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Colorado Avalanche Extend Wyatt Aamodt

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The Colorado Avalanche have announced that defenseman Wyatt Aamodt has been signed to a one-year contract extension. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed in the team announcement.

Aamodt was set to become an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent as his one-year entry-level contract was about to expire. Now, with this extension, he’ll avoid any lengthy offseason negotiations and secure his spot in the Avalanche’s plans for next season.

Aamodt will turn 26 early next season and is entering his second full season as a professional hockey player. He’s an undrafted player who spent four seasons with Minnesota State University, playing on some highly successful teams and earning the right to captain the squad in his senior season.

There isn’t a ton of offense in Aamodt’s game, but the five-foot-eleven left-shot blueliner capably handled a regular role on the AHL’s Colorado Eagles’ defense. His strong two-way game kept him in the Eagles’ lineup and earned the trust of head coach Greg Cronin, who recently took the job as the head coach of the Anaheim Ducks.

Late in the season, Aamodt was partnered with rookie NCAA signing Sam Malinski and Aamodt’s steady, reliable play helped Malinski make an instant offensive impact in the AHL, as he scored 10 points in his first 14 games as a professional.

This one-year extension is Aamodt’s reward for a quality campaign in the AHL, and next season he’ll be relied upon once again as a regular in the Eagles lineup, and Aamodt will likely hope to take a step forward in his play and make a push to potentially earn an NHL call-up.

Columbus Blue Jackets Acquire Ivan Provorov As Part Of Three-Team Trade

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With Mike Babcock expected to be named Columbus Blue Jackets head coach later this summer, the Blue Jackets have made a major push to improve their roster for his first season as head coach.

In a trade officially announced by all three involved teams, Columbus is acquiring defenseman Ivan Provorov from the Philadelphia Flyers, but there are a lot of moving parts to the deal. Here are the full details as told by the team announcement:

Philadelphia trades Ivan Provorov and Hayden Hodgson to Los Angeles in exchange for Calvin Petersen, Sean Walker, Helge Grans and the Kings’ 2024 second-round pick. Columbus acquires Kevin Connauton from Philadelphia in exchange for a 2023 first-round pick (22nd overall) and conditional second-round pick in either the 2024 or 2025 NHL Draft. Columbus acquires Provorov from Los Angeles in exchange for Connauton.

The Kings are retaining 30% of Provorov’s deal, meaning he’ll cost $4.725MM against the cap for Columbus for the next two seasons.

Laid out plainly, here is what each team is acquiring as part of this deal:

Columbus gets: Provorov. Philadelphia gets: Petersen, Grans, Walker, 2023 1st (via CBJ via LA), 2024 2nd (via LA), conditional 2nd (via CBJ). Los Angeles gets: Hodgson, Connauton.

Columbus’ acquisition of Provorov should not come as a surprise, as it was reported months ago that the team had an interest in acquiring a defensive upgrade to fill the void left by their trade of Vladislav Gavrikov to Los Angeles. Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen has found his upgrade in Provorov, 26.

Provorov was the seventh-overall pick at that 2015 draft and at times looked to be a potential top-of-the-lineup, all-situations force for Philadelphia. He averages over 24 minutes per night for his career, and has a career-high of 17 goals and 41 points.

But in recent seasons, as the Flyers themselves have descended from consistent playoff team to league basement-dweller, Provorov’s form has declined and this season he played a full minute less per game than his career average, earning 23:01 time on ice per contest.

As Provorov’s inconsistency became harder and harder to ignore and the Flyers organization began to pivot to more of a rebuild-like direction, it became clear that a change of scenery would likely be in the best interest of all parties.

Now Provorov gets his change of scenery with two seasons remaining on his contract. He’ll land in Columbus, where he’ll be slotted more appropriately as the team’s number-two left-shot defenseman behind franchise face Zach Werenski.

Assuming Werenski can return to form next season after an injury cost him most of his 2022-23, Provorov will be in a more comfortable position as a second-pairing anchor. It’s likely that the Blue Jackets believe he’ll be able to reach the heights he hit earlier in his career in that position sort of position, when he’s not being leaned on as his coach’s number-one option.

For the Kings, the motivations behind this deal seem relatively clear. First and foremost, creating cap space was an important priority, and is something the Kings have done by sending Petersen and his $5MM AAV deal to the Flyers.

Petersen once looked like a potential successor to Jonathan Quick for the Kings, posting a solid .911 save percentage in 35 games in 2020-21. Since that point, though, Petersen has declined sharply and this season spent most of the year in the AHL as he had a grisly .868 save percentage in his 10 NHL games. Now Petersen will get a fresh start in Philadelphia while the Kings clear his hefty cap hit off their books, save for any money they retain. (which will be revealed when the official trade details come in)

Cap space is of importance to the Kings as they are looking to sign an extension with Gavrikov, their mid-season trade acquisition. ESPN’s John Buccigross on Twitter cited a conversation with a Kings executive who pegged the cost of Gavrikov’s contract extension to be in the “$6-7 million” range, with the team preferring to keep the number as early in the $6MM range as possible. If the Kings do end up finalizing that sort of contract extension with the 27-year-old Russian rearguard, this trade of Petersen is an essential one.

ESPN’s Kevin Weekes reports that Gavrikov is “only interested in a two-year contract extension with the Kings,” which could contribute to the higher price tag Buccigross is reporting, as the conventional wisdom is that short-term contracts for coveted players who are in their prime would carry higher average annual values than the more traditional long-term commitments.

Meanwhile, the trade of Walker (reportedly to Philadelphia) is no surprise seeing as the Kings have been long expected to deal from their surplus of right-shot NHL-ready blueliners. With Sean Durzi a breakout talent and 22-year-old Jordan Spence clearly ready to take on the challenge of the NHL, it seems Walker was the odd man out in the team’s right-shot defensive picture.

Walker is a 28-year-old undrafted Bowling Green State University product who is making $2.65MM against the cap for one more season. He scored 13 points in 70 games this season and contributed to the team’s penalty kill, but his average ice time was cut from 18:22 per game last year to just 14:50 this season.

Perhaps he’ll be able to earn a larger role in Philadelphia, or the Flyers could even opt to flip him to another team to earn even more draft capital to further their rebuild process.

They’ll also get Connauton, a 33-year-old defender with 360 games of NHL experience on a $762.5k cap hit for next season. He scored 15 points in 63 games in 2022-23 for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms of the AHL, and it was his first season since 2013 spent without a single NHL game played. He’ll likely play with the Ontario Reign in the AHL and add to the Kings’ defensive depth.

Hodgson, 27, has just seven games of NHL experience but scored 19 goals and 31 points in 46 AHL games in 2021-22. His point total dropped to eight this past year, but perhaps the physical forward can return to AHL prominence in Ontario.

For Philadelphia, this deal is all about adding as much draft and prospect capital to further their rebuild under new GM Daniel Briere. Getting a first-rounder in a highly-regarded draft is a solid return for Provorov, and the additional two second-rounders are a great bonus. Grans has had an uneven time in the AHL with the Kings organization, but he’s still just 21 years old and was the 35th overall pick at the 2020 draft. He’s a talented prospect who could quickly put himself in the Flyers’ blueline mix.

This trade is Briere’s first move in what is likely to be a summer of major change for the Flyers. If they are indeed pursuing a complete rebuilding process, (perhaps including a trade of netminder Carter Hart, who has been the subject of “industry rumblings” about a potential trade) this is a strong first transaction to get that rebuild started.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman first reported the deal taking place. ESPN’s Kevin Weekes, The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline, Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek, and ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski each first reported other elements of the deal.  

Dallas Stars Extend Fredrik Karlström

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The Dallas Stars have announced a one-year, two-way contract extension for pending Group Six unrestricted free agent forward Fredrik Karlström. The financial terms of the deal were not included as part of Dallas’ announcement, but have been reported by PuckPedia. Karlström’s deal will carry a league-minimum $775k AAV as well as a $225k AHL salary and a $250k total guarantee.

Karlström, 25, was a third-round pick of the Stars back at the 2015 draft who has been a depth forward in Dallas for the past two seasons.

He took an extended development path to reach his current role, spending four full seasons in the SHL with Linkoping HC and Vaxjo Lakers. Karlström signed a two-year entry-level deal with Dallas in the summer of 2020 and was loaned back to Vaxjo for the following campaign, where he won a championship and scored a combined 35 points in 65 regular season and playoff SHL games.

After that year he decided to try his luck in North America and spent most of his 2021-22 season with the AHL’s Texas Stars. He registered a respectable 16 goals and 29 points in 65 games, helping his team reach the AHL’s playoffs. He also earned the right to make his NHL debut in an April 21st, 2022 contest against the Calgary Flames, a game where he also scored his first NHL point.

This season was more of the same for Karlström, as he was a consistent, versatile middle-six forward in the AHL while managing to competently handle fill-in duty in the NHL when Dallas was hit with the injury bug. He managed to dress in five NHL games in 2022-23, and he played well enough to earn this one-year extension that will allow him to occupy a similar role next season.

Free Agent Focus: Montreal Canadiens

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Free agency is now a little less than a month away and teams are looking ahead to when it opens up.  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 Montreal Canadiens.

Key Restricted Free Agents

F Cole Caufield – While the Canadiens have the fifth-overall selection and there have long been rumors aplenty of Winnipeg Jets forward Pierre-Luc Dubois’ desire to play in Montreal, this Canadiens offseason is all about Caufield. The 22-year-old sniper has emerged as a star since he arrived on the scene late in the 2020-21 season and was scoring at a 46-goal pace before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery.

Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis seemed to revive Caufield after a miserable start to his rookie season and since the Canadiens’ new bench boss took over Caufield has been the centerpiece of Montreal’s offensive attack.

He won’t turn 23 until January, and his chemistry with team captain and franchise face Nick Suzuki is something Montreal can build around as they continue a rebuild. It’s overwhelmingly likely that the Canadiens would prefer a long-term extension for Caufield, similar to the eight-year deal former GM Marc Bergevin inked with Suzuki in 2021.

But the main question is whether the two sides can reach an agreement on a long-term deal both sides are satisfied with, as there are some questions that will need to be answered. While they remain likely to prefer a long-term deal, could the Canadiens be more hesitant to pay top dollar for a Caufield extension given Caufield’s shoulder injury?

On the flip side, could Caufield prefer a shorter bridge contract in order to sign his long-term deal a little further down the line when he won’t have his injury hanging over his head, and when the salary cap will be quite a bit higher? Those are difficult questions to answer, but thankfully for Canadiens fans the bottom line is there does appear to be a shared desire to find a long-term solution that keeps Caufield with the 24-time Stanley Cup champions.

F Denis Gurianov – Acquired in a straight swap for veteran scorer Evgenii Dadonov, Gurianov flashed some serious promise in Montreal but also remained mired in similar inconsistencies to the ones that doomed his tenure with the Dallas Stars. The 2015 12th overall pick turns 26 this summer and is eligible to receive a qualifying offer at the $2.9MM he made last season. After he scored five goals and eight points in 23 games in Montreal, the Canadiens will need to decide if they have a place for Gurianov next season, and if so whether they’re willing to keep him at his qualifying offer price tag.

As the success of offseason trade acquisition Kirby Dach illustrated, the Canadiens believe they have an exceptional player development infrastructure and the type of environment in place to allow underperforming players to take new steps forward in their careers. It’s possible that they’ll want to see what their staff can do with Gurianov given more time, though it does seem more likely that they’d prefer to retain him at a cap charge a few notches below his qualifying offer.

F Rafael Harvey-Pinard – Harvey-Pinard burst onto the scene after Caufield’s injury and ended up finishing the season tied for fourth on the Canadiens in goal scoring, proving to be a major success story for the Canadiens’ development pipeline. He scored 14 goals in just 34 games and showcased the kind of work ethic and hockey sense that reminded some fans of players such as Brendan Gallagher and Artturi Lehkonen.

A 2019 seventh-round pick, Harvey-Pinard has scored exceptionally well at the AHL level (56 points in 69 games in 2021-22, 16 goals, and 31 points in 40 games this past year) and seems to be a potential long-term NHL player for the Canadiens. It’s probably a bit too early for the team to consider an extension with significant term attached for Harvey-Pinard as he still has just 38 NHL games on his resume, but a short-term one-way deal that gives Harvey-Pinard the platform to shine on the Canadiens’ roster on a more extended basis could be the right move for both parties.

Other RFAs: F Jesse Ylonen, F Lucas Condotta, F Mitchell Stephens, F Joel Teasdale, D Nicolas Beaudin

Key Unrestricted Free Agents

F Sean Monahan – While the main reason the Canadiens acquired Monahan last summer was to acquire the first-round pick the Calgary Flames sent with him, early this season it seemed Montreal had unlocked something in Monahan as well. The 28-year-old averaged nearly 28 goals per season from 2013-2020 but had recently seen injuries decimate his on-ice effectiveness and availability. That paved the way for the Flames to pay the Canadiens to acquire him and for Monahan to get a clean slate to attempt to revive his career.

After 25 games, it seemed that he’d done exactly that as he’d scored 17 points, good for a 56-point 82-game pace. But once again major injuries prematurely ended Monahan’s season, and placed the future of his career into serious question. If he can remain healthy, he’s the type of player nearly every NHL team could find a place for. But he’s unfortunately been unable to find the ice consistently in recent years, and any interested teams will have to factor that into whether they offer him a contract.

The CBA has provisions placing Monahan in a unique position, where he will be eligible to earn performance bonuses on his next contract as a player who has played over 400 NHL games and spent over 100 days on injured reserve. Could an incentives-laden one-year deal returning Monahan to Montreal make sense for both sides?

F Jonathan Drouin – While it’s to a lesser extent than Monahan, injuries have also laid waste to the recent seasons of Drouin’s career. Significant wrist troubles have sapped much of the luster from a shot that scored 21 goals earlier in his career, and Drouin scored only two goals in 58 games this past season. Now 28 years old, it’s clear the 2013 third-overall pick isn’t going to be the star offensive generator he was once promised to become.

But what’s also clear is that Drouin still has something to offer an NHL club. Despite lacking the ability to threaten defenders and netminders with his shot, Drouin still managed to tally 27 assists and finished with 29 points in 58 games, a 41-point full-season pace. He remains a skilled offensive player capable of contributing on a scoring line, and given his recent struggles he could likely be signed this summer to a relatively cheap contract.

With the ability to sign anywhere, Drouin will likely be more of a priority for clubs hard-pressed by the salary cap looking to add some skill on the cheap to their roster. As a result, it looks increasingly likely that his formal exit from Montreal will come soon.

F Alex Belzile – A well-traveled minor-league veteran, Belzile set a career-high in NHL games played with 31 this season, and scored decently well with 14 points in largely a fourth-line role. Belzile is a versatile depth forward with some physicality to offer and has been a difference-making AHLer for many years now. It’s likely in the Canadiens’ best interest to retain him on a reasonable contract extension to bolster the lower end of their NHL lineup, though one can’t rule out that Belzile’s recent performances might have generated leaguewide interest in his services.

Other UFAs: F Anthony Richard, F Chris Tierney, F Paul Byron, D Frederic Allard, D Madison Bowey, D Corey Schueneman

Projected Cap Space

With Carey Price’s $10.5MM AAV contract now almost certainly a permanent LTIR fixture, the Canadiens have more breathing room under the cap than they might have had in recent years. The expiry of Monahan and Drouin’s two contracts, which together cost over $10MM against the cap, provides additional room for the team to maneuver. While a solid chunk of the Canadiens’ projected $19MM in cap space will be earmarked for a Caufield extension, there remains ample room for the team to operate and potentially make some meaningful additions.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.

Minor Transactions: 06/04/23

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The start of the new league year and NHL free agency is inching closer, and more transaction activity is picking up throughout the world of professional hockey. We’ll keep track of moves from overseas and minor leagues here.

  • Former Vancouver Canuck Mike Zalewski will not receive a contract offer from ICEHL club Klagenfurt AC, ending his one-year stint there. A versatile forward who contributed to the 32-time Austrian champions’ penalty kill, Zalewski scored just five points in 20 games this season for Klagenfurt after a December transfer from Graz. The undrafted 30-year-old last played in North America in 2016-17, when he scored 18 points in 54 AHL games and managed to skate in one contest for the Vancouver Canucks.
  • Former college hockey star Troy Loggins has signed a one-year contract to remain with his current club, HC Nove Zamsky of the Slovakian Extraliga. The soon-to-be-28-year-old scorer transferred to Slovakia in January after beginning the season with Swedish HockeyAllsvenskan side Vasterviks IK. Before signing in Sweden last summer, Loggins had tried his luck at playing North American pro hockey and found some success at the ECHL level, scoring 25 points in 45 games for the Toledo Walleye in 2019-20. He also managed to skate in 28 AHL contests the following season, and now that he’s playing overseas he seems to have established himself as a difference-maker at the top level of Slovak pro hockey.
  • Veteran SHL rearguard Jonas Ahnelov announced he is leaving Leksands IF on social media today, confirming the end of his four-season run there. The 35-year-old 2006 third-round pick played three seasons in North America from 2008-2011, each with the AHL’s San Antonio Rampage. While he never made it to the NHL, Ahnelov has had an accomplished career patrolling the bluelines of the SHL and KHL. He’s logged over 500 games at the highest level of Swedish hockey and another 140 in Russia, and will now need to find a new team in order to continue his pro career.
  • 2020 Montreal Canadiens sixth-round pick Alexander Gordin is rumored to have signed a one-year contract with VHL club Ryazan VDV, per a report out of Russia. The 21-year-old forward was selected 171st overall at the 2020 draft by the Canadiens and this past season broke into Russia’s second-tier league, the VHL, as a regular for the first time. He scored eight goals and 12 points in 36 games for HK Rostov and also managed two points in six games at the KHL level with HK Sochi. As a drafted KHL prospect the Canadiens hold Gordin’s rights indefinitely, so they will likely continue to monitor his prospects moving forward, though with this transfer it is looking less and less likely that a future in Montreal is in the cards, though it’s obviously not impossible.

This page may be updated throughout the day. 

Free Agent Focus: Minnesota Wild

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Free agency is now a little less than a month away and teams are looking ahead to when it opens up.  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 Minnesota Wild.

Key Restricted Free Agents

G Filip Gustavsson – A 2016 second-round pick, Gustavsson was acquired by the Wild last offseason in a one-for-one trade with veteran Cam Talbot. The expectation was that Gustavsson would serve in tandem with entrenched starter Marc-Andre Fleury, with the future Hall of Famer likely to receive the higher-leverage starts. Gustavsson blew all those expectations out of the water, though, and in 39 games played posted a .931 save percentage and 2.10 goals-against-average, marks that ranked second in the NHL behind Vezina Trophy frontrunner Linus Ullmark.

The 24-year-old’s breakout came as a surprise due to the fact that he had posted just an .892 save percentage with the Ottawa Senators in 18 games the year prior, and he has a career .898 save percentage in the AHL. But it came at an incredible time for Gustavsson, as he’s now due for a new contract and has put together about as strong of a recent body of work as a netminder could hope to have.

For Minnesota, the difficulty with Gustavsson’s new deal will be deciding whether they believe he can replicate this past season’s form. Investing significant dollars in him based on a sample size of under 50 starts is a risk, and the Wild have to think about who they have in the pipeline – top goalie prospect Jesper Wallstedt. Recent reporting indicates both sides are optimistic a deal will be reached, but with Minnesota strapped for cap space, these negotiations could be difficult.

D Calen Addison – The 23-year-old Addison’s rookie season was quite the up-and-down affair. There were some genuine positives, such as Addison leading the NHL in rookie power play scoring with 18 power play points. The blueliner finished with 29 points in 62 games played, which is nearly a 40-point 82-game pace. That’s an extremely impressive level of production for a first-year rearguard. But Addison’s play at even strength routinely drew criticism and the difficulties he faced defending in his own end resulted in him becoming a frequent healthy scratch later in the Wild’s season.

That mix of exciting promise and disappointing inconsistency places Addison in an intriguing spot heading into the offseason. He’s clearly developed beyond the AHL level (he was an All-Star and All-Rookie team selection in 2002-21) but in order to earn the trust of head coach Dean Evason, he’s going to need to take major steps forward in his game. His box score numbers likely merit a decent raise from the $795k cap hit he played his rookie season on, but one wonders if Minnesota is ready to commit to him in that sort of fashion.

Other RFAs: F Sam Steel, F Brandon Duhaime, F Mason Shaw, F Damien Giroux, F Nick Swaney, G Hunter Jones

Key Unrestricted Free Agents

D Matt Dumba – With the emergence of Brock Faber late in the Wild’s season and the team’s ever-present salary cap issues, it seems this Dumba’s exit from Minnesota after nearly a decade as a lineup regular will be confirmed later this summer. The soon-to-be 29-year-old blueliner is still widely respected in the Wild organization for what he brings to the table, but it would take significant creativity for the Wild to find a way to match the types of offers Dumba could receive from other clubs on the open market.

While his offensive production has declined precipitously from 2017-18’s 50-point peak, Dumba still logs top-four minutes and is a valued locker room leader. It’s true that he might have trouble earning the $6MM he earns on his current deal in today’s current cap environment, though it would be no shock to see him cross the $4MM AAV mark on a multi-year deal, which is likely to be a price too rich for the Wild to afford.

D John Klingberg – Expected to land a major free agent contract in last summer’s open market, interest in Klingberg’s services was less robust than he or his representation may have anticipated. This resulted in him accepting a one-year, $7MM contract from the Anaheim Ducks with the likely hope that he’d have another strong season and re-enter the open market on even stronger footing. Klingberg didn’t exactly have a strong season, though, as he failed to make a difference on what was an anemic Ducks power play, and his declined offensive production shined an even harsher light on his deficiencies as an all-around defenseman.

The former 67-point scorer remains a dynamic offensive defenseman, but as he’s set to turn 31 years old he’s unlikely to receive the type of payday he seemed lined up for just over a year ago. And whatever contract offer he does end up accepting, it’s unlikely to be from the Wild due to their lack of cap space.

F Oskar Sundqvist – Sundqvist, like Klingberg, was a mid-season trade acquisition of the Wild. He actually played quite well in Minnesota, providing versatility and physicality to their lineup, but injuries have significantly impacted his ability to build momentum as a difference-making NHLer.

Now 29 years old, Sundqvist is likely to be an in-demand bottom-six option on the open market next month.

While Minnesota would surely like to be able to retain the 2019 Stanley Cup Champion’s services, they’re also more likely to rely on cheaper players to fill roles deeper in their lineup.

As a result, Sundqvist will likely be forced elsewhere if he wants to have a chance at matching the $2.75MM AAV he earned on his last deal.

F Gustav Nyquist – Nyquist only managed to play in nine games as a member of the Wild thanks to an injury he suffered as a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets, but he nonetheless managed to make his mark. He managed to score 10 points in those nine games, and his five points in six playoff games tied him for the team lead with Ryan Hartman and Mats Zuccarello. Set to turn 34 before the start of next season, Nyquist is unlikely to receive significant long-term offers this summer.

But his form in Minnesota reminded teams that he’s still capable of some valuable offensive production, and it was only one season ago that he managed to cross the 50-point mark for the third time in his career. Nyquist has scored 40 or more points in a season eight times and is likely to be an option for a team with some cap space looking to add some reliable production to their middle-six.

Other UFAs: F Ryan Reaves, F Brandon Baddock, F Mitchell Chaffee, D Joe Hicketts, D Dakota Mermis, G Zane McIntyre

Projected Cap Space

This is where things get tricky for Minnesota. The team will have $14,743,588 in dead money on their books thanks to the buyouts of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, a figure that eats up nearly one-fifth of their total available salary cap space. Since their core of key contributors from Kirill Kaprizov to Joel Eriksson Ek eat up significant cap space as well, the team has very little financial room to maneuver this summer. They should have enough to take care of contract extensions for expiring players such as Gustavsson and Addison, but pursuing more meaningful roster upgrades (such as acquiring a long-awaited star-level first-line center) is likely to either require major roster surgery or some extreme financial creativity.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.

Minor Transactions: 06/02/23

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With the Stanley Cup Final set to start tomorrow, we are getting increasingly close to the start of the NHL offseason and the period of the summer where every club across the hockey world is in between seasons. Even as some teams vie for some of hockey’s highest honors, such as the Stanley Cup and Memorial Cup, most clubs are getting to work on building their teams for next season. We’ll keep track of any notable transactions overseas or minor league clubs make here:

  • Curtis McKenzie, the captain of the AHL’s Texas Stars, has signed a two-year contract extension to remain in Texas. McKenzie is on his second tour of duty with AHL Texas and has 99 NHL games on his resume, all with the Dallas Stars. A beloved part of the Stars’ 2014 Calder Cup-winning squad, McKenzie has scored 104 points in 142 games over the last two AHL campaigns. He is valued for both his on-ice contributions and also his off-ice leadership, and will now be able to help shepherd the next generation of Stars prospects on their way from Cedar Park to Dallas.
  • Former Ottawa Senator Filip Chlapik is returning to HC Sparta Praha in his native Czechia after spending last season with Switzerland’s HC Ambri-Piotta, per a team announcement. The move is a massive one for Prague as Chlapik, 25, was a dominant force during his one season in the Czech capital. In 2021-22 Chlapik scored 70 points in 53 games, leading the Czech Extraliga in all major offensive categories and winning Extraliga Player of the Year. Ambri-Piotta have already secured Chlapik’s replacement, Laurent Dauphin, but will surely miss having the 2015 second-rounder as he scored 24 goals and 37 points in 50 games in his debut season in the Swiss League.
  • Longtime AHL and ECHL netminder Joe Cannata is leaving the SHL’s IK Oskarshamn after three seasons spent with the club. The 33-year-old goalie arrived in the SHL after he was named Goalie of the Year of the second-division HockeyAllsvenskan in 2019-20, having posted a .938 save percentage in 41 games for IF Bjorkloven. Cannata, who last played in North America in 2019 with the ECHL’s Utah Grizzlies, served as Oskarshamn’s number-one goalie in 2020-21 before transitioning to more of a tandem role the last two years, ceding starts to 28-year-old Tim Juel. Now with Cannata departed and Juel signing a three-year deal with Timra, Oskarshamn will turn to Liiga star and former Arizona Coyote Marek Langhammer to man their crease.
  • Ryan Lasch, a well-traveled star in multiple major European pro leagues, is returning to Liiga’s Lahti Pelicans, the club he played for in both 2011-12 and 2020-21. The 36-year-old American has been a difference-maker at each stop of his pro career, perhaps most notably at Frolunda in the SHL where he has won the Champions Hockey League three times and the SHL title twice. Lasch has led the SHL in points three times and Liiga once, and is likely to be a key contributor for a Pelicans team hoping to win a championship after falling just short against Tappara Tampere in the finals this past season.
  • In advance of their first season in the SHL since winning promotion in April, MoDo Hockey Ornskoldsvik have signed Mikael Ruohomaa from rival SHL side Leksands IF. While Ruohomaa had a difficult 2022-23, scoring just four goals in 41 games, he is an established, productive player in Liiga, the KHL, and SHL, and should bring some reliability and scoring ability to MoDo’s lineup. As MoDo are looking to avoid relegation back to HockeyAllsvenskan next season, signings that bring in quality players such as Ruohomaa will be crucial.
  • While they’ll lose Ruohomaa to MoDo, Leksands IF have made a signing of their own, bringing in defenseman Eddie Larsson from Liiga’s HIFK Helsinki. Larsson, 32, won an SHL title with Vaxjo in 2014-15 and has nearly 500 games of SHL experience on his resume. He’ll help bolster a solid Leksands blueline that surrendered the fifth-fewest goals in the SHL last season.
  • Samuel Bucek, a star of the Slovakian league, is headed back to Slovakian side HK Nitra after a difficult campaign split between Russia and Czechia. The 24-year-old is headed home to Nitra, the club where he scored 41 goals in 50 games in 2021-22 and won the league’s MVP award. Nitra lost in the finals to HC Slovan Bratislava that season and then this season fell to 10th place in the league standings, meaning Bucek’s return to their lineup serves as a significant boost to Nitra’s hopes of returning to title contention.
  • After starring in the ECHL for the past three seasons, former Miami University (Ohio) captain Gordie Green is headed overseas to continue his pro career. The 26-year-old has signed with HC Innsbruck of the ICEHL, and will likely be counted on as a possible top scorer. Green scored 71 points in 62 games for the Toledo Walleye this past season but failed to register on the scoresheet in the six AHL games he received with the Grand Rapids Griffins and Miluwakee Admirals. Now, he’ll get a chance to impress in Austria and potentially begin the process of moving up the European pro hockey ladder.

Snapshots: Gustavsson, Groulx, Bertuzzi

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As the cap penalties the Minnesota Wild will be paying due to the Zach Parise/Ryan Suter buyouts are set to hit a combined $14.7MM, Wild general manager Bill Guerin has quite the task ahead of him as he looks to build a team that can take the next step after back-to-back impressive regular seasons and first-round playoff exits. Perhaps the most important piece of business for him to address is a new contract for netminder Filip Gustavsson, who is set to become an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent. Complicating Gustavsson’s case is his extremely impressive performance this past season, where he posted a .931 save percentage in 39 games. With those sorts of numbers, is it possible Gustavsson has priced himself out of Minnesota?

That seems unlikely, as The Athletic’s Joe Smith relays positive word from Gustavsson’s agent about the ongoing contract negotiations: “we’ve started a dialogue and everything is really positive,” says agent Kurt Overhardt, “I don’t think it’s a matter of getting something done. It’s just a matter of when it’s done.” (subscription link) Smith notes that a three-year, $3MM AAV pact would fit with the comparables to Gustavsson’s current situation, and that would likely be a palatable number for the team. In any case, it seems the talented 24-year-old netminder is set to remain in Minnesota after a breakout campaign, despite some cap-related challenges on the team’s side.

More notes from across the NHL:

  • Benoit Groulx, the longtime head coach of the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch, is ending his tenure in the Salt City according to a report from JF Plante of Le Droit. Groulx has spent the last seven years as the Crunch’s bench boss and has led the team on multiple playoff runs, including a run to the Calder Cup Final in 2016-17. A respected player developer, Groulx’s Crunch teams have produced numerous difference-making NHLers, including Carter Verhaeghe, Yanni Gourde, Taylor Raddysh, Ross Colton, and Anthony Cirelli. Plante cites Arizona Coyotes head coach Andre Tourigny’s current assistant coach opening as a possible landing spot for Groulx, and should such a move materialize that would be a significant and highly valuable addition to the Coyotes organization.
  • Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports in his 32 Thoughts blog that the Boston Bruins are “exploring what it needs to do to keep Tyler Bertuzzi,” a player set to hit unrestricted free agency later this summer. The Bruins traded their 2024 first-round pick to the Detroit Red Wings to acquire Bertuzzi, and the 28-year-old subsequently impressed in the black and gold, scoring 16 points in 21 regular-season games and 10 points in the team’s seven-game first-round playoff series. Bertuzzi is likely to have wide-ranging interest this summer in what is considered a thinner free agent class, so it’s unclear whether Boston will be able to get his signature on a contract extension. But given Friedman’s report, we at least now know that the Bruins are actively looking for an avenue to retain the former 30-goal scorer.

Arizona Coyotes’ Laurent Dauphin Signs In Switzerland

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Arizona Coyotes forward Laurent Dauphin has found a new team to play for, as he signed a one-year contract containing a club option for a second year with the Swiss National League’s HC Ambri-Piotta.

The 28-year-old 2013 second-round pick was in his third tour of duty with the Coyotes this past season, playing 48 games in the AHL and 21 in the NHL. Dauphin played very well in the AHL, notching 16 goals and 41 points, but his play in the NHL left much to be desired.

The high-energy pivot scored just one goal and no assists at the NHL level this season and failed to earn the trust of head coach Andre Tourigny, who played him sparingly.

It’s this disappointing run in the NHL that has likely paved the way for Dauphin’s departure overseas, where he’ll play in a European pro league for the first time in his career.

A longtime minor leaguer, Dauphin seemed to hit a turning point in his career during his time with the Montreal Canadiens in 2021-22.

As the Canadiens faced significant injuries and a nightmarish campaign, Dauphin emerged as a trusted option for head coach Martin St. Louis, who played Dauphin in a larger NHL role than he’d ever played before.

Dauphin responded well to that increased role, contributing four goals and 12 assists in 38 total games, including a slick penalty shot tally. We at PHR even acknowledged Dauphin’s improvement in our coverage of his signing in Arizona last summer, writing at the time that “it would be misleading to say anything other than Dauphin performed better than expected at the NHL level.”

It seemed as though Dauphin would potentially carve out a role as a depth NHL center, but it now seems that his time in Arizona has undone that progress. Now, he’ll head to Switzerland with the hope of serving as a top player for Ambri-Piotta, a club looking to have a bounce-back season after a disappointing 2022-23 campaign.

As he’ll still be just 29 at this time next season, the door is far from closed for Dauphin to make a return to an NHL organization, but he’ll need to have a good season overseas to keep it open.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Oilers Notes: Yamamoto, Bouchard, Ryan, Free Agency

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After a disappointingly early playoff exit, the Edmonton Oilers are headed into another pivotal offseason. Desperate to build a Stanley Cup contender around the team’s two all-world talents, the Oilers don’t have a ton of cap space to add reinforcements to their roster, so they’ll need to get creative in finding ways to support their existing stars. One avenue the team could go down is moving a player taking up a decent amount of cap space, namely 2017 first-round pick Kailer Yamamoto. The 24-year-old is set to make $3.1MM against the cap next season yet provided the Oilers with just 25 points in 58 games this season.

The Athletic’s Daniel Nugent-Bowman reports that the Oilers are “leaning toward moving” Yamamoto and are hoping they can find a team willing to acquire the player “without the Oilers having to retain salary or offer a sweetener.” (subscription link) Yamamoto did manage 20 goals and 41 points last season, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that a team would have interest in him as a bounce-back candidate. In the case that trade interest does not materialize, though, Nugent-Bowman does note that the Oilers “appear open to buying out Yamamoto,” a move that would save them $2.6MM this season at the cost of $533k in dead cap next summer.

Some other notes regarding the Oilers:

  • One of the significant reasons the team would likely hope to create some cap space via a Yamamoto departure would be to clear room for contract extensions for the Oilers’ top restricted free agent: defenseman Evan Bouchard. The 23-year-old 2018 10th overall pick has hit 40 points in each of the last two seasons and is coming off of an extremely productive playoff run that saw him post 17 points in just 12 games. Nugent-Bowman writes that the Oilers are likely to pursue a bridge contract with Bouchard, as “anything more than two years appears unlikely.” Noah Dobson, another 2018 top pick, had comparable scoring numbers to Bouchard last summer and secured a three-year, $4MM AAV pact. That could be a deal used as a reference point for these negotiations.
  • 36-year-old veteran center Derek Ryan performed admirably as the Oilers’ fourth-line center this past season, scoring 13 goals and 20 points in 80 games while contributing to his team’s penalty kill. Nugent-Bowman reports that “there is mutual interest in Ryan returning to the Oilers,” and that “it’s hard to see how something isn’t figured out there” to bring the 500-game NHL veteran back to Edmonton. Such a move would provide valuable continuity to the Oilers’ bottom-six, while also serving as a nice reward for Ryan’s hard work.
  • While the Oilers have made significant early free-agency investments in recent years, specifically in the signings of Jack Campbell and Zach Hyman, don’t expect a similar move by the time the free agent frenzy comes around later this summer. Nugent-Bowman reports that there will “be no Zach Hyman-type offer issued to anyone” at the start of free agency and that it’s far more likely that the Oilers will target an “undervalued or underperforming young player” who they can add on a cheap contract, or a “bargain bin” veteran talent who can be the right fit for a specific role in head coach Jay Woodcroft’s plans at an affordable cap hit.

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