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Archives for August 2024

Kings Re-Sign Jordan Spence To Two-Year Deal

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1:00 p.m.: Spence’s new contract is official, per a team announcement. PuckPedia adds that his contract comes with a $300K signing bonus plus a $1MM base salary in 2024-25. He’ll earn a raise to a $1.7MM base salary in 2025-26, meaning that will be the worth of his qualifying offer upon expiry.

12:15 p.m.: The Kings are re-signing RFA defenseman Jordan Spence to a two-year deal worth $3MM, reports John Hoven of Mayor’s Manor.

Based on Hoven’s report, Spence’s deal will carry a $1.5MM cap hit this season and next. The Kings had $2.91MM in projected cap space for 2024-25 prior to the signing, per PuckPedia.

Spence, 23, became a full-time fixture on the Kings’ blue line this season after playing most of the prior two seasons with their AHL affiliate in Ontario. He did so in the third and final season of his entry-level contract, making him an RFA at season’s end. He wasn’t eligible to file for arbitration this summer.

The 2019 fourth-round pick has been a revelation offensively since turning pro. While undersized at 5’10” and 181 lbs, he’s one of the best puck-handling defenders in the organization and put up 87 points in 103 AHL games over the past few years, spectacular production for an early-20s talent. The right-shot defenseman smashed his previous career-high of 24 NHL appearances last season and suited up 71 times, finishing third among Kings blue-liners in scoring with 24 points (two goals, 22 assists). He did so in third-pairing minutes with only fringe power-play time, averaging 14:26 per game.

The Manly, Australia native will likely be relied upon for more minutes next season after Matt Roy departed for the Capitals in free agency. He, along with 2021 eighth-overall pick Brandt Clarke, will likely have a training camp battle for a spot on the team’s second pairing alongside Vladislav Gavrikov.

With Spence signed at $1.5MM per season, the Kings are cap-compliant with a full 23-player roster, PuckPedia shows. Their only remaining RFA is winger Arthur Kaliyev, but he’s not expected to sign a new contract with the club and still has an active trade request. L.A. will have $1.41MM in cap space on opening night if their roster shakes out as projected.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

New York Notes: Wahlstrom, Nelson, Trouba, Barbashev

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Breaking down a variety of Islanders topics in a mailbag published Thursday, Arthur Staple of The Athletic believes a waiver placement is the most likely option for winger Oliver Wahlstrom when training camps wrap up in a couple of months.

The Isles avoided an arbitration hearing with Wahlstrom last month, settling with the RFA on a one-year, $1MM contract. But it was clear at the time that the settlement didn’t necessarily mean he’d be back in an Islanders uniform next season.

Islanders general manager Lou Lamoriello has been shopping the 2018 11th overall pick as far back as the June draft, but Staple believes offers for the winger have “been tepid at best.” He also says that Wahlstrom likely doesn’t have a path to regular bottom-six minutes under head coach Patrick Roy, but that he also “would need to have an incredible camp to secure a top-six spot.” His trade value will remain the same if he sticks in the press box, and the Isles don’t have the cap flexibility to routinely make a seven-figure cap hit player a healthy scratch. For that reason, if Wahlstrom finds his way out of Long Island in the coming weeks, it’ll likely be on the waiver wire.

Here’s more from the New York teams:

  • The Isles have a bevy of crucial pending free agents, namely second-line center Brock Nelson. Staple believes they’d consider shopping Nelson before the trade deadline “if they’re well out of [the playoff race],” but if they opt to work on an extension, it’ll likely result in a long-term deal to keep his cap hit down. The cap-strapped Isles also need to ink star blue liner Noah Dobson to a new deal next summer – he’s a pending RFA. Nelson turns 33 in October, so a seven or eight-year extension would take him into his 40s.
  • Last month, the dust largely settled on a hectic summer for Rangers captain Jacob Trouba with a report that he was likely to remain with the Blueshirts this season after a heavy dose of trade rumors. The 30-year-old, who has two years left on his contract with a hefty $8MM cap hit, told The Athletic’s Peter Baugh that he’s happy to remain with New York and excited for the upcoming campaign. “It’s part of the business,” Trouba said. “I knew that part of my contract turned this year (to a no-trade list), and I submitted a list. That’s what I did. All the other noise was pretty much noise.” The defender also dispelled any notion that there was a rift between he and Rangers GM Chris Drury, saying communication with the entire front office was “great the whole time” throughout the summer.
  • The Rangers no longer own the signing rights to 2022 fifth-round pick Maxim Barbashev, but he’s staying in the organization on a one-year contract with the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack, the team announced today. The 20-year-old winger is coming off a disappointing fourth junior campaign in which he was limited to 35 points in 59 games between the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats and Shawinigan Cataractes. His signing rights lapsed after he wasn’t signed to an entry-level contract by the Blueshirts before June 1, but he’ll now get a bit of runway with Hartford to prove he can adjust to the pro game.

Denis Gurianov Signs Two-Year Deal In Russia

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August 1: The KHL’s rush of transactions today continues. Gurianov’s two-year deal with CSKA was cemented today, per the league.

July 4: Not long ago, it looked as if Denis Gurianov was set to be a key secondary contributor for Dallas.  However, he has struggled considerably for the last couple of years and it appears he’s opting for a change of scenery as Alexander Balabanov of Sport-Express reports that the winger is expected to sign a two-year deal with CSKA Moscow of the KHL.  Back in April, it was reported that this was the likely outcome for the unrestricted free agent.

The 27-year-old was a first-round pick back in 2015 and while he didn’t become a consistent top-six option for the Stars, he put up a 20-goal season and averaged 30 points between 2019-20 and 2021-22, earning himself a couple of $2.9MM paydays in the process.  But he struggled in 2022-23, eventually being moved to Montreal who elected to non-tender him that summer.

Last year, Gurianov didn’t have a great market in free agency, waiting ten days before securing a one-year, $850K deal with Nashville.  Things didn’t go well there either as he cleared waivers at the end of training camp, playing in 27 games with AHL Milwaukee where he had 30 points.  That earned him a promotion in January but he played sparingly with Nashville for two months before being traded to Philadelphia where he played even less down the stretch.  All told, he finished up the campaign with just 18 NHL appearances where he had one goal and one assist.

With a market that doesn’t appear to be materializing for him in North America, it would make sense for him to return to Russia where he’d have a chance to play a prominent role much closer to home.  Assuming a deal is finalized, Gurianov will depart the NHL with 298 career appearances where he put up 52 goals and 61 assists.

Ruslan Iskhakov Signs Two-Year Deal With CSKA

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August 1: Iskhakov has signed a two-year deal with CSKA, the team announced on Telegram on Thursday. His NHL signing rights will still belong to the Islanders when his KHL contract expires in 2026.

July 6: After making his NHL debut late in the season and even getting into a playoff game, it seemed reasonable to think that winger Ruslan Iskhakov was in the Islanders’ plans for next season, at least as a player who could be called up early when injuries struck.  However, it doesn’t appear as if that will be an option as Championat’s Dmitry Storozhev relays that Iskhakov is one of six players expected to sign with CSKA Moscow of the KHL in the coming days.

The 23-year-old was a second-round pick (43rd overall) of the Isles back in 2018 despite being one of the smallest players in that draft class, coming in at just 5’7.  He spent two years at the University of Connecticut before turning pro, spending time in both Finland and Germany before coming back to North America for the 2022-23 campaign.

In his two seasons with AHL Bridgeport, Iskhakov was one of their most consistent scoring threats.  He finished third in rookie scoring in 2022-23 with 51 points in 69 games and nearly duplicated that last season, tallying 50 points in 69 games while adding an assist in his lone regular season appearance with New York.

That was enough for the Islanders to tender him a two-way qualifying offer last month worth a little under $814K at the NHL level.  However, it appears that Iskhakov will eschew that to return home where he hasn’t played since before being drafted.

Worth noting is that CSKA Moscow is under sanctions from the IIHF regarding their handling of Flyers goaltender Ivan Fedotov, including a two-year ban on transfers.  However, Storozhev notes that the State Duma adopted a bill that allows leagues to approve regulations regardless of international federations, effectively bypassing the IIHF sanctions which will allow Iskhakov and others to join CSKA in the near future once the bill is signed into law.

Sharks RFA Egor Afanasyev Signs Three-Year Deal With CSKA Moscow

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Sharks RFA left winger Egor Afanasyev is returning to his native Russia. He’s signed a three-year deal with CSKA Moscow, per a press release from the Kontinental Hockey League.

Afanasyev, 23, was drafted 45th overall by Nashville in 2019. He signed his entry-level contract later that summer, spending one season on loan to the Ontario Hockey League’s Windsor Spitfires and another on loan to CSKA before arriving in the Preds’ system in earnest in 2021. The 6’4″, 212-lb winger spent most of the last three seasons playing with AHL Milwaukee, only making 19 NHL appearances for Nashville in brief call-up duties in 2022-23 and 2023-24. He posted a lone goal and a -8 rating while averaging 11:04 per game.

The Preds parted ways with Afanasyev in June, trading the RFA’s signing rights to the Sharks in exchange for struggling 2020 first-rounder Ozzy Wiesblatt. San Jose issued Afanasyev a qualifying offer before the June 30 deadline, retaining his signing rights, but weren’t able to agree to a deal. Shortly after free agency opened, Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now reported that Afanasyev was set to sign a two-year deal with CSKA. It ended up being a year longer than expected, but negotiations for Afanasyev to return home have evidently been ongoing for months.

Afanasyev has rarely played in Russia throughout his junior and professional career, however. He came to the United States in 2016, suiting up for a Detroit-based U16 team before beginning his major junior career in the United States Hockey League. His only notable experience in the Russian pyramid came on his one-year loan back to CSKA in the 2020-21 season, where he recorded six points (two goals, four assists) in 16 KHL games. He also appeared on brief loans to Zvezda Moscow in the VHL, Russia’s second-tier pro league, and Krasnaya Armiya Moscow in the MHL, Russia’s top junior league.

The three-year deal with CSKA isn’t quite long enough to walk Afanasyev to unrestricted free agency in the NHL’s eyes, though. He’ll be 26 years old upon expiry, so if he wants to return to the NHL in the summer of 2027 when his KHL deal runs out, the Sharks will still have his signing rights. Afanasyev won’t be a UFA until his 27th birthday, which is Jan. 23, 2028.

Alexander Barabanov Signs With KHL’s Ak Bars Kazan

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Alexander Barabanov, who’s spent the last four seasons in the NHL with the Maple Leafs and Sharks, has signed a two-year contract with Ak Bars Kazan in Russia, per a team release.

The 30-year-old winger arrived in the NHL as an undrafted free agent signing by Toronto in the 2020 offseason, but couldn’t break through amongst a deep Maple Leafs offense. The Russian had just one assist through 13 games in fourth-line minutes before the Leafs traded him to San Jose for minor-league forward Antti Suomela, giving Barabanov a better chance at frequent NHL minutes.

It was a prudent move from the Sharks. Barabanov quickly became a top-six option for a paper-thin San Jose forward group, averaging north of 15 minutes per game in each of his three full seasons in the Bay Area. In 2022-23, he was their best winger not named Timo Meier, finishing fifth on the team in scoring with 47 points (15 goals, 32 assists) in 68 games. A pending UFA, some thought San Jose would move on from Barabanov last summer, but he was still with the Sharks come opening night.

Unfortunately, 2023-24 proved to be somewhat of a nightmare for Barabanov. A finger injury cost him a good chunk of the first two months of the campaign, and a lower-body injury kept him out of action at the end of the season. Overall, he was limited to 46 contests, struggling with only four goals and nine assists for 13 points despite still seeing top-six minutes. He shot a career-low 6.0% and had a -24 rating, although he still managed to post strong possession numbers compared to his teammates.

But with the lack of production on the league’s worst team, it wasn’t surprising to see a report last month that Barabanov was receiving calls from Kontinental Hockey League teams to return home. He was previously a member of SKA St. Petersburg from 2013 to 2020, recording 137 points (62 goals, 75 assists) in 262 games in parts of seven seasons. SKA’s roster is full after making a notable signing of their own yesterday in Evgeny Kuznetsov, so he won’t be returning there. But the St. Petersburg native still finds a good landing spot with Ak Bars, which also added NHL veteran Nic Petan to its forward group last month.

Barabanov played 206 NHL games over his four-year stint in North America, scoring 32 goals and adding 75 assists for 107 points with a -58 rating.

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