out of work until late November when the Grand Rapids Griffins inked him to an AHL deal. He must have impressed the Detroit Red Wings’ brass, who gave him a deal in March to add some scoring depth. He finished with nine points in 20 games, making him one of the team’s more cost-efficient scoring threats down the stretch. Chiasson is no stranger to last-minute deals, having had a couple of tryout contracts turn into full-blown NHL work. In a full season, he’s good for around 20 points – and in 2018-19, he had 22 goals. At a low price, the 6-foot-4 winger can chip in enough to make it worth it.Denis Malgin, LW, 262022-23 Salary: $750,000
AFP Projection: $1,480,552Malgin never worked in Toronto, and his surface numbers were nothing special in Colorado. But he played at a near 25-goal pace during the second half of the season and played at a 2.3 points-per-60 rate – good for fifth on the Avs. The issue? Malgin tends to disappear way too often and when he isn’t producing points, he’s not bringing enough value to the lineup. So Malgin needs to be in the right spot to get the most value, but he definitely deserves another chance in a team’s bottom six. You can do much worse.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@oilersnation.com.
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