It’ll be a busy night on the NHL schedule tonight as 24 of the league’s 32 clubs will do battle. Among the many contests are a few games that look like they’ll be especially entertaining, such as the New York Rangers taking on the Toronto Maple Leafs and the red-hot Pittsburgh Penguins going up against a Florida Panthers squad looking to spark some sustained positive momentum. As we keep track of this flurry of action tonight, we’ll also track notable transactions in minor leagues and foreign leagues. Those moves can be found here:
- 2016 Rangers sixth-round pick Tyler Wall signed a one-year AHL contract with the Hershey Bears, the top affiliate of the Washington Capitals, today. While Wall, 24, couldn’t quite carve out a consistent role in the Rangers organization after a successful four-year collegiate career at UMass-Lowell, he now has an AHL contract in hand and the rest of the season to put some quality starts on his resume for the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays.
- Quinton Howden, a 2010 first-round pick of the Florida Panthers, was released from his tryout contract with Jukurit, a team in the Finnish Liiga. Howden scored just one point in ten games for Jukurit despite playing middle-six minutes and getting a chance on their power play. Howden, 30, scored 18 points in 45 games last season for Cologne in the German DEL and will look for a contract with another club to continue his pro career.
- J.D. Dudek, a 2014 fourth-round draft pick of the New Jersey Devils, signed a one-year contract with the Coventry Blaze, a team in the Elite Ice Hockey League, the United Kingdom’s top pro hockey league. The 26-year-old went overseas this summer after two seasons in the ECHL, signing with Tranas AIF in the third tier of Swedish hockey. The former Boston College Eagle had eight points in 14 games in Sweden and will look to keep that solid scoring up as he joins a new league.
- Nando Eggenberger, a former NHL draft prospect who three times represented his native Switzerland at the World Junior Championships, signed a two-year contract with Swiss club HC Ambri-Piotta. The deal will begin next season, as Eggenberger will finish out 2022-23 with his current club, Rapperswil-Jona Lakers. The former Oshawa General has seven points in 29 games so far this season.
- Another Swiss club announced the signing of a young forward to a two-year contract beginning next season: the ZSC Lions. Per their announcement, they signed forward Yannick Zehnder, currently of EV Zug, to a two-year, 2023-2025 contract. Zehnder is a Swiss champion who has six points in 27 games so far this season.
- Talented veteran defenseman Nick Bailen saw his KHL rights change hands today, with Spartak Moscow acquiring them from Traktor Chelyabinsk in exchange for 27-year-old blueliner Alexander Bryntsev. While Bailen, 33, is currently playing for Cologne in the DEL, he has 367 KHL games on his resume, including a brilliant 2021-22 season where he scored 42 points in 49 games. If Bailen makes the choice to return to the KHL, it seems now he’ll have to do so in Moscow.
- Veteran KHL depth defenseman Ruslan Ibatullin had his contract with KHL side Admiral Vladivostok terminated today. The 28-year-old had set a career-high in KHL games played this season, getting into 34 contests in Vladivostok. In need of a new contract, it’s likely that Ibatullin will return to playing in the second-tier VHL, the league where he has spent the bulk of his professional career.