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Archives for July 2024

Rangers Sign Sam Carrick To Three-Year Deal

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The New York Rangers are expected to sign forward Sam Carrick to a three-year, $3MM contract per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period (Twitter link). The deal was first reported by St. Louis Blues rinkside reporter Andy Strickland (Twitter link).

Carrick continued to improve his stat line this season – though he wasn’t focused much on scoring. Instead, Carrick recorded 111 penalty minutes in 77 games this season, a career-high in the NHL and the most he’s recorded since the 2014-15 AHL season. 90 of those penalty minutes came in 61 games with the Anaheim Ducks, though Carrick dialed things back a bit after moving to the Edmonton Oilers are the Trade Deadline. He recorded a much more modest 12 penalty minutes in 16 regular-season games with Edmonton, though he added 12 more penalty minutes in 10 postseason games. Between the two teams, Carrick also posted a meager 10 goals and 16 points.

Carrick is certainly not known for his scoring, with his career totals up to 53 points and 316 penalty minutes in 240 games after his eighth season in the NHL. But Carrick makes up for the lack of scoring with grit and intangibles, boasting a dazzling 63.1 faceoff-percentage in his brief stint with Edmonton – bringing his success rate at the faceoff dot up to 50.7 percent across his career. He’s served as a stout, bottom-line centerman with the ability to play penalty-killing minutes, when it’s not his own penalties that are being killed. He’ll offer depth down New York’s depth chart, following the loss of Alexander Wennberg to the open market.

Hurricanes Sign Eric Robinson

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The Carolina Hurricanes are expected to sign forward Eric Robinson to a one-year deal with a cap hit of $950K, per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period (Twitter link). Robinson spent last season with the Buffalo Sabres, where he recorded nine points across 40 games.

Buffalo acquired Robinson in December, dealing a conditional 2025 seventh-round pick back to the Columbus Blue Jackets – though Columbus would only receive the pick if Robinson played in 45 games. He fell just shy of that mark and is now moving on from Buffalo, effectively giving the Sabres a trial run of his services.

Columbus originally signed Robinson as an undrafted free agent in 2018, following the end of his tenure at Princeton University. He spent the 2018-19 season with the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters, where he scored an evenly split 24 points in 45 games. The strong AHL year was enough to earn Robinson 13 appearances in the NHL that year, though he’d go without a point. Still, he caught the ice of someone in Columbus, and would earn a consistent role as the team’s extra forward in 2019-20. Robinson served that role proudly, and even managed a career-high of 10 goals and 27 points in the 2021-22 campaign.

Robinson couldn’t hang onto his modest scoring in Buffalo, as he faced hefty pressure for his role on the team’s fourth line. He should receive some relief with the Hurricanes, who sit three forward spots shy of a full roster with $23.874MM in cap space. Carolina still needs to re-sign or replace restricted free agents Martin Necas, Seth Jarvis, and Jack Drury – with the latter offering the most competition for Robinson’s spot on the bottom line.

Blackhawks Sign Tyler Bertuzzi To Four-Year Deal

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Multiple reports overnight indicate the Blackhawks are expected to land winger Tyler Bertuzzi when the UFA market opens at 11 a.m. CT today, although Daily Faceoff’s Jay Rosehill was on it first. It’ll be a four-year, $22MM deal ($5.5MM AAV), David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reports.

Chicago will be Bertuzzi’s first turn after a one-year stint with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Bertuzzi joined Toronto on a one-year, $5.5MM deal last summer and proceeded to have a fine year, netting 21 goals and 43 points in 80 games. He also added four points in seven postseason games. It was a middling performance, though still a step up from Bertuzzi’s 2022-23 campaign.

He kicked off that year with 14 points in 29 games with the Detroit Red Wings before being traded to the Boston Bruins at the 2023 Trade Deadline in exchange for a 2024 first-round pick and a 2025 fourth-round pick. Bertuzzi managed a modest 16 points in 21 regular season games with Boston, though he found his spark when the team needed him – tallying 10 points, split evenly, in seven games during the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Bertuzzi looked comfortable in Boston after spending the previous six seasons with the Detroit Red Wings. Detroit originally drafted Bertuzzi in the second half of the 2013 NHL Draft’s second round, promoting him to the NHL in the 2016-17 season. And while he was able to set a trend of topping 45 points each season in Detroit, there were concerns about how his rough-and-tumble style would translate to a new scene. That made a strong performance with the Bruins imperative – and Bertuzzi held up enough to convince Toronto that they were missing his top-of-the-lineup grit.

But Bertuzzi wasn’t able to carve out too comfortable of a role with the Leafs. He spent the year bouncing around the team’s top six as they looked for how to best deploy their new additions of Bertuzzi and Max Domi. In the end, it was Domi who found more comfort next to stars Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner – ultimately kicking Bertuzzi down to the second line. Toronto, amidst their typical cap crunch, was only expected to keep one of these new additions and made their choice by delivering a four-year extension to Domi.

That leaves Bertuzzi free to join an up-and-coming Blackhawks club. He joins the lineup as, presently, their highest-paid forward, speaking to the leadership role he’ll have over a group of young forwards, headlined by star youngsters Connor Bedard and Artyom Levshunov. Bertuzzi could vie for a role on Bedard’s line, sat opposite Taylor Hall, though it seems more likely that the Hawks keep Philipp Kurashev next to their star and use Bertuzzi to offer a punch on the second line. If that is the role he finds himself in, Bertuzzi will instead be supporting top prospect Frank Nazar, who’s poised for his rookie season after signing an entry-level contract this summer.

A four-year deal will carry Bertuzzi through his age-33 season in 2027-28. With Bertuzzi signed, Chicago now has $23.4MM in cap space, with one forward spot and three defense spots still open. Some of those roles could go to prospects like Nick Lardis, Ethan Del Mastro, or Nolan Allan – though Chicago still has plenty of budget for other free-agent additions.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Stars Re-Sign Sam Steel

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July 1, 6:08 a.m.: While the team hasn’t announced it, CapFriendly reflects that Steel’s deal has been signed.

June 30, 10:40 p.m.: Although he wasn’t tendered a qualifying offer earlier today, it looks like Sam Steel will be staying in Dallas.  Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports (Twitter link) that the center is expected to ink a one-year, $1.2MM contract to remain with the Stars.

The 26-year-old has actually been non-tendered in three straight years to avoid giving him arbitration eligibility which could have pushed the price tag higher than his previous teams wanted to pay.  That resulted in Anaheim letting him go in 2022 while Minnesota did the same last summer, paving the way for him to sign a one-year, $850K deal with the Stars on the open day of free agency last summer.

Steel had a quality year with Dallas in their bottom six, recording 24 points in 77 games while averaging a little over 13 minutes per game including nearly two minutes per night shorthanded.  He also suited up in all 19 playoff contests, picking up a goal and four helpers.

For his career, Steel has played in 339 NHL games between the Ducks, Wild, and Stars.  While he was a high-end scorer in junior, that hasn’t translated to the pros as he has just 43 goals and 74 assists in those appearances; the fact that he has become a capable defensive forward will help extend his career as it makes him a better fit to play in the bottom six.

In the end, Steel will wind up with a $350K raise, a pretty good outcome as it will be the first seven-figure contract of his career.  Meanwhile, the Stars were able to avoid the risk of going to arbitration while ensuring they can keep him at a rate they can afford.  With at least seven more players needed to fill out their roster, expect Dallas to be busy in the coming days.

Kraken Sign John Hayden, Others To Extensions

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July 1, 6:03 a.m.: The Kraken also re-upped veteran depth winger Max McCormick on a two-year, two-way deal last night with a $775K cap hit. McCormick, 32, has been in the Seattle organization since its inception. He’s spent his time with the Kraken primarily in the minors, where he’s captained the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds to back-to-back Calder Cup Final appearances. The feisty, 5’11”, 187-lb forward has continued to be a solid offensive presence on the farm, coming off a strong 2023-24 campaign with 32 goals and 60 points in 68 games. He’s made 11 NHL appearances with Seattle over the past three years, going without a point.

June 30, 4:00 p.m.: The Seattle Kraken have signed forward John Hayden to a one-year, one-way contract extension (Twitter link). The deal will carry an average annual value of $775K, the league minimum. Seattle has also signed the inaugural Kraken, Luke Henman, to a one-year, two-way extension, also carrying league minimum pricing (Twitter link). Continuing the string of signings, Seattle also inked goaltender Ales Stezka to a one-year, two-way, league-minimum contract (Twitter link).

It will mark Hayden’s third straight year in the Kraken organization as he’s begun seeing his time wane at the NHL level. After playing in 55 contests for the Buffalo Sabres during the 2021-22 NHL season, Hayden has only played in nine games in Seattle since the start of the 2022-23 NHL season. Primarily playing for the AHL affiliate, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, Hayden has been a big part of the young team securing back-to-back Western Conference Final Championships.

The now-veteran forward has appeared in 112 regular season games for the Firebirds as he’s collected 32 goals and 59 points in the process. During the 2024 Calder Cup playoffs, Hayden was one of the more effective players on the roster as he scored nine goals and 13 points over 18 games. Due to his efforts both on and off the ice in Coachella Valley, the Kraken made an easy call of re-upping him for another year.

Seattle also extends the first official player of the Kraken organization in Henman. Since signing his entry-level contract with the team on May 12th, 2021, Henman has played 162 games at the AHL level with Coachella Valley and the Charlotte Checkers. As more of a depth piece even in the AHL, Henman has only put up 20 goals and 43 points throughout his three-year tenure in the Kraken organization.

Lastly, Stezka represents a good bit of organizational depth in the goaltender position as he served in a backup role with the Firebirds last year. In 27 games played, Stezka produced a record of 18-6-2 with a 2.48 goals against average and a .914 save percentage in addition to two shutouts. Unfortunately, Stezka would fail to collect any minutes during the 2024 Calder Cup playoffs as the team elected to run with veteran option Chris Driedger through the spring contest.

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