While Kevin Rooney’s tryout with the Devils didn’t lead to a contract with them, it helped lead to a contract elsewhere. The Mammoth announced that they’ve signed the forward to a one-year, two-way contract. The deal will pay $775K at the NHL while PuckPedia reports (Twitter link) that the AHL portion carries a $325K salary.
The 32-year-old has seen NHL action in each of the last nine seasons, the last three of which came with Calgary. Last season, Rooney got into a career-best 70 games with the Flames, collecting five goals and five assists, while winning a little over 47% of his faceoffs and recording 109 hits on their fourth line. For his career, he has 32 goals and 28 helpers in 330 career contests.
Rooney has also gotten into 242 career AHL contests over the years, spending time with both New Jersey’s and Calgary’s farm teams. In those appearances, he has fared a lot better offensively, picking up 34 goals and 59 assists. However, he hasn’t played regularly in the minors since 2022-23 when he got into 51 games with AHL Calgary.
Utah’s season-opening roster contained the maximum of 23 players. Accordingly, they will either need to make a roster move to accommodate adding Rooney to their active roster where he’d likely serve as the 13th forward or Rooney will receive a non-roster designation and land on waivers on Tuesday to start the process of sending him to the minors. Considering he went into camp with New Jersey without a guaranteed deal and accepted a two-way pact from the Mammoth, it would seem like there’s a good chance that Rooney would be claimed if Utah chooses to go the latter route with him.