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Buffalo Sabres Extend Lukas Rousek

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The Buffalo Sabres have made their second signing of the day, handing out a two-year contract extension to forward Lukas Rousek per his agent, Dan Milstein. Financial terms have not yet been reported.

Buffalo selected the 24-year-old in the sixth round of the 2019 NHL Draft, but he’s quickly worked his way up the organizational depth chart after a breakout 2022-23 campaign with the AHL’s Rochester Americans.

Making his NHL debut this season, the Czech winger scored a goal and an assist in two appearances and added 56 points in 70 regular-season games with Rochester. It comes after he recorded just four points in 19 games there last year, his first season in North America.

His offensive breakout didn’t come completely out of the blue, though. His point totals were climbing up during the end of his time in Czechia, recording 38 points in 49 games in 2020-21 with HC Sparta Praha, his final season before coming stateside. He’ll almost certainly find himself out the outside looking in on opening night next season, but that’s more a testament to the depth of young forwards the Sabres have cultivated in recent years. If injuries hit the team, he’ll surely be one of their first call-up options and should build on his NHL games played total next season.

Arizona Coyotes Sign Steven Kampfer

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A long-time NHL farmhand is sticking around. After heading to the Arizona Coyotes organization after the trade deadline in a minor-league deal, journeyman defenseman Steven Kampfer is extending his stay in the desert on a one-year, two-way contract for 2023-24, the team announced. PuckPedia confirms he’ll earn the league minimum of $775K at the NHL level, $225K at the AHL level, and is guaranteed a minimum of $250K next season.

Kampfer didn’t see any NHL ice last season but was under contract with the Detroit Red Wings, spending most of the season with their AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids. A March 9 trade sent him to the Coyotes for future considerations, though, and he recorded seven points in 15 games down the stretch with the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners. It was the 34-year-old’s first season back in North America after a one-year absence spent with the KHL’s Ak Bars Kazan, which allowed him to represent the United States at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

The 2007 draft pick of the Anaheim Ducks has consistently been an eighth/ninth defenseman option for NHL teams, seeing ice in seven straight seasons from 2014-15 to 2020-21. He’s spent most of his career with the Boston Bruins (in two separate stints) but has appeared in 231 NHL games overall, scoring 39 points. He’s also appeared in NHL games for the Florida Panthers, Minnesota Wild, and New York Rangers.

While he’s likely destined for Tucson again next season, it wouldn’t surprise many to see Kampfer in at least a few games with the Coyotes’ blueline, given its paper-thin state.

Minor Transactions: 6/20/23

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Buyouts are the transaction du jour in the NHL, with the first window about a third of the way through completion. Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Patrik Nemeth, and Zack Kassian are three players who will now unexpectedly need to look for new homes next season, while others are settling on their short-term futures in other leagues. As always, we’re keeping an eye out for any of today’s notable moves outside of the NHL:

  • ECHL standout and 2017 Hockey East champion Ryan Dmowski has signed a one-year deal with HK Poproad in the Slovak Extraliga, the team announced. The 26-year-old forward helped his Idaho Steelheads finish first in the ECHL during the regular season and reach the Kelly Cup Final, leading the team by a decent margin with 41 goals and 85 points in 91 combined regular-season and playoff games. Dmowski’s strong performances in the ECHL over the past few seasons haven’t translated to any sustained AHL production, though, and he’ll choose to play high-level professional hockey in Europe without a realistic NHL opportunity in the cards.
  • Undrafted CHL free agent Landon Kosior will begin his professional career with the AHL’s Iowa Wild, as the Minnesota Wild affiliate announced they’ve signed him to a one-year, two-way AHL deal. Passed over in the 2020 NHL Draft, Kosior’s since exploded on the blue line for the WHL’s Prince Albert Raiders and notched over a point per game there in his final season. Set to turn 21 in August, Kosior will now look to stick in second-tier pro hockey and catch the eye of the Wild’s NHL brass.
  • A former top undrafted free agent prospect is getting another chance in the AHL as the Milwaukee Admirals have brought in Tye Felhaber on a one-year AHL deal. Once a promising signing by the Dallas Stars in 2019 after he recorded 109 points in 68 games with the OHL’s Ottawa 67’s, Felhaber’s AHL production never came close to translating to pro hockey. He had to settle for an ECHL contract for 2022-23, which paid massive dividends – he exploded for 63 points in 51 games with the Fort Wayne Komets and even recorded a respectable 13 points in 21 games on loan to Milwaukee. He’ll get a full-time chance there now as the 24-year-old looks to revive his career.

This post will be updated throughout the day.

Minor Transactions: 6/19/23

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Most European rosters are settled after a busy overseas transfer period, but moves will continue to trickle in as NHL free agency opens up too. There’s also the matter of minor-league teams looking to solidify their rosters for next season, as the AHL’s Calder Cup Final is no more than two games away from wrapping up. We’ll keep tabs on any of today’s notable minor moves here:

  • Forwards Nate Sucese and Josh Melnick will likely forego any NHL opportunities next season, signing contract extensions today with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves, who are slated to be the only non-NHL affiliated team in the league next season. A former undrafted Coyotes prospect, the 26-year-old Sucese completed his third AHL campaign last season with his third different team, recording career highs in goals (11), assists (12), points (23), and games played (69). 2022-23 and 2023-24 will mark Sucese’s first consecutive campaigns with the same team since graduating from Penn State in 2020. Melnick, 27, has just one more season of pro experience than Sucese but served as an alternate captain for the Wolves last season and finished fifth on the team in scoring with 35 points in 71 games.

This post will be updated throughout the day.

Flames Sign Clark Bishop To Extension

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With the 2023 Stanley Cup Finals having reached its conclusion, the offseason is finally upon us. As new General Manager Craig Conroy begins his work on re-tooling the roster of the Calgary Flames, he has already gotten one small piece of work out of the way. This afternoon, the Flames announced the signing of Clark Bishop to a two-year, two-way deal.

The contract will pay Bishop a total of $775K each season at the NHL, a small raise compared to what he was earning this past season. Bishop was set to hit the unrestricted free-agent market in a few weeks.

The last time Bishop suited up for an NHL game was back in the 2021-22 season, playing nine games for the Ottawa Senators, producing only one assist. Coming over to the Flames organization last offseason, Bishop played the entire 2022-23 season with Calgary’s AHL affiliate, the Calgary Wranglers.

In 64 games played at the AHL level, Bishop scored a respectable 11 goals and 12 assists, also notching two goals and one assist during the 2023 Calder Cup Playoffs. The Wranglers were eliminated in the Division Finals against the Coachella Valley Firebirds but were the best regular season team in the AHL this year.

If the Flames deal with injuries next season, Bishop could be a viable call-up option to fill in a roster spot. However, if Calgary is able to manage a generally clean bill of health, Bishop will be helping the Wranglers repeat as the top team in the AHL.

 

Philadelphia Flyers Announce Qualifying Offers

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Weeks in advance of the June 30 deadline, the Philadelphia Flyers have become the first team to announce which of their pending restricted free agents are receiving qualifying offers. Forwards Noah Cates, Morgan Frost, and Olle Lycksell, as well as defensemen Ronnie Attard and Cam York, all received qualifying offers from the team and their rights have been retained. Forwards Evan Barratt and Kieffer Bellows and defenseman Wyatte Wylie were left unqualified, and they’ll hit unrestricted free agency on July 1 if left unsigned.

The Flyers also confirmed that goalie prospect Ivan Fedotov, who missed the entire 2022-23 campaign due to military obligations in Russia after intending to leave for the United States, has had his contract tolled over to the 2023-24 season. It’s unclear what his status is and if he’s expected to join the team, but he will be under contract.

Philadelphia acquired Barratt, 24, in an October 2022 minor trade with the Chicago Blackhawks. The 2017 third-round pick spent nearly the entire season in the ECHL with the Flyers’ affiliate, the Reading Royals, where he did well with 50 points in 46 games. After managing to stick in the AHL full-time with Chicago the past two seasons, however, it was a disappointing development that he couldn’t hold the same role in the Flyers organization. He’ll spend next season overseas, where he’s already signed a contract with the DEL’s Nurnberg Ice Tigers.

Bellows was the 19th overall selection in the 2016 draft but ended up on waivers this season after the New York Islanders decided he couldn’t stick in the NHL. Philadelphia claimed him, but the 25-year-old scored just three goals in 27 NHL games and never got anything above a fourth-line role. His power-forward style has yet to truly translate to any sustained success at the NHL level, and he remains unsigned for 2023-24.

Wylie is the youngest of the Flyers to go unqualified, still just 23 years old. After a fifth-round selection in 2018, though, he’s failed to become an every-night AHL player and appeared in 45 games for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms this season. After a strong pair of seasons to finish out his junior career with the Everett Silvertips in 2019 and 2020, though, he should be able to find at least an AHL contract on the open market if the Flyers don’t retain him by the end of the month.

Snapshots: Blues, Gritsyuk, Watson

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The St. Louis Blues have filled out the rest of next season’s coaching staff, hiring Mike Weber as an assistant coach and Michael Babcock as a skills coach today. Late last week, we covered how the Blues were looking to replace their two coaching vacancies soon, in which the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Matthew DeFranks hinted at the possibility of a skills coach hire.

Weber, 35, played 351 NHL games across an eight-season career with the Buffalo Sabres and Washington Capitals. He’d since returned to the Sabres organization, spending the past three seasons as an assistant coach with the AHL’s Rochester Americans. Michael Babcock is the son of soon-to-be Columbus Blue Jackets head coach Mike Babcock, and despite being just 28 years old, this isn’t his first NHL job. He spent the 2022-23 campaign with the Ottawa Senators, doing work with pre-scouting and on-ice skill development, the Blues said.

The two incoming hires replace Mike Van Ryn and Craig MacTavish on the Blues bench, who the team let go of two months ago to the day.

  • New Jersey Devils winger prospect Arseni Gritsyuk won’t be heading to North America until 2025, his agent told NJ.com’s Ryan Novozinsky. Selected in the fifth round of the 2019 NHL Draft, Gritsyuk, now 22, broke out for 15 goals and 40 points in 66 KHL games this season with Avangard Omsk. The 5-foot-11, 192-pound Russian’s speed is his defining factor, and the Devils certainly hope that production transfers over in two seasons when Gritsyuk joins the team.
  • The Detroit Red Wings have named Dan Watson the head coach of their AHL affiliate, the Grand Rapids Griffins, the team said today. Watson had spent the past six years in the organization as the head coach of their ECHL affiliate, the Toledo Walleye, so he’ll have familiarity with a spattering of players already on the Griffins’ roster. Before that, he was an associate coach in Toledo alongside then-head coach Derek Lalonde, now behind Detroit’s NHL bench.

Snapshots: Senators Sale, Canadiens Staff, Knoblauch

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The new owner of the Ottawa Senators was revealed today, with Canadiens minority owner Michael Andlauer proving victorious after a long sale process. But while we now know the identity of the team’s new owner, the team won’t officially change hands for a few more months. Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that the deal for the team may not close until September, as there remains “a lot of work to be done” and Andlauer must also sell his stake in the Canadiens before taking control of their division rival.

As a result of that wait, no significant changes to the team’s hockey operations department are expected until Andlauer assumes full control of the franchise, according to TSN’s Darren Dreger. Steve Staios, currently an Edmonton Oilers executive, has been widely reported to be of interest to Andlauer as a potentially significant addition to the Senators’ front office, and it’s possible that Andlauer would prefer to have different people in charge of hockey operations than the two figureheads currently in place: general manager Pierre Dorion and head coach D.J. Smith. But while it could very well end up being the case that Andlauer prefers new hires, it seems the current status quo will remain in place through this offseason, an arrangement that could have an impact in the team’s ongoing decision-making regarding star forward Alex DeBrincat.

Some other notes from across the NHL:

  • While a variety of factors influenced the Montreal Canadiens’ fall from 2021 Stanley Cup finalist to league basement-dweller between 2021 and 2022/2023, one significant contributing factor is injuries. The team has been absolutely ravaged by injuries over the past two seasons, including this year when 2022 number-one pick Juraj Slafkovsky and star forward Cole Caufield were among the multitude of Canadiens to suffer season-ending injuries. The Canadiens have placed a high priority on player development at this stage of their rebuild, but head coach Martin St. Louis’ development efforts have been consistently hamstrung by injuries to key young talent. Now, off-ice changes are being made to address this situation. TVA Sports’ Tony Marinaro reports that the Canadiens have parted ways with head physiotherapist Donald Balmforth and head athletic therapist Graham Rynbend, a report that was confirmed by Jean Francois Chaumont of Le Journal de Montreal. 
  • The New York Rangers will retain Kris Knoblauch as their AHL head coach for next season, according to The Athletic’s Arthur Staple. Knoblauch was a candidate for the Rangers’ head coaching vacancy and has been the bench boss for the Hartford Wolf Pack for the past four seasons. He led Hartford to the AHL playoffs this past season and upset one of the Eastern Conference’s best teams, the Providence Bruins, in a playoff series. Knoblauch, 44, will look to build on the progress made for Hartford this past season and make a push toward Calder Cup contention.

Minor Transactions: 06/13/23

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The NHL season could end tonight with a Game 5 win for the Vegas Golden Knights, bringing them their first-ever Stanley Cup in just six years of existence. It’s business as usual around the rest of the hockey world, though, as non-candidates for NHL free agency solidify their homes for 2023-24. We’ll keep a list of those notable transactions here today, as always.

  • Detroit Red Wings goalie prospect Victor Brattström signed a one-year contract with SHL side HV71 today, forming a tandem with former Calgary Flame Joni Ortio. Brattström, 26, played the last two seasons primarily with the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins, but posted disappointing numbers (.891 save percentage, 15-24-7 record in 50 games played). An over-age sixth-round selection in the 2018 NHL Draft, Brattström was a pending restricted free agent and likely won’t be qualified by the Red Wings.
  • 27-year-old defenseman Keaton Thompson has signed a one-year contract extension with the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals, per the club. A third-round pick of the Anaheim Ducks back in 2013, Thompson’s become an AHL mainstay as a depth defenseman but has yet to make his NHL debut. The North Dakota product registered four goals and six assists in 40 games with Milwaukee last year, his first with the team after six previous seasons split between the San Diego Gulls and Iowa Wild.
  • The AHL’s Texas Stars have announced that defenseman Michael Karow has signed a two-year contract extension to remain in Cedar Park. The 24-year-old former Arizona Coyotes prospect just finished up his first full season as a professional after spending a half-decade playing college hockey. Karow began the year playing in the ECHL with the Idaho Steelheads but quickly proved himself to be ready for the next level. He eventually got into 36 games for the Stars, including eight playoff games, and tallied 11 total points.
  • The Laval Rocket of the AHL have re-signed forward Riley McKay and hybrid forward/defenseman John Parker-Jones to one-year, one-way AHL deals. McKay, 24, is a hard-nosed grinder who was twice the WHL’s most penalized player in his junior hockey days. This past season he split time between AHL Laval and the Montreal Canadiens’ ECHL affiliate, the Trois-Rivieres Lions. He scored seven points in 23 games at the AHL level while adding on 118 penalty minutes. Parker-Jones, 23, is a massive six-foot-seven, 230-pound player who played in 20 games for the Rocket and 17 for the Lions, flashing some offensive touch at the ECHL level with 7 goals and 11 points in 17 games.
  • 2020-21 ECHL Goalie of the Year Jake Hildebrand is moving to one of the top clubs in the DEL: Eisbaren Berlin. The 29-year-old secured a contract from the bounce-back-seeking Polar Bears after a strong two-season start to his overseas pro career. He led the second-tier DEL2 in save percentage and goals-against-average in 2021-22, leading Frankfurt to promotion to the top-tier DEL. This past season he played in 50 games and posted a solid .911 save percentage, helping his newly-promoted club avoid relegation and reach the DEL playoffs. Now the former college hockey star will join Carolina Hurricanes prospect Nikita Quapp in Berlin’s crease and likely be their go-to option in net.
  • Austrian ICEHL club Black Wings Linz will have to look for a new leading scorer as they announced today that Norwegian center Michael Haga will not be returning to the club for next season. Haga, 31, scored 16 goals and 45 points in 43 games for Linz, helping them reach the ICEHL playoffs. He’s a player with exceptional puck skills for his level of hockey and showcased them frequently not only with Linz but also with Norway at the IIHF Men’s World Championships last month, where he helped Norway achieve a historic upset victory over Canada. Haga has seen only sporadic success at higher levels of European competition earlier in his career, such as in the SHL or Liiga, but perhaps now with this release he’ll be afforded the opportunity to once again try his luck in one of Europe’s top leagues.
  • While Canadian Evan Jasper has been a quality scorer in the ECHL and was a crucial contributor to the Bietigheim Steelers’ promotion-winning 2020-21 campaign, his 17 goals and 32 points this past season were not enough to help the club avoid relegation back to the DEL2. With the Steelers now in the second tier of German hockey, Jasper has decided to sign elsewhere, landing with HK Mountfield in the Czech Extraliga. Jasper’s track record of solid scoring numbers in the ECHL and DEL should translate to the Czech league, where he’ll likely be counted on as a top-six forward for Mountfield.
  • Former EIHL First-Team All-Star Josh Roach has signed a contract extension to remain with the Belfast Giants, the reigning champions. Injuries cost him a large chunk of games this season but when healthy he’s among Belfast’s most important players. With Roach re-signed, Giants defenseman Will Cullen has signed elsewhere, joining with HK Olimpija Ljubljana of the ICEHL, a club in Slovenia’s capital city. Cullen scored 32 points in 52 games for the Giants and added three points in four playoff games. Now, the one-time ECHL blueliner will try his luck in Central Europe.

This page will be updated throughout the day.

East Notes: Konecny, Jost, Red Wings

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The Oilers are among the teams that have inquired about the availability of Flyers winger Travis Konecny, reports Kurt Leavins of the Edmonton Journal.  It’s expected that Edmonton will shop around to try to find a forward upgrade but fitting in Konecny’s contract, one that has two years left on it at $5.5MM, would be tricky given their own cap situation.  The 26-year-old tied his career high in points this season with 61 despite missing 22 games down the stretch due to an upper-body injury.  With Philadelphia appearing to be heading for a rebuild, it stands to reason that GM Daniel Briere will be fielding plenty of calls about his leading scorer in the coming weeks.

Elsewhere in the East:

  • Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli suggests that Sabres center Tyson Jost’s arbitration eligibility could be problematic for Buffalo this offseason. The 25-year-old was claimed off waivers back in November and is owed a $2.25MM qualifying offer.  However, Seravalli points out that Jost’s career numbers are similar to Andrew Copp’s two years ago and the former Winnipeg forward was awarded a $3.64MM AAV in a hearing.  Such a price tag for Jost would be difficult to justify which makes him a decent non-tender candidate if a deal can’t be reached before the deadline at the end of the month.
  • MLive’s Ansar Khan examines some coaching candidates for Detroit’s AHL vacancy. ECHL Toledo head coach Dan Watson has been considered a logical choice for a while but Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde indicated that Watson’s family situation is a strong tie for him to stay at that level.  Red Wings assistant Alex Tanguay has never run a bench before so the opening could be an opportunity for him to get his feet wet in that role while Khan suggests that another Detroit assistant, Jay Varady, could also be a strong candidate and has a head coaching background at lower levels in the past.  The top position with Grand Rapids has been open for nearly two months now.

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