Former University of Maine All-American and Hobey Baker Award finalist Gustav Nyquist is slated to play in his 704th National Hockey League regular season game on Tuesday night when his Nashville Predators take on the Tampa Bay Lightning in Tampa.
The NHL opens its season on Tuesday night and, afterward, ex-UMaine All-American defenseman Ben Hutton and his Vegas Golden Knights open defense of their Stanley Cup championship against the Seattle Kraken.
Left wing-center Nyquist and Hutton are among four former UMaine players on NHL rosters, along with Boston Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman and Florida Panthers left wing Ryan Lomberg. They’re joined by several other former players in the NHL’s coaching ranks.
Jim Montgomery (Boston) and John Tortorella (Philadelphia) are among the league’s 32 head coaches and former UMaine assistant coach/interim head coach Greg Cronin will make his NHL head coaching debut with the Anaheim Ducks.
The 34-year-old Nyquist signed a two-year, $6.37 million free agent contract with Nashville in the off-season after playing for Columbus and Minnesota last season.
He had 10 goals and 12 assists in 48 games for Columbus before being acquired at the trade deadline by Minnesota, where he had a goal and four assists in three regular season games and five assists in six playoff games.
Nyquist has 175 goals and 253 assists in his 703 NHL regular season games with five teams. The fourth round draft pick of Detroit in 2008 (121st overall) had three 20-plus goal seasons with Detroit.
Nyquist told the Hockey News he was looking forward to his first game as a Predator.
“Obviously I’m in a new place but these days are more excitement than anything,” Nyquist said. “Just the fact that training camp’s over and we get to play real games instead of exhibition games — the games that matter. Those are the games you want to play.”
He played in Nashville with Minnesota last April and was impressed with the Predators.
“I knew this was a good group coming in just from watching them play last year,” Nyquist said. “When we played here, a lot of their guys were hurt. All these young guys that are on the team now were playing hard, and I think they ended up beating us in overtime (4-3), actually. So I knew it was a great group coming in.”
The 30-year-old Hutton played in 31 regular season games for the Knights a year ago and had three goals and five assists. He was often a healthy scratch because the Knights were deep on the blue line. He appeared in two Stanley Cup playoff games.
He enters the season with 468 regular season games under his belt with five teams, including Vancouver, which drafted him in the fifth round in 2012 (147th overall).
The 24-year-old Swayman, who was a Hobey Baker finalist and the Mike Richter Award recipient that goes to Division I college hockey’s best goalie during his time at UMaine, posted a 24-6-4 record, a 2.27 goals-against average and a .920 save percentage during the regular season for the Bruins last season while sharing the goaltending with Vezina Trophy (NHL’s best goalie) winner Linus Ullmark.
They posted the league’s lowest goals-against average and will be paired up together again after Swayman earned a one-year $3.475 million contract with the Bruins during arbitration.
The fourth-round pick of the Bruins in 2017 (111th overall) has a career record of 54-23-7 in regular season games with a 2.24 GAA and a .920 save percentage.
Lomberg is beginning his fourth season with the Florida Panthers, who reached the Stanley Cup finals a year ago.
He originally signed a free agent contract with Calgary and began his pro career with their American Hockey League affiliate, the Stockton Heat. He spent five seasons in the Flames’ organization but appeared in just 11 NHL games before signing with Florida.
The 28-year-old Lomberg had a career-high 12 goals and 20 points in 82 games last season and had a goal in 13 playoff games.
He has 23 goals and 20 assists in 182 NHL regular season games.
The 54-year-old Montgomery, UMaine’s all-time leading scorer and a UMaine Sports Hall of Famer, won the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s best coach in his first season with the Bruins a year ago as he guided the Bruins to a 65-12-5 record and set the NHL record for most wins and points (135) during the regular season.
However, the Bruins were upset by Florida in seven games in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Between Dallas and Boston, he has a career record of 125-55-15.
The 65-year-old Tortorella, who won the Jack Adams Award with Tampa Bay (2003-04) and Columbus (2016-17), is beginning his second season as the head coach of the Flyers.
Tortorella was 31-38-13 with the Flyers a year ago and has a lifetime record of 704-579-37 spanning 21 seasons with five teams.
Colby College grad Cronin was a former assistant at UMaine on two different occasions and filled in as the interim head coach when the late Shawn Walsh was suspended by the NCAA for one year due to recruiting violations.
Cronin spent six seasons as the head coach at Northeastern before serving as an assistant coach with the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs and New York Islanders and then becoming the head coach of the American Hockey League’s Colorado Eagles.
The 60-year-old Cronin compiled a record of 164-104-30 with the Eagles, the top franchise of the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche.
Former UMaine center Devin Shore, who was with Edmonton a year ago and has played in 422 NHL games with 50 goals and 85 assists, signed a one-year two-way contract with Seattle in August but will begin the season in the AHL with the Coachella Valley Firebirds.