Free Agent Focus: Columbus Blue Jackets
Free agency is now less than a week away and teams are looking ahead to when it opens. There will be several impact players set to hit the open market in July while many teams have key restricted free agents to re-sign as well. We continue our look around the NHL with an overview of the free agent situation for the Blue Jackets.
Key Restricted Free Agents
D Jake Bean – A couple of years ago, the Blue Jackets made a move for Bean with the hope that he could become a longer-term option on the back end. His first season went well before injuries were a significant issue in 2022-23. This season, Bean was able to stay healthy but struggled while remaining limited in a third-pairing role. At 26 with nearly 200 career NHL games under his belt, there is definitely a role for him on an NHL roster. However, is he worth $2.8MM and granting him arbitration rights? This is the decision that GM Don Waddell has to weigh. If you’re wondering which way he might be leaning, remember that Waddell was the GM who moved him to Columbus in the first place.
F Kent Johnson – After a strong showing in his first full NHL campaign in 2022-23 that saw him put up 40 points in 79 games, expectations were high for the 2021 fifth-overall pick heading into the season. However, he wound up not making the team out of training camp and when he was recalled later on, offensive success was harder to come by. To make matters worse, he suffered a torn labrum in late February, ending his season prematurely while also affecting his offseason training. It’s safe to say that he’s heading for a bridge contract and as a 10.2 (c) player, the Blue Jackets don’t have to worry about any potential threat of an offer sheet as he’s not eligible for one.
F Kirill Marchenko – The Blue Jackets haven’t had much success in the goal-scoring department in recent years but Marchenko is one of the exceptions. The 23-year-old scored 21 goals in 59 games in his rookie year and followed it up with a 23-goal effort in 2023-24. If Waddell is inclined to hand out a long-term agreement this summer, Marchenko is probably the candidate to receive it. Otherwise, he could also be heading for a bridge deal. Since he has arbitration rights, there’s a good chance that the agreement will push past the $3MM mark.
F Cole Sillinger – After a sophomore year to forget, Sillinger had a good bounce-back campaign, getting back around the numbers he had in his rookie year, notching 13 goals and 19 assists while improving at the faceoff dot and taking a regular turn on the penalty kill. While it’s not the numbers they were hoping for from the 2021 first-rounder, Sillinger at least appears to be back on the upswing. Once again, a short-term second contract is expected, one that should surpass $2MM per season.
F Alexandre Texier – After spending 2022-23 in Switzerland and having his contract tolled, Texier returned to Columbus and put up a career-best 30 points albeit with a lower point-per-game rate than in 2021-22. There have been times when he has looked like a capable top-six piece but he hasn’t been able to play at that level consistently enough to stay there. Accordingly, another short-term agreement is likely heading his way though he should get a raise from his $1.75MM salary which also serves as his qualifying offer.
Other RFAs: F Tyler Angle, D Marcus Bjork, D Jake Christiansen, G Jet Greaves, F Alexander Nylander
Key Unrestricted Free Agents
D Nick Blankenburg – It’s a pretty thin crop of pending unrestricted free agents which isn’t much of a surprise for a rebuilding team. Blankenburg isn’t even a typical UFA as he qualifies as a Group Six free agent as a player who is 25 or older, has at least three professional seasons, and less than 80 NHL appearances. Blankenburg was a full-timer on the NHL roster in 2022-23 but spent the bulk of this season in the minors where he also battled injury trouble. Still, as someone who has had a bit of success at the top level (18 points in 55 games while logging over 18 minutes a night on average) and being a right-shot defenseman, Blankenburg should have fairly strong interest on the open market.
D Jakub Zboril – Zboril didn’t see any NHL action in 2023-24, instead splitting time between the AHL affiliates for Boston and Columbus. Part of that could be attributable to the seven-figure cap hit he had, something that shouldn’t be the case next season. The 27-year-old has 76 career NHL games under his belt and should have interest on two-way offers. However, if he feels that the AHL is his likeliest destination, it’s also possible that he will consider his options overseas.
Other UFAs: F Joshua Dunne, F Brendan Gaunce, F Carson Meyer, G Malcolm Subban, D Billy Sweezey
Projected Cap Space
Cap space won’t be an issue for the Blue Jackets this summer as they enter the offseason with $21.675MM in spending room. None of their pending restricted free agents are poised to command a pricey contract although there are enough of them to put a dent into that figure. Nonetheless, there is enough room for them to try to make a splash this summer if Waddell wants to put his stamp on his new team early.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. Cap information courtesy of CapFriendly.
Rangers Looking To Move Up In The Draft
By virtue of winning the Presidents’ Trophy and falling in the Eastern Conference Final, the Rangers will be waiting a while to make their first selection in the opening round of the draft on Friday as they hold the 30th overall selection. However, it appears they’re looking to make a selection earlier than that as Larry Brooks of the New York Post reports that GM Chris Drury is looking to package that pick along with winger Kaapo Kakko to move up in the draft order.
Earlier this month, Kakko accepted what would have been his qualifying offer this weekend, inking a one-year, $2.4MM agreement. But if anything, instead of the contract quashing any trade speculation, it has had the opposite effect as many have suggested that the new deal actually helps his trade value as now teams have certainty as to what the 23-year-old will cost.
Kakko was the second-overall pick back in 2019 after a very strong season in Finland’s top league and it looked like New York had a future core winger on their hands with the potential for more. However, while there have been signs of that potential over his first five NHL seasons, he hasn’t been able to show it consistently.
In 2022-23, Kakko had what looked like a possible breakout campaign, notching 18 goals and 22 assists. Those numbers don’t jump off the page for a fourth-year player but they were career bests and both sides were hoping he’d be able to build off that. But it didn’t happen. Instead, Kakko struggled this year, notching 13 goals and six assists in 61 games while seeing his playing time dip to a career-low 13:17 per night. It went even lower in the playoffs as he was just over a dozen minutes per game while recording just one goal and one assist in 15 appearances.
On the one hand, you have Kakko’s recent performance which wasn’t the greatest. On the other hand, here’s a still-young player who other teams might feel that a new team and system could help get him back on track. The Rangers will clearly be hoping that particular perception will help them move up the draft board on Friday.
Todd McLellan Believed To Be The Contender For Blue Jackets Coaching Vacancy
With the draft coming up later this week and free agency beginning soon after, the Blue Jackets will likely want to fill their head coaching vacancy before then. To that end, ESPN’s John Buccigross reports (Twitter link) that a decision is expected soon while Todd McLellan is gaining traction to be their next bench boss.
McLellan would certainly represent an experienced option taking over from Pascal Vincent who was in his first year running the bench this past season. In their search for a new GM, the Blue Jackets were placing a lot of emphasis on experience and it appears Don Waddell is placing a similar emphasis on that with his coaching hire.
The 56-year-old started 2023-24 with Los Angeles where he was in his fifth season with the team. However, they struggled through the first half of the year, resulting in his being dismissed in early February with assistant Jim Hiller taking over on an interim tag (which was later lifted in the spring).
McLellan also has long coaching stints under his belt with San Jose and Edmonton. All told, he has been behind the bench for 1,144 games, 24th-most in NHL history. He hasn’t had a lot of playoff success over that stretch with his teams playing to a 42-46 record over nine postseason appearances.
Of course, playoff success shouldn’t be on the mind of Waddell, at least in the short term. The Blue Jackets have missed the postseason in four straight years and have finished at the basement of the Metropolitan for two straight years. With a particularly young core group, the focus in the near future will be making the most of player development and trying to get Columbus to be more competitive.
With that in mind, McLellan could very well be the right fit to help lead the Blue Jackets through their rebuild and ideally towards trying to push for a playoff spot. Whether it’s him or someone else, a decision on their next head coach should be coming soon.
PHR Mailbag: Goalies, Mock Draft, Flyers, Avalanche, Devils, Islanders, NHL-CHL Rule, Rentals
Topics in this edition of the PHR Mailbag include the goaltending market, questions about Colorado’s upcoming offseason, and much more. If your question doesn’t appear here, check back in our previous two mailbag columns.
@3rdWorldGhost: Where do these goalies end up? – Markstrom, Saros, Gibson, Korpisalo, Nedeljkovic, Samsonov, Ullmark, and what other goalies do you see moving?
What UFAs end up in Chicago?
What’s your top 10 mock draft?
Do the Panthers blow it up if they win?
There’s a lot to dig into here so these will be pretty quick answers. We now know that Jacob Markstrom will be with New Jersey and Alex Nedeljkovic is staying in Pittsburgh. We also now know Joonas Korpisalo and Linus Ullmark have traded places. As for the other goalies, I’m leaning toward Juuse Saros staying in Nashville while John Gibson landing in Toronto is something I’ve had kicking around for a bit, assuming they’re not on his no-trade list and Anaheim holds back some salary. My original landing spot for Ilya Samsonov went out the window with the goalie movement this week so let’s go with him landing in Chicago. There are other goalies who will move, largely of the backup variety, headlined by Laurent Brossoit and Alex Stalock. Guessing where they’ll land on that particular carousel is nothing short of a dart throw, however.
Looking back at my picks for our upcoming UFA rankings (which will require some adjustments for that goalie movement), I had them picked for Jake Guentzel, Alexander Wennberg, Daniel Sprong, and Matt Grzelcyk plus Samsonov now. Note that we make picks independently of each other knowing that one signing often blocks others on that team so don’t interpret that as me picking all of them, they’re all individual one-off predictions. (Keep this in mind when the full predictions come out in the coming days.)
Guentzel is the headliner while the others I picked as short-term bridge players to give their prospects some time to develop. I don’t think they’ll land all of those players but if they got Guentzel plus a floor-raising veteran or two, that wouldn’t be a bad trip through free agency. I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s some activity on the trade front as well where they take on a short-term contract as they’ve done lately.
As for a mock draft, here are my predictions as things currently stand:
1) SJ – F Macklin Celebrini
2) CHI – D Artyom Levshunov
3) ANA – D Anton Silayev
4) CBJ – F Ivan Demidov
5) MTL – F Cayden Lindstrom
6) UTA – D Zeev Buium
7) OTT – F Bennett Sennecke
8) SEA – D Sam Dickinson
9) CGY – D Carter Yakemchuk
10) NJ – F Tij Iginla
Meanwhile, we released our Round One Mock Draft earlier today so be sure to check that out if you haven’t already done so.
I don’t see a full-scale blow-up coming from Florida. Obviously, they’re not going to be able to afford to keep all of their pending free agents so they will probably take a small step back from that. But even if that happens, they should still be viewed as a contender. If you have a shot at contending, you probably won’t be blowing things up. Besides, they don’t have control of their next two first-round picks so if they were going to take a step back, they wouldn’t even be able to benefit from it in the form of adding high-end prospects. It’s full steam ahead for them as a result.
Emoney123: How would you rate the Flyers’ rebuild? Besides the hype of Michkov, how soon might Gendron, Bonk, Barkey, Tuomaala, Rizzo, and McDonald play in the NHL? How would you rate the farm system overall? Thanks!
I think they’re off to a good start to their rebuild but there is still some work to be done. If it’s a larger-scale teardown which I think is what they were aiming for at least, they don’t have enough pieces yet. I’m answering out of order but I think this is a mid-pack system at the moment. If you’re planning to exit a rebuild, you don’t want a mid-pack system to start from; obviously, you want to be at least somewhere in the top ten.
Of the players you listed, the only ones that might be close to seeing NHL action is Massimo Rizzo. A good showing to start next season with Lehigh Valley would get him on the recall radar. Samu Tuomaala could also get into that mix as well. I’m not convinced Alexis Gendron will be an NHL regular; I need to see some sustained pro success to show that he’s not just a high-end junior scorer. Denver Barkey has another year of major junior left and, like Gendron, will probably need time to adjust in the minors so he’s not on the short-term horizon either.
On the back end, I like Oliver Bonk as an all-around dependable piece. He may not be flashy but he will be effective. But he has another OHL year left and probably some time in the minors after that; many teams don’t bring blueliners straight to the NHL from junior. As for Hunter McDonald, I feel like he’s more of an organizational filler prospect than someone they should be counting on for meaningful NHL contributions. He can certainly change that assessment with a good showing for a couple of years in the minors but at a minimum, he’s probably not a short-term option.
Philadelphia needs more high-end prospects and frankly, more depth before emerging from this rebuild. They’re off to a good start but that’s all it is, a start.
@iwtfwc: How do things play out for the @Avalanche this offseason?
– Landeskog? (I’m not confident)
– Nichushkin? (Seems they’re stuck unless he fails Stage 3)
– Drouin contact?
– Mittelstadt contract?
– Roster fill out?
– Chances of adding Nedeljkovic?
I’m not overly confident either that Gabriel Landeskog will be able to have any sort of successful extended comeback. However, I do think he’s going to give it an honest try and will start the season with the Avs. That will limit them this summer but if he shuts it down midseason, they’ll have plenty of in-year flexibility. I agree on Valeri Nichushkin, their hands are tied right now. He needs to get through the third stage of the program and then they can assess things from there. But they basically have to reserve space to activate him when he’s cleared.
If Jonathan Drouin comes back, it might be after free agency starts. I don’t think the Avalanche are willing to get to his number at this point, barring a cap-clearing move needing to be made first. If they were ready and able to make a deal, it’d be done already. But if Drouin’s market isn’t the strongest (and with how things went in Montreal, it might not be as robust as his camp hopes), I could see them circling back. I had him at three years at $4.375MM per season in our free agent predictions and they might be able to afford that.
I talked a lot about Casey Mittelstadt in Colorado’s offseason checklist the other day so I won’t get into that in much detail again here. I can’t see them affording a long-term deal so something in the four-to-six-year range around $5.5MM or so is where I see that falling. In terms of filling out their roster, that was also a topic in their checklist. It’s going to be a bunch of minimum-salary signings or close to it. Your guess is as good as mine as to which players will accept it a few hours into free agency.
I don’t see Colorado adding another goalie for the big club this summer (obviously not Nedeljkovic now). Justus Annunen did quite well in limited duty last year and has earned a longer look behind Alexandar Georgiev. Perhaps more importantly, he’s slotted in at less than $840K for the next two years so it’s his spot to lose. I do expect a signing for the Eagles, however.
RipperMagoo: Are the Devils better or worse after?
Sign Anthony Stolarz: three years, $8.25MM @ AAV $2.75MMl
Sign Nikita Zadorov: five years, $30MM @ AAV $6MM
Sign Dakota Joshua: three years, $9MM @ AAV $3MM
Trade Holtz and Bahl to SEA for Adam Larsson
Draft Cole Eiserman @ 10th
Before even looking at the options, the answer is yes. Are the Devils better…yes. If they did nothing, they’d be better than they were in 2023-24 as long as they don’t get slammed by injuries again. We know they’ve addressed the goalie situation so let’s skip that one but here are some thoughts on the others.
Zadorov: I don’t agree with him being a $6MM player but it feels like someone’s going to give it to him. Here’s the thing, how much do they want to spend on the back end? They’re at nearly $20MM now which is fine but Simon Nemec and Luke Hughes are a year away from getting a lot more expensive. If they get big second contracts and you add Zadorov, now we’re talking $30MM-plus and not by a little bit. That might be too much spending on the blueline. If they go for a defenseman this summer, I think it’ll be someone on a short-term contract and it might be by trade over free agency.
Larsson: I’m going out of order here but the two are related. At least this is a short-term contract which better fits their salary structure but giving up Alexander Holtz and let’s say another young roster player (since Kevin Bahl is gone now) for a one-year rental to fill a fourth defenseman role seems steep. And if you’re acquiring him with the idea of extending him, now you have three right-shot blueliners making at least $4.4MM for 2025-26 with Nemec still to sign. Again, this feels like too much money on the back end.
Joshua: I think they’d happily take him at that price tag but I have a hunch he’s getting a bit more than that and possibly another year. Think four years, $14MM in total.
Eiserman: With how his stock has slipped, I’m not sure he’d be their choice at 10 but it wouldn’t be a bad one. Especially if Holtz isn’t in the long-term plans, another scoring winger isn’t a bad thing to have.
New Jersey has enough money to try to take a big swing this summer. I think they’ll try to land a big fish up front and then add a veteran blueliner or two on short-term deals, giving them some shorter-term stability while leaving spots and salary slots for Nemec and Hughes to take on bigger roles a year later.
DevilShark: Which team that made the playoffs this year is in for the biggest hurt over the next 10 years when you look at a combo of current roster, prospect pool, and draft pick stock?
I’ll pick the Islanders here. In an effort to hang around the playoff picture every year, they haven’t made many moves to add to their pick and prospect cupboards and unfortunately for them, they haven’t had much to show for it aside from their run in 2021.
If you look at their current roster, they’re a mid-pack team at best on paper. They don’t have enough cap space to go after an impact player or two that could give them the boost they need. As it is, they might have to buy someone out or pay an asset to get out of an undesirable contract for the second year in a row. That’s not good.
Prospect-wise, they have one of the weakest systems in the NHL. That’s a by-product of moving first-round picks (their last one was back in 2019, used on Simon Holmstrom) and some of their better prospects for win-now options. Granted, moving some of those pieces helped them land Bo Horvat on a contract GM Lou Lamoriello wasn’t a fan of which isn’t nothing but sacrificing the future for the present will eventually catch up with teams. Meanwhile, they don’t have their own first three picks in the upcoming draft (although they do have some selections from other teams at least).
I don’t see a path for them to drastically improve, nor do I see one that sees them bottom out. The floor of their team is good but the ceiling isn’t much better. At some point, they’re going to have to take some steps back to move more steps forward but I don’t see Lamoriello pivoting to that approach anytime soon.
West Notes: Saros, Sharks, Roadrunners
The Predators are a franchise that rarely hands out trade protection when they sign contracts, even to some of their longer-term veterans. However, in an appearance on 102.5 The Game today, GM Barry Trotz acknowledged that if he’s able to agree to terms on a long-term extension with goaltender Juuse Saros, he would have to give out some sort of trade protection though it would have to have some sort of limit to it. Saros will enter the final year of his contract in July making him extension-eligible and Trotz hasn’t hidden his desire to lock up the netminder. However, Saros is well-positioned for a significant raise on his current $5MM price tag and could push past $8MM on a new agreement. If a deal is reached, Saros would become just the third Nashville player with trade protection, joining captain Roman Josi and winger Filip Forsberg.
Elsewhere in the West:
- During his pre-draft press conference today, Sharks GM Mike Grier told reporters including Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now (Twitter link) that center Logan Couture is working out and hopes to get back to skating next month. The 35-year-old was limited to just six games this season due to osteitis pubis; he twice tried to come back from it but had to shut those efforts down due to setbacks. Couture has three years left on his contract which carries an $8MM cap charge.
- Still with the Sharks, they’re expected to be more aggressive in terms of adding some veterans this summer, already picking up Barclay Goodrow and Ty Dellandrea up front. Grier noted (per Peng) that while they could look to add free agents, their internal cap on how long they want to sign a player for would be four years. We’ve seen plenty of speculation that there may be teams willing to offer a higher AAV in exchange for a shorter-term deal; San Jose would be a potentially viable candidate to offer a contract or two like that.
- Following the news that the land auction the Coyotes are hoping to win to get an NHL team back was canceled due to a lack of a proper zoning permit, the six games that AHL Tucson was set to play at Mullet Arena have now been moved back to Tucson, per a team announcement. The Roadrunners will serve as Utah’s primary affiliate next season.
Sharks Expected To Non-Tender Calen Addison
With the deadline for qualifying offers now being less than a week away, teams will soon be making their final decisions on who to keep and who to let go. The Sharks appear to be ahead of the game on that front as GM Mike Grier told reporters today including Eric Stephens of The Athletic (Twitter link) that they’re engaging in contract discussions with RFA wingers Filip Zadina and Luke Kunin. However, he also revealed that the Sharks will be moving on from defenseman Calen Addison, meaning he’s likely to be non-tendered on Sunday.
San Jose acquired the 24-year-old from Minnesota in an early-season trade that saw them part with winger Adam Raska and a fifth-round pick. With Addison on the outside looking in at a regular lineup spot with the Wild and the fact he was coming off a 29-point season, the move made a lot of sense for the Sharks to potentially bring in someone who could be a longer-term fit.
However, things didn’t go particularly well for Addison this season. He managed just one goal and 11 assists in 60 games with his new team while he struggled considerably in the defensive end. It wouldn’t be surprising to see San Jose try to add some veterans on the back end to help try to stabilize things somewhat after a season to forget which would help push Addison out, especially being arbitration-eligible where his 2022-23 performance could have landed him a sizable raise on the $825K he made this season.
It’s worth noting that both Zadina and Kunin are also arbitration-eligible next month. Zadina’s checks in at $1.1MM so as long as his asking price isn’t too exorbitant, there’s a good chance he’ll be tendered. However, Kunin, who had just 18 points in 77 games, is owed a $3MM qualifier so if talks don’t go well in the coming days, it’s possible that he could be let go if a new deal isn’t reached by Sunday.
Senators Acquire Linus Ullmark
With Jeremy Swayman set to land what’s expected to be a significant contract as a restricted free agent this summer, it has been widely expected that the Bruins would be moving out Linus Ullmark. That move has now happened as Ullmark has been moved to Ottawa in exchange for the 25th pick in this week’s draft, goaltender Joonas Korpisalo, and forward Mark Kastelic. Both sides have announced the swap which also sees the Senators retaining 25% of Korpisalo’s contract.
Ullmark has spent the last three seasons with Boston after signing a four-year, $20MM contract with them in free agency back in 2021. It’s fair to say that the move worked out quite well for both sides.
After struggling with inconsistency throughout his time in Buffalo, the 30-year-old has become one of the top netminders in the NHL. In 2022-23, he played in a platoon with Swayman but was nothing short of dominant, winning 40 of 48 starts while posting a league-best 1.89 GAA and a .938 SV%. That helped him earn his first career Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s Goalie of the Year.
Not surprisingly, those numbers dropped this season although coming off the year he had, that was to be expected. Even so, Ullmark was still above average, putting up a 2.57 GAA with a .915 SV% in 39 starts. However, he was limited to just two postseason appearances (one start) with Swayman getting the bulk of the workload.
With Swayman set to command a long-term deal and having arbitration eligibility for the second year in a row, it wouldn’t have been feasible for Boston to keep both netminders in the fold. Doing so would have made them one of the highest-spending teams on goaltenders which would have cut into their flexibility to fill some other needs this summer.
Meanwhile, from Ottawa’s standpoint, a move to shore things up between the pipes has been an annual occurrence recently with middling results at best. Last summer, Korpisalo was brought in on a five-year, $20MM contract following a strong bounce-back year with Columbus and Los Angeles. However, instead of turning things around in goal, he struggled considerably, posting a 3.27 GAA and a career-worst .890 SV%. Boston will assume a $3MM cap charge on Korpisalo for the next four years while Ottawa will carry $1MM of dead cap charges for that time. They’ll be hoping that in a better-structured system, he could put up similar numbers to the ones he put up with the Kings down the stretch in 2023, another defensive-oriented team.
Unfortunately for Ottawa, Anton Forsberg didn’t fare much better; while his GAA was a little better at a still-below-average 3.21, his save percentage also checked in at .890. Meanwhile, their potential goalie of the future Mads Sogaard also struggled, coming up with a 4.05 GAA and a .859 SV% in his six NHL appearances. Knowing that, many expected that they would be making another attempt to upgrade in goal this summer; Ullmark certainly represents one. The Sens were believed to be interested in acquiring Ullmark during the season although that never came to fruition with Ottawa believed to be on Ullmark’s partial no-trade list. Evidently, he had a change of heart to help facilitate the move.
Once July 1st comes around, Ullmark will become extension-eligible as he’ll officially be in the final year of his contract. No informal agreement is in place yet although Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports (Twitter link) that the two sides are working on getting an extension in place. If that happens, he’d become their long-term starter with Sogaard likely getting the full-time promotion to the NHL to serve as his backup starting in 2025-26 after Forsberg’s contract comes to an end.
Meanwhile, Boston is also adding a rugged fourth liner in Kastelic. The 25-year-old played in 63 games with the Sens this season, collecting five goals, five assists, 63 penalty minutes, and 126 hits while averaging a little less than eight minutes a night. For his NHL career, Kastelic has 25 points and 331 hits in 144 games with Ottawa. He’s signed through the upcoming season at a $835K cap charge and will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights at that time so he could be in their plans for a couple of years at least. The Bruins have several pending unrestricted free agents up front so Kastelic will be taking the place of one of those players.
Boston will also get to do something they haven’t been able to do lately and that’s draft in the first round. Assuming they hold onto the pick, this will be the first time that they picked on the opening day of the draft since 2021 when they took Fabian Lysell 21st overall. Interestingly enough, that pick has been well-traveled. It’s Boston’s own selection but they originally moved it for Tyler Bertuzzi at the 2023 trade deadline. Detroit then sent it to Ottawa as part of the Alex DeBrincat trade last offseason and now it has returned to the Bruins.
The move winds up being relatively cap-neutral for both sides. In the end, Boston saves $1.165MM with the swap, bringing their cap space for this coming summer to just under $21.6MM, per CapFriendly. Meanwhile, the Sens are now down to $11.3MM in room, per CapFriendly. We’ll find out in the coming days how the teams plan to spend the bulk of those funds.
Steve Conroy of the Boston Herald was the first to report that Ullmark was heading to Ottawa.
Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Utah Re-Signs Ben McCartney
Over the past few weeks, Utah has been busy re-signing several pending free agents. They continued that on Monday as the team announced that they’ve inked winger Ben McCartney to a one-year, two-way deal. While financial terms were not disclosed, CapFriendly reports (Twitter link) that the contract pays $775K in the NHL and $100K in the minors, meaning he took less than his qualifying offer to secure a higher guaranteed AHL portion.
The 22-year-old finished up his entry-level contract this season, playing exclusively in the minors with Tucson although he did have a brief early-season recall to Arizona. McCartney played in 46 games with the Roadrunners in 2023-24, picking up six goals and a dozen assists.
In his rookie year, McCartney had 35 points in 57 games in the minors, earning him a two-game stint with the Coyotes. However, even if you add in his output from 2022-23, he has just 37 AHL points since then which made him a possible non-tender candidate if GM Bill Armstrong decided he wanted to give someone else a shot. Instead, McCartney will get another chance to prove his worth, assuming he clears waivers in the fall to return to the Roadrunners (who remain Utah’s affiliate for next season).
Stars Re-Sign Matej Blumel, Emilio Pettersen
June 24: The Stars made Blümel’s signing official in an announcement Monday. They also confirmed the re-signing of Norwegian forward Emilio Pettersen, which PuckPedia had reported last week.
June 21: The Stars have been active in recent days with a trade and a re-signing and have now taken care of another of their pending restricted free agents. CapFriendly reports (Twitter link) that they’ve re-signed winger Matej Blumel to a one-year, two-way deal that pays $775K in the NHL and $175K in the minors. In doing so, he took nearly $100K less than his qualifying offer for his NHL salary but received an additional $95K guarantee for his AHL salary.
The 24-year-old was originally drafted by Edmonton back in 2019 but didn’t sign with them by the deadline in 2021. One year later, Dallas inked him to an entry-level contract, one that officially expires next week before this new deal kicks in.
Blumel spent 2023-24 exclusively in the minors, playing with AHL Texas. He was one of their top scorers, tallying 31 goals and 31 assists in 72 regular season games while adding nine points in seven postseason appearances. That helped earn him a recall last month after Texas was eliminated to serve as a Black Ace for Dallas for the rest of their postseason.
Blumel does have six career NHL games under his belt, all coming from his rookie year in 2022-23 where he had a goal while logging a little under ten minutes a night. He is still exempt from waivers for another season and could find himself on the outside looking in once again. That said, if Blumel scores at a similar pace next season, he should be one of their first recalls when injuries strike.
Multiple Teams Showing Interest In Golden Knights Goaltenders
The Golden Knights are in somewhat of an unusual spot heading into next season as both of their goaltenders are a year away from becoming unrestricted free agents. To that end, ESPN’s Kevin Weekes reports (Twitter link) that teams are showing interest in both Adin Hill and Logan Thompson.
Both netminders are still relatively inexperienced at the NHL level, all things considered. Hill has played parts of seven seasons but has just 123 career regular season starts under his belt between Arizona, San Jose, and Vegas. Thompson, meanwhile, has even less, with just 95 starts over parts of four years.
Hill played an integral role in the Golden Knights’ Stanley Cup title last year, helping earn him a two-year, $9.8MM contract soon after to avoid him reaching the open market last summer. The 28-year-old saw his numbers drop a bit this season although he still managed a 2.71 GAA with a .909 SV% in 35 games, both above the league average.
He was basically in a time-sharing situation with Thompson, who made 42 starts in 2023-24. His numbers were nearly identical to Hill’s, checking in at 2.70 and .908 respectively. The 27-year-old got the nod to start the playoffs but ceded the net to Hill for the final three games as they bowed out to Dallas in the opening round.
It’s worth noting that Thompson is one of the biggest bargains in the league between the pipes. His AAV checks in at $766.7K, below the minimum salary. With Vegas being quite tight to the salary cap once again this summer, they’d be hard-pressed to be persuaded to part Thompson knowing that whoever replaces him would cut into their already limited flexibility.
With their salary structure, it’s hard to see Vegas being able to afford to keep both goalies beyond the upcoming season. They should be able to afford to keep one of them but combined, they’d likely cost more than what GM Kelly McCrimmon can realistically afford to allocate to that position. With that in mind, it makes sense that teams are sniffing around to see which one might become available, if one is made available at all.
With Jacob Markstrom already having been moved, Linus Ullmark is the next-biggest name in play among NHL netminders and there are several teams who could be on the lookout for help between the pipes. As a result, it could be an intriguing trade market for netminders in the coming days.