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Canadiens Re-Sign Arber Xhekaj To Two-Year Deal

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RFA defenseman Arber Xhekaj has agreed to terms on a two-year deal with the Canadiens, the team announced in a press release. The deal is worth $2.6MM and will pay him an average of $1.3MM per season.

Xhekaj, whose younger brother Florian Xhekaj is also in the Habs’ system, has spent the last two seasons in Montreal. He’s posted 23 points (eight goals, 15 assists) and a -3 rating while averaging 15:34 per game in 95 contests.

Undrafted, Xhekaj burst onto the scene directly out of junior hockey just one season after inking his entry-level contract with the Canadiens. After losing his 2020-21 season due to COVID-19, Xhekaj signed with Montreal in October 2021 and returned to the Ontario Hockey League for his final season of juniors, which the hard-hitting defender split between the Kitchener Rangers and Hamilton Bulldogs.

According to Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, Xhekaj was drawing trade interest throughout last season, with the Flyers named specifically as a suitor. No move materialized, though, and Montreal projects to enter next season with the same group of promising young defenders. Their only noticeable departure on the blue line this summer was stay-at-home depth piece Johnathan Kovacevic, who they traded to the Devils for a 2026 fourth-round pick after last month’s draft.

The deal comes in around expected for the 23-year-old, who didn’t have enough professional experience accumulated to file for salary arbitration this summer. While the Ontario native is certainly becoming a fan favorite in Montreal, he’s been given only sparse opportunities on special teams and has logged decisively bottom-pairing minutes at even strength. The left-shot defender can also play comfortably on the right side, potentially giving him the edge in a battle for a spot in the opening night lineup with other developing prospects like Justin Barron, Lane Hutson and Jayden Struble.

After the signing is registered, the Habs will be left with just over $6.6MM in projected cap space with a roster size of 22, per PuckPedia. The last remaining roster spot could go to Barron, who’s still an RFA in need of a deal for next season.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

How Long Is The Vancouver Canucks’ Competitive Window?

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In an article today from Harman Dayal of The Athletic (Subscription Required), he analyzes the Vancouver Canucks competitive window with their current salary cap structure. The Canucks experienced a 26-point jump in the standings last season while winning the Pacific Division for the first time since the division was created ahead of the 2013-14 NHL season. Additionally, Vancouver qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs for the third time in 11 seasons before being ousted in Round Two by the eventual Western Conference Champions, the Edmonton Oilers.

The Canucks have high-priced players at the top of their salary cap table with $11.6MM and $8MM contracts for forwards Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller, respectively. The organization has just over $15K available in salary cap space according to PuckPedia but has done a nice job in parsing out the rest of their roster. Vancouver arguably has two of the better bargain contracts in the league with defenseman Quinn Hughes ($7.85MM until 2026-27) and goaltender Thatcher Demko ($5MM until 2025-26).

Dayal argues that the Canucks are similar to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the late 2010s and the early 2020s as they captured two Stanley Cup Championships while paying Andrei Vasilevskiy, Mikhail Sergachev, Anthony Cirelli, Brayden Point, and Blake Coleman well-below market value. Because of this, Tampa Bay was able to fill out the rest of the roster and create one of the better dynasties in the league since the Chicago Blackhawks and Los Angeles Kings.

The argument seems a little off-base as the Canucks core is a little bit further ahead in their contractual lives than the comparables from the Lightning. Tampa Bay does have the benefit of being in a no-tax state which keeps contracts lower on average but the players listed were not as far into their careers at that point. Once the chickens came home to roost, the Lightning have been bounced from Round One in back-to-back years and the organization has had to make tough decisions to stay salary cap compliant.

This is why Vancouver’s contention window largely comes down to the contracts of Hughes, Demko, and Brock Boeser. The latter becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of next season and could earn nearly $9MM if he comes close to repeating his 40-goal campaign from the 2023-24 season. Boeser’s shooting percentage (19.6%) throughout last year was more than seven points higher than his career average which points to regression next season. If Boeser comes back down to earth near the 20-30 goal range, his asking price should come down substantially.

Hughes and Demko will be much tougher to absorb for Vancouver especially if the former continues to play at a Norris Trophy-level pace. This year’s award winner finished with 92 points in 82 games and could be in line for a contract near the $12MM average on his next deal. Regardless of the salary cap projections over the next three years, this would be a pricey contract for any team let alone the Canucks.

Demko may provide an easier contract situation to resolve as his injury history continues to mount. He did play in 51 games for the Canucks this past season while maintaining a .918 save percentage but was absent from the team for much of this year’s playoff run. If Demko can stay healthy, this may cause a financial hurdle for Vancouver if he continues to post one of the better save percentages in the league compared to his peers.

All in all, Vancouver’s contention window is at least over the next two years with Demko and Hughes signed to team-friendly contracts. If general manager Patrik Allvin can continue to be crafty on the trade market like he was last season, the Canucks should be well poised to make a run soon. However, much like Tampa Bay’s recent history, Vancouver could be positioned to make some difficult decisions regarding their roster in only a few short years.

International/Minor Transactions: Thoresen, Voynov, Kawaguchi, Skirving

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Veteran forward Patrick Thoresen will play during his age-41 season as he’s signed a contract to play for Djurgårdens IF of HockeyAllsvenskan according to his previous team, Storhamar in Norway. The international veteran started his professional career in the 2003-04 season with Mörrums GoIS of HockeyAllsvenskan after a brief two-year stint in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.

Although he’s mostly known for his international efforts, Thoresen spent two years in the NHL from 2006-08 with the Edmonton Oilers and Philadelphia Flyers where he collected six goals and 24 points in 106 games as the first undrafted Norwegian to crack an NHL roster. Unfortunately, his NHL career did not pan out as expected and Thoresen returned to Europe with HC Lugano in Switzerland.

Thoresen has also regularly represented Team Norway in the Olympic Games and the World Championships where he’s collected nine points in 13 games in the former, and 55 points in 66 games in the latter. During the World Championships in 2012, Thoresen scored seven goals and 18 points in only eight games which ended up being one point less than tournament scoring leader Evgeni Malkin.

Other international/minor transactions:

  • Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod of the KHL announced they have signed former NHL defenseman Slava Voynov to a contract for the 2024-25 season. Voynov was a member of the Los Angeles Kings in the NHL where he helped the team win Stanley Cups in 2012 and 2014 while collecting 18 goals and 81 points in 190 career games. Infamously, Voynov pleaded no contest to a reduced misdemeanor charge in a domestic violence case brought forward by his wife Marta Varlamova on December 1st, 2014. The Kings terminated Voynov’s contract on September 17th, 2015 and he has continued his career in Russia ever since.
  • Former captain at the University of North Dakota, Jordan Kawaguchi, is trying his luck in the Elite Ice Hockey League as the Belfast Giants announced they have signed the young forward for the 2024-25 season. Kawaguchi managed a productive career in North Dakota before signing his entry-level contract with the Dallas Stars in 2021. Unfortunately, Kawaguchi failed to make much noise in the AHL with the Texas Stars and was demoted to playing with the Idaho Steelheads of the ECHL. He was much more productive in Idaho but he briefly retired after the 2022-23 ECHL season due to injuries such as concussions, a torn MCL, and a broken thumb. Kawaguchi still returned to hockey last year and scored eight goals and 31 points in 23 games for the Steelheads.
  • Longtime ECHL veteran Todd Skirving is sticking in the league as he has signed a one-year contract with the Reading Royals as announced by the team. It will be Skirving’s seventh straight season in the ECHL and his first in Reading. Split between the Orlando Solar Bears, Utah Grizzlies, Atlanta Gladiators, Newfoundland Growlers, and the Florida Everblades, Skirving has scored 74 goals and 149 points in 301 ECHL games while winning a Kelly Cup in 2019 with the Growlers, and last year with the Everblades.

Hurricanes Attempted To Trade Necas Prior To Extension

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One of the biggest names on the trade market this offseason was taken off the board earlier today as the Carolina Hurricanes signed Martin Necas to a two-year, $13MM extension. However, the Hurricanes were also close to moving on from Necas earlier in the summer according to Frank Seravalli in Daily Faceoff’s podcast, the DFO Rundown (approximately 31-minute mark).

Seravalli asserts that Carolina had agreed to a Necas trade with the Buffalo Sabres. However, Seravalli did admit in the podcast that it may not have been the Sabres but he was fairly certain. The trade broke down relatively quickly as Necas purportedly would not agree to sign a new contract in Buffalo. Furthermore from Seravalli, the Hurricanes also had substantial trade talks with the Winnipeg Jets about Necas. He states the Jets had offered prospect Rutger McGroarty, forward Cole Perfetti, and an unspecified draft pick for Necas.

It is unknown when these trade conversations happened as Carolina may have taken Necas off the market entirely after losing Jake Guentzel to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Hurricanes expect to compete for a Stanley Cup next spring, and their competitive aspirations would have been greatly diminished by losing two top-six forwards in one summer.

All points made by Seravalli point to the idea that Necas had a lot of control over the negotiations and effectively blocked his inclusion in either trade due to his unwillingness not to sign an extension with either organization. Necas has committed himself to Carolina for two more seasons and will become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the contract.

Factoring in Buffalo’s other moves from the summer, adding Necas into the team’s top six would have allowed them to move Jason Zucker down to the third line. Even still, with Zach Benson prepping for a bigger season in 2024-25, and Jiri Kulich on the cusp of cracking the roster; Necas may have dramatically saturated Buffalo’s forward core. However, unlike Benson and Kulich, Necas is an established player at the NHL level.

Without knowing the return to Carolina in the rumored swap with Buffalo, he is coming off a season in which he scored 24 goals and 53 points in 77 games and is only two years removed from scoring 71 points over a full season. He would have helped the Sabres return to their 2022-23 team goal production after seeing a nearly 50-goal decrease this past year, but Buffalo may have been better served by letting the rest of their prospect develop over the next two or three seasons.

The reported deal from the Jets organization appears on paper as a massive overpay, as Perfetti has arguably already shown he can be a top-six threat in limited playing time. The former 10th overall pick of the 2020 NHL Draft averaged 13:35 minutes last year and still managed to score 19 goals and 38 points in 71 games. Including McGroarty in the deal (who is coming off a 52-point campaign at the University of Michigan) would have given Carolina two two-six talents in exchange for one.

Nevertheless, Necas was never dealt with this summer and will remain with the Hurricanes organization for the foreseeable future. He will look to rebound off a depressed campaign last season and look to build upon his production in 2022-23 before entering the free agent market when he is 27 years old.

Wild Sign Brock Faber To Eight-Year Extension

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2:17 p.m.: Faber’s contract structure is as follows, per PuckPedia. It’s paid out entirely in base salary with no signing bonuses.

2025-26: $10MM
2026-27: $9.5MM
2027-28: $8.5MM
2028-29: $8.5MM
2029-30: $8.5MM
2030-31: $8.5MM
2031-32: $7.5MM
2032-33: $7MM

12:35 p.m.: Wild defenseman Brock Faber is getting paid after a strong rookie season. The blue liner has inked an eight-year, $68MM extension with an $8.5MM cap hit that will keep him in Minnesota through 2032-33, the team announced Monday.

The deal carries trade protection beginning in 2030-31, featuring a no-movement clause and a modified no-trade clause (15-team no-trade list), reports Michael Russo of The Athletic. That’s the soonest Faber is eligible to receive NMCs or NTCs thanks to his August birthday.

Faber, 22 in August, became eligible to sign an extension on July 1. He’s entering the third and final season of his entry-level contract and would have become an RFA next summer.

Barring any unforeseen additions, the deal will make Faber Minnesota’s highest-paid defenseman beginning in 2025-26. The stout defender, who finished second in Calder Trophy voting last season only to star Blackhawks center Connor Bedard, will surpass franchise pillars Jared Spurgeon ($7.5MM cap hit through 2027) and Jonas Brodin ($6MM cap hit through 2028) for the title. He’ll be the second-highest-paid player on the team behind former Calder winner Kirill Kaprizov, who has two seasons left at a $9MM cap hit. It’s the largest extension and the highest cap hit for a defenseman in franchise history, Russo adds.

The hometown kid entered last season with just two NHL games under his belt, both coming at the tail end of 2022-23 after losing in the NCAA national tournament with Minnesota and subsequently signing his ELC. He was forced into number-one duties for the Wild much of last season with injuries to Brodin and Spurgeon, averaging 24:58 a night while playing in all 82 games. It was the highest ATOI by a rookie since the league began tracking the stat in 1997-98 (min. 25 GP).

That meant Faber was tasked with being a first-unit option at even strength and on both special teams. Offensively, he fit the bill, leading Wild defenders and finishing fifth on the team in scoring with 47 points (8 G, 39 A). His 150 blocks also finished second on the club behind Jacob Middleton. While he fell just short of the Calder, he earned First All-Rookie Team honors for his contributions as the Wild fell short of the playoffs.

The deal buys out all five of Faber’s remaining RFA years and three UFA years. It takes him through his age-30 season, meaning he could still be in line to land a decently rich mid-term deal on the open market in 2033.

The deal took about a month to negotiate. Russo reported back on June 28 that negotiations between Faber and the Wild had begun. It comes in a good bit higher than the seven-year, $7MM AAV deal that Evolving-Hockey projected Faber to sign if he extended this month. It’s quite comparable to the extension that Sabres defender Owen Power signed last summer, which came in at seven years and $58.45MM ($8.35MM AAV). That deal was worth 9.5% of the salary cap at its start, while Faber’s is worth 9.6%.

Faber is the second player entering the final season of his entry-level contract to sign a max-term extension this summer, joining Canadiens 2022 first-overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky. There are plenty of notables who could still sign, including the Stars’ Wyatt Johnston, the Habs’ Kaiden Guhle, and the Devils’ Luke Hughes, whose negotiations will be impacted directly by Faber’s terms. Hughes posted identical point totals to Faber last season and finished one spot behind him in Calder Trophy voting, although he averaged more than three fewer minutes per game.

Even with Spurgeon expected to return to full health in 2024-25, Faber is still likely to begin the season in first-pairing, first power play and first penalty kill minutes, Daily Faceoff projects.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Hurricanes Re-Sign Martin Necas To Two-Year Deal

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The Hurricanes have come to terms with RFA forward Martin Necas, the team announced. It’s a two-year, $13MM pact with a $6.5MM cap hit, reports Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.

The deal will pay him $3MM in base salary and a $3MM signing bonus this season, per PuckPedia. In 2025-26, he’ll earn a $6MM base salary and a $1MM signing bonus. The contract walks the 25-year-old to unrestricted free agency without buying out any UFA years.

Carolina issued Necas a $3.5MM qualifying offer in June, confirming he’d be a restricted free agent this summer upon completion of a two-year, $6MM deal he signed in August 2022. Necas was eligible for salary arbitration and opted to file, and his hearing was set for Aug. 4. That won’t be necessary now, as the two sides avoid a hearing with today’s settlement. The news leaves the Rangers’ Ryan Lindgren (Aug. 2) as the only remaining RFA with upcoming arbitration hearings.

[RELATED: 2024 Salary Arbitration Tracker]

Necas was one of this offseason’s top trade targets, and that doesn’t necessarily change with a new contract in hand. But Carolina losing Jake Guentzel, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Stefan Noesen and Teuvo Teravainen to free agency this summer has stretched their forward depth uncomfortably thin, making a Necas trade a harder proposition to stomach. Some teams were reportedly considering preparing an offer sheet for Necas, Pierre LeBrun at TSN reported last month, but that option went away when he filed for arbitration.

The Czech forward appeared in 77 games last season, posting 24 goals, 29 assists, 53 points and a -9 rating while averaging 17:21 per night. It marked an overall regression after a career-best 2022-23 campaign that saw Necas post 28 goals and 71 points in 82 games while seeing some added usage at center. He spent nearly all of last season on the wing and only took 138 faceoffs, an average of 1.79 per game.

Carolina selected Necas with the 12th overall pick in the 2017 draft, and he’s largely fit the bill as a top-six winger since becoming a full-time NHLer in 2019-20. He’s put up 243 points in 362 career games (0.67 PPG), shooting 11.6% and averaging north of 16 minutes per game in every post-pandemic campaign. He gave the Canes 124 points in 159 games (0.78 PPG) over his previous two-year pact, earning himself more than double his previous AAV on this deal.

After signing Necas, the Hurricanes have $6.44MM in projected cap space with a roster size of 22, per PuckPedia. That figure assumes Jesper Fast, who missed all of the 2024 playoffs with a neck injury, starts the season on injured reserve. That last roster spot will go to Seth Jarvis, who remains an RFA in need of a new contract. It’s likely that nearly all of their remaining cap space will go toward that deal, which is likely to be a bridge contract for that AAV. Evolving-Hockey projected a long-term deal for Jarvis to come in around $8.5MM per season, which isn’t affordable after their other moves.

With their offensive depth slashed, Necas is primed for more minutes in 2024-25, should he remain with Carolina. The Canes are hoping he can return to his 70-point form to coincide with more usage, but a career-best year would be great altogether for the team’s on-ice success and Necas’ trade value if they’re still looking to move him.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Central Notes: Blackhawks, Jets, Hinote

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The Blackhawks were one of the league’s more active teams in free agency at the beginning of this month, adding a decent slate of veteran talent to avoid overworking their prospects as they slowly begin to exit their rebuild stage. Expect two of those additions to flank Connor Bedard on the Hawks’ first line come opening night, writes The Athletic’s Mark Lazerus. Lazerus projects Tyler Bertuzzi and Teuvo Teravainen to serve as Bedard’s wingers to begin 2024-25 after they each inked multi-year deals to come to Chicago.

Taylor Hall, who was acquired last summer to fill the “Bedard mentor” role but played only 10 games, will likely get second-line reps as he makes his return from knee surgery, Lazerus posits. One youngster noticeably absent from Lazerus’ lineup projection is 2022 13th overall pick Frank Nazar, who could fall victim to a numbers game and start this season on assignment to AHL Rockford. Unlike Lukas Reichel, Chicago’s 2020 first-round selection, Nazar doesn’t require waivers. The Hawks may prefer Reichel to start the season in the minors after struggling with just 16 points (5 G, 11 A) in 65 games in 2023-24, but doing so would risk exposing him to the league’s other 31 teams on the wire. Thus, Nazar will likely be headed to the AHL with roster spots needed for other veteran additions such as Pat Maroon, Ilya Mikheyev and Craig Smith.

Another player who could start the campaign in Rockford, this time for pure development reasons, is defenseman Kevin Korchinski. Chicago’s lack of depth on defense last season likely forced Korchinski into more NHL minutes than the team would have liked. With T.J. Brodie and Alec Martinez signed in free agency to provide depth and older prospects like Wyatt Kaiser and Isaak Phillips on the cusp of NHL minutes, the organization “wouldn’t mind another year’s worth of patience for any of his young defensemen, Korchinski (and Kaiser) included,” says Lazerus.

There’s more from the Central:

  • After getting bounced by the Avalanche in the first round last year, the Jets enter 2024-25 with a new-look coaching staff. Scott Arniel has stepped into the big-boss chair to replace the retired Rick Bowness, while Dean Chynoweth and Davis Payne were brought in as external hires to fill a pair of assistant vacancies. To that end, Arniel is hosting a “summer coaching summit” to acclimate his new staff, report Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe of The Winnipeg Free Press. One focus under Arniel will be implementing more advanced stats into the Jets’ coaching strategy. “So, what we’re trying to do is funnel [statistics] to our coaching staff, so we can determine, ‘OK, what is it that we want? What do you guys want, what do you guys (in the analytics department) have?,” he told McIntyre and Wiebe.
  • On Nashville Scene’s “It’s All Your Fault” podcast Monday, Dan Hinote spoke about why he parted ways with the Predators this offseason, leaving his assistant coach role there to take an AHL role in the Avalanche organization as the associate head coach of the Colorado Eagles. The 47-year-old, who played 353 games for the Avs between 1999 and 2006, said he prefers working in more of a development-oriented environment, something Nashville is shifting away from after adding a trio of high-profile veteran UFAs. “The thing about what I realize is that the part of the game that I love coaching the most is the development side,” Hinote said. “I had 10 years to not perfect it, but work on it. I’ve gotten there. I feel like I have a good recipe, I’ve had good results for a lot of guys that were kind of up and down and have now kind of solidified themselves as NHL’ers through this process, so I know it works. That’s kind of what it came to” (hat tip to Colorado Hockey Now’s Evan Rawal).

Blackhawks Re-Sign Louis Crevier, Isaak Phillips To Two-Way Deals

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The Blackhawks have re-signed RFA defensemen Louis Crevier and Isaak Phillips to two-way deals for this season, per a team announcement. They’ll carry $775K cap hits if on the NHL roster.

Crevier, 23, was selected in the seventh round out of QMJHL Chicoutimi in 2020. He turned pro and signed his entry-level contract with Chicago in 2022, joining their AHL affiliate in Rockford. The hulking 6’8″, 227-lb stay-at-home defender made his NHL debut last season after spending all of 2022-23 in the minors, playing 24 games largely as an injury replacement. The Quebec City native notched his first three NHL assists, understandably struggling to maintain possession in defensively-oriented minutes on one of the league’s worst teams. His -16 rating, 37.7 CF% and 33.2 xGF% were in the league-wide basement last season, but understandable for a developing blue-liner making his NHL debut ahead of schedule.

It’s worth noting that after being a relative non-factor in Rockford in 2022-23, Crevier did take a demonstrable step forward in AHL action last season. He played increased minutes and showcased increased efficiency on both sides of the puck, logging 11 points (3 G, 8 A) and a +12 rating in 41 games. His above-average skating for his size clicked, a promising sign. That’s likely his ticket to a full-time NHL role somewhere down the line.

That full-time role likely won’t come next season after the Blackhawks bolstered their defensive depth earlier this month with a pair of veteran signings in T.J. Brodie and Alec Martinez. He’ll likely receive some outside consideration for the seventh D-man spot on the opening night roster, but he’ll face competition from a few other young blue-liners in the Chicago system, including Phillips.

Phillips, who was selected two rounds ahead of Crevier in 2020, entered RFA status this summer with more NHL experience than his counterpart. Also coming off the completion of his entry-level contract, he appeared in 33 games for the Hawks last season, posting six assists and a -26 rating while clocking in at over 17 minutes per night. The left-shot defender has 53 NHL games under his belt spread over the last three seasons, totaling a goal and 10 assists with a -37 rating.

He’s not as massive as Crevier, but he still has good size at 6’3″ and 205 lbs. He’s been a stronger all-around player in the minors, where he has 71 points (22 G, 49 A) in 171 games with Rockford over the past four seasons. He got an early start to his professional career after suiting up for Rockford in 2020-21, thanks to the OHL pausing operations due to COVID-19.

Crevier and Phillips were the Hawks’ last remaining unsigned RFAs this summer. Neither were eligible to file for salary arbitration last month, and Crevier was ineligible to sign or receive offer sheets as a 10.2(c) free agent. Both will be RFAs again in 2025.

Nic Petan Signs With KHL’s Ak Bars Kazan

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Free agent forward Nic Petan is heading overseas. After playing in parts of the last nine NHL seasons, the undersized but versatile minor-league fixture has signed a one-year deal with Russia’s Ak Bars Kazan of the Kontinental Hockey League, per a team announcement. Reports about the signing had been floating around for a few weeks, but it was only made official today.

Petan has always been one of the game’s more peculiar cases, failing to break into a full-time NHL role despite being an elite scoring threat at both the junior and AHL levels. The 2013 second-round pick of the Jets led the WHL in assists with the Portland Winterhawks in back-to-back seasons to bookend his selection, but he’s never managed to convert that offense to strong NHL numbers.

The 29-year-old has only averaged 19 appearances per season over the last nine years, skewed heavily by a 54-game stint on the Winnipeg roster in 2016-17. Since then, he hasn’t appeared in more than 20 games in a single season. In 170 career NHL appearances with the Jets, Maple Leafs, Wild and Canucks, he has 35 points (7 G, 28 A) with a -26 rating in fourth-line minutes, averaging 10:26 per game.

But the AHL has been a much different story for Petan, who’s averaged nearly a point per game there throughout his pro career. He’s compiled 289 points (95 G, 194 A) in 296 minor-league games since turning pro in 2015, but his tweener status has consistently limited his ability to earn consideration for any awards at the AHL level. He’s only ever been named to an AHL All-Star Game once, coming this past season. He had 40 points in 44 games for AHL Iowa while under contract with the Wild, serving as their otherwise hapless affiliate’s best offensive player. He was traded to the Rangers in a swap of minor-league forwards at the March 8 trade deadline, and he finished the season with eight points in 15 games for Hartford without seeing a recall to the Blueshirts.

Once again a UFA, Petan is opting for a premier role with more stability in the KHL rather than spending another season shuttling between NHL and AHL squads. In Kazan, he reunites with a former of recent AHL fixtures, including Riley Barber, Artemi Kniazev and Evgeny Svechnikov.

Poll: Who’s The Most Intriguing Available UFA?

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The list of true impact UFAs available is empty nearly a month into free agency. There are only two players left – Tyler Johnson and James van Riemsdyk, both aging veterans – who scored more than 30 points last season. But aside from that established yet declining veteran crowd, there are still a few names with perhaps some untapped upside available for contenders and rebuilders alike.

Some remaining UFAs are getting the chance to switch teams before the usual 27-year-old/seven years of NHL service demarcation because they didn’t receive qualifying offers last month. Like impact veterans, most of them have been snapped up already. Only four remain who were full-time NHLers last year: Calen Addison, Boris Katchouk, Gustav Lindstrom and Kailer Yamamoto. Yamamoto, a first-round pick of the Oilers back in 2017, is the most experienced of the group by far at over 300 career games. He’s coming off a tough year with the Kraken after signing there as a free agent last summer (Edmonton traded him to the Red Wings, who subsequently bought him out, in a salary dump) but isn’t too far removed from a 20-goal, 41-point campaign in 2021-22.

Like Yamamoto, the other three have all changed teams since being drafted. Addison, a 2018 second-round pick of the Penguins, was traded to the Wild for Jason Zucker in 2020 before making his NHL debut. The defenseman did okay as a power-play specialist in Minnesota, posting five goals and 33 assists for 38 points in 92 games with a -24 rating. Early last season, he was traded again to the Sharks, where he finished the campaign with a goal and 11 assists in 60 games with a -35 rating on the league’s worst defensive team. At 24 years old, it’s unlikely he’ll develop the defensive acumen necessary for a top-four role, but he does carry significant upside as a third-pairing, second-power-play option.

Katchouk, 26, is on the hunt for his fourth team this summer. The 2016 second-round pick of the Lightning has also suited up for the Blackhawks and Senators after being traded to Chicago in 2022 in the Brandon Hagel deal and then claimed off waivers by Ottawa this March. The former AHL and OHL All-Star has 36 points (15 G, 21 A) in 176 games over the past three seasons playing on the wing. Lindstrom, who the Red Wings drafted in the second round a year after Katchouk, has a similar offensive profile with 35 points in 174 games from the blue line. He’s suited up exclusively in a bottom-pairing role for Detroit, Montreal and Anaheim, where he ended last season on a high note with six assists and a +12 rating in 32 games after being selected off waivers from the Habs in January.

There are also some under-30 reclamation projects available that reached UFA status outright this summer. Headlining that group is Dominik Kubalik, who was traded by the Red Wings to the Senators in last year’s Alex DeBrincat trade and proceeded to fall off the map entirely, limited to 11 goals and four assists in 74 games while seeing a career-low 12:07 ATOI. But the Czech winger, who turns 29 next month, has a pair of 20-goal seasons under his belt, including a 30-goal campaign with the Blackhawks back in 2019-20.

There’s also ex-Sharks winger Kevin Labanc, who fits a similar profile to Kubalik but has much more NHL experience, with eight seasons and nearly 500 games under his belt. The 2014 sixth-round pick was a solid secondary scoring option in the last few years of San Jose’s years-long window of competitiveness, culminating with a 17-goal, 56-point showing in 2018-19. But it’s been downhill for the New York native since, coming off a career-worst 2023-24 campaign in which he scored just twice and added seven assists with a -27 rating in 46 games. He averaged a career-low 11:37 per game and was a frequent healthy scratch.

On the blue line, the highest-ceiling option available is undoubtedly Oliver Kylington. The former Flames defenseman hit his stride in the 2021-22 campaign, breaking out for 31 points and a +34 rating in 73 games after a few seasons of serving as the seventh or eighth player on the Calgary defensive depth chart. But he spent the entire 2022-23 on personal leave back home in Sweden and played a reduced role upon returning in 2023-24, posting eight points (3 G, 5 A) with a -6 rating in 33 games. He’s still 27 years old and could still have a few seasons of fringe top-four play left in him in the right environment, though.

That brings us to today’s poll question: who do you think is the most intriguing or highest-ceiling player still available on the UFA market? Is it one of the players discussed above or someone else you’d like to see your team pick up on a cheap deal? Let us know by voting in the poll below and discussing in the comments.

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