Offseason Checklist: Calgary Flames
The offseason has arrived for three-quarters of the NHL for teams that either missed the playoffs or were eliminated in the first round. Accordingly, it’s now time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming months. Next up is a look at Calgary.
Gone are the inconsistent yet high-ceiling Flames teams led by Johnny Gaudreau. After another underwhelming campaign, this time under first-year head coach Ryan Huska, Calgary failed to make the postseason in back-to-back years since 2013 and 2014. With rookie general manager Craig Conroy entering his second season at the helm, he has some work to do to continue his aggressive retooling of the club over the past few months and steer them back toward playoff contention in the coming years.
Make A Goaltending Decision
Is Dustin Wolf ready?
That’s likely the question that makes Conroy lose the most sleep this summer. His star goaltending prospect’s ascension from being selected 214th overall in 2019 is well-documented. After three incredible seasons with AHL Stockton and Calgary, compiling a 2.29 GAA, .926 SV% and 11 shutouts in 141 appearances, it’s clear the California native is ready for a longer look.
He got a longer look this year, though, and failed to truly confirm he’s ready for NHL duties. His numbers, while better than the older Daniel Vladař‘s, were unimpressive, posting a .893 SV% in 15 starts and two relief appearances. It wasn’t due to poor team defense, either – his -10.1 goals saved above expected were nearly on par with Vladař’s -12.5, per MoneyPuck.
While he’s likely suited for a backup role, especially if Vladař is his only competition, that’s likely not the question Conroy grapples with. Starter Jacob Markström nearly ended up with the Devils at this year’s trade deadline in a rather public saga that involved him waiving his no-move clause only for a deal not to get done. The Devils, who didn’t make any longer-term moves to shore up their crease, will likely re-engage this summer. Even if it’s not New Jersey, Markström could still waive his NMC for someone else after expressing frustration with the way things played out prior to the deadline.
That would leave Wolf and Vladař, the latter of whom will be an unrestricted free agent in 2025, as the Flames’ goaltending tandem next season unless a goalie is added in return for Markström. It’s hard to imagine Wolf not getting the majority of the starts in that scenario, especially after Vladař’s poor showing this season, something Calgary should be cautious of rushing him into.
Solve The Huberdeau Enigma
A constant of the last two seasons in Calgary has been highly underwhelming play from winger Jonathan Huberdeau. After being acquired from the Panthers in the Matthew Tkachuk trade and signed to an eight-year, $84MM extension that kicked in this season, the NHL’s assist leader just two years ago has managed just 27 goals, 80 assists and 107 points in 160 games as a Flame. In his final season in Florida, the Canadian winger lit up the league with 85 assists and 115 points in just 80 games.
The dropoff has confused many. Most of his underlying metrics haven’t changed to explain the lack of production. A coaching change from Darryl Sutter in 2022-23 to Huska this season did nothing.
An NHL team is just that – a team, not an individual player. But at such a steep cap hit of $10.5MM through the end of the decade with a no-move clause, it’s worth having an organizational discussion about how Huska can implement systems that help Huberdeau get back to the point-per-game plateau. Whether it’s solely a systems change that unlocks Huberdeau or if Calgary makes some coaching staff alterations or targeted player acquisitions remains to be seen, but if they want to get back to playoff contention in the next few seasons, they simply need more out of him.
Reconstruct The Defense
Calgary got rid of half their blue-line regulars via trade this season, unloading Noah Hanifin, Chris Tanev and Nikita Zadorov for a considerable combined haul. All were on expiring contracts.
While Conroy’s work was solid, making the trades was only half the battle. With depth defenders Dennis Gilbert, Oliver Kylington and Jordan Oesterle needing new contracts to avoid unrestricted free agency in July, he has some decisions to make about how much money he wants to invest in reshaping the Flames’ blue line next year.
Daniil Miromanov looked good after being picked up from the Golden Knights in the Hanifin deal, posting seven points in 20 games down the stretch as he logged over 21 minutes per game. He’s penciled in to replace one of the departed defenders, joining Rasmus Andersson and MacKenzie Weegar. That leaves Joel Hanley, Nikita Okhotyuk, Brayden Pachal, Ilya Solovyov, and any UFAs they choose to re-sign to compete for around four spots. It’s not the most inspiring group. Is it smart to make a play for a big name in free agency this summer? There is no shortage of intriguing names.
Don’t Strike Out On Draft Day
The Flames have done just okay in the past few seasons to acquire some high-ceiling talent without having top-10 picks, namely 2021 first-rounder Matthew Coronato. However, they’ll have a much better chance of landing a true impact prospect late next month, holding the ninth overall pick at the 2024 draft in Vegas.
If Kelowna Rockets winger Tij Iginla is still available, he’ll almost certainly be a Flame. The son of all-time Flames great Jarome, who’s now back with the team in a front-office role, is tabbed to go somewhere between sixth and 15th overall by most public rankings but is likely to go near the higher end of that range with nine goals in 11 WHL playoff games. He may not be available by the time Calgary picks.
A backup plan should involve a high-ceiling pick, either at forward or defense. Calgary’s prospect pool is fine – a number of names there likely have NHL futures – but it lacks any true blue-chip players outside of Coronato, who lit up the AHL for more than a point per game in his first professional season.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Jets Expected To Interview Craig Berube
The Jets are now the fourth team to display interest in Craig Berube for their head coaching vacancy this offseason. He’s set to interview virtually with the team today, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reports.
All indications point toward Berube heading north of the border, with the Jets and Maple Leafs as the finalists for his services. He and Todd McLellan are the reported finalists to replace Sheldon Keefe in Toronto, while associate coach Scott Arniel, per Seravalli, is a candidate for an internal promotion in Winnipeg after Rick Bowness announced his retirement earlier this month.
Berube’s other documented suitors have been the Devils and Senators, the latter of whom already filled their vacancy by signing Travis Green to a four-year deal. Meanwhile, New Jersey has reportedly tabbed Keefe and former Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft as their preferred options behind the bench.
Hiring Berube would make him the Jets’ third permanent head coach since 2014. Paul Maurice held the role over parts of nine seasons before resigning in 2021. Then-assistant Dave Lowry, now with the Kraken, stepped in for Maurice for the remainder of the 2021-22 season before the team hired Bowness the following offseason.
If it wasn’t already, it’s clear the 2019 Stanley Cup champion is the highest-valued coaching candidate on the market. He was fired by the Blues early in the 2023-24 season after posting a 13-14-1 record, ending his tenure in St. Louis with a 206-132-44 record in 382 games across parts of six seasons. Before St. Louis, his only previous head coaching experience had come in a two-year stint with the Flyers, posting a 75-58-28 record across the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons.
Blue Jackets Considering Marc Bergevin For General Manager Vacancy
Former Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin is on the Blue Jackets’ radar in their search for a new general manager, according to The Fourth Period’s Dennis Bernstein.
Bergevin, 58, has been in NHL front offices for nearly two decades after ending his 1,191-game NHL career in 2004. After spending seven years with the Blackhawks in scouting, coaching and front-office roles, he was tabbed as the GM and executive vice president of hockey operations of the Canadiens ahead of the 2012-13 campaign.
He spent over nine seasons with Montreal, presiding over one of the most unexpected Stanley Cup Final appearances in recent memory in 2021. The wheels came off the Canadiens immediately, though, and he was fired in late November 2021 after a 6-15-2 start to the following campaign. Head coach Dominique Ducharme followed suit, paving the way for Martin St. Louis to land his first role as an NHL head coach.
In the last few months of his tenure with Montreal, Bergevin was criticized heavily for his decision to draft defenseman Logan Mailloux with the team’s 2021 first-round pick. Mailloux had played in Sweden during his draft year due to the Ontario Hockey League suspending operations during the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time, he was charged with defamation and criminal photography for “sending explicit pictures of a sexual act without the consent of his partner.”
Mailloux stated before the 2021 draft that he didn’t want to be selected, wanting to focus on personal growth. Without a formal NHL draft renunciation process in place, though, the Canadiens selected him anyway. The NHL initially barred Mailloux from playing in the league after being drafted, but the ban was lifted before this season after a meeting with league commissioner Gary Bettman. He spent most of the season on assignment to AHL Laval but made his NHL debut in Montreal’s final game.
Many of Bergevin’s biggest signings as Canadiens GM regarding total value haven’t panned out. The largest of them all, Carey Price‘s eight-year, $84MM extension signed in 2017, was worth it for his two electric playoff appearances in 2020 and 2021, but through no fault of Bergevin’s remains on Montreal’s books longer than they’d like with him unable to play again due to knee injuries. Two deals signed less than a week apart in 2020 – a six-year, $39MM deal for Brendan Gallagher and a seven-year, $38.5MM deal for Josh Anderson – have saddled current Canadiens GM Kent Hughes with some pricey cap hits for injury-prone players that have struggled to meet expectations since signing.
Since being fired by the Habs, Bergevin has worked with the Kings as a senior advisor to GM Rob Blake.
Columbus remains on the hunt for a GM after firing longtime manager Jarmo Kekäläinen in February. He also drew recent criticism for his offseason hiring of Mike Babcock as head coach, who’d been criticized multiple times by his former players for improper treatment and alleged verbal abuse since being fired by the Maple Leafs in 2019. Babcock never coached a game for Columbus, resigning as head coach at the beginning of training camp after the NHL and NHLPA opened an investigation into further allegations of improper behavior.
There haven’t been any other known candidates for the Blue Jackets’ GM vacancy. The search is being led by interim GM and president of hockey operations John Davidson.
Lassi Thomson Signs Two-Year Deal With SHL’s Malmö Redhawks
As expected, Senators right-shot defenseman Lassi Thomson is heading overseas next season. He’s signed a two-year deal with the Malmö Redhawks of the Swedish Hockey League, keeping him in Europe through 2025-26.
Still only 23, Thomson spent his fourth straight season primarily suiting up for AHL Belleville in 2023-24. After earning call-ups in the prior two seasons, the 2019 first-round pick failed to do so this year and made all of his 67 appearances in the minors, recording six goals, 21 points and a -14 rating.
Ottawa briefly lost the rights to their pending restricted free agent during training camp when they waived him for assignment to Belleville. The Ducks claimed him off the wire on October 1, but after failing to make their opening night roster, he was waived again a week later and reclaimed by Ottawa, who opted to assign him directly to the B-Sens.
In 18 NHL appearances over the prior two seasons, Thomson didn’t make much of an impression with the Sens. He posted five assists, a -10 rating, and had 19 shots on goal while averaging 16:32 per game. The mobile two-way defender put up decent shot attempt numbers at even strength, posting a 51.3 CF% in advantageous usage, but struggled to control shot quality with a 46.4 xGF%, per Hockey Reference.
After a solid but not particularly impressive campaign with Belleville this season, it’s unlikely Thomson would have been under consideration for an NHL roster spot next season had he re-signed in Ottawa. The Senators, looking to end a seven-year playoff drought, won’t have many places open for unproven talent.
The Sens can retain Thomson’s NHL rights by issuing him a qualifying offer before the June 30 deadline. If he opts to come back to North America before the 2028-29 season, it would need to be with Ottawa unless they trade his signing rights. Since he’d be 27 years old on July 1, 2028, his signing rights would then lapse, making him an unrestricted free agent.
Sabres Turning Away Trade Interest In Mattias Samuelsson
The Sabres have heard from teams looking to trade for shutdown defenseman Mattias Samuelsson following another injury-plagued season. However, The Fourth Period reports that general manager Kevyn Adams has been telling interested parties the team has no plans to move on from him.
Samuelsson’s 2023-24 season was the first of the seven-year, $30MM extension he signed in October 2022. Signed on the eve of the Sabres’ regular-season opener last season, it was a controversial buy-low move at the time – he only had 54 NHL games under his belt and hadn’t even scored his first goal.
Early on, Samuelsson, 24, seemed on track to give Buffalo $4.286MM worth of on-ice value yearly as soon as this season. 2022-23 was a solid sophomore campaign for the 2018 second-round pick, who settled into a top-pairing role alongside Rasmus Dahlin and put up 10 points and a +14 rating in 55 games.
All of his 27 absences were due to injuries. A knee injury kept him out of the lineup for most of the season’s first quarter, and an upper-body injury had him in and out of the lineup down the stretch as the Sabres finished one point out of a playoff spot. Juxtaposing their record with and without Samuelsson in the lineup (33-18-4 vs. 9-15-3 without) offered some anecdotal evidence that their decade-plus playoff drought may have ended in 2023 had he stayed healthy.
While the Sabres took a step back this season, mainly due to a lack of scoring, Samuelsson continued improving. He saw his average time on ice reduced from 22:11 to 20:30, no doubt influenced by multiple appearances stunted by injuries, but he posted the best even-strength possession results of his career with a 50.5 CF%. His pairing with Dahlin improved slightly at controlling shot quality, posting an xGF% of 50.0 compared to last season’s 49.4, per MoneyPuck.
Unfortunately, his campaign ended back in late January. After missing a few games with an upper-body injury, later revealed to be shoulder-related, he underwent surgery in early February. He was ruled out for the rest of the campaign.
Thankfully, his absence likely won’t stretch into training camp next fall. The Buffalo News’ Lance Lysowski reported last month during the Sabres’ end-of-season media availability that Samuelsson had been cleared to resume skating.
He finished the season with one goal, six assists, seven points and a +4 rating in 41 appearances. With his defensive improvements, he arguably provided his highest single-season value as an NHLer, even if their record with and without him this season didn’t have the same dramatic difference as last year.
Some had wondered whether the Sabres would make a corresponding move on defense after striking a deal with the Avalanche to swap Casey Mittelstadt for Bowen Byram before this year’s trade deadline. While most have experience playing both sides, the Sabres’ four highest-value defenders – Byram, Dahlin, Samuelsson and Owen Power – are now all left shots.
It does present a crowded picture, but it’s a cost-controlled one. All except Byram are locked in through at least 2030, and cap space isn’t yet a significant hurdle as the Sabres are tantalizingly close to exiting their years-long rebuild.
Despite his injuries and lengthy contract, Samuelsson’s steady improvements over the past few seasons likely give him some decent trade value. But having a 20-minute-plus defenseman on all three pairings has worked for other teams.
The Lightning had a stacked left side during their back-to-back Stanley Cup wins earlier in the decade, icing Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh and Mikhail Sergachev on different pairings. With Samuelsson likely sticking around next season, it’s up to incoming head coach Lindy Ruff to decide which of their four minute-munchers is best suited to play on their off side.
The Sabres still have a fair amount of cap space to burn next season – $23.219MM, per CapFriendly. Other offseason priorities will include adding a third-line center to complement Dylan Cozens and Tage Thompson and a top-six winger, per The Fourth Period’s report last night. Still, they also have a few restricted free agents to get re-signed. None of them are more crucial than netminder Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, whose .910 SV% in 51 starts this season was instrumental in helping the Sabres allow their fewest goals against per game (2.96) since 2017.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Maple Leafs Have Interviewed Craig Berube, Todd McLellan
The Maple Leafs have interviewed former Blues coach Craig Berube and ex-Kings bench boss Todd McLellan, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman confirmed on Monday’s “32 Thoughts” podcast (audio link). Adding onto heavy speculation in recent days, it appears they’re the favorites to take over as head coach in Toronto after Sheldon Keefe was fired Thursday. Berube was interviewed when Toronto’s search began over the weekend, while McLellan’s interview was slated for today, per Friedman.
Berube has also been linked to the Devils’ and Senators’ coaching vacancies this summer, but New Jersey’s attention has ironically drifted toward Keefe, and Ottawa ended up hiring Travis Green on a four-year contract. He’d spent parts of the past six seasons coaching the Blues, including winning the 2019 Stanley Cup as their interim bench boss, before being fired after a 13-14-1 start to this season.
Outside of the 2019 run, Berube’s Blues only managed to win a playoff series on one other occasion, taking down the Wild in six games in the first round in 2022. The blame is far from being square on Berube for that, though. Their aging defense has lacked identity and consistent puck-moving prowess for the past couple of seasons, resulting in St. Louis missing the playoffs entirely in consecutive campaigns for the first time since 2010 and 2011. St. Louis ended up going with interim replacement Drew Bannister as Berube’s full-time replacement after he led them to a 30-19-5 record in the last few months of the season.
Berube has what few other available coaches on this market do – a Stanley Cup ring. Only Joel Quenneville carries that distinction among names that have been truly bandied about in this year’s carousel, and he’s still not eligible for work in the league due to his involvement in the Blackhawks’ organizational cover-up of a 2010 sexual assault incident involving former video coach Brad Aldrich. Claude Julien won with the Bruins in 2011 and isn’t technically retired, and Dan Bylsma (Penguins, 2009) is still going strong as the head coach of the Kraken’s AHL affiliate, but neither has truly had their name connected to any vacancies thus far.
He had a .597 points percentage in the regular season with St. Louis, north of McLellan’s .550 run with the Kings over the past five years. Like Berube, McLellan was sacked midseason with a 23-15-10 record, influenced by a 3-7-5 slide in January.
McLellan, despite boasting over twice as many games coached as Berube, has more muted playoff success, though. His teams haven’t advanced to a conference final since the Sharks in 2011, and he failed to get out of the first round in two playoff appearances with the Kings. He has a career 42-46 record in postseason play – perhaps his most disappointing discrepancy coming during his time in San Jose (.637 regular-season points percentage, .484 playoff win percentage).
Canucks’ Carson Soucy Suspended For Game 4
After announcing a player safety hearing for Canucks defenseman Carson Soucy on Monday morning, the NHL was swift with its decision. The blue liner has been suspended one game for cross-checking Oilers star Connor McDavid, the league confirmed in a video release. As such, he’ll be unavailable as Vancouver tries to take a 3-1 series lead with a road win in Game 4 on Tuesday.
Soucy, 29, ended up in a shoving match with McDavid behind the Canucks net just after time expired in their Game 3 win last night. McDavid initiated extracurricular contact with a slash across Soucy’s hand, after which he retaliated in kind and then cross-checked McDavid in the face – only the last of which is being disciplined here. It’s worth noting that Soucy’s check hit McDavid’s face as the Oilers star was falling to the ice, as he’d been pushed by Vancouver defenseman Nikita Zadorov just prior to the point of contact.
Speaking to reporters earlier Monday after having his hearing, Soucy said there was no intent to cross-check McDavid in the face and believed he only did so because he was falling (via The Athletic’s Harman Dayal). Zadorov was fined for his involvement in a prior decision, and while the league acknowledged Soucy’s defense in their video statement, they didn’t view it as grounds for wiping supplemental discipline off the board entirely.
“This play happens well after the game has ended, and it is not a hockey play,” the league said. “In an altercation with an opponent, Soucy chooses to raise his stick to an unacceptably high level, draws the stick back, and delivers a two-handed blow which lands to his opponent’s head.”
Soucy has been fined and suspended once before in his NHL career, but neither influenced his suspension because they didn’t occur within the last 18 months. His prior suspension came as a member of the Wild in 2021, a one-game ban for charging then-Coyotes winger and current Canucks teammate Conor Garland.
After signing a three-year, $9.75MM contract with Vancouver last summer, Soucy had an injury-plagued regular season that kept him to two goals, six points and a +10 rating while averaging 17:29 over 40 appearances. He’s struggled in the postseason on a pairing with Tyler Myers, controlling a horrid 29.9% of expected goals through nearly 100 minutes together, per MoneyPuck. He has four assists in nine games, three of which came in Games 1 through 3 against the Oilers.
Flames CEO John Bean Stepping Down, Transitioning To Advisory Role
Flames president and CEO John Bean is stepping down and transitioning into a senior advisory role, reports The Athletic’s Julian McKenzie. Bean will stay involved with the club, as well as the AHL’s Calgary Wranglers and WHL’s Calgary Hitmen, as they transition out of their collective home in the Scotiabank Saddledome to the Calgary Event Centre arena complex, with construction expected to begin later this year.
Bean, the father of Blue Jackets defenseman Jake Bean, technically holds the president and CEO role for the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation (CSEC), which owns the Flames, Hitmen and Wranglers, as well as the Calgary Roughnecks of the National Lacrosse League and the Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League. He had been with CSEC since 2010, first as their senior vice president of finance and administration as well as their CFO. He was promoted to COO in 2013 before assuming the president title in 2018 and being named CEO one year later.
According to an internal memo Bean sent announcing his decision obtained by The Athletic, he informed CSEC ownership of his intentions to step down last year. His replacement, Robert Hayes, will begin work next month, per McKenzie. CSEC is also hiring Lorenzo DeCicco as their COO – neither he nor Hayes has experience in hockey management.
Similarly, Bean’s tenure as Flames president was his first time being affiliated with the management group of an NHL club. His tenure has overseen some rather tumultuous on-ice results for the Flames. They peaked with a 111-point campaign in 2021-22 that immediately resulted in leading scorer Johnny Gaudreau leaving for the Blue Jackets in free agency and star winger Matthew Tkachuk being flipped to the Panthers for Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar after he informed the team he wouldn’t sign long-term. Tkachuk’s eight-year, $76MM deal in Florida looks like a bargain early on, while Huberdeau has failed to eclipse 20 goals or 55 points in a season despite carrying a $10.5MM price tag annually.
CSEC’s big decision with Bean as CEO was parting ways with longtime Flames general manager Brad Treliving last summer, replacing him with internal promotion Craig Conroy at the helm of their hockey operations decisions along with Don Maloney. Under Bean, the organization also relocated its AHL affiliate from Stockton, California, back to Calgary in 2022.
Maple Leafs Notes: Trades, Shanahan, Injuries
While the Maple Leafs’ management didn’t give any updates about their search for a head coach during Friday morning’s end-of-season media availability, there was still a handful of information divulged worth discussing.
That includes team president Brendan Shanahan confirming nothing has been ruled out regarding possible trades or other changes to the roster this summer (via Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman). After this year’s first-round loss to the Bruins, Toronto has lost eight of its nine playoff series in the Mitch Marner/Auston Matthews/William Nylander era. Matthews and Nylander have signed recent extensions and won’t be moved after career seasons, but Marner and captain John Tavares each are pending UFAs beginning July 1.
Both Marner and Tavares have full no-move clauses, though, something that makes general manager Brad Treliving’s job much harder if they do opt to free up a sizable amount of cap space by moving a core piece. Even with a lack of scoring largely dooming them against Boston this year, expect any of Treliving’s moves or adds this summer to be centered around defensive or physical play – he confirmed as such today (via TSN’s Chris Johnston). That would fall in line with the moves Treliving made before this year’s trade deadline, picking up shutdown defensemen Joel Edmundson and Ilya Lyubushkin as well as checking forward Connor Dewar.
Other updates from Leafland:
- After the team fired head coach Sheldon Keefe yesterday, many thought Shanahan’s job could be in jeopardy as well since he’s overseen all of the Maple Leafs’ playoff losses since Matthews was drafted in 2016. That won’t be the case, though. Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment CEO Keith Pelley confirmed the organization would retain Shanahan this summer with one year left on his contract (via the Toronto Sun’s Terry Koshan). Shanahan has been in the president/alternate governor role for the Leafs for over a decade now, joining the club in April 2014 after serving as the NHL’s director of player safety.
- Treliving also spoke to the injuries that plagued many of Toronto’s core pieces throughout the first round, including Matthews and Nylander (via The Hockey News’ David Alter). Namely, he confirmed that Matthews’ absence in Games 5 and 6 – which they both won – wasn’t solely due to the illness he’d picked up earlier in the series, but rather a head injury sustained in Game 4. Treliving also confirmed that Nylander’s absence through the first three games of the series was due to migraines, while goaltender Joseph Woll sustained an SI joint sprain in his back during Game 6 that kept him out of their Game 7 loss. The lower-body injury that kept depth winger Bobby McMann out of action was an MCL sprain sustained near the end of the season, and he would have been available to return during the second round if they made it. Dewar, who doesn’t have a contract next season but is a restricted free agent, also requires shoulder surgery but will be ready for training camp.
Penguins Sign Valtteri Puustinen To Two-Year Extension
The Penguins have signed winger Valtteri Puustinen to a two-year contract extension, general manager Kyle Dubas announced Friday. It’s a one-way deal carrying the league minimum base salary of $775K each season, indicating the team intends on him making the opening night roster next season.
Puustinen, 25 next month, encroached on NHL regular territory for the first time this season. The 2019 seventh-round pick of the Pens spent most of the season on the NHL roster, signed to a two-way deal ($775K/$385K) after spending all of 2022-23 with AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
He proved himself as one of Pittsburgh’s better depth point producers among a bottom six that otherwise struggled to score. Making 52 of his 53 career NHL appearances, Puustinen notched five goals and 15 assists for 20 points. Despite averaging less than 12 minutes per game, his 0.38 points per game ranked eighth among Penguins forwards, excluding Jake Guentzel, who was dealt to the Hurricanes at the trade deadline.
The 5’9″ Finn was waiver-exempt this season, but that designation will lapse on July 1. In the unlikely event that Puustinen doesn’t crack Pittsburgh’s opening night roster in October, they’ll need to expose him to waivers to assign him to the AHL. Signing him to a one-way contract with a bit of term slightly lowers the probability that he’d be claimed, but a league minimum cap hit still makes him an attractive target for other teams looking for depth scoring.
Despite his age, Puustinen was a pending Group Six unrestricted free agent because he’d logged fewer than 80 NHL games while playing three or more professional seasons. The Penguins would not have controlled his signing rights if they had not agreed on an extension before July 1.
Notably, Puustinen also had above-average possession metrics this season, with a 52.3 CF% and 52.7 xGF% at even strength, per Hockey Reference. If he can again comfortably tackle bottom-six minutes next season, this is a tidy bit of work from Dubas to lock in some extremely cheap depth scoring for the next two years.
Puustinen will be a true unrestricted free agent when his new deal expires in 2026. The Penguins now have 32 of a maximum 50 standard player contracts signed for next season.