Kings To Wait Until Summer To Discuss Scott Laughton Extension
The Los Angeles Kings are in no rush to cement Scott Laughton into their lineup. The team will wait until the summer to talk about extending Laughton per Mayor’s Manor. Los Angeles acquired Laughton before the Trade Deadline in exchange for a conditional 2026 third-round pick that could become a second-round pick if the Kings make the playoffs.
Laughton fell to a fourth-line role with the Maple Leafs this season. He only racked up eight goals and 12 points in 43 games with Toronto, while averaging 13:40 in ice time. Laughton has made up for low scoring with a 56.7 faceoff percentage and 78 hits. Those marks ranked third and fourth on the offense respectively. But a quiet season hasn’t meant a bad season for Laughton. He was one of Toronto’s most impactful penalty-killers, only allowing eight goals-against, second-fewest among the Maple Leafs’ routine penalty-killing units behind Matthew Knies (six goals-against).
Laughton was once a locked-in piece of the Philadelphia Flyers’ middle-six. He was a reliable, two-way center and served as one of the club’s alternate captain from 2022 to 2025. Laughton brings a spark of reliable, depth impact that could benefit a Kings lineup recently gutted by injuries to Kevin Fiala and Andrei Kuzmenko.
The Kings will get a chance to test out that impact with 21 games left in the regular season. Laughton should step into Los Angeles’ third-line center role – a boost over his deployment in Toronto – where he will likely anchor a rotation of wingers. The Kings currently have newcomer Mathieu Joseph and rookie Jared Wright in bottom-six roles, but Laughton could soon be flanked by Kenny Connors, Trevor Moore, Jeff Malott, or another AHL call-up. His ability to support a flux of partners could go far in proving Laughton’s ability to anchor the Kings’ bottom-six through the next few seasons.
Los Angeles carried $16.77MM in projected cap space through the Trade Deadline and will only become richer when Anze Kopitar‘s $7MM cap hit comes off of the books this summer. The Kings will have all of the funds that they need to re-sign Laughton to a reasonable deal after his current five-year, $15MM contract comes to a close. A new deal for the 31 year old could be in the realm of two or three seasons and between $2MM and $3MM. If the Kings opt not to keep Laughton around, he would become a popular bit of veteran depth on a thin center market this summer.
Blackhawks Sign Caydon Edwards To PTO, Spencer Knight Sick
The Chicago Blackhawks had to change their lineup plans just before Friday night’s game against the Vancouver Canucks. Goaltender Spencer Knight was announced as unavailable due to an illness before the game, forcing the team to sign local goaltender Caydon Edwards to a professional try-out to serve as backup goaltender, per Charlie Roumeliotis of WGN Radio. Edwards frequently serves as a practice goaltender for the Blackhawks and coaches the loacl Chicago Phantoms 16U AAA team.
Knight has settled back to Earth after a strong start to the year. He has a .905 save percentage in 15 games since the start of 2026. His new year began with a 5-2-0 streak but that has since been squashed with a 1-4-2 record in his last seven games. Knight has set 16 wins and a .908 save percentage in 42 games this season, all career-highs for the first-year starter.
The Blackhawks turned towards Arvid Soderblom for their starting role in light of Knight’s illness. Soderblom has six wins and a .879 save percentage in 18 games this season. The campaign has continued his streak of sub-.900 save percentages into its fifth season. He is a true backup who is coming off of his first NHL shutout, recorded against the Utah Mammoth on March 1st.
Edwards’ played five seconds of one game for the ECHL’s Indy Fuel in the 2023-24 season. He grew up through Canadian junior hockey and played a handful of semi-professional games from 2017 to 2022. He has served as a Chicago-based goaltending coach since 2023, supporting the Windy City Storm and Phantoms at multiple levels.
Penguins’ Evgeni Malkin Suspended Five Games For Slashing
The Pittsburgh Penguins will be without a cornerstone of the lineup for the short-term. Forward Evgeni Malkin has been suspended for five games by the NHL Department of Player Safety for slashing Buffalo Sabres’ defenseman Rasmus Dahlin in the face. He will be eligible to return on March 16th, when the Penguins face the Colorado Avalanche.
Malkin has been suspended twice in his career. His first was a one-game suspension for slashing opponents in the head during a Penguins versus Flyers matchup on February 11th, 2019. The second was a four-game suspension handed out on April 11, 2022 for cross-checking an opponent in the face. With Malkin’s track record in mind, he will now land the longest suspension of his career, and forfeit $158,854.15 in salary, while Buffalo appreciates the silver lining that Dahlin wasn’t seriously injured on the play.
Malkin is an important piece of the offense when he’s in the lineup. He has averaged 17:29 in ice time this season – a career-low – but still sees upwards of 20 minutes a night when the Penguins lean into their veteran leaders. Malkin has scored 13 goals and 47 points in 46 games this season, making him one of only two Penguins still scoring above a point-per-game pace alongside Sidney Crosby. Pittsburgh will need to find a way to replace that offense now that Malkin will miss time.
Pittsburgh has recalled winger Ville Koivunen from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins to try and bridge that gap. Koivunen has scored 33 points in 28 AHL games this season but only has five points in 27 NHL games to go with it. He is still searching for a spark and could find one in a top-nine role with Malkin out. Pittsburgh is also carrying Kevin Hayes and newcomer Elmer Soderblom as extra forwards after the Trade Deadline. Hayes has scored five points in 25 games this season, while Soderblom had three points in 39 games with Detroit.
Devils Notes: Pesce, Cholowski, Gritsyuk
The New Jersey Devils will be down a usual lineup piece this weekend. Defenseman Brett Pesce will be unavailable due to a lower-body injury, head coach Sheldon Keefe told NHL.com’s Mike Morreale.
Pesce has already missed 25 games this season with extended absences in November and February. He fills a key role in the lineup when healthy, playing upwards of 22 minutes a night when New Jersey is looking for a shutdown piece. Pesce has worked to seven points and a minus-11 in 37 games this season. He ranks second on the Devils in shot blocks (80) and fourth on the defense in takeaways (16). Pesce has been knocked off course by injury in his age-31 season but his two-way reliability will still continue to command major lineup minutes when he’s back to full health.
Other notes out of New Jersey:
- The Devils have responded to Pesce’s injury by recalling depth defenseman Dennis Cholowski from the AHL. Cholowski didn’t begin his season until November, due to injury, but his year started on the NHL roster. He scored one point in 15 games through November and December while filling in during Pesce’s first extended absence of the season. Cholowski was reassigned on December 14th and has spent the entirety of the new calendar year in the AHL. He has racked up five assists in 13 games. Pesce’s injury likely won’t push Cholowski ahead of Simon Nemec and Brendan Dillon on the depth chart but it will give New Jersey one more set of hands as they approach back-to-back games.
- Away from injury news, the Devils have also begun talks of a contract extension with winger Arseny Gritsyuk, general manager Tom Fitzgerald told Devils’ team reporter Amanda Stein. Gristyuk has scored 11 goals and 26 points in 58 games as an NHL rookie this season. He is on pace for 15 goals and 37 points across a full 82-game season, which would be the seventh-highest scoring total from a Devils rookie since 2000. Gritsyuk blossomed in Russia’s KHL over the last three seasons, kicked off with 40 points in 60 games of Omsk Avangard’ 2022-23 campaign, and concluded with 44 points in 49 games with SKA St. Petersburg last year. He has adjusted seamlessly into an NHL top-nine role in the season since. That should be enough to earn Gritsyuk a contract with term as he looks to sign the first deal after his entry-level contract. He is set to become a restricted free agent with arbitration rights this summer.
Capitals Recall Ivan Miroshnichenko
The Washington Capitals will have a bit more opportunity available on offense after trading Nic Dowd to the Vegas Golden Knights on the eve of the Trade Deadline. Washington acquired David Kampf from the Vancouver Canucks and will now bring in some competition by recalling winger Ivan Miroshnichenko from the AHL.
Miroshnichenko has spent the majority of his season in the minor leagues. He has racked up 12 goals and 31 points in 38 games with the Hershey Bears, good for fourth on the team in scoring. Miroshnichenko is on pace to narrowly beat out his career-high 42 points scored in 52 games last season. His AHL season has been inetercut with routine NHL call-ups and four games. He has no NHL scoring this season but did manage 10 points in 39 NHL games over the last two seasons.
Miroshnichenko has been a standout shooter since his days in Russia’s Omsk Avangard pipeline. He scored 15 goals and 29 points in 22 U20 games, across two seasons, and set a U18 record when he scored 10 goals in 31 VHL games – Russia’s second-tier pro league – in 2021-22. He broke the previous record of eight goals, set by Colorado Avalanche winger Valeri Nichushkin in 2012-13.
That performance earned Miroshnichenko the 20th-overall selection in the 2022 NHL Draft. He made his KHL debut in the following season marked by four points in 23 games, then moved to the NHL/AHL circuit in 2023-24. After battling that rotation for three seasons, Dowd’s exit could open just enough space for Miroshnichenko to take his next step.
Sabres Acquire Tanner Pearson
The Buffalo Sabres have made one more move to shore up their depth before the Trade Deadline hit. They dealt a 2026 seventh-round pick to the Winnipeg Jets in exchange for winger Tanner Pearson per TSN’s Darren Dreger.
Buffalo has confirmed the deal.
Pearson heads back to the Eastern Conference for the first time in three years, after spending last season with the Vegas Golden Knights and this season in Winnipeg. He has grown into a journeyman, extra forward in the latter part of his career, now headed for his fourth club in the last three seasons after a five-year stay with the Vancouver Canucks. Pearson will be playing with the seventh club of his 13-year NHL career when he joins the Sabres.
The 33-year-old winger has scored seven goals and 13 points in 52 games with Winnipeg this season. He has buoyed the quiet scoring with a plus-seven – highest on the Jets offense – and 68 hits – fourth-most among Winnipeg forwards. Two-way responsibility has underlined Pearson’s game in recent years, marked by 53 points, a minus-one, and 214 hits over his last 184 games.
Pearson was originally drafted by the Los Angeles Kings with the 30th-overall pick in the 2012 NHL Draft. He debuted with the club one season later, netting seven points in 25 games of his rookie year. Pearson grew those numbers to back-to-back, 40-point seasons in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 campaign. He reached that feat once more in 2019-20, his first year in Vancouver, but has otherwise failed to crack into his team’s top-nine. He will be a responsible, depth forward to help Buffalo keep afloat as they approach their first postseason in over a decade.
Blue Jackets Acquire Conor Garland
The Blue Jackets are in agreement to acquire winger Conor Garland from the Canucks, per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. Vancouver gets a second and third-round pick in return, Frank Seravalli of Victory+ reports. The second-round pick involved is the Blue Jackets’ 2028 selection, according to Thomas Drance of The Athletic. Reports of Columbus and Vancouver discussing a Garland trade were first reported by Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic. Both teams have since made the deal official.
Columbus traded Egor Chinakhov to the Penguins for the same price in December. There has been a hole in the depth chart ever since, forcing Miles Wood onto his off-side right-wing. The Blue Jackets solve that problem with the addition of Garland, who should beat out Kent Johnson for second on the depth chart to Kirill Marchenko.
Garland has scored seven goals and 26 points in 50 games this season. That’s just under the scoring pace that led him to the second 50-point season of his career last year. He has made up for that dip by recording the second-most blocks (28) on the Canucks offense, behind Elias Pettersson. Garland has also averaged a career-high 18:57 in ice time, narrowly beating out his previous high of 18:39 set last season.
Now in his age-30 season, Garland has finally seemed to find his rut as a hard-working, second-line winger. He averaged 19 goals and 49 points per 82 games played in five seasons with the Canucks – while only missing 18 games. The bulk of those absences – 11 – came this season, sprinkled between two undisclosed, short-term injuries and a bout with illness.
The Blue Jackets will hope Garland can bring the top-six spark they need to pull ahead of the Eastern Conference Wild Card race. They sit one point behind the Boston Bruins for the second spot, with the Ottawa Senators and Washington Capitals both three points behind. The Blue Jackets sit in the middle of the pack, 17th in the league, in goals-scored this season.
Columbus’ 3.13 goals-per-game season average has risen to 3.75 goals in 16 games under new head coach Rick Bowness. The Blue Jackets have a 13-2-1 record in those games and now add another winger capable of reaching 20 goals this season.
Garland has achieved the feat twice before, in Vancouver’s 2023-24 season and with the Arizona Coyotes in the 2019-20 season. That performance stamped Garland’s spot in the league after he debuted with 13 goals in 47 games the year prior. The 5-foot-10 winger was a fifth-round draft pick from the QMJHL’s Moncton Wildcats in 2015.
Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.
Golden Knights Place Mark Stone On IR
3/5/26: The Golden Knights have placed Stone on IR, per Danny Webster of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Assuming the placement is retroactive to March 1, when he suffered his injury, Stone’s IR placement will keep him sidelined until at least Sunday. The move opens a roster spot for the team’s reported acquisition of Nic Dowd, in a trade that has still not yet been officially announced.
3/2/26: The Vegas Golden Knights will have a major hole to fill in the short-term. Top winger Mark Stone is out day-to-day with an upper-body injury sustained in Vegas’ Sunday loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins, head coach Bruce Cassidy told reporters including Mike Harrington of Buffalo News. Stone’s injury came late in the first period, after a nudge from Penguins defenseman Kris Letang. He will be questionable for Vegas’ road game versus the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday.
Stone reached the end of the 2024-25 season in good health, dsepite mid-season injuries, but has otherwise built a tendency for missing games in the second-half of the season. Sunday’s game against Pittsburgh marked just the second time in the last four seasons that Stone has played a game in March. Routine injuries have held him out of 144 games between the start of the 2019-20 season and the end of 2024-25. He has missed an additional 17 games already this season.
The routine absences are routinely a major blow to the Vegas offense. Stone is a pillar of the lineup when healthy. He ranks second on the Golden Knights in scoring this season, with 21 goals and 60 points in only 43 games. That is a 114-point scoring pace over a full 82-game season, by far the highest on the Golden Knights. Stone has averaged 52 games, and 53 points, per season dating back to his first full season with the Golden Knights.
Vegas will face a tough test in finding who should replace Stone in the lineup. The Golden Knights are also facing injuries to forwards Jonas Rondbjerg, William Karlsson, and Brett Howden – straining the team’s offensive depth. Right-winger Alexander Holtz is currently Vegas’ only extra forward and could be in line for a return to the lineup as a result. Holtz appeared in five games in February, recording three points and eight shots on net. He has racked up nine points and a minus-one in 28 games this season, often from a fourth-line role in Vegas’ lineup.
Stone’s hole in the top-six will put more pressure on Pavel Dorofeyev, Ivan Barbashev, and Braeden Bowman to step into bigger, scoring roles. The trio rank fifth, sixth, and seventh on the Vegas offense in scoring – with 47, 42, and 23 points respectively. They will fill major roles as Vegas looks towards tough matchups against the Sabres, Detroit Red Wings, and Minnesota Wild over their next three games.
Golden Knights Reassign Raphael Lavoie
March 4: Lavoie was returned to Henderson today in the corresponding move for yesterday’s acquisition of Cole Smith from the Predators, per the NHL’s media site. He skated 8:34 in last night’s loss to the Sabres, posting zeroes across the board.
March 3: The Vegas Golden Knights have recalled forward Raphael Lavoie. He will help the team shore up their depth with top winger Mark Stone out with a day-to-day injury. Lavoie has been on fire in the minors as of late, with five points in his last three games and 11 points in his last 10 games.
On the heels of that hot streak, Lavoie will earn his first NHL call-up of the season. He made his Vegas debut last year, appearing in nine games and failing to record any scoring. That was the same outcome of Lavoie’s first stint in the NHL – seven games with the Edmonton Oilers in the 2023-24 season. Lavoie had managed strong, minor-league scoring in both years – reaching 50 points in 66 games in 2023-24 and 26 points in 42 games in 2024-25.
His performance this season, in a focused, AHL role, has outperformed both of those campaigns. Lavoie is on pace for a career-high 63 points across a 60-game season, though an injury that stretched from late-October to mid-January kept him from reaching that mark.
Lavoie performed well around the injury, maintaining an 11-game scoring streak between October 24th and February 4th. He scored 13 points in that stretch. He has emerged not only as a main scorer but also as a man who creates shots on net for the Henderson Silver Knights. Now, Lavoie could earn a hardy, NHL look if Stone has to miss time. He will have to compete with Cole Reinhardt for Vegas’ fourth-line, right-wing role. Reinhardt has scored seven points in 42 games this season.
Wild Claim Robby Fabbri, Place Tyler Pitlick On Waivers
March 3: Pitlick passed through waivers unclaimed, per Friedman.
March 2: The Minnesota Wild have found a depth forward upgrade on the waiver wire. Minnesota has claimed St. Louis Blues winger Robby Fabbri off of waivers and, in a corresponding move, placed Tyler Pitlick on waivers to clear roster space, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. Fabbri will join former Blues teammate Vladimir Tarasenko in his move to the Wild.
Fabbri signed a one-year, two-way contract with the Blues in December after beginning the year with three games and two points, with the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers. He slotted into a fourth-line role – but routinely stepped up in the lineup – in his return to St. Louis, where he spent the first four years of his career. Fabbri racked up four points, 12 penalty minutes, and a minus-three in 15 games with the Blues before landing on waivers. His waiver designation came in conjunction with Robert Thomas‘ return from a month-long absence due to injury and personal leave.
Fabbri was a first-round pick for the Blues in 2014. He made his NHL debut two seasons later and posted what’s become a career-year right out of the gates – marked by a career-high 18 goals and 37 points in 72 games. Fabbri’s career was quickly derailed by multiple knee injuries, holding him out of over 100 games between 2016 and 2020. Despite that, Fabbri stuck in the lineup long enough to seal a Stanley Cup victory with the Blues in 2019, netting a combined seven points in 42 games between the 2018-19 regular season and playoffs.
Fabbri will rival fourth-line minutes in Minnesota. Pitlick recorded only two goals, along with 24 penalty minutes and a minus-four, in 32 games with Minnesota this season. He has also scored 11 points in 12 AHL games this season. Pitlick spent the entire 2024-25 season with the AHL’s Providence Bruins. He finished the year ranked third on the team in scoring, with 46 points in 59 games. Pitlick rotated through NHL extra forward roles between 2013 and 2024 – making appearances with seven different clubs, including the Blues and Edmonton Oilers. In total, Pitlick has scored 58 goals and 111 points in 452 NHL games. He will return to a productive role in the minor leagues, if no team finds a need for his depth services in the NHL.