Canucks Fire Patrik Allvin
The Canucks have relieved general manager Patrik Allvin of his duties, per a team announcement. Darren Dreger of TSN was first on it this morning after Thomas Ros of Sweden’s Aftonbladet said overnight that the Canucks made the decision around last night’s season finale to let him go.
For now, that’s the only change. The futures of first-year head coach Adam Foote and president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford are also up in the air after a woeful season in Vancouver finally came to an end last night with a 6-1 loss to the Oilers. Vancouver’s 25-49-8 record left them as the worst in the NHL by a 14-point margin, with their .354 points percentage serving as the franchise’s worst result since the 1998-99 campaign that rewarded them with the assets to draft franchise cornerstones Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin.
Ideally, the trials of this season will yield another franchise forward for the Canucks – whether that’s Gavin McKenna or another Swede in Ivar Stenberg. However, Allvin won’t be the one entrusted to steer the team through the early stages of that next era.
Allvin just finished his fourth full season in the GM’s chair in Vancouver and fifth overall. After Rutherford was hired as POHO midway through the 2021-22 season in the wake of Jim Benning‘s firing, he served as interim GM for a few weeks before eventually hiring Allvin to fill the role. The duo had worked together previously with the Penguins, where Allvin had served as director of various scouting departments from 2012 to 2021 before being promoted to assistant GM.
Since Allvin’s appointment on Jan. 26, 2022, the Canucks have a record of 173-150-45 (.531). That’s 23rd out of 33 NHL franchises (the Coyotes are tracked separately from the Mammoth) during that time.
The tinge of disappointment in Allvin and Rutherford’s tenure will be most felt by a roller-coaster graph in team success. A rebuild that failed to get off the ground in several years under Benning finally seemed to do so under Allvin’s direction in 2023-24. After hiring a new bench boss in Rick Tocchet and largely staying the course with his group, the Canucks exploded for a 50-win, 109-point season and their first division title in 11 years. That also yielded just their third playoff berth in that span, driving the eventual conference champion Oilers to seven games in the second round despite injuries forcing them to ice third-string goaltender Arturs Silovs from Game 4 of the first round onward.
Yet the Canucks have been in a free fall ever since. They failed to retain multiple key unrestricted free agents the following offseason, and while they netted some solid depth replacements like Jake DeBrusk, the team couldn’t recover. Their All-Star starter, Thatcher Demko, being limited to 43 starts over the last two seasons certainly didn’t help matters, but a slow degradation in their defensive structure – followed by a full-blown collapse once they failed to work out an extension with Tocchet and let him go following the 2024-25 season – destroyed any hope of being able to compensate for Demko’s absence.
In Tocchet’s second and final season, the team was salvageable. The loss of finishing talent in free agency was felt in an already defense-heavy system, but improved goaltending could have steered the Canucks back toward the playoff picture. Under Foote, though, a roster that was designed for Tocchet’s defense-first system imploded. The team allowed the most goals per game (3.83) by a wide margin, had the league’s worst penalty kill at 71.5%, and the second-most expected goals against per 60 at 5-on-5 at 2.80, per MoneyPuck.
More to come…
Panthers Reassign Six To AHL
The injury-plagued Panthers sent significant reinforcements back to their AHL affiliate in Charlotte last night after their season came to an end with an 8-1 win over the Red Wings on Wednesday. Per the AHL’s transactions log, the Cats reassigned forward Wilmer Skoog and defensemen Marek Alscher, Michael Benning, Tobias Björnfot, Mikulas Hovorka, and Ludvig Jansson to the Checkers as they prep for the Calder Cup Playoffs.
Most of these names has only been summoned in the last few days as even more injuries piled up in Sunrise, although Benning and Björnfot were around for longer. The former potted his first two career NHL goals against Detroit en route to being named the first star of the game in his season finale.
In a Panthers pool light on prospects, Benning is among the more intriguing. A fourth-round pick in 2020, he was a dominant offensive threat over three years at the University of Denver. He hasn’t quite had the point output expected of him since turning pro, meaning he didn’t get an NHL look until late in his third season in the organization. Recalled back on March 12 in the wake of an Uvis Balinskis injury, Benning played in 18 straight to end the season and recorded a 2-4–6 scoring line with a -4 rating.
Benning, 24, may have done enough to work himself into the conversation for a roster spot in the fall if the high-spending Panthers need somebody cheap. All six of their regulars on the blue line when healthy are signed through next year, plus likely #7 Donovan Sebrango is under team control as a restricted free agent, so the math isn’t in his favor. His underlying numbers over the last few weeks were strong enough to cement him as one of the Cats’ primary recall options, though.
While he only laid the body four times (the 5’9″ righty will never be mistaken for an imposing defensive threat), Florida controlled 52.1% of shot attempts and 49.4% of expected goals with him on the ice at even strength. He surprisingly didn’t receive a very long look on the power play, only averaging 16:54 of ice time per game in total, but didn’t receive sheltered deployment in those conservative minutes.
Björnfot, a pending restricted free agent with arbitration rights, could also be retained with a qualifying offer to give the Cats a more experienced recall option to lean on. The former Kings first-rounder is now 25 years old with 153 games of NHL experience, 19 of which came this season. That was his highest workload since appearing in a career-high 70 games with L.A. in the 2021-22 campaign.
A good skater with some positioning lapses, the defensive-minded Björnfot recorded four points, a +1 rating, 23 blocks, and 14 hits for the Cats this year while skating 14:11 per night. His possession impacts weren’t great – a relative Corsi share of -2.6% at even strength and an expected goals share of 43.9% – so Florida may want to think twice about giving him another look down the line over someone like Benning. Björnfot also carries a tad more excess in his role as a lefty – just like five of Florida’s seven projected regulars heading into next season.
The rest of the list only just made their NHL debuts this month as Florida’s entire defense corps and about half its forward group ended up on the injured list by the time Game 82 rolled around. Skoog, 26, is a pending RFA after signing as an undrafted free agent out of Boston College in 2023.
Amid a strong AHL showing this season that’s seen him produce 18 goals and 37 points in 59 games for Charlotte, the Swedish forward didn’t look out of place on a line with Jesper Boqvist and Cole Schwindt while handling a couple of special teams shifts as well. He saw 15:01 of average ice time across three nights with a pair of assists, four shots on goal, five blocks, and two hits. That trio of Skoog, Boqvist, and Schwindt also controlled an excellent 70.6% of expected goals in the two games they were matched together, per MoneyPuck.
Alscher was a third-round choice in 2022 but is Florida’s top defense prospect if you deem Benning too old to qualify, as Scott Wheeler of The Athletic writes. The 22-year-old is tracking nicely toward a career as a potential press-box/bottom pairing piece with a standout defensive performance as a second-year pro in Charlotte, logging 11 points and a +18 rating in 51 games. The Czech lefty brings great size at 6’3″ and 205 lbs and got a real look over the last few games, posting three assists, and a +4 rating, and six blocks in four outings while seeing over 20 minutes per night.
The even larger Hovorka (6’6″, 229 lbs) didn’t quite have the same impact. A 24-year-old undrafted free agent pickup from Czechia’s HC Motor Ceske Budejovice in 2024, he’s had success akin to Alscher’s in Charlotte this season but is a couple of years ahead of him on the development curve. He’s now a pending RFA whom Florida must decide whether to qualify. Through his first four NHL outings, Hovorka managed an assist with a -1 rating while averaging 14:55 per night. His possession numbers were particularly underwhelming for his sheltered usage, so if he’s retained for next season, it’ll likely be solely as depth for Charlotte.
Jansson, 22, was selected one round after Alscher four years ago. The 6’0″, 181-lb righty is in his first season stateside. He’s been limited to 29 games with Charlotte by injuries, but hasn’t looked bad at all with a 3-7–10 scoring line and a +1 rating. He notched an assist and a +1 rating with five blocks through his first four NHL games this month.
NHL Releases 2026 First Round Schedule
After last night’s results locked in the two Western Conference playoff series that had yet to be decided, the NHL announced the full schedule matrix for the first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs after releasing select Game 1 information earlier in the day. Things will kick off Saturday afternoon, with only Friday serving as an off day between the regular and postseason.
Here’s the full day-by-day schedule for the first round, with game times in Central and TV/streaming information in the United States:
Saturday, April 18
2:00 p.m.: Senators at Hurricanes, Game 1 (ESPN)
4:30 p.m.: Wild at Stars, Game 1 (ESPN)
7:00 p.m.: Flyers at Penguins, Game 1 (ESPN)
Sunday, April 19
2:00 p.m.: Kings at Avalanche, Game 1 (TNT, truTV, HBO Max)
4:45 p.m.: Canadiens at Lightning, Game 1 (TNT, truTV, HBO Max)
6:30 p.m.: Bruins at Sabres, Game 1 (ESPN)
9:00 p.m.: Mammoth at Golden Knights, Game 1 (ESPN)
Monday, April 20
6:00 p.m.: Flyers at Penguins, Game 2 (ESPN)
6:30 p.m.: Senators at Hurricanes, Game 2 (ESPN2)
8:30 p.m.: Wild at Stars, Game 2 (ESPN)
9:00 p.m.: Ducks at Oilers, Game 1 (ESPN2)
Tuesday, April 21
6:00 p.m.: Canadiens at Lightning, Game 2 (ESPN2)
6:30 p.m.: Bruins at Sabres, Game 2 (ESPN)
9:00 p.m.: Kings at Avalanche, Game 2 (ESPN)
Wednesday, April 22
6:00 p.m.: Penguins at Flyers, Game 3 (ESPN)
8:30 p.m.: Stars at Wild, Game 3 (TNT, truTV, HBO Max)
9:00 p.m.: Ducks at Oilers, Game 2 (TBS, HBO Max)
Thursday, April 23
6:00 p.m.: Sabres at Bruins, Game 3 (TNT, truTV, HBO Max)
6:30 p.m.: Hurricanes at Senators, Game 3 (TBS, HBO Max)
9:00 p.m.: Avalanche at Kings, Game 3 (TNT, truTV, HBO Max)
Friday, April 24
6:00 p.m.: Lightning at Canadiens, Game 3 (TNT, truTV, HBO Max)
9:00 p.m.: Oilers at Ducks, Game 3 (TNT, truTV, HBO Max)
Saturday, April 25
2:00 p.m.: Senators at Hurricanes, Game 4 (TBS, truTV, HBO Max)
4:30 p.m.: Stars at Wild, Game 4 (TBS, truTV, HBO Max)
7:00 p.m.: Penguins at Flyers, Game 4 (TBS, truTV, HBO Max)
Sunday, April 26
1:00 p.m.: Sabres at Bruins, Game 4 (TNT, truTV, HBO Max)
3:30 p.m.: Avalanche at Kings, Game 4 (TNT, truTV, HBO Max)
6:00 p.m.: Lightning at Canadiens, Game 4 (ESPN)
8:30 p.m.: Oilers at Ducks, Game 4 (ESPN)
Times for Games 5-7 TBD
Monday, April 27
Senators at Hurricanes, Game 5
Flyers at Penguins, Game 5
Golden Knights at Mammoth, Game 4 (ESPN)
Tuesday, April 28
Bruins at Sabres, Game 5
Wild at Stars, Game 5
Ducks at Oilers, Game 5
Wednesday, April 29
Canadiens at Lightning, Game 5
Penguins at Flyers, Game 6
Kings at Avalanche, Game 5
Mammoth at Golden Knights, Game 5
Thursday, April 30
Hurricanes at Senators, Game 6
Stars at Wild, Game 6
Oilers at Ducks, Game 6
Friday, May 1
Sabres at Bruins, Game 6
Lightning at Canadiens, Game 6
Avalanche at Kings, Game 6
Golden Knights at Mammoth, Game 6
Saturday, May 2
Senators at Hurricanes, Game 7
Flyers at Penguins, Game 7
Wild at Stars, Game 7
Ducks at Oilers, Game 7
Sunday, May 3
Bruins at Sabres, Game 7
Canadiens at Lightning, Game 7
Kings at Avalanche, Game 7
Mammoth at Golden Knights, Game 7
Panthers Place Nolan Foote, Noah Gregor On Waivers
The Panthers placed forwards Nolan Foote and Noah Gregor on waivers Thursday, per PuckPedia. The move will allow them to be assigned to AHL Charlotte for the Calder Cup Playoffs after they presumably clear tomorrow. Both required waivers for reassignment because they’d each played at least 10 NHL games since they cleared last.
Foote, 25, was a first-round pick back by the Lightning in 2019 but has ended up with their cross-state rivals after failing to ever lock down a full-time NHL role. He was traded to the Devils in the 2020 Blake Coleman swap. He ended up appearing in 30 games over five consecutive seasons for New Jersey but never hit double-digit appearances in any one campaign. That led New Jersey to non-tender him last summer, and he subsequently landed a two-way deal with Florida.
He was never really expected to compete for an NHL job, and for the first several months of the season, he was solely the AHL depth they brought him in to be. In 54 games for Charlotte, he had 14 goals and 18 assists for 32 points. A strong top-nine AHL piece for several years now, with good size at 6’3″ and 196 lbs, Florida’s rash of injuries forced him up onto the NHL roster last month.
Foote ended up skating in a career-high 12 games for the Cats over the last few weeks of the season, notching a goal with a -4 rating while averaging 10:48 per night. He offered up some physicality with 27 hits, but his impacts outside of that were limited. Florida controlled 50.2% of shot attempts but just 43.3% of expected goals when he was on the ice at even strength.
Since Foote has played under 80 NHL games with three years of professional experience and is now at the age-25 cutoff, he’s eligible for Group VI unrestricted free agency this summer. Florida will not be able to retain his rights with a qualifying offer and will instead need to extend him before July 1 if they’re interested in keeping him away from the open market.
As for Gregor, the 27-year-old vet had a slightly more expanded role in Florida this season, again due to injuries ahead of him on the depth chart. He was brought in for training camp on a professional tryout before ultimately signing a two-way deal in the wake of injuries to Aleksander Barkov, Tomáš Nosek, and Matthew Tkachuk in the early going.
As has been the case for the last couple of years, the speedy winger has struggled to generate a strong two-way impact. He did tickle the twine four times in 37 outings for Florida, adding five assists for nine points, but did so with a -10 rating while averaging a career-low 9:34 of ice time per game. He’s never been much of a finisher – in fact, he’s never had a 10% shooting rate in all seven of his NHL seasons. He’s also not throwing the body as much as he used to and had poor possession impacts across the board in 2025-26.
Gregor will be a UFA this summer for the fourth year in a row. He was on a three-year non-tender streak but is now old enough to be a “real” UFA. At this rate, his hopes of landing a one-way deal this summer have likely dried up. Even in Charlotte, he hasn’t been overly impressive with an 11-6–17 scoring line in 25 outings.
Penguins Place Matt Dumba On Unconditional Waivers
The Penguins placed defenseman Mathew Dumba on unconditional waivers Thursday for the purposes of terminating his contract, per PuckPedia.
Since Pittsburgh’s regular season schedule has concluded, the pending unrestricted free agent won’t miss out on any pay. Instead, the move relieves Dumba, who was on assignment to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, of his obligation to report there for the Calder Cup Playoffs.
Dumba will also get a leg up on trying to find a new home for 2026-27 if he opts to continue his playing career. An NHL role, or even a non-two-way deal, seems highly unlikely, however. Once a top-four fixture for the Wild, the 31-year-old’s game has been in decline for several years now. He still managed to land a two-year, $7.5MM contract from the right-shot-needy Stars in free agency in 2024. Dallas was hoping his underwhelming period from 2022-24 was a flash in the pan for a player who was still only 29 years old when he signed the deal, but it ended up being his new norm.
Last season in Dallas, Dumba went from starting the year on a pairing with Miro Heiskanen to being a healthy scratch for the entirety of their playoff run. Through 63 regular-season games, he only managed a goal and nine assists with a -5 rating while averaging just 15:18 of ice time per game. The cap-strapped Stars then surrendered a second-round pick to the Penguins last summer for them to take on the last year of his contract.
Even on a Pittsburgh defense that had plenty of question marks at the beginning of the season, Dumba couldn’t lock down a role. He essentially started the year as a #7 option – only suiting up 11 times through the first two months – before landing on and clearing waivers. In those few NHL outings, he had a 1-2–3 scoring line with a -5 rating, 12 blocks, and 16 hits in bottom-pairing duties. Pittsburgh was outscored 9-5 in Dumba’s 5-on-5 minutes, and they only controlled 46.2% of shot attempts with him on the ice.
Dumba accepted the assignment to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, but he hasn’t played since early March. He showed he can still be an impact player at the minor-league level at least, potting 20 points (six goals, 14 assists) in 27 games with a +3 rating. Still, the 6’0″, 191-lb righty hasn’t been the legitimate two-way threat he used to be in Minnesota for several years now. It wouldn’t be entirely surprising to see him land a tryout or two-way offer before next fall, but it would be a shock to see him on an opening night roster.
Blue Jackets Sign Rick Bowness To One-Year Extension
1:25 p.m.: It’s a one-year extension for Bowness, the team announced.
10:23 a.m.: The Blue Jackets have agreed to an extension with head coach Rick Bowness that will be announced later today, Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports.
The news comes less than 48 hours following the end of Columbus’ season, which ended on the low side of a complete roller coaster. On Tuesday, following a 2-1 home loss to the Capitals in Game 82 – their sixth straight home loss to end the season – Bowness had some choice words for his club (via Joe Nugent of NBC4 Columbus):
All you gotta do is look at the stat sheet. Three hits, 23 giveaways. I don’t know if I’m back, but if I’m back, I’m changing this culture. These guys, they don’t care – losing is not important enough to them. It doesn’t bother them. Like, how can you go out and play like that?
The Jackets’ season ended as disappointing as it began. On Jan. 12, they had a 19-19-7 record through 45 games and were last in the Eastern Conference. That prompted them to make a change behind the bench, bringing in Bowness out of retirement while firing Dean Evason, who was midway through his second season with the club after pulling them just short of a playoff berth last season. By March 23, their record under Bowness was 19-3-4, and they had pulled ahead of the Penguins for second place in the Metropolitan Division. Even just going .500 from there likely would have shored up the franchise’s first playoff trip since 2020.
It just wasn’t in the cards. The Blue Jackets won just two of their final 11 games and had eight regulation losses, bringing them down to 40-30-12. They ultimately finished a full six points back of the surging Flyers for the Metropolitan Division playoff cutoff and seven points back of the Senators for the second wild-card spot.
Now, Bowness will get the chance he wanted to change that culture. On the whole, his 21-11-5 record in 37 games was strong. The veteran of 840 games as a head coach and countless more as an assistant had stepped away from the game in 2024 following a two-year run with the Jets, leading that franchise back to the postseason after a 2021-22 campaign that fell far short of expectations.
Bowness, 71, has now been a head coach in parts of 15 NHL seasons. He has a Western Conference championship under his belt with the Stars in 2021 and has amassed a lifetime record of 331-419-90 (.448 points percentage), although that’s dragged down significantly by his time spent coaching the expansion Senators in the early 1990s.
Columbus’ advanced numbers this season suggest a team that could and should be a playoff competitor next spring. While they do have several notable unrestricted free agents pending, their core still revolves around several 25-or-younger players like Kirill Marchenko, Adam Fantilli, Kent Johnson, Cole Sillinger, Denton Mateychuk, and Jet Greaves. Since Bowness took over on Jan. 12, the Jackets ranked 10th in the league in Corsi share (51.5%), sixth in the league in shot share (53.1%), eighth in the league in expected goals share (53.0%), and sixth in the league in scoring chance share (53.2%) at 5-on-5.
The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline was first to report things were trending toward a Bowness extension.
Capitals Notes: Ovechkin, Leonard, Dubois, Sandin, Wilson
The Capitals had their locker cleanout day today, and naturally, Alex Ovechkin continues to be prodded with questions about whether he’s returning for a 22nd NHL season in the fall. He maintains that he needs a little bit of time over the summer to decide with his family, but made things clear today that retirement is far from a sure thing in his mind. “I’m pretty sure it’s not my last game,” he said regarding Tuesday night’s win over the Blue Jackets, via Sammi Silber of The Hockey News.
In an interview earlier this month, Ovechkin said his family’s input, plus how he feels health-wise after a few weeks off, will be the most important factors in his decision. He’ll be 41 in September, but skated in all 82 games this year. It’s the first time he’s done that since 2017-18, although he rarely misses any stretches of significance. The league’s all-time leading goal-scorer still managed a 32-goal, 64-point year to lead the Caps in both categories. His 2.98 shots per game were a career low by a significant margin, though, so there’s definitely some cracks starting to show in his production.
More from the Caps today:
- Right-winger Ryan Leonard is heading to the World Championship to represent the United States on the heels of his rookie season, he told Silber. This year’s event kicks off on May 15 and will be hosted by Zurich and Fribourg, Switzerland. The 2023 eighth overall pick made a smooth transition to full-time duties after being limited to one goal in nine games at the tail end of last year, coming out of Boston College. The 21-year-old finished fifth on the Caps in goals (20), eighth in assists (25), and eighth in points (45) while averaging 14:25 of ice time per game with 124 hits. The 6’1″ bang-and-crash sniper previously had an assist in six games for the U.S. national team at the 2024 Worlds and captained them to gold at the 2025 World Juniors.
- Center Pierre-Luc Dubois broke his hand in Game 80 of the season against the Penguins last Saturday, he confirmed to Silber. He gutted it out and played the next day, but ended up sitting out for the season finale against Columbus after the Caps were eliminated from the playoff picture. That, plus an abdominal surgery in November, limited the top-six middleman to just 29 appearances on the year. Missing so much of Dubois, who was an excellent second-line pivot for them last season, had a considerable impact on the team’s overall regression. When healthy, he managed a 5-14–19 scoring line with a -4 rating while averaging 16:49 per game.
- Joining him on the offseason injury rehab list this summer is defenseman Rasmus Sandin. He also got hurt in that Saturday game against the Penguins and was still in a knee brace today. It doesn’t appear he’ll need surgery and can walk under his own power, but will need “quite a bit of rehab” this offseason, he told Silber, so it won’t be an ideal rest period for him. Sandin averaged 19:12 of ice time per game this season, sliding up and down the depth chart, while posting five goals and 29 points in 73 games with a +4 rating. Fresh off his 26th birthday last month, he just wrapped up year two of the five-year, $23MM extension he signed with the Caps in 2024.
- Tom Wilson also played through the back half of the season and the Olympics with a high ankle sprain, Silber relays. He only missed about two weeks in January with it and while he said it was certainly playable, he was never at 100%. That was evident as he only managed eight goals and 20 points in 31 games after returning after starting the year with a 22-20–42 line in 41 games.
Sharks Sign Eric Pohlkamp To Entry-Level Deal
2:08 p.m.: Pohlkamp’s deal has been registered, per PuckPedia. It carries a cap hit of $1.05MM, and he can earn up to $450K in Schedule ‘A’ performance bonuses in each of the two seasons. His qualifying offer upon expiry will be $1.064MM.
11:37 a.m.: The Sharks will be signing defense prospect Eric Pohlkamp to his entry-level contract in the coming days, Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now reports. The deal will begin next season, so he won’t play in tonight’s season finale against the Jets.
Pohlkamp’s deal, when announced, will be a two-year pact running through 2027-28. He’ll be a restricted free agent at that point under team control until the 2031 offseason.
San Jose has been littered with top draft picks over the last few seasons. This far into a rebuild, though, it starts to become clear what later-round selections they might be hitting on. Pohlkamp appears to be one of them.
Selected in the fifth round in 2023, the 5’11” righty was passed over entirely in the draft the year prior. Now 22, he’s spent the last three years in the NCAA – one with Bemidji State, two with Denver – where he’s developed into a star. As a junior this season, he was a top-three finalist for the Hobey Baker Award and took home a national title with the Pioneers, leading the team in scoring with a 18-21–39 line in 43 games.
While Pohlkamp is undersized, he doesn’t play like it. He’s put on enough muscle to hit the 205-lb mark and is frequently laying into opponents. A legitimate two-way threat that the Sharks lack at present, there’s a non-zero chance he’ll step into an NHL role out of the gate in the fall.
Pohlkamp sits at #5 in San Jose’s prospect pool, one of the league’s very best, per Scott Wheeler of The Athletic. He’s the top-ranked right-shot prospect in the system and arguably their second-best up-and-coming rearguard overall behind 2024 11th overall pick Sam Dickinson.
There’s a 20-plus minute upside in Pohlkamp’s game with play on both special teams units. He ended the season with both hand and foot injuries, Denver head coach David Carle told Wheeler, so it’s not looking like he’ll join AHL San Jose for its playoff run before joining the Sharks for training camp in the fall.
Blue Jackets Reassign Zach Aston-Reese, Luca Del Bel Belluz
The Blue Jackets have reassigned forwards Zach Aston-Reese and Luca Del Bel Belluz to AHL Cleveland, per a team announcement. While Columbus isn’t a part of the postseason picture, their minor-league feeder is, so the duo will be able to get some playoff action in after all.
The move could mark the final note on Aston-Reese’s transactions log in his Blue Jackets tenure. A pending unrestricted free agent, the 31-year-old had a trying campaign that’s unlikely to result in him being brought back unless there’s mutual interest in him playing more of a minor-league role.
Once a depth defensive standout for the Penguins, it’s actually been a rocky few years for the 31-year-old. He was once a lineup fixture but lost his grip on that almost overnight, failing to land a deal in the 2023 offseason and getting released from a tryout with the Hurricanes before eventually landing a two-way deal with the Red Wings at the beginning of the year. He ended up clearing waivers before spending most of the season in the AHL. He joined the Golden Knights the following summer but was claimed off waivers by Columbus during training camp.
That move in October 2024 precipitated Aston-Reese’s return to NHL relevancy. The checking winger re-emerged with a relative bang and earned a one-year extension in the process, making a career-high 79 appearances for the Jackets while also setting new best marks in assists (11), shots on goal (101), and blocks (58). While his -15 rating was cause for concern, he spent most of the season on a bottom-six checking unit with Justin Danforth and Mathieu Olivier that actually posted strong underlying metrics, controlling 54.6% of expected goals at 5-on-5 while outscoring opponents 13-9, per MoneyPuck.
This year, with Danforth gone and the offseason acquisitions of Charlie Coyle, Isac Lundeström, and Miles Wood pushing him down the depth chart, Aston-Reese’s impact was considerably more measured. He started the year in a regular role but was a healthy scratch for the first time by the end of October. He continued to fall in and out of the lineup until eventually landing on waivers in January. He cleared and was on assignment to Cleveland until getting called up at the beginning of this month in response to a Lundeström injury concern, although he played just once on his seven-game recall.
Aston-Reese’s NHL showing this year concludes with a 1-4–5 scoring line in 27 outings. He posted a -1 rating, saw decreased penalty-kill responsibilities, and averaged just 9:44 of ice time per game while racking up 78 hits. He’s also scored seven goals and 14 points in 25 AHL contests with Cleveland, where he’ll play a significant factor in the postseason.
Del Bel Belluz, on the other hand, has a clearer future in Columbus. The Jackets selected the 22-year-old middleman 44th overall in 2022, and they have to be pleased with his development, particularly offensively, thus far. He’s already worked his way up to being a consistent recall option, now making 30 NHL appearances over the last three seasons, where he has three goals and seven assists while averaging 11:27 per game. His ice time was down to about nine minutes per game across 14 showings this year, resulting in him generating only an assist and 11 shots on goal, with a -2 rating.
In Cleveland, the 6’1″ center is a star. After erupting for 27 goals and 53 points in 61 outings last season, he’s now over a point per game with a 22-35–57 scoring line in 53 games in 2025-26. He’s already received AHL All-Star honors. But, as The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler points out, he’s the type of prospect who does a lot of things well but doesn’t truly excel in any given area. As such, he sits down at #7 in the organizational prospect rankings, in part due to the difficulty of projecting where exactly he could slot in down the line amid a wealth of other young centers in the system.
Oilers’ Zach Hyman Expected To Return Thursday
The Oilers expect to have winger Zach Hyman back in the lineup for their regular-season finale tonight against the Canucks, per the team’s website. They’d been resting him for the last several games with an undisclosed lingering injury.
There was never any real concern about Hyman’s playoff status, but it’s still good to see him getting a tune-up game before the Oilers kick off their first-round series – which could still be against either the Ducks, Kings, or Avalanche – in a few days. He last dressed on April 2 against the Blackhawks, missing Edmonton’s last five games. Knoblauch said the injury is unrelated to the wrist dislocation he sustained in last year’s Western Conference Final, nor is it something that realistically would have sidelined him for a postseason contest, but they opted to give him some rest to get as close to 100% as possible.
Hyman’s impact in Edmonton’s top six will be even more crucial as Leon Draisaitl‘s status for Game 1 remains cloudy. The German superstar started skating earlier this week for the first time since sustaining a lower-body injury against the Predators over a month ago. He’s expected back sometime during the first round but it’s unclear if he’ll be ready to go for a potential Sunday or Monday Game 1.
With Jason Dickinson, Max Jones, and Mattias Janmark also sidelined, Edmonton’s current bottom six group does not include a double-digit goal scorer and has combined for just 21 tallies on the season, not including the three goals Colton Dach had for the Blackhawks prior to his acquisition. They will need to squeeze all they can out of Connor McDavid and their top two lines, a task that obviously becomes more trying with Draisaitl out but would be virtually impossible without Hyman.
Arguably one of the more successful free-agent gambles in recent memory, Hyman has been a perfect complementary net-front piece to McDavid at even strength since landing in Edmonton in 2021. Aside from what looks like a one-off down year last season, he’s been a true impact producer. Despite his latest ailment and the wrist dislocation that stretched into this season limiting him to 57 games, he’s still racked up 31 goals and 51 points. His 19.6% shooting rate isn’t quite a career high, but it’s up there. He’s on a 45-goal pace over an 82-game season.
He’s clearly the Oilers’ most trusted and most deployed forward behind McDavid and Draisaitl. His 0.89 points per game are fourth on the team behind them and Evan Bouchard, and he’s averaging north of 20 minutes per game for the second time in his career despite no longer factoring in on Edmonton’s penalty kill.