Penguins Recall Filip Hallander From Conditioning Loan
3/1: Pittsburgh has recalled Hallander from his conditioning loan. He scored one goal in three games with the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Hallander will remain on injured reserve, but has been recalled to undergo evaluation and testing as he recovers from blood clots earlier in the season.
2/18: The Penguins announced Wednesday that they’ve assigned forward Filip Hallander to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on a conditioning loan. Since Hållander is on standard injured reserve and not long-term injured reserve, the loan can last for up to two weeks for him to get back into game shape.
Hallander’s return to the ice comes more than three months after the 25-year-old was diagnosed with a blood clot in his leg. He was ruled out for at least three months at the time, so his pending return to game action in the minors roughly comes on schedule.
Hallander participated in NHL practice yesterday after the Penguins were eligible to reconvene, so it stands to reason his time in the AHL should be more game-focused than practice-focused since he’s already got one under his belt. Wilkes-Barre/Scranton has three games on the schedule before Pittsburgh makes its post-Olympic debut on Feb. 26. One of them is against Springfield tonight, meaning Hallander is more likely to suit up at least once during their back-to-back against Bridgeport this weekend.
A second-round pick back in 2018, Hallander is already in his third stint in the Pittsburgh organization. He was traded to the Maple Leafs in 2020 for Kasperi Kapanen, only to be re-acquired the following summer in the Jared McCann deal. He then opted to return to Timrå IK in his native Sweden following the 2022-23 campaign, but the Pens retained his signing rights with a qualifying offer. After Hallander was named the SHL’s Forward of the Year in 2024-25, he activated the NHL out-clause in his deal with Timrå and returned to Pittsburgh on a two-year, league-minimum contract.
Hallander made Pittsburgh’s opening night roster and, after being a healthy scratch on opening night, got into 13 straight games before the blood clot took him out of the lineup. He recorded the first four points of his NHL career – a goal and three assists – with a +4 rating while averaging 13:09 of ice time per game. He slotted in at left wing up and down the lineup, as high as first-line duties with Sidney Crosby and Bryan Rust and as low as fourth-line reps with Blake Lizotte and Connor Dewar.
The rookie had decent even-strength possession impacts and averaged about a minute per game on the penalty kill, but with Pittsburgh’s forward group fully healthy coming out of the break, it’s hard to see where he fits into the lineup. Egor Chinakhov was acquired from the Blue Jackets while Hallander was out and, with 12 points in 18 games, has solidified his spot alongside countryman Evgeni Malkin on the second line. Veteran Noel Acciari slots in with Lizotte and Dewar, and that trio has some of the best defensive metrics in the league. In all likelihood, he’ll serve as a versatile plug-and-play extra for the stretch run while allowing prospects like Avery Hayes and Rutger McGroarty more seasoning in the AHL.
Mammoth Have Shown Interest In Robert Thomas
The Mammoth are among the teams that have shown interest in Robert Thomas, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said on the network’s “Saturday Headlines” segment. No matter what they put forth, they’d remain one of the longer shots to land the two-time 80-point scorer if he’s moved at all. Intra-division trades involving players of his caliber are exceedingly rare.
Utah is looking into long-term moves, not the rental market, in order to help secure the franchise’s first trip to the postseason since being born from the ashes of the Coyotes, general manager Bill Armstrong told NHL.com’s Mike Zeisberger this week. Thomas would be among the most impactful moves they can make. They’ve already been linked to puck-moving rearguard Dougie Hamilton in their pursuit of added offense, but adding a player of Thomas’ age and cost control is a much higher-caliber addition.
Thomas has 11 goals and 33 points in 42 games this season for St. Louis. The 26-year-old’s underlying offensive numbers have tanked, averaging 1.43 shots on goal and 2.88 shot attempts per game compared to 2.07 and 4.40 last season, respectively. That should be easily attributable to Thomas fighting through a number of injuries this season while being symptomatic of a larger offensive regression in St. Louis, where the Blues are near the bottom of the league in virtually every category.
The fact stands that over the past five years, Thomas has established himself as one of the league’s top playmaking centers. He’s averaged 60 assists and 83 points per 82 games over that span, with his 1.01 points per game ranking 23rd in the league since 2021-22 (min. 300 games played). Among players on the Mammoth’s roster, only Clayton Keller stands above him, and only narrowly.
Thomas also has five years left on his contract at a stomachable $8.125MM cap hit. He has a full no-trade clause and controls his destiny. The Blues have made it clear they’re not overly willing to dump him as part of their retooling, but will listen to offers. They’re reportedly looking for a template similar to what the Canucks acquired for franchise defender Quinn Hughes earlier this season – a package roughly equivalent to four first-round picks.
While the Blues surely won’t be excited about the prospect of moving Thomas in the division, few teams are as well-equipped to put forth a compelling offer as the Mammoth. They still have all of their firsts in the next few drafts and have a rich staple of first-round drafted prospects over the past few years to part with. 2023 selections Danil But and Dmitriy Simashev have made their debuts this season, while they’d have to consider making 2024 #6 pick Tij Iginla and 2025 #4 pick Caleb Desnoyers available as well.
Islanders Shopping Anthony Duclair
The Islanders have deemed themselves at least soft buyers heading into the deadline after their pickups of Carson Soucy and Ondřej Palát before the Olympic break. One thing they don’t have a bevy of is cap space. Their roughly $6MM is enough to wheel and deal on deadline day, but that’s with the club using a good deal of long-term injured reserve placements.
One option the club has pursued this season to continue shuffling the deck is moving on from the remainder of Anthony Duclair‘s contract, according to David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period. Pagnotta writes that dealing Duclair is something they’ve been open to all season, but with the winger holding a full no-trade clause, their options will be limited if they have any at all.
It’s not hard to see why the Islanders would be willing to part ways with Duclair. He’s rebounded somewhat with a 12-14–26 scoring line in 54 games this year, but he’s still performing below his career average and is coming off a disastrous first year on Long Island last season, derailed by an early-season leg injury.
With Duclair churning out at least capable third-line scoring numbers this season, though, his $3.5MM cap hit through 2027-28 suddenly becomes more palatable to potential suitors. The 6’0″ lefty has been prone to some wild year-to-year swings in his career, but is still a 20-goal, 42-point man on average per 82 games.
For a team that just added Palát through next season and is looking to get young center Calum Ritchie more ice time moving forward, the Isles could stand to drop a forward with term. They don’t have many pending UFAs up front, and the ones they do, Anders Lee and Jean-Gabriel Pageau, are well-respected veterans they likely have at least some interest in retaining – especially Lee, their captain who’s spent all 14 of his NHL seasons with the club.
Of course, it all depends on Duclair being amenable to a specific change of scenery. If not, they’ll have to wait until the summer when his NTC downgrades to a 16-team no-trade list on July 1 to open up more options.
That may be the better move anyway. The Isles have a 66.3% shot at ending up in the playoff picture (per MoneyPuck), but won’t get there because of an excess of scoring. Duclair’s 12 goals are tied for seventh on the team, and his 26 points are sixth. That’s valuable production for a team scoring 2.86 goals per game, 22nd in the league.
Capitals Looking To Move Trevor Van Riemsdyk
The Capitals are set to move on from pending unrestricted free agent defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk one way or another, Frank Seravalli of Victory+ writes. With Washington unlikely to pursue an extension with him, they’re willing to move him before the deadline to get a return for him while freeing up a roster spot.
That roster spot is crucial as the Caps look to welcome top D prospect Cole Hutson to the NHL – potentially within the next two weeks. An underwhelming season for Hutson’s Boston University means they’re all but ruled out of qualifying for the national tournament. Their final regular-season game is against UMass-Lowell on March 7. They’ll have at least one conference playoff game, but if they drop an opening round matchup on March 11, Hutson could be signed and on Washington’s roster for the stretch run and playoffs two weekends from now.
The Caps have already rostered eight defensemen virtually all season long, so they’d need to move one out, either via trade or waivers, to work him in. While they likely wouldn’t love to lose out on a serviceable piece of right-shot depth like van Riemsdyk in a best-case scenario – Hutson is a lefty – he’s averaging just 15:32 per game for Washington this year and has been in and out of the lineup.
The 34-year-old van Riemsdyk has been a stellar bottom-pairing option for Washington for the last several seasons but hasn’t been terribly effective this year. While a defense-first rearguard, his eight points in 47 games are still his worst offensive output since his first season in D.C. back in 2020-21. His possession impacts have cratered, too, controlling 48.3% of shot attempts at 5-on-5 with a career-worst -3.6% relative Corsi For share.
If not used in a deal for a forward and is instead moved separately as a more traditional rental, there will be plenty of contenders looking to shore up their right-shot depth. The Lightning have been looking for help there but reportedly prefer a long-term option. If they can’t strike a deal there, though, a cheap rental option with a good bit of playoff experience, as van Riemsdyk has, would suffice. The Stars, Oilers, and Sabres are other clubs in playoff position with a documented need and desire for immediate right-side help.
Bruins Interested In Owen Tippett
The Bruins have interest in Flyers winger Owen Tippett, according to a report from Anthony Di Marco of The Fourth Period. Di Marco also reports that the Flyers have identified Boston center prospects Matthew Poitras and Dean Letourneau as desirable pieces in a return, as well as defenseman Mason Lohrei. It’s unknown how close a deal has gotten or what the exact framework of talks has been, but Boston has checked in on Tippett’s availability “several times this season,” Di Marco writes.
Tippett, 27, was a first-round pick by the Panthers in 2017 and, after finding his way to Philly in the 2022 Claude Giroux deal, broke out as a consistent second-line scoring piece immediately upon his arrival. He’s never had a big breakthrough by any means but has been remarkably consistent over the past four years.
His points per game rates have fallen in a narrow window between 0.56 and 0.68 since 2022-23, with his goal-scoring rates per game even more precise between 0.26 and 0.36. He averages 16 to 17 minutes per game and has held consistently strong possession impacts, peaking with a relative Corsi For share of 2.3% at 5-on-5 this season.
Not only would Tippett be an immediate plug-and-play 25-goal scorer for a Bruins team with a top-heavy offense, but he’d come with a good deal of control. Tippett is less than two years removed from signing an eight-year, $49.6MM extension with the Flyers, which carries a $6.2MM cap hit.
He’s got six years left on that deal but has a modified no-trade clause kicking in on July 1 this year, affording him a 10-team no-trade list through the end of the 2029-30 season. Whether that would impede any future deal to the B’s remains to be seen, but it’s a factor to keep in mind if Boston identifies him as a must-have target.
The prospects Di Marco reports the Flyers have been eyeing are on opposite trajectories. After impressing out of camp in his age-19 season, Poitras – who the B’s are reportedly dangling in other talks – has yet to settle back into a full-time NHL role.
He dropped out of Boston’s top-five prospects before the season, according to NHL.com. The 2022 second-rounder is days away from his 22nd birthday and does have a 7-20–27 scoring line in 69 career NHL games, but the 6’0″ playmaker’s AHL production has regressed to 30 points and a -5 rating in 47 games this season after notching over a point per game in 2024-25.
Letourneau, however, has seen his stock take a meteoric rise this year. He was also left off NHL.com’s top five list and was ranked right at #5 by Daily Faceoff’s Steven Ellis last offseason. The gargantuan 6’7″ pivot was a controversial selection late in the first round of the 2024 draft right out of the Canadian high school system, and the criticism of the pick was only backed up by Letourneau managing just three assists in 36 games as a freshman for Boston College last year.
A night-and-day sophomore season now sees Letourneau producing over a point per game, ranking second on B.C. in scoring behind fellow B’s center prospect James Hagens with a 19-15–34 line in 31 games. That breakout, combined with that elusive size and skill combination, could very well make Letourneau check in as Boston’s #2 prospect behind Hagens at this point.
With his emergence in mind, that pair of prospects would be a substantial return for Tippett on their own – not to mention a defensively flawed but high-skill piece on the back end in Lohrei. Promising young centers will be the most valuable piece of most any trade, but especially to the Flyers, who have two top-nine pivots on the wrong side of 30 and their current fourth-line pivot, Carl Grundström, is a natural winger.
They do have some names in the system, like 2025 first-rounder Jack Nesbitt, but he’s having an offensively conservative post-draft season and was tabbed by most as a high-end third-line piece in the NHL anyway. That makes the prospect of adding a name with top-six ceiling like Letourneau especially appealing.
Red Wings Recall Dominik Shine
Feb. 28: The Red Wings recalled Shine today, returning the veteran to their NHL roster. The move fills the lone open spot on Detroit’s roster. Shine played for the Griffins on Wednesday, registering an assist in the team’s loss to the Manitoba Moose.
Feb. 24: Shine and Dries were returned to Grand Rapids today, per a team announcement. The Red Wings are likely expecting Larkin to be available Thursday against the Senators.
Feb. 23: The Red Wings announced they’ve recalled Shine and Dries again ahead of practice today while they await the return of Dylan Larkin from his gold-medal-winning effort with Team USA at the Olympics. With only 12 healthy forwards on the active roster, it stands to reason one of them might stick around as injury insurance after games get going later this week.
Feb. 19, 1:49 p.m.: Both Shine and Dries are headed back to Grand Rapids after today’s practice, the team announced.
Feb. 19, 8:56 a.m.: While Detroit quietly returned Watson and Dries to Grand Rapids after Tuesday’s practice, they’ve brought Dries back up today, along with Dominik Shine, per a team announcement. Shine, 32, has been in Detroit’s system since signing with Grand Rapids as a free agent out of Northern Michigan University in 2027 and finally made his NHL debut last season. In 2025-26, he’s assumed the captaincy for Grand Rapids and is having a career year, scoring 21 goals in only 35 games.
Feb. 17: The Red Wings announced they’ve recalled forwards Austin Watson and Sheldon Dries from AHL Grand Rapids under emergency conditions. They’ll help the team fill out its practices this week until their contingent of Olympians returns to the squad.
Watson is a veteran of 528 NHL games, although none of them have come this season. The 34-year-old joined Detroit on a two-way deal in 2024 after a lengthy run with the Predators, Senators, and Lightning as a fourth-line/press box option, but he’s spent most of his time in the organization in the minors. After playing just 13 NHL games last year, he re-upped on a two-way extension and has suited up exclusively for Grand Rapids this year since clearing waivers during training camp.
While the Michigan native wasn’t more than a standard 10-to-20-point enforcer at the NHL level, he does have a tangible offensive impact in the minors. He racked up 42 points and 112 penalty minutes in 60 contests for the Griffins last year and has clicked at a similar but reduced pace in 2025-26. Through 39 games, he’s 10th on the team in scoring with 19 points (11 goals, eight assists) with a team-high 123 PIMs.
Dries, also a hometown signing, recently inked a two-year, two-way extension that will keep him in the Motor City through 2027-28. He was recalled twice last month under emergency conditions but has still yet to suit up for an NHL team since 2022-23 with the Canucks. Now in his ninth professional season, he has 277 points in 378 career AHL games – including a 17-16–33 scoring line in 39 games with Grand Rapids this year as an alternate captain.
Stars To Rule Tyler Seguin Out For Season
The Stars have filed paperwork declaring forward Tyler Seguin out for the remainder of the season, including the playoffs, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. Under this season’s new rules regarding long-term injured reserve, that declaration increases the Stars’ LTIR pool from its current $3.67MM to roughly $9.7MM ahead of next week’s trade deadline, unlocking more than $6MM in additional cap space.
Seguin, 34, underwent surgery to repair a torn ACL back on Dec. 16, but the Stars did not issue a recovery timeline. Later that week, Dallas said they’d re-evaluate him following the Olympic break and make a determination on his status from there. Evidently, this week’s testing revealed he’s at least around four months away from returning, ruling him out of a potential Stanley Cup Final run.
Seguin, whose contract ends following the 2026-27 campaign, will have played just 47 regular-season contests over the past two years, a hair over 25%. He had hip surgery in December 2024 that took out most of his regular season but permitted him to return for the playoffs. He’ll have no such luck this time around, though.
Even as the 2010 second overall pick deals with several severe injuries in the latter half of his career, he’s maintained his status as a consistent top-six producer in the Lone Star State. Since sustaining a hip injury in 2020 that nearly ended his career, he’s averaged 26 goals and 57 points per 82 games while skating around 17 minutes per game. He’s not sniffing the consistent 70-to-80-point production that defined his prime, but he had 17 points in 27 games this season before the ACL tear and produced over a point per game in his truncated showing last season.
It’s a definite blow to a Stars team that isn’t scoring as much as they’d like this season, but it does allow them to address that issue in earnest by next Friday afternoon. After finishing top 10 in the league in goals in each of the last three seasons, they’ve dropped back to 11th place at 3.33 goals per game this year. In The Fourth Period’s latest trade board, David Pagnotta noted Dallas general manager Jim Nill has at least worked the phones on names like Nazem Kadri, Blake Coleman, and Brayden Schenn up front while displaying interest in Luke Schenn, Tyler Myers, Justin Faulk and others to address their relatively weak right-shot depth on defense.
None of those pickups would have been possible without moving significant money the other way if they didn’t make Seguin ineligible to play again this season. They were already eating into about half their LTIR pool to stay compliant as things were, leaving them with just under $1.94MM in deadline cap space. That number now jumps to nearly $8MM by shifting Seguin to season-ending LTIR.
Ian Mitchell Linked To Swiss League
Red Wings depth defenseman Ian Mitchell is expected to sign with Bern of Switzerland’s National League when he becomes a free agent this summer, according to Swiss outlet He Shoots He Scores.
Mitchell, 27, once looked like he’d be a long-term piece on the Blackhawks’ blue line. Drafted in the second round in 2017, he was an NCHC champion with and captained the University of Denver before turning pro in 2020.
The 6’0″ righty has yet to eclipse the career high of 39 games played he set with Chicago as a first-year pro, though. A gifted puck-mover, he could never honestly challenge for the top-four deployment and power-play stability he needed to be effective. He was shipped to the Bruins in the 2023 Taylor Hall/Nick Foligno deal before getting non-tendered last summer.
Mitchell signed a one-year, one-way, league minimum deal with Detroit in free agency. They were likely hoping he could be a valuable press-box piece and depth puck-mover if needed, but he hasn’t spent a day on Detroit’s roster this season after being cut from training camp and clearing waivers.
Mitchell had appeared in at least one NHL game in each of the last five seasons with Chicago and Boston, but that streak is in jeopardy now. His output with AHL Grand Rapids hasn’t been great, either. His 4-13–17 scoring line through 40 games ranks third among Grand Rapids defenders in scoring, but he’s usually good for at least a half a point per game in the minors. His +23 rating is on track to be a career-high, though.
Smooth-skating defenders tend to thrive in the NL, where he now looks to continue his career. SC Bern is historically one of the league’s top clubs but has had a rough go of things this decade. He will join a group that already has former NHLers Hardy Haman Aktell, Anton Lindholm, Joel Vermin, and Waltteri Merela signed through next season.
Blues Reassign Mathieu Joseph
Feb. 27: Joseph cleared waivers and has been assigned to AHL Springfield, the team announced.
Feb. 26: The Blues announced today that they’ve designated winger Mathieu Joseph as a non-roster player, signaling he’ll land on waivers this afternoon. The placement comes after St. Louis tried unsuccessfully to find a trade partner for the forward, per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period. His roster spot will go to winger Dylan Holloway, who’s coming off injured reserve for tonight’s game against the Kraken as expected.
Joseph, 29, is in the final season of the four-year, $11.8MM deal he signed with the Senators as a restricted free agent in 2022. At the time, it was an incredibly reasonable and relatively low-cost bet on a player who had 12 points in 11 games for the Sens after being acquired from the Lightning in the Nick Paul trade the prior season and had 30 points in 69 games across both teams.
The 6’1″ lefty has churned out just a shell of that production in the years since, though. The high-energy winger had just three goals in the first year of the deal. He enjoyed a brief resurgence with Ottawa in year two, recording a career-high 24 assists and 35 points in 72 games, but that was more a result of him being elevated into the Sens’ top-six out of necessity amid a rash of injuries than anything else.
Ottawa sent Joseph to St. Louis in a cap dump the following summer. In the nearly two full seasons since, he’s only notched six goals and 15 points in 99 games in a Blues uniform, largely in a third or fourth-line role. This season, he has two goals and 11 points in 39 outings and has been a frequent healthy scratch, although he also missed some time in January with an elbow infection.
If there’s any trade interest in Joseph, it’s been quieted by his $2.95MM cap hit. This close to the trade deadline, buyers aren’t going to be willing to commit that much cap space to a reclamation project. St. Louis will almost certainly be moving the pending UFA with retained salary – if at all – as he’s unlikely to get picked off the wire. However, having him clear waivers before a deal would allow the acquiring team to stash him in the minors without risking losing him on the wire again, lowering his cap impact, at least to start.
Any interest in Joseph will be to add some speed and physicality to a team’s fourth line. His offensive utility in a top-nine group is greatly diminished due to Joseph being among the worst finishers in the league, at least among forwards, over the life of his contract. He’s shot at just 6.9% since 2022 and hasn’t hit 10% in a single season since then.
As for Holloway, the Blues hope his second IR reinstatement in as many months is more permanent. He sustained an ankle injury in mid-December that kept him out of the lineup for a month. His return lasted just one game, with the lingering pain still being too much to play through.
With now another month-plus of recovery behind him, thanks to the Olympic break, he should be much closer to – if not at – 100%. He’ll be looking to finish strong after a disappointing first half of the campaign that saw the 24-year-old be limited to eight goals and 17 points in 34 games, certainly limiting his earning potential in a contract year after last season’s breakout.
Rangers Claim Tye Kartye From Kraken
1:45 p.m.: The Rangers announced that winger Brennan Othmann, not Morrow, is the roster casualty for Kartye. Othmann heads to Hartford after scoring once in 11 games on his most recent call-up.
1:03 p.m.: The Rangers have claimed winger Tye Kartye off waivers from the Kraken, per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. New York does not have an open roster spot and will need to make a corresponding move.
Kartye, 24, was an undrafted free agent signed by the Kraken in 2022. He ended up on waivers yesterday after slowly slipping out of regular fourth-line deployment over the past two years. The OHL Sault Ste. Marie product is in his third NHL season but has been limited to eight points and a -6 rating through 40 games, serving as a healthy scratch in 10 of Seattle’s final 13 games before the Olympic break. He’s two years removed from a rookie season that saw him notch 11 goals and 20 points in 77 games for the Kraken, though.
With another year left on his contract at a $1.25MM cap hit, he’ll now look for more opportunity to contribute in the Rangers’ patchwork bottom-six forward group. He has a career 20-21–41 scoring line with a -21 rating in 180 career appearances. He’s primarily played left wing in his pro career, but has some versatility down the middle if needed. He’ll add another element of physical depth, averaging 2.79 hits per game for his career, while contributing a bit of scoring upside in Manhattan.
The Rangers are carrying eight defensemen, so it stands to reason that the waiver-exempt Scott Morrow, who was a healthy scratch in yesterday’s overtime loss to the Flyers, will be on his way to AHL Hartford to make room for Kartye on the active roster.