Capitals re-sign Trevor van Riemsdyk to 3-year, $9M deal Flyers fire embattled GM Fletcher, give Briere interim job Oilers escape McDavid scare, win 3-2 to snap Bruins’ streak Wild star Kaprizov to miss 3-4 weeks with lower-body injury Sharks coach David Quinn fined $25,000 for berating referee

NEW YORK – Washington Capitals re-sign defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk to a three-year, $9 million contract.

General Manager Brian McLellan announced an extension of time before his team would face the New York Islanders. The deal for the 2025–2026 season includes a $3 million annual salary cap.

Van Riemsdyk, 31, and striker Conor Shiri were the only two unrestricted free agents not traded by Washington before the deadline. It wasn’t immediately clear how close the Capitals and Shiri were to a contract.

But they have made it clear that van Rimsdijk is part of their future blue line along with Nick Jensen, who received a three-year, $12.15 million contract to stay. Van Riemsdyk has a career-high 19 points in 66 games this season.

Middletown, NJ native and Jensen stepped up and played more minutes since No. 1 quarterback John Carlson was slapped in the face with a headshot in late December.

PHILADELPHIA. With the Philadelphia Flyers in need of a complete franchise overhaul, Chuck Fletcher made the NHL trade deadline and was left with nothing.

A day later, the Flyers sent Fletcher to represent the team at a City Hall meeting for season ticket holders, where he was nearly booed off the stage.

His week only got worse.

A series of bad contracts, embarrassing injuries, declining attendance and one of the worst records in the NHL ultimately doomed Fletcher, who was fired by the Flyers on Friday as general manager and president of hockey operations.

The team promoted franchise great Danny Brier to interim general manager, the latest front office reshuffle for an organization that hasn’t won a Stanley Cup since 1975. Brier, who served as special assistant to the CEO, is considered a rising star in the front office.

He may have a specific rebuilding plan that could include more lean seasons, which Fletcher hasn’t voiced in his 4 1/2 seasons on the job. The Flyers went 141-145-43 under Fletcher.

The Flyers, who have only had one playoff spot during Fletcher’s tenure, play Saturday in Pittsburgh. Philadelphia is 24-30-11 under freshman coach John Tortorella this season and is set to miss the playoffs for the third consecutive season.

“The Philadelphia Flyers have always stood for grit, determination and a standard of excellence. Over the past few seasons, our team has simply not lived up to that standard, so today we will begin charting a new path forward under a new governance structure for hockey operations,” said Flyers chairman Dave Scott.

Brier, who helped the Flyers in their last Stanley Cup run in 2010 when they lost to the Chicago Blackhawks, was promoted from player development to special assistant general manager last year.

“Flyers fans deserve a better team than they’ve seen on the ice in the past few seasons and a clear plan to get that team back in the Stanley Cup fight,” Scott said. “We know this is going to be a multi-year process and we’re committed to getting it right because we want to put this franchise on the path to winning the Stanley Cup, period.”

Brière didn’t know how he wanted to keep playing hockey after he ended a 17-year career in 2015 with 307 goals and 696 points.

He soon met with former Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren, who signed Brier as a free agent and invited him to spend time on the administrative side of the operation. Brier learned the business from the ground up — marketing, ticketing, social media, finance — and took a break in 2017 when the Flyers’ parent company bought the Maine-based ECHL team. Brière mainly oversaw the day-to-day operations of the team.

Scott said the Flyers will look to restructure the front office, and that will begin by dividing the roles of general manager and president into two positions.

“We see this as a major opportunity to not only restore the quality standards our fans expect, but also bring new energy, responsibility and strategic vision to our organization,” he said.

The Flyers have not won the Stanley Cup since back-to-back championships in 1974 and 1975, and have advanced to the second round only three times since 2010.

Fletcher’s biggest misses may have been last week when he didn’t receive anything by Friday’s deadline for James van Riemsdyk or other aging, expensive players.

“The deals that were presented to me were not good for the Philadelphia Flyers. More aggressive behavior didn’t work in the Philadelphia Flyers’ favor last summer, Fletcher said last week. “Maybe it will improve my appearance in the short term, but we don’t need band-aids anymore. We want to build it right and we are determined to do it. These are my words, my actions will have to confirm them, but we intend to do so.

In 2021, he went all out with a series of moves that didn’t really pay off. His exchange for a defender Ryan Ellis and go Cam Atkinson yielded nothing due to injuries, and the Flyers received little production due to generous contract extensions granted Joel Farabi, Sean Couturier and others.

Scott noted this on Friday, saying Fletcher was facing significant challenges, “including some that were out of his control.”

Fletcher was hired in December 2018 to replace Ron Hextall, now Pittsburgh’s general manager, and fired coach Dave Hextall, who coaches the Seattle Cracken, shortly after. Fletcher hired Alain Vigno as coach, but a promising first season that included a trip to the Eastern Conference semi-finals in the 2020 COVID-19 bubble fell through.

The Flyers became the first team in NHL history to have two 10-game streaks in the first 40 games of a season, and Vinho was fired early last season.

Scott said he didn’t see the Flyers undergo “a three, four, five year rebuild at all,” while Fletcher continued to tout the team as a playoff contender even earlier this season.

Tortorella never saw it that way. The outspoken coach who won the Stanley Cup with Tampa Bay insists he needs time and patience to turn the Flyers into winners. After all, he can get there. Fletcher just won’t be with us.

BOSTON – Boston Bruins shut down NHL scoring leader Connor McDavid. They kept Leon Draisaitl also outside the protocol. It still wasn’t enough to beat the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday night.

The Oilers avoided a panic when McDavid limped off the ice late in their 3-2 win over the Bruins – minutes after Darnell Nurse scored the decisive goal with 4:49 left.

McDavid returned, but was without points for only the seventh time in a season. It was the first time since New Year’s Eve that McDavid did not score and Draisaitl did not play, neither of them scoring a single point.

“I can’t believe they didn’t get a point. I mean they should get a point every night, right? said the goalkeeper Stuart Skinnerwho made 26 saves, snapping Boston’s 10-game winning streak and robbing the Bruins of the chance to become the first team in the league to make the playoffs this season.

“Our best dogs are here, I think they did an incredible job defensively,” Skinner said. “They’ve been doing our job so well lately and obviously still pose a huge offensive threat.”

McDavid struggled to the bench after a knee-to-knee collision with a teammate. Derek Ryan. But the two-time league MVP returned to help the Oilers hold on when Boston pulled the goaltender. Jeremy Swayman for an additional skater in the final minutes.

Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said he did not see the collision but was glad McDavid was able to return.

“I was thinking about a play,” he said. “But he felt good enough to finish the game, so I felt good.”

Boston led 2-0 after the first, but Evan Bouchard scored in the second and Ryan McLeod equalized in the sixth minute with the third. Nurse scored the winning goal with a wrist shot past a defended Swaiman to give the Oilers their fourth win in five attempts.

“I just said to myself, ‘I have to block him for the next 40 (minutes).'” And if I do that, it will at least give the guys a chance to win,” Skinner said. “To be honest, I was very excited after the game. … This one, this one feels really good.”

Brad Marchand And to David Pastr scored and Swaiman stopped the Bruins’ 19 shots (49-9-5) that would have set an NHL record as the fastest player in history to 50 wins.

McDavid leads the NHL with 54 goals – nine more than second-placed Pastrnak – as well as 70 assists and 124 points. Draisaitl is fifth in the league with 41 goals and second with 96 points.

It was the first time in the entire season that the Oilers had won a game without either of them scoring a single point.

“It was like a playoff game,” Woodcroft said. “In playoff games, sometimes there is a send-off between the best players on both teams, and other people have to find ways to contribute. If you look up and down our list, we have plenty of people who can find the back of the web and that’s what you need when you go here.”

NEXT

Oilers: visit Toronto on Saturday.

Bruins: Detroit will host on Saturday.

ST. PAUL, Minnesota – Left Wing All-Star Kirill Kaprizov The Minnesota Wild have announced that they are expected to miss the next three to four weeks due to a lower body injury.

Kaprizov was injured in Wednesday’s game in Winnipeg when the Jets defenseman was 6ft 7in Logan Stanley ran into him while he was defending the puck and Stanley checked. Stanley’s momentum transferred all of his weight onto Kaprizov’s back, who then fell to the ice as his left knee bent awkwardly and his legs spread out like scissors.

In his third year at the Wild, Kaprizov played in 214 of a possible 216 games, including the playoffs, but this injury will likely cost him most of the rest of the regular season.