Stars Will Host Golden Knights In 2027 Stadium Series
All the outdoor games for next season are now in place. The league had previously announced the Stars as the host of the 2027 Stadium Series at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys. Today, they confirmed it’ll be the Golden Knights heading to the Lone Star State to face Dallas on Feb. 20, 2027.
Also on the schedule next season is the infrequent Heritage Classic, which the Jets will host against the Canadiens in late October. The Mammoth were also recently announced as the host of the 2027 Winter Classic for that franchise’s first outdoor game against the cross-border rival Avalanche.
It will be just the second time outdoors for the Stars. Despite their southern location, it’s also their second time hosting. They were home one of the more memorable outdoor contests in league history as the 2020 Winter Classic at the Cotton Bowl, which they won against the Predators and was the second-most attended game in league history at 85,630 spectators.
Meanwhile, it’s the third outdoor showing in a decade of existence for Vegas, all coming in the last six years. It’ll also be their third time on the road after heading to Lake Tahoe for the special edition COVID-year games in 2021 and playing in Seattle against the Kraken for the 2024 Winter Classic.
Red Wings Recall Justin Holl, Sheldon Dries
The Red Wings announced they’ve recalled defenseman Justin Holl and center Sheldon Dries from AHL Grand Rapids. Defenseman Simon Edvinsson was placed on injured reserve retroactive to Jan. 21 in the corresponding move. Detroit had an open roster spot entering today, so only one spot needed to be opened.
The veteran Holl had to wait quite some time for his first recall of the season after landing on waivers in October, but it finally came past the halfway point on the calendar. Holl, who turns 34 tomorrow, is in the final season of a three-year, $10.2MM contract that he signed in free agency in 2023 that virtually carried negative value from the start. He served as the Wings’ extra defender for most of the first year of the deal and then cleared waivers to begin 2024-25, although he still remained up on the NHL roster for nearly all of last season.
This year, though, Holl has seen extended time in the AHL, his first minor-league action since the 2017-18 campaign. The 6’4″, 205-lb righty has leveraged his nearly 400 games of NHL experience into being one of the top shutdown defenders in the league, posting 10 points and a +17 rating in 31 games. With his help, Grand Rapids is off to a historic 32-5-3 start through 40 games.
Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press reports there’s a flu bug going around the room before tonight’s game against the Capitals. The Wings were already carrying an extra defenseman in Erik Gustafsson, and since they’re already down a lefty with Edvinsson out, it would likely be Gustafsson who draws in if a Detroit defender needs to sit. In case it’s two names heading out of the lineup, though, Holl would see his first NHL action in over nine months.
How Holl plays in whatever limited NHL opportunities he gets down the stretch will be crucial in his positioning for a one-way contract in free agency this summer. He once reliably logged over 20 minutes a game for the Maple Leafs with decent under-the-hood numbers before signing in Detroit. His role with a new team next season won’t climb past the No. 6/7 deployment he’s seen while on Detroit’s roster, but a strong showing in a small sample could go a long way toward convincing a team he can still be a reliable extra option.
Detroit didn’t have an extra forward on hand, so Dries will come in if anyone is sick. The 31-year-old Michigan native is also an experienced plug-in option with over 100 games of NHL experience, although he hasn’t made a big-league showing since skating in a career-high 63 games with the Canucks in 2022-23. He’s now in his second season in the Wings organization with Grand Rapids, where he’s posted 14 goals and 28 points in 32 games.
Edvinsson’s IR placement is only a formality. He’s already been ruled out through the Olympic break with his lower-body injury and there’s no certainty he’ll be ready to return once games get going again in late February.
Blues Activate Oskar Sundqvist From Injured Reserve
The Blues announced Thursday that they’ve activated center Oskar Sundqvist from injured reserve. As previously reported, St. Louis assigned wingers Matt Luff and Hugh McGing to AHL Springfield in the corresponding moves after recalling them under emergency conditions just this morning, leaving them with an open roster spot.
Whether or not Sundqvist enters the lineup tonight against the Panthers remains to be seen. He was labeled as a game-time decision this morning by head coach Jim Montgomery alongside top-six wingers Jordan Kyrou and Jake Neighbours (via NHL.com’s Lou Korac). Returning Luff and McGing to Springfield indicates the Blues have certainty that at least two of those names will be available. Considering Sundqvist has been a healthy scratch on a few occasions this season, though, he may still be outside of the lineup if all three are healthy.
The 31-year-old’s stay on IR was brief. He landed there last Friday and ended up missing four games with an ankle laceration that he sustained on Jan. 18 against the Oilers. With that, the healthy scratches and a lower-body injury that kept him on the shelf for the first couple of weeks of the season, Sundqvist has been limited to 39 out of 53 possible contests in 2025-26.
Now in his 11th NHL season and second stint with the Blues, Sundqvist remains an all-situations pivot who’s anchored the fourth line between Alexey Toropchenko and Nathan Walker for a decent portion of the campaign. He’s flexed into both the Blues’ second penalty-killing and power-play units when needed and is averaging 13:20 of ice time per game, right in line with his career average.
While he hasn’t been in the Blues’ lineup every night, he’s still been reasonably productive in his depth role for a St. Louis squad that struggles to score. He’s managed three goals and 10 assists for 13 points in 39 games, a pace of 0.33 per game that outmatches what he’s done in either of his last two seasons in Missouri. That’s despite him shooting at 9.4%, more than a full point below his career average.
Sundqvist’s -13 rating is uninspiring but not unexplainable. He starts 71.5% of his shifts at 5-on-5 in the defensive zone, one of the highest rates in the league among forwards.
Hurricanes Reassign Noah Philp, Joel Nystrom
Jan. 29th: Carolina indirectly confirmed that Philp cleared waivers, announcing that they’ve reassigned him and defenseman Joel Nystrom to AHL Chicago. Nystrom’s demotion was expected, given that the team shared that Shayne Gostisbehere would return tonight after a five-game absence due to a lower-body injury. Nystrom scored one goal in four games during his recall, averaging 11:25 of ice time per game.
Jan. 28th: The Hurricanes have placed center Noah Philp on waivers, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. He had been on injured reserve with a concussion; now that he’s healthy, he won’t be back with Carolina. He’ll either be headed to AHL Chicago or another NHL club if he’s claimed off the wire.
Philp, 27, was claimed off waivers from the Oilers just last month. If Edmonton submits a claim for him and is the only team to do so, they could send him directly to their AHL affiliate in Bakersfield without having to waive him again.
The Alberta-born pivot sustained the concussion in just his second appearance for Carolina on Jan. 6 against the Stars. He logged just 18:26 of total ice time across the pair of contests in a Canes sweater, notching two shots on goal and six hits while going 11-for-21 (52.4%) on draws. Including a 15-game run with the Oilers earlier in the year, he has a 2-1–3 scoring line with a -7 rating in 17 showings in his second NHL season.
There are red flags in Philp’s possession game. Even accounting for his deployment as a shutdown center at even strength, his 41.6 CF% at 5-on-5 is ghastly for a center who played in two extremely favorable possession environments in Carolina and Edmonton. He had a 54.8 CF% in 15 games with the Oilers last year, but in far more sheltered usage. There’s been some intrigue in the 6’3″, 200-lb frame he brings to the table, but it will be hard to continue justifying deploying him in a grinder role at the bottom of the lineup if he continues to be a significant drag on his team’s ability to control play.
Signed as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Alberta in 2022, Philp does have a nice 38-34–72 scoring line with a +13 rating in 130 career AHL games, all with Bakersfield. That includes a 35-point effort in only 55 games last year after he took a leave of absence for the entire 2023-24 campaign. The Oilers are likely hoping they’re the lone interested party in retaining him, either for familiar fourth-line depth or an AHL needle-mover.
Latest On Mario Ferraro
1/29/2026: There are new developments in the situation surrounding Ferraro, courtesy of San Jose Hockey Now’s Sheng Peng. Peng confirmed Pagnotta’s report that the Sharks are interested in retaining the defenseman on a short-term deal, but added that Ferraro himself is looking for a deal with term “likely starting at four years or longer.” Peng also reported that San Jose offered Ferraro a two-year extension, and that offer was rejected.
Ferraro is “likely” seeking a term of at least four years on his next contract, according to San Jose Hockey Now’s report.
Ferraro’s belief that he can likely receive a longer-term offer than the Sharks are currently prepared to make is not entirely unfounded. As mentioned earlier this week, AFP Analytics projected Ferraro’s extension to come with a five-year term, but even looking anecdotally, similar defensemen have been able to earn more substantial term on their UFA deals than two years.
Peng specifically cited recent UFA blueliners Cody Ceci and Ryan Lindgren, who each signed for four years, as players Ferraro might view as comparable. Ben Chiarot, who is 34, signed a three-year extension this week, further legitimizing Ferraro’s belief that he is well-positioned to garner offers with greater than a two-year term.
Whether the Sharks are willing to be one of the teams to make Ferraro one of those offers is still unknown at this time.
1/25/2026: Entering the season, it looked like the Sharks would be selling off multiple pieces from an already weak blue line. Four of their seven active names are pending unrestricted free agents, and for a team primed for another losing season, it looked prudent to cut bait on most, if not all of them, for futures.
Past the halfway point of the year, though, San Jose has exceeded all expectations and finds themselves in the thick of the Western Conference playoff race. While they may still look to flip some veteran names that don’t have a long-term future, Mario Ferraro is becoming less likely to be one of them. They’re still listening to calls on him but are “believed to have some interest in retaining Ferraro on a short-term deal,” David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period wrote last week.
That interest is mutual. The Sharks’ improvement in the standings has boosted his interest in sticking around – something Ferraro already said during training camp he was interested in doing, but Pagnotta wonders if he’d be open to a short-term offer with this summer being the 27-year-old’s best shot at a lucrative long-term contract.
Whether those offers would even be there for Ferraro if he hits the open market this summer remains to be seen. He’s been San Jose’s top minute-muncher throughout the rebuild – at least until this season, when their free-agent signing of Dmitry Orlov has bumped Ferraro down to a more comfortable role as their No. 2 lefty.
His results haven’t been great. Per 82 games for his career, the 5’11” rearguard averages 18 points and a -22 rating. Whether that’s a product of his game or his environment is the million-dollar question for teams entering the summer.
AFP Analytics projects Ferraro’s extension at $5.9MM annually for five years. That’s likely longer than the Sharks are willing to go, but they’re in a position to outcompete that AAV by a significant margin. They’ve shown a willingness to go for high-dollar, short-term deals recently, although with Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith needing new deals in the 2027 offseason, that’s likely to fade fast.
Even if both sides were willing to go for a high-dollar, shorter-term deal in the $6-7MM range, it’s fair to question how much that makes sense for San Jose’s depth chart as soon as next season. Orlov will remain in the picture, Pagnotta relays, and youngsters Sam Dickinson and Shakir Mukhamadullin are solid locks for the other two spots on San Jose’s left side. Unless they’re willing to shift Mukhamadullin to his offside longer-term, there isn’t a pressing need to retain Ferraro past this year.
As for what Ferraro’s brought to the table this season, it’s more of the same. His -2 rating is greatly improved, but his possession numbers remain middle-of-the-pack in defensive-minded usage, controlling 43.7% of shot attempts at even strength. He’s also chipped in four goals and 12 points in 50 games while averaging 20:50 of ice time per game, his lowest workload since his rookie season.
Blue Jackets Reassign Zach Aston-Reese, Brendan Gaunce
Jan. 28: Both cleared waivers and are headed to Cleveland, per Friedman.
Jan 27.: The Blue Jackets have placed forwards Zach Aston-Reese and Brendan Gaunce on waivers, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. The open roster spots will allow Columbus to activate defenseman Denton Mateychuk from injured reserve before tomorrow’s game, as expected. Forward Miles Wood will also be coming off IR, Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reports.
Aston-Reese, 31, is in his ninth NHL season. He’s become a bit of a journeyman as of late after breaking into the league with the Penguins, also making stops in Anaheim, Toronto, and Detroit since 2022. With 102 career points and a +17 rating in 415 games, he was once regarded as one of the league’s top low-usage defensive forwards in Pittsburgh, but has since been mired in year-to-year inconsistency. He spent most of 2023-24 in the minors with the Red Wings before breaking back into a regular role with Columbus last year.
After appearing in 76 games for the Jackets last year and earning a one-year, league minimum extension, playing time has been tougher to come by for Aston-Reese in 2025-26. He’s played in just over half of Columbus’ games this season and has now been a healthy scratch in six of eight. He’s scored a goal and five points in 26 outings, recording a career-low 0.65 shots on goal per game (aside from his three-game sample size in Detroit). He’s still blocking shots and hitting with aplomb, but with ice average ice time now back under 10 minutes per game and his possession impacts dwindling, he hasn’t been much more than a 13th forward – especially with offseason signing Isac Lundeström taking some of Aston-Reese’s penalty-kill minutes.
Unlike Aston-Reese, Gaunce didn’t start the year on the active roster, but has logged roughly the same amount of playing time anyway. He cleared waivers in camp and headed to Cleveland, but has been up with the Jackets since November. In 25 showings, the 31-year-old has been moderately more productive with two goals and six points. He’s been especially valuable on draws, where he’s winning a team-high 56.9% of faceoffs. Nonetheless, with Lundeström back after missing a few weeks, he’s been in the press box for the last two games.
For now, Danton Heinen has earned the honor of serving as the Jackets’ 13th forward while Aston-Reese and Gaunce head back to Cleveland or get claimed by another squad. Since being acquired from the Penguins in the Egor Chinakhov deal last month, he’s put up two points in 11 games with a -1 rating and 21 hits.
Wood, 30, has been out of action since New Year’s Eve because of a leg injury. Between that and some previous ailments, he’s missed 19 of the Jackets’ 51 games but has still churned out an 8-4–12 scoring line in 32 outings. That’s twice as many goals as the speedy winger had last year in a similar number of games for the Avalanche, and with Charlie Coyle now up to 33 points in 51 games on the year, it’s safe to say Columbus is happy with the investment they made when bringing them both in via trade from Colorado.
Red Wings Sign Ben Chiarot To Three-Year Extension
12:45 p.m.: Chiarot will earn a flat $3.85MM salary each season of the deal, PuckPedia reports. The contract includes a full no-trade clause from 2026-27 until 28 days prior to the 2028 trade deadline, when it converts to a 10-team no-trade list. That 10-team no-trade list remains through 2028-29, the final season of the deal.
8:06 a.m.: The Red Wings announced they’ve signed defenseman Ben Chiarot to a three-year extension worth $3.85MM per season. That’s a total value of $11.55MM for Chiarot, who was set to be an unrestricted free agent this summer.
Chiarot could have tested the market as one of the top left-shot defensemen available in what looks to be a paper-thin class. It would have been his third trip through unrestricted free agency, previously landing a three-year, $10.5MM commitment from the Canadiens in 2019 and then his current four-year, $19MM contract with Detroit in 2022. He’s one of the last few Thrashers draft picks sticking around the league, selected in the fourth round by Atlanta in 2009 before eventually breaking into the league with the Jets after they relocated to Winnipeg.
While the Thrashers didn’t reap the rewards, it’s safe to say they’ve gotten great value out of a mid-round pick. He’s been a lineup staple for Winnipeg, Montreal, Florida, and Detroit since first emerging as a full-time option in the 2014-15 season, often serving as the complementary defensive-minded piece on a pairing with Dustin Byfuglien.
It wasn’t until signing in Montreal that he began to be viewed as a bona fide top-pair piece, though. He quickly averaged over 23 minutes per night for the Habs as his all-around usage expanded, and he ended up playing a significant role in their underdog run to the 2021 Stanley Cup Final. His surface numbers that season were uninspiring – just nine points and a -22 rating in 63 combined regular-season and playoff games – but the fact that he averaged over 25 minutes per game in the postseason and his physical brand of play ended up boosting his stock significantly around the league. He was valued highly enough to net Montreal a first-round pick when they flipped him to the Panthers as a rental at the following season’s trade deadline.
Since signing in Detroit, though, the shine has largely worn off. What were once passable, if not downright promising, under-the-hood numbers have faded. Chiarot has long struggled to produce good two-way results in what’s been a difficult possession environment in Detroit, controlling under 45% of shot attempts at even strength through the first three seasons of the deal. He quickly lost out on a top-pairing job alongside Moritz Seider to Jake Walman and, now, Simon Edvinsson, although he’s temporarily back up in top-pairing deployment with Edvinsson hurt.
Chiarot’s game has recovered to some degree this year. With a +1 rating and 11 points in 54 games, his on-ice results are the best they’ve been since signing with the Wings. That’s with him averaging 21:07 per game, third on the team behind Seider and Edvinsson, and he ranks second on the Wings in both blocks (113) and hits (109).
His possession numbers still leave much to be desired, though, and they can’t be explained by aggressive defensive zone deployment at even strength. In fact, Chiarot’s 51.9 dZS% is the second-most favorable number among Detroit defensemen behind rookie Axel Sandin Pellikka. Those two have formed Detroit’s second pairing for much of the year, controlling 45.9% of expected goals but still managing to outscore opponents 24-22, per MoneyPuck.
All that suggests Chiarot’s brief resurgence could be more mirage than longer-term promise. With that in mind, a three-year commitment seems aggressive to retain the 34-year-old. The dearth of potential UFA replacements, though, didn’t leave the Wings with many other options. Most of their defensemen in the pipeline with legitimate promise have already graduated to NHL roles, and the ones that haven’t wouldn’t be ready to succeed Chiarot in top-four duties next season. Save for a trade pickup, retaining him at a reasonable cap hit – even if the multi-year term will raise some eyebrows – was the easy move to make.
The Wings are still in a great spot, cap-wise, for next season. They have $38.8MM in space with 15 roster spots already accounted for, per PuckPedia. A good chunk of that money will need to be earmarked for Edvinsson, a pending RFA, but that’s still plenty of spending money.
Image courtesy of Brian Bradshaw Sevald-Imagn Images.
Flyers Activate Daniel Vladar
Flyers goaltender Daniel Vladař will start tonight against the Blue Jackets, head coach Rick Tocchet told reporters (including Jackie Spiegel of the Philadelphia Inquirer). He’ll need to come off injured reserve, and Philly will need to make a corresponding transaction, although the latter part will be as simple as returning waiver-exempt third-stringer Aleksei Kolosov to AHL Lehigh Valley.
Vladař will get his breakout campaign back underway tonight after a six-game absence. He left a Jan. 14 start against the Sabres late in the first period with an undisclosed injury and landed on IR a few days later. He returned to practice at the beginning of the week, so he’s had a few days of skating under him.
For a Flyers team that’s 2-6-2 in its last 10 and has now fallen four points back of the Islanders for a playoff spot, the importance of his return can’t be overstated. Signed to a two-year, $6.7MM contract in free agency last summer, he’s been one of the 2025 offseason’s shrewdest signings so far. The career backup has given the Flyers true starting-caliber netminding for the first time in a few years, logging a .905 SV% and 2.46 GAA through 28 starts with a 16-7-4 record.
The question would always be how the 28-year-old holds up down the stretch. He’s already just one game short of his career-high in starts. With 8.5 goals saved above expected, he’s been a legitimate top-20 goalie in the league this season, but he’d cooled off somewhat with 1.9 GSAx in his last 10, per MoneyPuck. Still, considering backup Samuel Ersson‘s .860 SV% and Kolosov’s .830 mark, it’s hard to call anyone other than Vladař this year’s MVP (or at least MIP) in Philadelphia.
Canadiens Fire Goalie Coach Eric Raymond
The Canadiens announced that they’ve relieved goaltending coach Eric Raymond of his duties. They’ve promoted AHL Laval goalie coach Marco Marciano to the big club for the remainder of the season in an interim capacity.
After receiving spectacular goaltending on their way to a surprise playoff berth last year, Montreal’s crease has been in disarray for much of the season. Sam Montembeault rode a breakout season in 2024-25 to a spot on Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off, and deservedly so. He was one of the most-used goalies in the league at 60 starts and two relief appearances, and he backed that up with a 31-24-7 record, .901 SV%, 2.82 GAA, and a spectacular 24.6 goals saved above expected, per MoneyPuck. He finished eighth in Vezina Trophy voting and looked to be a surefire starting option heading into this year.
Instead, the 29-year-old has played poorly enough to surrender the lion’s share of starts to 24-year-old Jakub Dobes, who’s still been below-average in his own right. Montembeault has a porous .869 SV% in 20 starts while Dobes, who’s ridden some strong goal support to a 16-5-3 record in 24 outings, has a .890 mark with a 2.96 GAA. Together, they’ve combined to allow 9.2 goals above expected, with Montembeault accounting for 7.9 of them, per MoneyPuck.
Regardless of whether Raymond is the one taking the brunt of the blame for that regression, the Habs clearly feel a change is needed. Raymond, a Montreal native, had been with the club since the 2021-22 season and was in his fifth year in the role. It was his first stop as an NHL goalie coach, but he’d spent time in the Rangers organization as their AHL goalie coach and had extensive experience in the role in the QMJHL.
They’ll now turn to Marciano, who got his start in the organization way back in 2013 as the video coach for their AHL affiliate, then the Hamilton Bulldogs. When the team relocated to St. John’s in 2015, he was promoted to assistant goalie coach and again to goalie coach for Laval after another relocation in 2017. This year, he’s overseen an exceptional transition to pro hockey for top prospect Jacob Fowler, who’s posted a .912 SV% and 2.35 GAA in 19 showings with a 12-7-0 record and three shutouts. The 21-year-old also spent some time up with the Habs in December and January and outperformed both Montembeault and Dobes, logging a .902 SV% in 10 outings with 1.8 GSAx.
Mammoth Recall Dmitri Simashev
Before last night’s win over the Panthers, the Mammoth announced they’ve recalled defenseman Dmitriy Simashev from AHL Tucson. He takes the roster spot of center Cameron Hebig, who’s on his way back down to Tucson in the corresponding move.
Simashev, who turns 21 next week, will get his second crack at NHL ice time in his rookie season. The sixth overall pick in the 2023 draft cracked Utah’s opening night roster and spent the first couple of months in a rather expanded role, riding shotgun with countryman Mikhail Sergachev on the Mammoth’s top pairing while Sean Durzi dealt with an upper-body injury.
The experiment didn’t go all too well. Drafted as a smooth-skating shutdown piece, Simashev had one assist and a -9 rating in 24 outings while averaging 15:28 of ice time per game. Despite owning a 6’4″, 200-lb frame, the lefty didn’t leverage it often and only recorded eight hits.
Sergachev ended up faring much better with Durzi than he did in several weeks of play with Simashev. The Sergachev-Durzi pairing has controlled 54.0% of expected goals at 5-on-5, while the Sergachev-Simashev unit posted a 48.3 xGF%, per MoneyPuck.
As such, Simashev was sent down to Tucson in early December. Since going down, he’s been nothing short of dominant. Most expected his lack of offense in Russia’s top league to be a concern, but he’s rattled off a point per game in 20 appearances with a +3 rating. He’s more than earned a second look and will get one now, likely competing with Nick DeSimone and Olli Määttä to take on a third-pairing job with fellow lefty Ian Cole.
As for Hebig, he’d been up as an extra forward for the last week after Utah sent veteran Kevin Rooney down. The 29-year-old didn’t end up playing and is thus still awaiting his NHL debut. The 5’10” pivot has enjoyed a career-best campaign in Tucson, where he ranks second on the team in scoring with 33 points (15 goals, 18 assists) in 35 games.