Syracuse Crunch Maxim Cajkovic (51) on the ice against the Cleveland Monsters in American Hockey League (AHL) action at the Upstate Medical University Arena in Syracuse, New York on Wednesday, December 8, 2021. Cleveland won 8-3.
The Penguins made a minor trade today, sending defenseman Will Butcher to Minnesota for forward Maxim Cajkovic.
Without knowing the details, it would appear GM Kyle Dubas was doing Butcher a solid by dealing him to a team that might have use for him. The Wild recently lost puck-moving defenseman Jared Spurgeon with a season-ending hip/back injury and traded another offensive-minded rearguard, former Pens prospect Calen Addison, to the Sharks in November.
Too, Wild coach John Hynes is most familiar with the 29-year-old blueliner, having coached him in New Jersey.
Once a highly sought-after player who won the Hobey Baker Award in 2016-17 and earned NHL All-Rookie team honors with the Devils the following season, Butcher’s career has pretty much been in steady regression since. However, he’s put up strong numbers in the AHL, including 43 points in 65 games last season with the Texas Stars and seven points (3+4) in 14 games with the Baby Pens this season.
Frankly, given the issues with the left side of our defense, I’m a little surprised he wasn’t afforded at least a cameo with the black and gold to display his wares.
Hard to know exactly what we’re getting in the 23-year-old Cajkovic (pictured), an obscure former third-round pick of the Lightning back in ’19. The right-handed shooting Slovakian has put up decent numbers…albeit in the ECHL. His AHL production…four goals and nine points in 27 games spread over three seasons…leaves a bit to be desired.
The 5’11”, 185-pounder has a higher AAV ($925 K) than Butcher ($775 K), although his actual cap hit is $850 K.
A prelude of bigger deals to come?
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Hey Rick,
Interesting thing about Cajkovic this season his numbers are,
AHL 5 GP, 1G, 2A, 3Pts, -2
ECHL 20 GP, 12 G, 6 A, 18 Pts, -5
Career
AHL 3 Yrs, 27 GP, 4 G, 5 A, 9 Pts, -7
ECHL 4 Yrs, 86 GP, 34 G, 35 A, 69 Pts, -28
He hasn't been able to transition yet to the AHL and his ECHL numbers are not that good.
Conversely, let's look at players in our own system, down in Wheeling this season,
Lukas Svejkovsky - 24 GP, 12 G, 17 A, 29 Pts, +2
Dillon Hamaliuk - 27 GP, 11 G, 18 A, 29 Pts, +12
Jordan Frasca - 25 GP, 9 G, 15 A, 24 Pts, +10
on Defense
Isaac Belliveau - 37 GP, 4 G 13 A, 17, Pts, +10
Thimo Nickl - 37 GP, 1 G 12 A, 13 Pts, +14
Cajkovic doesn't stack up all that well compared to the players we already have there. He better be sent to Wheeling and if anyone replaces Butcher on the WBS roster, it would be better to give Belliveau or Nickl a chance to replace the Defenseman Butcher, or if they want a forward, Svejkovsky, Hamaliuk, or Frasca deserve the promotion more, that is if this team ever starts promoting on merit rather than who is friends with the coaches.
Bottom line on this trade - Nothing to see here, move along
So this kid was known for his time on the Slovakia-18 team, where he tore it up with 11 points in 5 games. Scouts were big on how good his skating was, and he has a nasty shot he can take from anywhere. An absolute bomb that he can drop at even the point, it was actually kinda crazy.
I remember pretty well because of that, I thought he'd still get taken late second early third. But he ended up dropping because... wellllll lol he's a controversial player.
So he was eligible for Slovakia team again butttttt... And I quote straight from the report here-
"Cajkovic was excluded from team Slovak U20 for the World Juniors for “serious violation of sports and human values” according to the team. He supposedly delivered dirty checks to teammates in practice, as well as cursing people out. While he did apologize, this is not a good look for the Lightning prospect. - Clare McManus "
So yea, it'll be interesting. Idk if they even call him up tbh, but it fun to throw crap at the wall. He does shot a lot, so it'd be nice to try a guy like that.
Hey Caleb,
Thanks for filling in the missing pieces about Cajkovic. I profess to knowing nothing about him. The way you describe him, he almost sounds like a Slovakian version of former Pens prospect Nathan Legare. Who...FYI...isn't making any headway with the Canadiens' AHL farm team at Laval (only four goals in 27 games).
Speaking of prospects, Dan Kingerski did an article for Pittsburgh Hockey Now+ focusing on promotable prospects, including Sam Poulin, Joel Blomqvist and a "mean" defenseman. The latter piqued my curiosity. The only defensemen at WBS who possibly possess a mean streak are Jack St. Ivany and Dimitri Samorukov. To my knowledge, neither really fit that description.
I don't have access to PHN+, but I wonder if he was referring to Finnish prospect Kalle Kangas, who is large (6'4" 200) and physical.
Rick
Hey Rick,
Frankly when it comes to PHN, I take what Kingerski says with a grain of salt. He pushes party pablum. He, like Sullivan thinks ZAR played a heavy game. So for him to talk about a mean defenseman, I don't put much stock in it.