Flyers Recall Oliver Bonk, David Jiricek
The Flyers have recalled defense prospects Oliver Bonk and David Jiricek from AHL Lehigh Valley, the team announced Monday. They will be on hand for the remainder of the postseason if needed after Lehigh Valley saw its season come to an end in its regular-season finale against Charlotte on Sunday, failing to qualify for the Calder Cup Playoffs.
Both are coming off recent stints on the NHL roster. The Flyers gave Bonk, their 22nd overall selection in the 2023 draft, his NHL debut in their final regular-season game against the Canadiens last week. Jiricek, while he’s gotten playing time in previous stints with the Blue Jackets and Wild, got the chance to make his Flyers debut the same night after being acquired from Minnesota for winger Bobby Brink at the trade deadline.
Bonk was particularly impressive in his first-ever showing. The 6’2″ righty shrugged off the growing pains of his first professional season in Lehigh Valley to rattle off a goal and an assist in the first period of the eventual 4-2 win, both at even strength. He logged 16:28 of ice time with two hits, although his possession impacts weren’t great. Philly lost the shot attempt battle 13-10 with Bonk on the ice at 5-on-5 despite him starting 80% of his shifts in the offensive end.
As mentioned, his run in Lehigh Valley this year was a mixed bag. After he was arguably the best shutdown defender in junior hockey last year en route to a Memorial Cup championship with the OHL’s London Knights, Bonk only managed 19 points and a -14 rating in 46 AHL games following a weeks-long stint on injured reserve to open the season. As Scott Wheeler of The Athletic opines, he’s still the Flyers’ #3 prospect and was relied upon heavily this season despite the lack of production and dominant results, so perhaps a more competitive AHL environment next season could facilitate a statistical breakout.
In all likelihood, though, Jiricek would find his way into the playoff lineup sooner if Philly needed someone to step in. Now 22, the 2022 sixth-overall pick still hasn’t locked down a full-time NHL job but does have 85 games of experience over the last four years compared to Bonk’s lone showing. His numbers aren’t great, limited to a 2-11–13 scoring line and a -8 rating while averaging a conservative 13:37 per night.
However, Jiricek has looked far more like the future top-pair challenger he was expected to be in Lehigh Valley over the last month. He had struggled to make an offensive impact in the minors in Minnesota’s system but rattled off a 2-11–13 scoring line in 15 games upon his arrival with the Phantoms, albeit with a -7 rating.
Jiricek will presumably be on the Flyers’ opening night roster in the fall. They signed him to a two-year, $3MM extension at the beginning of the month, and he loses his waiver-exempt status on July 1. They have a more experienced right-shot option in the press box in Noah Juulsen if need be, but if a top puck-mover ends up sustaining an injury, it stands to reason Jiricek could get the call as a better stylistic match.
Morning Notes: Maatta, Martone, Faber
Flames defenseman Olli Määttä is the first NHLer officially named to Finland’s roster for next month’s World Championship, according to an announcement from the national program. The tournament kicks off in Switzerland on May 15. It will be the shutdown rearguard’s fourth appearance for his country at the Worlds and his first since 2024.
While he went to the event three times in a four-year span, his only miss in that frame coincided with the country’s most recent gold medal in 2022. Now a fixture on the national team, Määttä has donned Finland’s colors at last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off as well as this year’s Winter Olympics. He took home a silver medal with Finland at the 2021 Worlds. He has a 1-9–10 scoring line and a +3 rating in 26 career games at the event.
After sitting most of the season in the Mammoth’s press box, Calgary picked him up as a contract dump in the MacKenzie Weegar trade. The 31-year-old excelled down the stretch, averaging 22:30 per night on a paper-thin Flames blue line while potting 14 points and a -1 rating in 21 games. All of that offense came at even strength, as well. Signed for two more seasons at a cap hit of $3.5MM, he’ll be an everyday option once again next season in a Calgary pool largely devoid of long-term impact lefties outside of top-pair fixture Kevin Bahl and the emerging Yan Kuznetsov.
More from around the league as the first Game 2s of the first round get underway tonight:
- Flyers winger Porter Martone‘s arrival has been one of the best stories over the past few weeks. The 2025 sixth overall pick finished his season with 10 points through his first nine career games following his exodus from Michigan State, and he followed that up with the game-winning goal Saturday for the Flyers’ first postseason victory in six years. Yesterday, he told Kevin Kurz of The Athletic that he’s been relying on support from a close friend and another standout rookie – Islanders Calder Trophy shoo-in Matthew Schaefer – for advice throughout the year. He credits those talks for helping him exhibit the confidence he’s put on display thus far. “I think the big thing that made him successful was, he was himself,” Martone told Kurz. “You see how much of an impact he made on that organization, how much he contributed to that team. For me, that’s what I try to do coming here. Just be who I am, as a player and as a person.”
- Wild defenseman Brock Faber was initially quite unhappy with the organization’s decision to sit him for “forced rest” for the final two games of the regular season, but he’s quickly changed his tune on that following their Game 1 win over the Stars on Saturday, he tells The Athletic’s Michael Russo. “I think everyone was kind of in the same boat there, where you hate to watch the game from the stands but when you get told that’s what you’re doing, I think you can kind of look at it one of two ways,” Faber said. “We did take advantage of the rest. Obviously, it’s been a long year for us and we just needed to do everything we could to prepare for this series and hopefully a long run here. So I think that’s what we did, and it was definitely beneficial.” Faber recorded his first career playoff point in the win, along with a league-high +4 rating.
Ducks Sign Roger McQueen To Entry-Level Deal
April 18th: As expected, the Ducks have announced McQueen’s entry-level contract, beginning next year. He’ll continue with the AHL San Diego on an amateur tryout agreement through the Calder Cup playoffs. McQueen has scored one goal and three points in six games with a -1 rating with the Gulls so far.
PuckPedia shared the year-by-year breakdown of McQueen’s entry-level deal:
| Year | NHL Salary | Signing bonus | Potential performance bonuses | Minors salary |
| 2026-27 | $922.5K | $102.5K | $550K | $85K |
| 2027-28 | $967.5K | $107.5K | $800K | $85K |
| 2028-29 | $1.0125MM | $112.5K | $1MM | $85K |
April 1st: The Ducks are working to finalize an entry-level contract for top center prospect Roger McQueen beginning next season, PuckPedia reports on Wednesday. He is also expected to sign an amateur tryout with the AHL’s San Diego Gulls to make his pro debut in the coming days.
McQueen, 19, was one of last year’s most polarizing prospects. His 6’6″, 198-lb frame was of significant intrigue, plus the fact that he’d tallied nearly a point per game for the WHL’s Brandon Wheat Kings in his pre-draft year.
A power forward with great puck skills, he only ended up getting into 17 games last year. He missed most of his pivotal draft season because of a fracture in his lower back known as spondylolysis that was initially misdiagnosed as a bulging disc. The symptoms that accompanied had stretched as far back as August 2023, McQueen told Adam Kimelman of NHL.com last year, but were finally completely resolved by the end of the season, allowing him to participate fully in the draft combine.
Some viewed McQueen as a top-five talent. Obviously, with his injury concerns, that didn’t happen. Still, after managing a 10-10–20 scoring line in 17 games for the Wheat Kings in his difficult age-18 campaign, the Ducks had seen enough to take him 10th overall.
The latest addition to a deep stable of first-round forward talent in Anaheim that includes Leo Carlsson, Beckett Sennecke, and Cutter Gauthier, McQueen opted not to return to juniors for 2025-26 and instead committed to Providence College, taking advantage of the new development path for players who came up through top-level Canadian juniors. The Saskatoon native hit the ground running and was among the Friars’ top talents this year, finishing with an 11-16–27 scoring line in 36 outings to rank third on the team.
In doing so, McQueen took home a Hockey East regular-season championship and won the conference’s Rookie of the Year Award. The team was upset by UConn in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament before bowing out to Denver in the regional semifinals of the national tournament.
The right-shot McQueen’s standout freshman year solidified him as Anaheim’s #1 prospect, Scott Wheeler of The Athletic writes. Last offseason, NHL.com had him at #3 behind the since-graduated Sennecke and defenseman Stian Solberg, so there’s been some real upward movement in his stock over the last 10 months.
In all likelihood, McQueen will still need a bit of AHL seasoning next season before he’s ready for an everyday NHL role. All four of the Ducks’ centers are either signed or under team control through next season, so there’s no huge rush to incorporate him, either – although it wouldn’t be surprising to see Mikael Granlund or Mason McTavish shift to the wing if McQueen does force his way onto the roster with a strong training camp.
AHL Shuffle: 4/17/26
Several smaller-profile moves will come across the wire today. Teams done with their seasons are sending their fringe talent back to the AHL for postseason play, while teams bound for the first round of the playoffs could be making some small alternations as well – in particular, settling on their “emergency” third goalie as the league permits for the playoffs. We’ll keep track of those moves today:
- The Flyers announced they’ve recalled goaltender Aleksei Kolosov from AHL Lehigh Valley and reassigned Carson Bjarnason there in his stead. Bjarnason was up just yesterday for practice, but it now appears they’ve re-evaluated and will prefer to have the more experienced Kolosov as their #3 behind Daniel Vladař and Samuel Ersson to begin their clash with the Penguins rather than Bjarnason, a first-year pro. With Lehigh Valley now eliminated from playoff contention, there’s no use keeping Kolosov down there to try to get them in. Kolosov, who has a 5-11-1 record and a .863 SV% in 21 career NHL appearances, will be eligible to enter a playoff game as an emergency backup if both Vladař and Ersson leave with injuries.
- The Flames have reassigned forwards Rory Kerins and Aydar Suniev, as well as goaltender Arsenii Sergeev, to AHL Calgary following last night’s season finale against the Kings. Sergeev, 23, was exceptional in his first career start, guiding Calgary to a 4-1 win while posting a .964 SV% and saving 2.6 goals above expected, per MoneyPuck. Kerins and Suniev were both late-season call-ups for the Flames once the playoffs were no longer a possibility but didn’t do much in their reps, combining for one assist (Suniev’s) in 10 games. There won’t be any playoff action in store for the trio; the Wranglers are last in the AHL’s Pacific Division and won’t be heading to the Calder Cup Playoffs.
- The Blue Jackets have added goaltending prospect Evan Gardner to AHL Cleveland’s roster, per a team announcement. The 20-year-old’s Saskatoon Blades in the WHL were swept out of the second round of the playoffs by Prince Albert this week. The 60th overall pick in 2024, Gardner will be turning pro full-time next season with either Cleveland or somewhere in the ECHL (Columbus is one of the few teams without a designated affiliate). His entry-level contract remains slide-eligible for this season, so it won’t kick in until 2026-27. He had a .902 SV% and 2.96 GAA – both great numbers for career-lows – in 52 games for Saskatoon in his third and final junior season.
- The Sharks have assigned winger Igor Chernyshov and defenseman Luca Cagnoni to AHL San Jose for the Calder Cup Playoffs, per Max Miller of Sharks Hockey Digest. It could very well be the last AHL action of Chernyshov’s career. The 20-year-old looks well on his way toward being a top-six piece from the drop next season, rattling off a 9-10–19 scoring line in 28 games of call-up action this year while seeing significant time on Macklin Celebrini‘s left wing. The 2024 second-rounder also had 13 goals and 33 points in 41 AHL games to date. Cagnoni, a 5’9″ lefty, had only been up for the last few games to get an end-of-season look once the Sharks were eliminated from playoff contention. The 21-year-old went pointless in three games after seeing a six-game debut last season. He leads Barracuda defensemen in scoring with an 8-35–43 line in 67 games.
- The Oilers have added Calvin Pickard back from AHL Bakersfield to serve as the EBUG behind Connor Ingram and Tristan Jarry in the postseason. Pickard started the season as Edmonton’s backup but was supplanted by Ingram after struggling to the tune of a .871 SV% and 3.68 GAA in 16 appearances (5-6-2 record). Fresh off his 34th birthday, he’s started playoff games in each of the last two years for the Oilers – including Game 5 of last year’s Stanley Cup Final – so there’s zero hesitancy about tossing him into the fray if Ingram and Jarry fall flat. Since clearing waivers and being assigned to Bakersfield at the beginning of February, Pickard has a .886 SV% and 3.26 GAA in eight games with one shutout and a 4-3-1 record.
- The Mammoth announced that they’ve recalled winger Danil But and goaltender Matt Villalta from AHL Tucson. With Tucson out of the playoffs, recalling their AHL starter in Villalta isn’t an issue to serve as their EBUG. He has just two NHL starts to his name but is a known AHL commodity, posting a .895 SV% in 33 outings for the Roadrunners this season. The more pressing move, of course, is the re-infusion of But into the mix. Utah has given its 2023 12th overall pick several looks on the roster this season in top-nine duties, with the 6’5″ Russian managing three goals and four assists in 29 games. It doesn’t appear he’ll be in their Game 1 lineup to start, even with Barrett Hayton and Jack McBain still unavailable, but he’ll almost surely be the next man up in case of any other lineup changes.
- The Islanders added Russian forward Daniil Prokhorov to their AHL roster, from KHL side Dynamo Moscow. The club drafted Prokhorov in the second round, No. 42 overall, at the 2025 NHL entry draft, their fourth selection overall. The 18-year-old forward was recently ranked as the No. 6 prospect in the Islanders’ system by Scott Wheeler of The Athletic. Wheeler called Prokhorov, who stands 6’5″, a ” big, strong, driven, hardworking player.” AHL Bridgeport will be the fourth team Prokhorov has played for, in the fourth league. He scored one goal in 23 KHL games for Dynamo Moscow, 18 points in 25 games for Dynamo St. Petersburg in Russia’s second-tier VHL, and had six points in eight games at the MHL level, which is Russia’s top junior league. Prokhorov will soon make his debut on this side of the Atlantic for a Bridgeport team that has already clinched its playoff spot, and is playing out its final season in Connecticut before an offseason relocation to Ontario.
- The Wild recalled netminder Cal Petersen from their AHL affiliate, the Iowa Wild today. Petersen, 31, is the No. 3 netminder on the Wild depth chart and will likely occupy a spare goalie role for the team during its first-round playoff series against the Dallas Stars. Recalling Petersen today allows him to join the team in advance of the start of their series against Dallas. The AHL Wild have already been eliminated from playoff contention, so today’s move turns over their net to Samuel Hlavaj and Riley Mercer, while allowing the team’s No. 3 goalie to join the NHL team and provide them with additional insurance in case one of Minnesota’s two regular goalies (Jesper Wallstedt and Filip Gustavsson) become unavailable.
- The Kraken reassigned forward Jani Nyman and netminders Niklas Kokko and Victor Ostman to their AHL affiliate, the Coachella Valley Firebirds. With the Kraken’s season concluded, the move allows three potentially significant contributors to re-join Coachella Valley in advance of what the club hopes will be another extended playoff run. Nyman, 21, scored 21 goals and 33 points in 38 games at the AHL level this season, and was the Firebird’s leading goal scorer in 2024-25. Kokko, 22, went 18-10-2 in 33 games for Coachella Valley this season and posted a .903 save percentage. Ostman, 25, signed out of the University of Maine for 2024-25 and spent last season as a tandem goalie in the ECHL. He has had a strong AHL campaign in his second year of pro hockey, going 17-14-3 with a .907 save percentage in 35 games with Coachella Valley.
- The Canucks announced that forward Ty Mueller and defenseman Kirill Kudryavtsev have been reassigned to the club’s AHL affiliate, the Abbotsford Canucks. Both Mueller and Kudryavtsev had been on the Canucks’ NHL roster in the final days of the club’s NHL campaign. They have each been key AHL contributors this season. Mueller, 23, scored 35 points in 58 games this year for the AHL Canucks, while Kudryavtsev, 22, scored 18 points in 42 games playing a top-four role including time on both sides of special teams.
- The Ducks reassigned defenseman Tristan Luneau to their AHL affiliate, the San Diego Gulls, as the team prepares for their first-round playoff series against the Edmonton Oilers. The 22-year-old got into his first NHL game yesterday. A 2022 second-round pick, Luneau has been one of the AHL’s most productive offensive defensemen since joining the league. He led San Diego in scoring last season with 52 points in 59 games, and leads the team in scoring by a defenseman this year with 41 points in 69 contests.
- In a similar move to the Wild’s recall of Petersen, the Senators recalled netminder Leevi Merilainen from their AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators today. Belleville, like Iowa, has already been eliminated from playoff contention, so Ottawa is seemingly content to turn its AHL net over to other names for the final games of the season while getting the team’s No. 3 goalie onto their NHL roster a few days early. Merilainen played a solid 18 games for Belleville this season, posting a .909 save percentage, but struggled in 20 games at the NHL level. His .860 save percentage in 20 games with the Senators this season is the lowest save percentage by any goalie with at least 15 games played.
This page will be updated throughout the day.
Blues Won’t Retain Assistant Coaches Claude Julien, Mike Weber
The Blues will not renew the contracts of assistant coaches Claude Julien and Mike Weber, per a team announcement Friday.
Neither was hired under the current head coach, Jim Montgomery, who was brought in early in the 2024-25 campaign. The Blues obviously weren’t keen on making any coaching changes are taking the President’s Trophy-winning Jets to the brink in the first round last year, but a playoff miss this year understandably has them re-evaluating their staff.
Now, they’ll give Montgomery the chance to bring in his own hires. Julien, a veteran head coach in his own right, joined the Blues in a scouting role back in 2022 and was added to the bench ahead of the 2024-25 season as a veteran complement to fresh-faced head coach Drew Bannister, who St. Louis quickly moved on from once Montgomery became available. When Julien stepped back behind the bench at the beginning of last season, it was his first non-international coaching duties since being fired by the Canadiens in February 2021.
Julien is now 65 years old. He’d actually never been an assistant coach at the NHL level up to this point and was last an assistant at any level with the QMJHL’s Hull Olympiques in 1996. He’s coached parts of 19 seasons as a head man with the Habs, Bruins, and Devils, winning a Stanley Cup with Boston in 2011 and an Eastern Conference title in 2013, along with Coach of the Year honors with them in 2009. He has a lifetime record of 667-445-162 (.587), ranking 16th all time in wins and tied for 19th all time in games coached with 1,274. Retirement wouldn’t be a surprising outcome.
As for Weber, this was the former Sabres and Capitals defenseman’s first NHL coaching job. He was hired back in 2023 under Craig Berube – two head coaches ago – after spending the prior three seasons as an assistant in Buffalo’s organization with AHL Rochester.
Maple Leafs Reassign Easton Cowan
As other teams have done in the past few days, the Maple Leafs reassigned their end-of-season call-ups back to the AHL to aid in their affiliate’s playoff run. Joining that contingent for Toronto will be rookie Easton Cowan. He was briefly assigned to the Marlies at the trade deadline to make him eligible for Calder Cup participation. He’ll be flanked by forwards Luke Haymes, Jacob Quillan, and Ryan Tverberg, defenseman William Villeneuve, and goaltender Artur Akhtyamov as part of today’s reassignments, the team announced.
Cowan will be quite the high-powered reinforcement. The 2023 first-round pick has only played twice for the Marlies in the regular season, recording an assist way back at the beginning of the schedule as the Leafs needed to do some roster shuffling to get him back up to the NHL full-time.
But since Nov. 14, Cowan has been a Maple Leaf, not a Marlie, aside from that paper demotion on deadline day. The 28th overall selection finished his rookie season with 11 goals and 18 assists for 29 points in 66 games with a -5 rating. He spent the year bouncing up and down the Leafs’ struggling forward core but got a lengthy run in the top six to end the year after Auston Matthews‘ injury, skating on the left side of a top line with John Tavares and William Nylander.
A natural center, he can play all three forward positions. His possession numbers this season weren’t ideal – a Corsi share of just 45.7% at even strength – but the same could be said for virtually every other Leaf.
The other five had all been recalled in the days and weeks following the trade deadline as the selling Leafs wanted to get some fresh faces in the rotation down the stretch. None of them jumped out in a notable way, though. Quillan was the only one to receive a real look this year, suiting up 23 times, but was limited to a 1-2–3 scoring line while going 42% on faceoffs. His two hits per game ranked sixth on the team (min. 10 GP) and were the most impactful feature he brought to the table as his possession play struggled.
Haymes, Tverberg, and Villeneuve all combined for one assist in nine games, belonging to Haymes, as they each got a few reps down the stretch. Akhtyamov started two of the Leafs’ final four games with Anthony Stolarz sidelined and allowed 11 goals on 76 shots for a .855 SV% in a pair of losses. Including a relief appearance back on Dec. 13, Akhtyamov conceded 0.6 goals above expected through his first three career outings, per MoneyPuck.
Stars Sign Nils Lundkvist To Two-Year Extension
The Stars announced that they’ve signed defenseman Nils Lundkvist to a two-year extension worth $1.75MM annually. That’s a total value of $3.5MM for the righty, who could have gone to arbitration this summer.
Lundkvist, 25, just wrapped up his fourth regular season in Dallas. The offensive-minded Swede was the 28th overall pick by the Rangers back in 2018. After finally coming over from Luleå in the Swedish Hockey League three years later, he had a rocky first season in New York that saw him split time between the NHL and AHL without having great results in either. Without a clear path to a full-time NHL job, Lundkvist quickly requested a trade and ended up in Dallas for his second NHL season.
Lundkvist got his wish and has remained in the Stars’ NHL rotation ever since, albeit in a depth role. His development has been a slow burn, routinely getting long looks in regular-season action before falling out of the picture come playoff time. While Dallas has now made the playoffs all four seasons during Lundkvist’s tenure, he didn’t log a single appearance for them in either the 2023 or 2025 postseason, although the latter was due to shoulder surgery.
However, as team radio analyst Bruce LeVine relays, the organization is extremely pleased with Lundkvist’s work this season. He hasn’t been a healthy scratch at any point – his 52 games played on the year were the result of missing time with a lower-body injury early in the season – and put up 11 points with a +12 rating while averaging a career-high 16:29 per game. He’s far from a physical threat and doesn’t factor in on either special teams unit, but he’s used his great skating acumen to work his way up the even-strength depth chart.
Lundkvist actually spent most of this season on the club’s second pairing with Thomas Harley, playing as their #2 right-side D-man with Miro Heiskanen on his offside on the top pairing. Trade deadline pickup Tyler Myers has slotted in behind Lundkvist at even strength. In over 500 minutes together, Harley and Lundkvist controlled 52.9% of expected goals and outscored opponents 27-17. Among pairings with at least 500 minutes together, Harley and Lundkvist ranked fifth in 5-on-5 goal share at 61.4%, per MoneyPuck.
Even if the Stars aren’t getting much point production out of him due to a lack of power-play time, he’s proven to be a valuable complement at even strength to help advance the play to their forwards. At a sub-$2MM cap hit, they’ll be getting spectacular value out of Lundkvist for the next two seasons if he can keep that up.
That’s important, as the Stars’ cap situation is in a tough spot for the second offseason in a row. With Lundkvist’s deal registered, they’re down to $13.19MM in projected space with four roster spots to fill, per PuckPedia. Virtually all of that will need to go to pending RFA and leading scorer Jason Robertson, who’s projected to cost nearly $12MM annually on an eight-year extension, according to AFP Analytics.
That’ll leave space for just one more contract as things stand – likely a bridge deal for Mavrik Bourque. However, he’s arbitration-eligible, so lowballing him from the jump comes with significant risk. Even still, that leaves Dallas with next to no flexibility to start the season, and they wouldn’t be able to carry a full roster. It’s likely that at least one cap-clearing move – likely ridding themselves of #7 defender Ilya Lyubushkin‘s $3.25MM cap charge – will be incoming.
Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.
Maple Leafs Interviewing Mats Sundin For Hockey Operations Role
The Maple Leafs will be interviewing Mats Sundin, the franchise’s all-time leading scorer, for a role in their hockey operations department as soon as today, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. It doesn’t appear he’s being considered for either Toronto’s general manager or the president of hockey operations vacancy. However, he could be brought on board in an advisory role, “or something along those lines,” Friedman writes.
Sundin hasn’t been technically affiliated with the Leafs since the penultimate season of his playing career in 2007-08. An unrestricted free agent the following summer, he took several weeks into the 2008-09 season to decide on his future before ultimately signing a one-year deal with the Canucks. He retired the following offseason.
Since then, Sundin’s management resume has only gained some footnotes. He has no club experience in the front office and has only worked with Sweden’s men’s national team as a consultant on two occasions – first for the 2013 World Championship and again for the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. That 2013 team, led by the Sedin twins, an in-his-prime Loui Eriksson, and a young Gabriel Landeskog, landed Sweden its first gold medal at the tournament in seven years.
Sundin’s franchise records could stand for a while yet, pending Auston Matthews‘ long-term future in Toronto. The first-ballot Hall-of-Fame center and one of the NHL’s 100 all-time greatest players according to their centennial list in 2017, he was the first European ever to go first overall in the draft when the Nordiques selected him in 1989. He ended up in Toronto five years later in a blockbuster deal and, over the next 13 years, put up 420 goals, 567 assists, and 987 points in 981 games in a Leafs sweater. A perennial All-Star, Matthews has passed him in the goals department but still has 207 points to go before taking that crown away from him.
Teams taking this path to get a well-respected player but inexperienced executive into higher-leverage front office roles is becoming more commonplace. The Blues laid out their succession plan for outgoing GM Doug Armstrong several years ago, appointing Alexander Steen as a special assistant under Armstrong in 2024 with him scheduled to replace him in the GM’s chair this offseason. There’s a real chance an initial advisory role for Sundin could lead to something bigger in a few years, if he’s open to it.
Image courtesy of Per Haljestam-Imagn Images.
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.
Despite acquiring several young assets when the team was essentially forced into trading franchise defender Quinn Hughes to the Wild amid this season’s free-fall, Allvin’s middle-of-the-road drafting has only left the Canucks with a league-average prospect pool, Scott Wheeler of The Athletic opines. That will obviously get a jumpstart with the best odds at the first overall pick this June, plus three other selections they’ve accumulated through the first two rounds, but there’s still some work for Allvin’s successor to do before exiting their retool becomes a viable strategy.
As for who that successor might be, there’s a strong feeling it could be an internal promotion. The Canucks have denied other teams permission to speak to their assistant/AHL GM, longtime NHL center Ryan Johnson. He’s been with the organization since 2013, first as a development coach, before working his way up the ladder over the next decade-plus.
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.