I hope everyone in the United States had a great 4th of July yesterday and any Canadians reading this had a nice Canada Day back on Wednesday!
I wanted to get some random things that were too short for their own posts rolled into one bigger news post, so here goes.
The Devils continued to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement when they announced this past Wednesday that they would be putting a BLM logo behind the nets on the ice surface of their practice rink. For now, it is only being done at the RWJBarnabas Hockey House – largely due to the fact that the Devils’ season at Prudential Center is over. We will see if they will be putting it on the Prudential Center ice surface for the 2020-21 season (should it be played) and beyond.
In a second news bite, Devils Insiders announced on Twitter, via the Twitter account Russian Prospects, that prospect “Nikita Popugaev has signed a tryout deal” with HC Dynamo Moscow of the KHL. Russian Prospects did say that apparently the Devils will retain the NHL rights to him until June 1, 2021.
This happens a lot with Russian players who opt to play at home in the KHL and it does do some good in giving them some seasoning before they eventually make their way to the NHL.
Nikita Gusev did something similar in that he was drafted by the Tampa Bay Lighting, opted to stay in the KHL, and had his rights traded to the Vegas Golden Knights. The Golden Knights ran into some cap trouble and ended up trading him to the Devils.
Similarly, Devils Insiders, in the same tweet, reported that Ludvig Larsson signed with Mora IK of the Swedish second tier pro league (the Allsvenskan). Devils Insiders mentioned that another Twitter user (Tracey Lake) had mentioned that neither players would be back with the Adirondack Thunder (the Devils’ ECHL affiliate).
In other Devils’ minor league affiliate news that I was not so quick on, the Binghamton Devils were approved for Phase 2 of reopening way back on June 1 according to their official website.
Their front offices were opened to help fans “via phone, email, and live chat.” As of that time – and I believe that they are still in this part of the phase of reopening – the Floyd L. Maines Veterans Memorial Arena remained closed to the general public.
On June 22, the team opened their offices to fans by appointment only. The visits to the third-floor offices for customers was one, through appointment only, two, required customers to wear a mask and, three, maintain social distancing. The team was still encouraging people to use live chat on their website, email or phone calls as a means of getting touch with the team should they have any questions, however.
And that wraps us up. Hopefully I am as caught up as I can be regarding news around the organization. The NHL teams that qualified for the play-in round/playoffs will be starting their next phase, which sees them open training camps. We should have something for you on that in the near future.