Sharks Claim Barclay Goodrow From Rangers
The Sharks have claimed forward Barclay Goodrow off waivers from the Rangers, reports Chris Johnston of TSN and The Athletic. The New York Post’s Mollie Walker reported after the Rangers waived him yesterday that San Jose was likely to snag him off the wire.
Goodrow, 31, officially returns to where his NHL career began as an undrafted free agent signing in 2014. He developed into a solid checking center/winger over the course of the next six years in the Bay Area, eventually landing with the Lightning via trade in 2020 and playing an important third-line role in their back-to-back Stanley Cup championships.
The Toronto native parlayed that into a six-year, $21.85MM deal with New York in 2021, one that hasn’t aged particularly well. Costing $3.642MM against the cap, he had just four goals and 12 points in 80 games in the regular season in 2023-24.
While Goodrow repaired his value in the postseason, tallying six goals in 16 games in the Rangers’ run to the Eastern Conference Final, his cap hit had become affordable for a team in the peak of its contention window looking to make significant additions this summer. He’s never been able to match the two-way impact he had with the Lightning in New York, but he did at least contribute a respectable 30-plus points in each of his first two seasons in the Big Apple.
A major reason for his offensive decline this season was his deployment under head coach Peter Laviolette, who decreased his offensive zone start share at even strength from about 42% through two seasons to a paltry 23.5% in 2023-24, rarely getting him opportunities to contribute on the scoresheet. The Rangers forward with the second-most sparse offensive deployment, Jimmy Vesey, had 30.9% of his in-zone starts at even strength come in the offensive end.
The Sharks, who mustered just 181 goals last season compared to the Rangers’ 282, will rely on Goodrow offensively much more than that. Even if putting up points isn’t his main purpose as a versatile forward deployed in checking situations, it’s feasible that he’ll average north of 15 minutes per game and hover around the career-high 13 goals and 33 points he had with the Rangers in 2021-22.
Today’s claim also has considerable financial benefits for both teams. Most importantly, it leaves the Rangers off the hook for the remainder of Goodrow’s deal, which carried the aforementioned $3.6MM cap hit through 2027. For general manager Chris Drury, it’s a much cleaner and more preferable departure than buying him out, resulting in lasting cap ramifications for the next six years, or giving up assets to trade him away while retaining salary. It’s the closest thing to straight-up releasing a player the NHL has to offer without terminating a contract.
Meanwhile, the Sharks sat over $13MM below next season’s $65MM cap floor before claiming Goodrow. They now have under $10MM worth of cap hits to add to their books next season, a much more attainable figure for a team expected to be only mildly aggressive in free agency as they continue to rebuild.
In 268 games during his previous stint with the Sharks, Goodrow scored 26 goals and 71 points. It’s worth noting that Goodrow had a 15-team no-trade list in his contract but not a no-move clause – meaning he could have blocked a deal to San Jose if they’d been on his list. Instead, because he’s changing hands via waivers, he has no ability to nix the move.
Sharks Acquire Ty Dellandrea From Stars
The Sharks have picked up pending RFA forward Ty Dellandrea from the Stars in exchange for the Jets’ 2025 fourth-round pick, both teams announced Wednesday.
It’s a fresh start for the 23-year-old Dellandrea, who Dallas selected 13th overall in 2018. The Toronto native spent this season in and out of the lineup after facing increased competition from some veteran free-agent signings, losing ice time to players like Craig Smith and Sam Steel. He was limited to 42 games this season after dressing in all 82 regular-season contests for the Stars one year ago.
Even when in the lineup, Dellandrea struggled to have much of an effect. Averaging 12:40 per game (down from 14:12 in 2022-23), he was limited to two goals and nine points with a -10 rating. He also didn’t play a regular role in the postseason, scoring once while only playing in six of Dallas’ 19 playoff games.
Across 151 NHL games in parts of four seasons, Dellandrea has 14 goals, 28 assists and 42 points. He was a good offensive contributor during his brief time in the minors with AHL Texas but hasn’t appeared there since 2021-22. He should be in line for an everyday spot with the Sharks next year, though, and has top-nine upside on an offense without much else to offer. San Jose owes him a $900K qualifying offer to retain his signing rights if they don’t come to terms on a deal by June 30.
This isn’t a cap-related move for the Stars, as Dellandrea wouldn’t have cost much to re-sign. However, it does free up some roster space and makes retaining the 25-year-old Steel, who had 24 points in 77 games this year, much easier to do. It also opens up more flexibility for AHL rookie standouts Mavrik Bourque and Logan Stankoven to claim spots in the opening night lineup.
San Jose previously acquired Winnipeg’s 2025 fourth-rounder in exchange for Vladislav Namestnikov in March 2023.
Red Wings Sign Albert Johansson To Two-Way Extension
Defense prospect Albert Johansson is sticking in Motown as the Red Wings announced a one-year, two-way contract extension for the left-shot blue liner. PuckPedia reports that the deal pays $775K in the NHL, $90K in the minors, and has a guarantee of $110K.
While yet to make his NHL debut, the 2019 second-round pick is a strong candidate to make the opening night roster next season. That’s because he’s no longer waiver-exempt, and Detroit stands a high risk of losing him for nothing if they expose him to the rest of the league during preseason to send him back to AHL Grand Rapids.
Grand Rapids is where the Swedish defender has spent the entirety of the last two seasons. There, the promising two-way defender has put up solid numbers, totaling 11 goals, 25 assists, 36 points, 84 PIMs, and an even rating in 119 games. It wasn’t his first taste of professional hockey, though. Johansson played the majority of the preceding three seasons in the Swedish Hockey League with Färjestad BK, where he fared well against primarily older competition with 57 points and a +10 rating in 141 games. He won a league title with Färjestad in 2022 before coming over to the Wings.
While likely not a first-unit power-play quarterback at the NHL level, Johansson is extremely cerebral with the puck and has the skating ability and hands to match. He’s solid at puck retrievals and keeping play out of his own end, remaining projectable as a second or third-pair NHL defenseman with solid possession numbers and some special teams upside.
The native of Karlstad, Sweden, was slated for RFA status this summer, although he wasn’t eligible for salary arbitration. That will change next year after one more season of professional experience.
Devils Acquire Jacob Markström
The Devils have their goalie. New Jersey announced the acquisition of Jacob Markström from the Flames for defenseman Kevin Bahl and their 2025 first-round pick, which is top-10 protected. Calgary is retaining 31.25% of Markström’s $6MM cap hit in the trade, bringing it down to $4.125MM for the Devils.
Speculation about New Jersey picking up a high-end starter had run rampant as far back as midseason. The Devils looked like a team on a meteoric rise after last season’s 112-point showing, but below-average performances from all three goalies they started the season with (Nico Daws, Akira Schmid, Vítek Vaněček) were one of the many factors that brought them back below the .500 mark this year.
After shipping out Vaněček to the Sharks at the trade deadline and getting some stopgap solutions in Jake Allen and Kaapo Kähkönen, they now have their bonafide starter. It took the 2008 second-rounder quite a while to break out, but he took over the crease for the Canucks in the 2017-18 season and hasn’t looked back. The 6’6″ netminder has finished top 10 in Vezina balloting in three of the past six seasons, including a second-place finish in 2022. That was a statement year for him and the rest of the Flames, as he tossed up a .922 SV% and a league-leading nine shutouts in 63 starts as Calgary won the Pacific Division title, just its second since 2006.
Things turned south as he regressed to a .892 SV% in 2022-23, but he put together a nice rebound campaign this season despite battling through a handful of injuries. His 23-23-2 record isn’t impressive at first glance, but he returned to being a top-10 goalie in the league in terms of goals saved above expected with 13.7, per MoneyPuck. He had a .905 SV%, 2.78 GAA and two shutouts behind a Flames team that had its worst season defensively in quite some time under first-year head coach Ryan Huska.
Even still, Markström’s results last year were brought down by a poor stretch of post-trade deadline play – an understandable slump given the trade rumors connecting him to New Jersey at the time and the fact he was playing with a lower-body injury. From March 4 onward, he went 2-8-0 with a .869 SV% without putting up an SV% over .900 in any single game. To put it succinctly, Markström had a better year than a quick look at his results would indicate.
Since signing his six-year, $36MM deal with the Flames in free agency in 2020, Markström has a .907 SV% over 212 starts and one relief appearance. That’s good for seven goals saved above average, indicative of the peaks and valleys he’s shown during his time in Alberta. He’s one of four goalies to start more than 200 games over that timeframe, joining perennial Vezina challengers Connor Hellebuyck, Juuse Saros and Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Landing Markström at $4.125MM against the cap for the next two seasons is a considerable discount for Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald, as it’s much less than he would cost on the open market. He’ll form a formidable veteran one-two punch in net with Allen, who remains under contract with New Jersey next season at a reduced $1.925MM cap hit thanks to the Canadiens retaining salary when trading him at the deadline. The Devils, after dealing with younger, more inconsistent unknowns in Schmid and Vaněček for most of last season, now have an above-average backup and starter for a total of $6.05MM against the cap.
Calling Markström truly elite would likely earn you some pushback, given his year-to-year dips with Calgary, and that pushback would be fair. But he has the most established track record of any goalie the Devils have iced since Cory Schneider‘s run of elite play in the mid-2010s. The deal has them much better positioned to make the playoffs next season and embark on a deeper run than in 2022 when they escaped the first round but were dispatched by the Hurricanes in five games in Round 2. The 23-year-old Daws and 24-year-old Schmid are also afforded some additional development time in the AHL after an inconsistent 2023-24 campaign for both.
Markström, 34, has two years left on his deal. He’ll become a UFA in 2026, and ideally, by that point, one of Daws or Schmid will have developed into dependable NHL options. While on the older side, he fits well with their immediate timeline. They’re now left with $16.05MM in projected cap space with eight open roster spots, per CapFriendly. Versatile forward Dawson Mercer is their only notable RFA in need of a new deal.
New Jersey pulling off this deal without surrendering a top prospect or their 10th overall selection in this year’s draft is a good piece of work by Fitzgerald, especially with the Flames retaining a considerable amount of salary.
Losing Bahl isn’t nothing, though. The 23-year-old was a second-round pick in 2018 out of OHL Ottawa. He did well this season, his first true full-time NHL campaign, posting 11 points in 82 games while averaging 17:24 a night. His 6’6″, 230-lb frame obviously draws appeal for Calgary, and GM Craig Conroy said today he was a “priority player” throughout discussions with the Devils (via Sportsnet’s Eric Francis). However, his possession metrics last season were subpar, logging a 48.3 CF% and 48.7 xGF% at even strength that both fell south of New Jersey team averages.
Bahl is still young, however, and carries legitimate top-four shutdown upside. He’s under contract next season at a reasonable $1.05MM cap hit and will be an arbitration-eligible RFA next summer. In 148 career games with the Devils since making his debut in the 2020-21 season, Bahl has four goals, 21 assists, 25 points and a -1 rating while logging 16:14 per contest.
If the Devils’ 2025 first-rounder does land within the top 10, they’ll transfer their 2026 first-round pick to Calgary instead, regardless of its placement.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
TSN’s Travis Yost was first to report Markström was headed to New Jersey.
TSN’s Darren Dreger was first to report the trade return and salary retention.
Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic was first to report the 2025 first-round pick was top-10 protected.
Islanders Sign Kyle MacLean To Three-Year Extension
4:39 PM: According to CapFriendly, MacLean is expected to make $775K at the NHL level for all three years of the deal. The Islanders will have approximately $5.8MM in cap space heading into the summer months.
10:16 AM: The Islanders have agreed to a three-year extension with pending RFA forward Kyle MacLean, per a team announcement. Financial terms were not disclosed.
After spending the first three seasons of his professional career on minor-league contracts with the Isles’ AHL affiliate in Bridgeport, the 25-year-old inked his first NHL contract last offseason. An undrafted free agent signing by Bridgeport out of the OHL’s Oshawa Generals in 2020, MacLean earned his first NHL recall on Jan. 17 and remained on the roster for most of the rest of the campaign.
The son of Isles assistant coach John MacLean was serviceable in fourth-line minutes, posting four goals, nine points and a +5 rating in 32 regular-season games while averaging 10:05 per contest. By the time the playoffs rolled around, MacLean had worked his way into an everyday spot in the lineup, skating in all five postseason games in their first-round loss to the Hurricanes while playing nearly 12 minutes per night.
However, some advanced metrics yield cause for concern about his future effectiveness as an NHLer. MacLean struggled in the faceoff dot (42.5 FOW%), had an unsustainably high shooting percentage for a player without much of a goal-scoring history (15.4%), and controlled only 42.4% of shot attempts when on the ice at even strength despite seeing rather even defensive and offensive zone usage. He wasn’t tested on the penalty kill, either.
MacLean wasn’t afraid to lay the body, though, recording 60 hits, and was responsible with the puck when it was on his stick. He’s surely earned himself a spot on the opening night roster, as evidenced by today’s three-year commitment, but he’s likely better used as a 13th forward long-term than an everyday fourth-line center.
Head coach Patrick Roy will certainly have him in the mix for the spot entering training camp, though. A three-year deal puts him at 28 years old upon expiry in 2027, walking him to unrestricted free agency.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Penguins Hire Kirk MacDonald As AHL Head Coach
The Penguins have added Kirk MacDonald to the organization as the head coach of AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, the team announced. He replaces J.D. Forrest, who had been behind the WBS bench for the last four seasons but isn’t returning.
MacDonald joins an AHL staff for the first time as he moves up the coaching ladder. The 40-year-old previously spent five seasons with the ECHL’s Reading Royals as their head coach and director of hockey operations and had spent the last two years as the head coach of the USHL’s Dubuque Fighting Saints, whom he guided to a first-place 41-13-8 record this season before losing to the Fargo Force in the league final. It was the Fighting Saints’ first final appearance in eight years.
He was never drafted by an NHL team or signed to an NHL contract, but minor-league fans will remember MacDonald’s name from an AHL career that spanned from 2007 to 2013 with Albany, Houston, Iowa and Providence. A heavy-hitting winger during his playing days, MacDonald had 45 goals and 106 points in 272 games at the top minor-league level.
MacDonald takes over a Baby Pens roster that will likely include 2022 first-round pick Owen Pickering on its blue line next season. 23-year-old Samuel Poulin, a 2019 first-rounder, is also a candidate to spend time in the minors again, but he’s a more likely name to make the NHL roster in the fall as he’s lost his waiver exemption.
Kraken Linked To Patrik Laine
With Patrik Laine now officially on the trade block, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet says that the Kraken are a team to watch in talks for the scoring winger (audio link to “32 Thoughts”). It’s not clear how much Seattle general manager Ron Francis has explored a move, but Friedman believes there’s a “real push in that organization to be more aggressive” this summer as the team enters its fourth season of existence.
Few expected scoring to be a major issue for the Kraken this season after their capable death-by-depth offense erupted for 289 goals last year, but their shooting percentage cratered this season en route to finishing 29th in the league in goals. A major hiccup has been the health of top-six winger André Burakovsky, who’s missed nearly half the campaign with injuries in back-to-back years. While he was effective last season when healthy, the same couldn’t be said in 2023-24. His 16 points in 49 games worked out to 0.33 points per game, tied for the lowest of his 10-year NHL career.
Acquiring Laine would add a player with even more exaggerated issues staying healthy over the past couple of years, but he’d immediately become the highest-ceiling scoring option on the roster. The Kraken have been largely comfortable with Jared McCann as their top sniper, averaging 32 goals per season in a Kraken uniform, but Laine’s sparkling career 14.7 shooting percentage is hard to pass up.
It is impossible to ignore Laine’s availability issues over the past three seasons. Injuries limited him to 129 out of 246 games, missing 47.6% of regular-season action during that time. He played just 18 games this season, although he also spent much of the year in the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program after dealing with an upper-body injury in the first few months of the campaign.
However, during the two campaigns that he logged 50+ games in Columbus, he was worth his $8.7MM cap hit when in the lineup. The 2016 second-overall pick arguably had the best offensive showings of his career, pacing out for 38 goals and 82 points in 2021-22 and 33 goals and 78 points in 2022-23. Neither would have eclipsed his career high of 44 goals set with the Jets in 2017-18, but they would have both marked a career-best single-season point total.
There’s also breakout potential for Laine if he can stay healthy in a Kraken system that encourages puck possession. While they will have some different schemes next season under head coach Dan Bylsma, Seattle has consistently been a better even-strength puck possession team than Columbus over the past few years, and there’s little reason to see that not continuing without much roster turnover expected this summer. That means more opportunities for Laine to shoot and gives him a half-decent chance of sniffing the 40-goal plateau once again, especially if reunited with a skilled playmaker like former Blue Jackets teammate Oliver Bjorkstrand.
His power-play impact would also be beneficial. Laine led the league in power-play goals with 20 during his breakout sophomore campaign, and he’d help charge up a Kraken man-advantage unit that’s clicked at 18.4% over the past three seasons, 28th in the league during that time.
The Kraken aren’t a team that loves big cap hits, though. Defenseman Vince Dunn is their most expensive player annually at $7.35MM. Laine’s $8.7MM cap hit is worth it for his goal-scoring ability, but it’s hard for a lot of teams to justify absorbing it for a player who hasn’t played 60-plus games since before the pandemic.
But they do need scoring, and as Friedman articulates, their coaching change is indicative of a clear desire to return to postseason play in 2025. They have the financial flexibility to pull off a move with $23.424MM in projected cap space, although they do still need new deals for notable RFA forwards Matthew Beniers and Eeli Tolvanen.
Blues Sign Scott Perunovich To One-Year Extension
The Blues have gotten defenseman Scott Perunovich under contract for the 2024-25 season, per a team announcement. His one-year extension carries a cap hit of $1.15MM.
Perunovich, 25, managed to stay mostly healthy this season for the first time in a while. He stayed on the NHL roster all season and made 54 appearances, his most since his junior days while recording 17 assists and a +1 rating. It was his second NHL season after logging 19 games of action in 2021-22 and spending all of his injury-plagued 2022-23 in the minors.
While the fact that Perunovich has no goals through 73 career NHL games may be eye-opening, he was once the top offensive defense prospect in the organization. And while 25 is a bit old to still bear the “prospect” title, that might still be the case. Perunovich has been electric during his assignments to the minors, putting up 42 points in only 39 games with AHL Springfield over the past three seasons.
Injuries have had just a catastrophic effect on his development. After winning the Hobey Baker Award during his final season with the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 2019-20, a left shoulder injury cost him all of 2020-21. He started 2021-22 off healthy, but left wrist surgery ended his season halfway through. Yet another shoulder injury sustained in training camp in 2022 delayed his debut last season to late February.
That said, a $1.15MM cap hit quite literally carries zero risk for the Blues if he can’t hold onto an NHL spot next season for whatever reason. It’s the richest allowable cap hit that can be buried in the minors without penalty. But the diminutive yet dynamic left-shot defender should be in line for an everyday spot in the lineup next season after putting up solid playmaking numbers in his limited minutes.
The Hibbing, Minnesota native was set to become a restricted free agent with arbitration rights this summer. He’ll carry that same designation again in 2025 when his new deal expires.
Canucks Interested In Jake Guentzel
Jake Guentzel‘s pending free agency could lead him to the West Coast. The Hurricanes left winger has yielded strong interest from the Canucks, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reports. They’re expected to make a “strong play” for his services amid likely interest from the Capitals, Panthers, Maple Leafs and Rangers, said Seravalli.
An extension in Carolina doesn’t appear to be in the cards for Guentzel, and his signing rights have been made available for trade for teams to get an inside track on a deal before July 1. He’ll have plenty of suitors after drawing a similar level of attention at the trade deadline a few months ago.
Guentzel is nearing the end of a five-year, $30MM extension he signed with the Penguins in December 2018, midway through a breakout campaign that saw him hit the 40-goal and 75-point marks for the first time. His $6MM cap hit since served as a bargain for Pittsburgh as he continued flourishing on Sidney Crosby‘s wing, averaging just north of a point per game over the life of his extension. With the Penguins struggling to stay in the playoff race this season, though, they dealt him to Carolina at the deadline to avoid losing him for nothing this summer – a fate the Hurricanes are also trying to avoid by recouping at least some value for his signing rights.
An upper-body injury limited him to 67 games this season, but it didn’t stop him from having the best offensive campaign of his career on a per-game basis. He finished the season with a sparkling eight goals and 25 points in 17 games for the Canes, bringing his season average up to 1.15 points per game. Only 14 players in the league had more.
In all likelihood, he’ll land a max-term contract this summer, whether it’s a seven-year deal on the open market or an eight-year extension with a team that acquires his signing rights. At age 29, he likely won’t get the chance for another big payday. Seravalli believes his cap hit should come in around $9.5MM per season, close to what we’ll predict on our Top 50 Unrestricted Free Agents list dropping next week.
That’s something the Canucks can stomach at first glance with $24.078MM in projected cap space next season, which jumps to $26.578MM if you account for defenseman Tucker Poolman‘s likely long-term injured reserve placement, per CapFriendly. But like the team he’s parting ways with in Raleigh, Vancouver has a large slate of pending free agents to re-sign or part ways with. As Seravalli points out, signing Guentzel almost surely means letting Dakota Joshua and Elias Lindholm hit the open market, pawning off most or all of Ilya Mikheyev‘s $4.75MM cap hit in a trade, and making other tough decisions with a defense group that includes Filip Hronek, Tyler Myers and Nikita Zadorov.
Guentzel does seem to fit like a glove in Vancouver’s lineup, though. Arguably their biggest weakness in their breakout 2023-24 campaign was a lack of support for budding superstar center Elias Pettersson, who spent most of the season with depth wingers Nils Höglander, Sam Lafferty and Mikheyev as his linemates. Getting a player with a lengthy history of meshing well with star centers could do wonders for the 25-year-old Swede as he kicks off his massive eight-year, $92.8MM extension.
It’s not as if there’s no history between Guentzel and Vancouver, either. Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford was the one who signed Guentzel’s current deal as GM of the Penguins, and the club was one of the finalists for his services at the deadline in March.
Sabres Considering Buying Out Jeff Skinner
The Sabres are considering exercising a buyout on the final three seasons of Jeff Skinner‘s contract, reports Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. Skinner has a full no-move clause and is signed through 2026-27 at a $9MM cap hit.
Skinner’s tenure in Buffalo has been inconsistent, to say the least, but the timing of a potential buyout is puzzling. Now 32, he’s just one year removed from a career-high 47 assists and 82 points that nearly helped propel the Sabres to their first playoff appearance in over a decade. His line with Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch was one of the most productive in the league, with promising defensive results as well.
But that changed this year. Early-season injuries to Thompson seemed to derail everything for Buffalo, and Skinner was no exception. He didn’t have an awful season by any stretch of the imagination, but he did regress to 24 goals and 46 points in 74 games. He averaged 16 minutes per game, slipping into middle-six usage as the trio with Thompson and Tuch was routinely broken up, and his 0.62 points per game were his lowest in three years.
It’s still far and away an improvement from when most considered Skinner’s deal the worst contract in the league. In the 2019-20 and 2020-21 campaigns, Skinner had just 21 goals and 37 points in 112 games with a -33 rating, bumping him down to fourth-line minutes. His rebound in the later years of his deal has helped repair its value, but he’s still rarely been worth his $9MM cap hit over the life of the deal.
That said, the Sabres are still in a transitional phase between rebuilding and contention. They’re not in a cap crunch – yet – and while improving the roster is a necessary undertaking for general manager Kevyn Adams this summer, it doesn’t require dumping Skinner’s cap hit to do so.
A buyout would be a particularly expensive undertaking in the 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons, just as the Sabres are ideally handing out serious cash and spending to the cap. It would cost $1.44MM next season, $4.44MM in 2025-26 and $6.44MM in 2026-27 before a $2.44MM annual cap penalty through 2029-30, per CapFriendly.