Penguins Notes: First Round Pick, Buyouts, Free Agency
Pittsburgh Penguins interim general manager Kyle Dubas held a brief media availability today, touching on many of the choices he’ll have to make as he guides the team through his first offseason at the helm. With the team in a tough situation, unable to truly rebuild after missing the playoffs for the first time in nearly two decades, Dubas has a thin line to walk to prepare the right roster for 2023-24 while not impeding the team’s long-term outlook.
One of those matters is that of Pittsburgh’s first-round pick, slated for 14th overall on Wednesday. It’s their highest selection since drafting defenseman Derrick Pouliot eighth overall in 2012, and Dubas says the team will likely keep the pick. Pittsburgh has some (but not a lot) of salary maneuverability, and Dubas says that any big trade will likely come with another team looking to shed a mid-tier salaried contract.
Other Penguins notes:
- One avenue Dubas likely won’t take to clear additional cap space is a buyout. He told reporters today he doesn’t prefer to use them, citing more “creative solutions” to opening up a team’s financial picture. Forward Mikael Granlund, who had just five points in 21 games after a midseason trade and is under contract for two more seasons at $5MM per year, was a highly speculated buyout candidate this offseason. If the team can’t find a way to move him in a deal, he’ll likely be sticking around for the time being.
- Dubas also says the team won’t be going after any high-profile free agents, instead aiming to hit on some value bets – something he had a great deal of success doing during his time with the Toronto Maple Leafs. He mentioned the door isn’t closed on contract extensions with Jason Zucker and Tristan Jarry, the latter of which is crucial for the team’s clarity without a ton of other goalie options on the open market. He alluded to defenseman Brian Dumoulin heading to the open market, and they’ll look to replace his spot with a more cost-effective UFA.
San Jose Sharks Hire Patrick Marleau In Player Development Role
A San Jose Sharks legend has officially rejoined the team. Patrick Marleau has rejoined the organization as a player development coach and hockey operations advisor, the team announced today.
In his new role, Marleau will collaborate with the Sharks’ development staff, focusing on on-ice skill development for both Sharks prospects and players with the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda. Additionally, he’ll serve as an advisor to Grier and the hockey operations staff.
Grier expressed his excitement about the re-addition of Marleau, a former teammate of his, to the organization:
It’s rare that you get the opportunity to add someone to your organization that brings a level of talent and character like Patrick Marleau. As one of the top players of his generation, Patty possesses an unlimited wealth of institutional knowledge about the game. Perhaps more importantly, he was a cornerstone piece in the Sharks becoming one of the NHL’s most dominant franchises over the last two decades and knows what it takes to win and succeed in the NHL. We are extremely happy to bring Patty back into the Sharks family as we continue building a team that our fans can be proud of.
Marleau’s career in and of itself boasts numerous remarkable achievements, including becoming the NHL’s all-time regular season games played leader surpassing Gordie Howe‘s long-standing record of 1,767 games. With an astonishing 1,779 regular season games played, Marleau ranks among the top offensive players in NHL history (among career totals), although his peak may not have been as high as some of his peers.
The former captain will play a pivotal role in developing San Jose’s current class of the future, including forwards Filip Bystedt, Thomas Bordeleau, William Eklund, and defenseman Mattias Havelid.
Columbus Blue Jackets Sign Carson Meyer To Extension
A hometown kid is sticking around in Columbus. The Blue Jackets have extended forward Carson Meyer on a one-year, two-way contract, the team said today. The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline reports the deal carries a league-minimum cap hit and NHL salary of $775K, an AHL salary of $190K, and a minimum guarantee of $210K.
Born in Powell, Ohio, and developed through the Blue Jackets’ youth program, Meyer’s strong freshman season at Ohio’s Miami University earned him a sixth-round selection in the 2017 NHL Draft as an over-age player. After a four-year collegiate career which included a transfer to the higher-exposure Ohio State, and one year of pro seasoning with the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters, Meyer made his NHL debut in 2021-22, scoring a goal and two assists in a 13-game callup.
Meyer saw 14 games of NHL action this past season, recording one assist, but saw his AHL point pace increase to 26 points in 34 games after recording just 27 points in 57 games the year prior. An oblique strain kept him out of the Blue Jackets lineup for a few weeks in the middle of the season, but he rebounded nicely down the stretch in Cleveland and recorded his lone point in his last NHL call-up of the campaign, an April 11th game against the Philadelphia Flyers.
He’ll be 26 by the time next season starts, though, and it’s not seeming like he’ll get a roster spot out of training camp. With Alexandre Texier back in the fold after a year overseas, as well as a potential opening night spot for their third overall selection in next week’s draft, the numbers game just isn’t kind to Meyer. He’ll remain one of their first few call-up options throughout the season, though, barring a significant setback in his minor-league play.
Draft Rumors: Capitals, Flyers, Blues, Maple Leafs
The 2023 NHL Draft is quickly approaching, and trade talk is set to increase daily until the event begins Wednesday night. Per The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta, at least four teams are actively engaged in trade talks involving first-round picks in this year’s draft – starting with the Washington Capitals and their eighth overall pick.
Washington will at least attempt to move up in the draft, Pagnotta said, although it seems unlikely any team among the seven slated to pick before them would be willing to trade down unless it’s for an exorbitant price. It’s no secret the Capitals have their focus zeroed in on selecting Matvei Michkov, and with interest in the Russian winger heating up, it seems less and less likely he’d be available to them at the eighth overall selection. The only plausible scenarios for Washington would involve Montreal’s fifth overall pick or Arizona’s sixth overall pick – the top four teams in the draft likely have their hearts set on particular selections already, and Montreal’s or Arizona’s interest level in Michkov remains unclear.
More potential developments on the draft floor:
- The Flyers would like to add another pick later in the first round after the seventh overall selection, Pagnotta says. Previous reports indicated the Flyers have turned down trade offers for forward Scott Laughton that included a late first-round pick, although it’s unclear whether the selections offered were in the 2023 draft. The team has plenty of trade chips to dangle, including Laughton, Kevin Hayes, Travis Konecny, and others, all of whom could likely net the pick Philadelphia is looking for.
- One team that seems like a natural fit for one of those deals is the St. Louis Blues, who Pagnotta notes continue to dangle either the 25th overall pick (acquired from the Toronto Maple Leafs) or the 29th overall pick (obtained from the Dallas Stars via the New York Rangers) – but not both. With the team looking to deal from their pool of defensemen, a trade offer based around a late first and one of Colton Parayko, Marco Scandella, or Nick Leddy could net them a solid young piece on offense.
- Another team shopping their late first-round selection is the Toronto Maple Leafs, who Pagnotta says are open to moving the 28th overall pick “for immediate help.” With defenseman Jake Muzzin destined for long-term injured reserve, Toronto has nearly $15MM in cap space to add to their roster but still needs to extend goalie Ilya Samsonov and replace five to seven forward spots. The Leafs have yet to be linked to any specific trade targets.
New Jersey Devils Extend Erik Haula
The New Jersey Devils have agreed to a three-year contract extension with center Erik Haula, the team announced Friday. The contract carries an average annual value of $3.15MM, paid out as follows:
2023-24: $2.9MM salary + $1MM signing bonus, full no-trade clause
2024-25: $2.15MM salary + $1MM signing bonus, full no-trade clause
2025-26: $2.4MM salary, six team no-trade list
PuckPedia reported the details of Haula’s signing bonuses and trade protection.
Haula, 32, was one of three Devils depth forwards destined for unrestricted free agency on July 1. He could be the only one returning out of himself, Miles Wood, and Tomas Tatar, as the Devils would like to keep some salary cap space open heading into the free-agent market.
The Finnish forward has bounced around quite a bit in the past few seasons. He hadn’t played for the same team in back-to-back seasons since his stint with the Vegas Golden Knights in 2017-18 and 2018-19, a trend that will end next year.
He’s revived his career significantly in the past two seasons with the Devils and Boston Bruins, recording back-to-back 40-point campaigns after notching just nine goals and 21 points in 51 games with the Nashville Predators in 2020-21. Haula was a force in the faceoff circle for the Devils last year, winning 54.2% of his draws, and recorded his highest average time on ice (16:38) since his first season in Vegas.
Haula finished the 2022-23 campaign with 14 goals, 27 assists, and 41 points in 80 games, finishing seventh on the team in all those categories. He added four goals in 12 playoff games for the Devils, which was second on the team behind Jack Hughes, and played over 17 minutes per game.
Retaining Haula puts the Devils in quite a position of strength down the middle. A three-year extension could get hairy near the end, given he’ll be turning 35 in the deal’s final season, but he remains a high-end third-line center.
Behind Hughes and Nico Hischier, the team’s center depth in the Metropolitan Division is rivaled by perhaps the New York Rangers, with Filip Chytil as their third-line center – although most would rather have Hughes and Hischier over Mika Zibanejad and Vincent Trocheck on their top two lines.
Haula just completed the final season of a two-year contract signed with Boston in 2021 that paid him $2.375MM per season.
ESPN’s Kevin Weekes was the first to report the two sides were nearing an extension. NJ.com’s Ryan Novozinsky was the first to report the contract’s value.
Calgary Flames Hire Marc Savard, Dan Lambert
1:09 pm: The Flames have announced Savard and Lambert’s hiring as assistant coaches, also confirming that LaBarbera and MacLean are returning to the team in 2023-24.
10:54 am: While news about the Calgary Flames in the past 24 hours has surrounded people wanting out of the organization, at least one person wants in. The team is hiring Marc Savard as an assistant coach, per Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek (and Savard himself).
According to The Hockey News’ Tony Ferrari, Savard is expected to work with the team’s power play and offensive strategy.
Savard’s hire continues to bring the band of early 2000s Flames players back together, joining one-time teammates Craig Conroy and Jarome Iginla in coaching and managerial roles. After coming over in a June 1999 trade from the New York Rangers, Savard registered 6o goals, 94 assists, and 154 points in 221 games as a Flame around the turn of the century before later stints with the Atlanta Thrashers and Boston Bruins.
The move will likely complete Calgary’s bench next season, led by new head coach Ryan Huska. Per Sportsnet’s Pat Steinberg, their goalie coach position is probably solidified with Jason LaBarbera not being affected by the team’s other coaching changes.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman says only one of the team’s three other assistants from last season under head coach Darryl Sutter is returning – Cail MacLean. Savard and former Nashville Predators assistant Dan Lambert are expected to fill the spots vacated by Huska’s promotion and the departure of associate coach Kirk Muller.
Savard’s return to the game in a coaching role has been one of the better feel-good stories of the past few years. The Boston Bruins signed him to a seven-year, $28.15MM extension set to begin in the 2010-11 season, during which he only played 25 games. He spent the final six seasons of the contract on long-term injured reserve due to severe post-concussion complications.
Nearly a decade later, Savard joined the St. Louis Blues’ bench in 2019-20, helping them to a second-place finish in the regular season while boasting the third-best power play in the league. He didn’t return for the 2020-21 campaign but then took over as the head coach of the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires for the following two seasons, during which the team posted a combined record of 88-35-13 and reached the OHL final in 2021-22.
Philadelphia Flyers Interested In Matvei Michkov
The biggest question at next Wednesday’s draft will be how far top Russian prospect Matvei Michkov falls – if at all. Over the past few days, the consensus had become that he wouldn’t get out of the top eight selections, with the Washington Capitals set to take the offensive dynamo if he fell to them.
It seems they may not get the chance. The Philadelphia Flyers are one of many teams set to meet with Michkov in Nashville early next week before the draft commences, and The Fourth Period’s Anthony DiMarco says the team is “seriously considering” selecting him with their seventh overall selection if he’s still available.
Exactly where Michkov would go in the draft has been a roller coaster all season. A surefire top-three selection at the beginning of the season, even with the off-ice factors surrounding any Russian prospect, an early-season injury and subsequent slow start at the bottom of the lineup with KHL club SKA St. Petersburg hurt his stock slightly.
Players like Swedish center Leo Carlsson and American center Will Smith soon surpassed him on some public boards. NHL Central Scouting finished the season with Michkov as the second-ranked international skater behind Carlsson.
Michkov had an exceptional finish to the KHL campaign after being loaned to basement-dwelling club HK Sochi, scoring nine goals and 20 points in 27 games and finishing first on the team in points per game, a massive achievement in the second-best league in the world as an 18-year-old. But off-ice concerns about his stability as a top selection only intensified, as teams couldn’t get any meetings with him while in Russia, and he wasn’t present at the draft combine – both for reasons reportedly out of Michkov’s control. It led to speculation that he could fall out of the top ten entirely.
But with the news that Michkov was coming early to Nashville and opening up opportunities to speak with NHL teams and Washington’s reported willingness to take him, interest in Michkov from the first few teams selecting in the draft has once again spiked. As indicated by multiple previous reports, any team selecting Michkov will likely need approval from ownership, given the potential lost value on the pick if he never comes over to the NHL.
Michkov never coming over is an improbable scenario, but a team will almost definitely have to wait three seasons before they see him on this side of the Atlantic. He’s under contract with St. Petersburg for three more seasons, and one of the KHL’s powerhouses likely wouldn’t be too keen on letting go of one of the highest-ceiling talents in the entire sport.
He would immediately become the best prospect in the Flyers organization – yes, even ahead of top collegiate scorer Cutter Gauthier. Philadelphia’s new front office seems to be content with a proper rebuild, though, and Michkov’s potential arrival in 2026-27 could line up perfectly with the team beginning to turn the corner back toward contention.
New York Rangers Confirm Coaching Staff Additions
The New York Rangers have confirmed the hires of three previously reported coaching staff additions this morning. Former Buffalo Sabres head coach Phil Housley has been named an associate head coach, while Dan Muse and Michael Peca were named assistant coaches.
Housley is the main attraction here, bringing over two decades of coaching experience (nearly a decade in the NHL) to the Rangers’ completely overhauled bench, led by veteran head coach Peter Laviolette. Housley had worked under Laviolette with the Nashville Predators from four seasons (2013 to 2017) before heading to Buffalo, where he spent the 2017-18 and 2018-19 campaigns as their head coach. He then spent three years as an assistant coach with the Arizona Coyotes until the 2022-23 campaign, which he took off from coaching.
Housley also has a solid bit of experience dealing with younger players and achieving success in the process, capturing the gold medal at the 2013 IIHF World Junior Championship with the United States. Muse joins him in that regard, spending the last three seasons as the coach of the U.S. National Team Development Program, which has churned out a number of elite prospects such as Cutter Gauthier, Frank Nazar, Jimmy Snuggerud, Lane Hutson, Logan Cooley, and Luke Hughes, as well as 2023 eligibles such as Gabe Perreault, Oliver Moore, Ryan Leonard, and Will Smith in that time. He was the video coach for Housley’s win at the 2013 World Juniors and got a gold medal of his own as the Americans’ head coach at this year’s U18 World Juniors tournament.
Muse and Peca have both also worked with Laviolette, with Muse spending three years as an assistant in Nashville while Peca worked with Laviolette as a player development coach with the Washington Capitals in 2020-21. The Rangers didn’t disclose the specific roles each coach will be taking on with the team.
The additions fill out a coaching staff that was nearly wiped clean after the team parted ways with head coach Gerard Gallant and assistants Gord Murphy, Jim Midgley, and Mike Kelly. Only goaltending coach Benoit Allaire remains from last year’s core coaching staff.
Offseason Checklist: Seattle Kraken
The offseason is now fully underway after Vegas took home the Stanley Cup which means that it’s time to examine what each team will need to accomplish over the coming months. Next up is a look at Seattle.
2022-23 was a storybook campaign for the fresh-off-expansion Seattle Kraken. The team set the record for improvement in the standings from year one to year two of an expansion franchise, at least since the Original Six era. Their 100 points were only good enough for a Wild Card spot in a tight Pacific Division race, though it didn’t matter – they knocked off the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche in a seven-game First Round battle. After nearly vindicating the Dallas Stars, losing 2-1 in Game 7 of the Second Round, Kraken general manager Ron Francis needs to push the right buttons to keep the team’s momentum in a decidedly forward direction.
Solidify The Crease
Seattle got vintage Philipp Grubauer in the postseason, although his .903 save percentage and 2.99 goals-against average were both still the worst marks of his four playoff runs as his team’s full-time starter. Inconsistency and truthfully horrid play between the pipes at times has been the franchise’s largest weakness over the past 24 months, although the team’s depth has developed to a point where it can largely mask that shortcoming. In 94 games as a Kraken, Grubauer’s regular-season record is much less kind – a .891 save percentage and 3.04 goals-against average are simply not good enough for a team to contend for a championship. That’s nearly 35 more goals conceded than an average netminder given the same workload. Pending UFA Martin Jones posted a sparkling 27-13-3 record when in net for Seattle this season but had just a .886 save percentage, getting plenty of goal support.
The team has some flexibility with Jones surely headed to the open market, but Grubauer is locked in at a $5.9MM cap hit through 2026-27. Moving on from him likely isn’t realistic this summer – he’s still shown flashes of solid play and is a well-liked teammate in the room. If they were to trade him, though, the time is now after a temporary boost in stock from his playoff performance.
Seattle isn’t too pressed for cap space, although much of their projected $20MM of availability (CapFriendly) will go to a new deal for defenseman Vince Dunn. Could the team go internal for Grubauer’s partner, possibly Joey Daccord? They’ll need to re-sign him, as the 26-year-old is a pending Group VI UFA, but he rode a .926 save percentage in 26 playoff games for the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds in their first season before bowing out in the final. The team is sure to move out Chris Driedger and his $3.5MM cap hit, as the 29-year-old didn’t play in the NHL this season after being sidelined due to injury to start the season and then slipping to the AHL behind Jones, Grubauer, and later Daccord. Among goalie options on the open market, there are certainly a few with more experience than Daccord that could be had for Driedger’s money (or less).
Long-Term Deal For Dunn
Seattle’s success came by committee this season – especially among their offense, where all of their top 12 forwards contributed between 0.4 and 0.9 points per game. The 26-year-old Dunn (mentioned earlier) was absolutely a standout among his defensive counterparts, though, recording team-highs in assists (50), time on ice (23:40), and plus-minus (+28). He notched a career-high 64 points on the whole, spectacular value for just a $4MM cap hit.
A restricted free agent with arbitration rights, he’s due a sharp raise this offseason – one Seattle absolutely has the cap room to accommodate. Advanced metrics have hinted at a Dunn breakout for many years, although maybe not one of this scale.
He’s of the perfect age to sign a longer-term deal. While the maximum eight years may be a little much, given he’d be 34 when the contract expires, it wouldn’t last too far into his decline (if at all). He may not be a perennial elite defender (and shouldn’t get paid like one), but he’s shown he can be a bonafide top-pairing player.
Start Extension Talks With Beniers
The Kraken don’t have much in the way of true star power, but they’re only a season or two away from having one. 20-year-old Matthew Beniers is a surefire bet to take home the Calder Trophy next week, and he’s grown into the team’s de facto number-one center after just 90 career games. He struggled in the faceoff circle heavily this year, but other than that, he scored 24 goals and 57 points in 80 games and took just one minor penalty all season.
That being said, he’s entering the final season of his entry-level deal. The Kraken would be wise to negotiate an extension with him as soon as possible, trying their best to keep Beniers’ cap hit down on a long-term agreement – if Beniers is willing to discuss one.
The 6-foot-2 Massachusetts product excelled defensively in his rookie year, showing he’s on track to become the two-way force the Kraken thought they were getting when they selected him second overall in 2021. This much offense so soon in his development bodes well for him to become one of the more complete centers in the NHL in a few years’ time – the type of player they’d need to pay an extreme premium for at the end of a bridge deal.
Add On Defense
The Kraken are more than apt on offense, with youngsters like Shane Wright and Tye Kartye already on the outside looking in when it comes to the team’s opening night depth chart. The team will have some cap space to utilize after signing Dunn to an extension and rectifying their goalie situation, though, and they’ll be able to use it to pursue a right-shot defender on the open market to complete their top four.
Justin Schultz is a spectacular power-play quarterback but best suited for third-pairing usage at even strength. With Dunn, Adam Larsson, and Jamie Oleksiak comprising the trio of the most oft-used Kraken defenders, the team’s obvious hole is a more skilled partner for the hulking Oleksiak.
William Borgen has turned into a full-time NHLer, but for a team on the upswing and looking at Stanley Cup contention in a few years, he’s not the best fit in a top four. Could they pursue a Matt Dumba, Radko Gudas, or Scott Mayfield type to fill out their only depth weakness? A potential Oleksiak-Gudas pairing would be more than enough for Pacific Division rivals to approach the offensive zone with fear.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Minor Transactions: 6/22/23
We’re now less than a week away from the draft. Trades and extensions are set to dominate the news wire over the coming weeks, but we’re still taking a moment to check in on some notable moves outside of the NHL. Today’s notable minor transactions will be displayed here:
- Former Anaheim Ducks winger Giovanni Fiore is on the move overseas, joining KHL club Admiral Vladivostok on a one-year deal for 2023-24. Since leaving the North American circuit in 2020, the Canadian had three productive seasons in Germany with the DEL’s Eisbaren Berlin, totaling 46 goals and 86 points in 133 games. An undrafted free agent signing out of the QMJHL by the Ducks, Fiore played his sole NHL game back in 2017-18, his first season of pro hockey.
- Ex-Los Angeles Kings prospect Cole Hults will play in his second European league in as many years, signing a one-year deal with Slovak club HKM Zvolen. A 2017 fifth-round pick, the bruising two-way defender had a very successful stint at Penn State before turning pro, where, unfortunately, his offense never translated. He spent just one season in the Kings organization, recording five points in 19 games with the AHL’s Ontario Reign before he was traded to the Arizona Coyotes in 2021. The team opted not to qualify him when his contract expired a year later, and he continued his pro career overseas with Italian club HC Bolzano, where he dominated defensively in the ICEHL.
- 2018 Stanley Cup Champion Shane Gersich won the Calder Cup in dramatic fashion last night, and now could be headed to play in Europe for the first time in his career. The 26-year-old longtime Washington Capitals farmhand reportedly has an agreement with Vasteras IK, a team in Sweden’s HockeyAllsvenskan, per SportExpressen’s Johan Svensson. Gersich has 113 points in 277 career AHL games across five seasons but had fallen out of the regular lineup in Hershey, only playing in six total playoff contests.
- After fifteen seasons with the Vaxjo Lakers, where he helped the club earn their promotion from the second-division HockeyAllsvenskan, four SHL titles, and reach the Champions Hockey League final, team captain Erik Josefsson, 36, has announced his retirement. A staple for a consistently competitive SHL side for the past fifteen years, Josefsson played over 750 games for Vaxjo and scored nearly 150 points at the top level of Swedish hockey. He captained them to a league championship this spring and now retires as the club’s all-time leader in games played.
- Former Buffalo Sabre Nick Baptiste has signed a one-year contract with reigning Liiga and Champions Hockey League champions Tappara Tampere. Baptiste heads to Nokia Arena from Cologne in the DEL, where he scored 14 goals and 34 points in 46 games. This won’t be Baptiste’s first time playing in Tampere, as he scored 21 goals and 35 points for Tappara’s neighbors, Ilves Tampere, in 2021-22. Baptiste last played in North America in 2020-21 with the AHL’s Texas Stars, scoring 12 goals and 23 points in 34 games in Cedar Park.
- 2014 Dallas Stars second-round pick Brett Pollock had an extremely successful run with Slovakia’s HC Kosice after his mid-season transfer from the KHL’s Kunlun Red Star, and now he’s extended his contract with Kosice. Pollock left China to sign in Slovakia in December of last season and made an instant impact. He scored 11 goals and 19 points in 24 regular-season contests and led Kosice to a Slovakian championship leading their league’s playoffs in goals with seven in 17 games. Pollock is a former ECHL All-Star who has found success as a journeyman scorer in recent years, with stops in Germany, Sweden, and China. He last played in North America in 2019-20 in the ECHL with the Allen Americans and will now get some more stability and continuity in his career thanks to this extension with Kosice.
- Former University of Denver star defenseman Joey Laleggia signed a two-year contract with Switzerland’s HC Lugano, joining a whole host of former NHLers such as Mikko Koskinen, Markus Granlund, and more. While Laleggia never made the NHL himself, he was a productive offensive blueliner at the AHL level and a highly-decorated player in his days in the NCAA. He was a Hobey Baker Award finalist and was his conference’s player of the year. He has played the entirety of his overseas pro career in the SHL, and led all HV71 blueliners with 33 points in 40 games last season.
- While Anaheim Ducks prospect Sasha Pastujov prepares to make his professional debut in North America, his two brothers Nick Pastujov and Michael Pastujov have made the choice to continue their pro careers overseas. The pair have signed contracts with the ICEHL’s Pioneers Vorarlberg, joining the league’s worst-performing club from last season. Pioneers struggled mightily to score goals last season, with their season-long total of 92 goals, well below the league-average mark of 140. The hope is that the Pastujov brothers can help in that regard, as Nick captained the ECHL’s Kansas City Mavericks and scored 35 points in 42 games last season while Michael contributed a solid 26 points in 37 games for the ECHL’s Iowa Heartlanders.
This page will be updated throughout the day.