Alex Galchenyuk To Enter NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program
Free agent forward Alex Galchenyuk is entering the NHL and NHLPA’s player assistance program after being arrested on multiple charges earlier this month and having his contract for next season terminated by the Arizona Coyotes, ESPN’s Emily Kaplan reports today.
Just days after being terminated on July 13, multiple reports had obtained the police report of Galchenyuk’s July 9 arrest in Scottsdale, Arizona, which revealed Galchenyuk allegedly made violent threats and used racial slurs towards officers. He has since reached out to apologize to the Scottsdale Police offers involved in a letter expressing remorse, Kaplan says.
Per Kaplan, Galchenyuk could enter the player assistance program as early as today. He was charged with various misdemeanors stemming from the arrest, including a hit-and-run charge as originally reported by The Athletic’s Katie Strang, and released on his own recognizance after the arrest.
Kaplan says Galchenyuk has also apologized directly to the Coyotes organization. While not signed by an NHL team, Galchenyuk is still eligible to receive assistance as a member of the NHLPA. His entrance to the program will not impact his contract status with Arizona, and he will remain an unrestricted free agent after exiting the program.
Minor Transactions: 07/18/23
While NHL free agency is heading into a lull, the wire of transaction activity in other leagues is still hot with everyday news. European leagues have recently made a few big splashes, with the NL’s ZSC Lions gaining Denis Malgin on a five-year deal. But there’s a flurry of other moves to keep track of throughout notable major and minor leagues in both North America and Europe, and as always, we’re keeping track of today’s movements here:
- Former Toronto Maple Leafs netminder Garret Sparks continues his journey around the minor leagues, signing a one-year AHL contract with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Despite even seeing some NHL action in 2021-22 with the Los Angeles Kings, Sparks spent last season on an ECHL deal, recording a .887 save percentage in 14 games with the Orlando Solar Bears. It’s a far cry from his younger days when he consistently finished near the top of AHL leaderboards with the Toronto Marlies, but he’ll now provide some depth netminding for the Penguins organization. He could very well see assignment back to the ECHL with the Wheeling Nailers next year, the Penguins’ affiliate.
- The AHL’s Manitoba Moose also made a pair of transactions today, getting defensemen Dean Stewart and Dawson Barteaux under contract for next season. Stewart, 25, spent last season in a Moose jersey, playing in a bottom-pairing role but putting together a solid season with 18 points in 61 games. An AHL rookie and former Arizona Coyotes draft pick, Stewart won the internal Moose Rookie of the Year award and got some looks on the power play too. Barteaux, a 2018 pick of the Dallas Stars, returns to the city where he played his last bit of junior hockey with the Winnipeg Ice in 2020. Since then, he’s been in the Stars organization, mainly with the AHL’s Texas Stars, but was demoted to the ECHL’s Idaho Steelheads for nearly all of last season, where he recorded 24 points in 62 games.
- The defending Calder Cup champion Hershey Bears have signed forward Jimmy Huntington to an AHL contract for the 2023-24 season, according to a team release. Huntington, a native of Laval, Quebec, had a strong season with the Milwaukee Admirals in 2022-23 while under contract with the Nashville Predators, tallying 28 points (nine goals, 19 assists) in 51 games and leading the team in plus/minus with a career-best +13. In the playoffs, he contributed six points (two goals, four assists) in 15 games, helping the Admirals advance to the Western Conference Finals. Nashville opted not to issue Huntington a qualifying offer at the end of the season, making him an unrestricted free agent.
- Hunter Drew, a 24-year-old defenseman-turned-forward, has signed a one-year contract with the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners, per the league. Last season, Drew played 60 games split between the San Diego Gulls and Rockford IceHogs after his NHL rights were traded from Anaheim to Chicago, contributing five goals and six assists for 11 points. Notably, he ranked fourth in the league with 149 penalty minutes. Throughout his professional career spanning four seasons, Drew has participated in 186 AHL games, recording 30 goals, 38 assists, and 345 penalty minutes. He has two NHL games to his name, both coming with the Ducks at the end of the 2021-22 season.
- The NHL-independent Chicago Wolves signed five more players today as they get closer to filling out their roster: forward Isaac Ratcliffe, defensemen Owen Headrick, Austin Strand and Mitchell Vande Sompel and goaltender Keith Kinkaid. Headrick, 25, led all ECHL defensemen last season with 54 points in 61 games while playing for the Idaho Steelheads. Kinkaid is the most notable signing here, carrying 169 NHL games. Kinkaid played in 27 AHL games split between the Providence Bruins and Colorado Eagles last year, posting a 12-10-4 record and one shutout. Ratcliffe, Strand, and Vande Sompel also bring a solid bit of pro experience to the Wolves, each carrying an NHL-drafted pedigree.
- After spending last year on an NHL contract with the Dallas Stars, forward Tanner Kero has signed an AHL contract with the Colorado Eagles for the upcoming season, per the league. Kero played exclusively with the AHL’s Texas Stars during the 2022-23 season, contributing 17 goals and 33 assists for 50 points in 69 games. With 343 career games played in the AHL and 134 in the NHL, Kero brings a lot of experience to the Eagles’ roster as he heads to the Avalanche organization.
This page will be updated throughout the day.
New York Islanders Sign Jakub Skarek
The New York Islanders today signed restricted free agent goaltender Jakub Skarek to a two-year, two-way contract, per a team release. Skarek’s new deal carries a $775K cap hit with the following breakdown, per the New York Post’s Ethan Sears:
2023-24: $775K NHL salary, $85K minors salary, $100K minimum guaranteed salary
2024-25: $775K NHL salary, $105K minors salary, $135K minimum guaranteed salary
After signing Oliver Wahlstrom to a deal equivalent to his qualifying offer yesterday, the Islanders have re-signed all of their restricted free agents this offseason.
Skarek, 23, sits third on the team’s goalie depth chart behind Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov. He’s expected to take on a slightly more significant role in the minors next season with the AHL’s Bridgeport Islanders, as they haven’t retained veteran netminder Cory Schneider, who split starts with Skarek last season, for 2023-24.
The 6-foot-4, 205-pound netminder has shown good flashes of play for Bridgeport, but he’s been inconsistent throughout his time there. He’s yet to record above a .900 save percentage in his four seasons in the minors.
Drafted by the Islanders in the third round of the 2018 NHL Draft, Skarek’s accumulated a 37-49-10 record, a 3.34 goals-against-average, a .893 save percentage and four shutouts in 103 career games with Bridgeport. Next season, he projects to be the team’s first call-up option if Sorokin or Valramov goes down with an injury or is otherwise unavailable.
Denis Malgin Signs Long-Term In Switzerland
Swiss forward Denis Malgin is departing the NHL for his home country for the second and likely final time. The 26-year-old unrestricted free agent signed a five-year deal with NL club ZSC Lions today, keeping him overseas through 2027-28 and through his age 31 season.
Malgin split last season with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Colorado Avalanche thanks to a mid-season trade. After recording career-highs with 13 goals and 65 games played last year, though, the Avalanche did not issue him a qualifying offer, making him a UFA.
Oddly enough, Malgin recently walked away from a multi-year commitment he signed with ZSC in 2021. After spending the 2020-21 campaign on loan to Swiss club Lausanne from the Maple Leafs, Malgin signed a four-year deal with ZSC that offseason and was one of the best players in the league in the first year of the deal, recording 52 points in 48 games. He walked away from the remaining three years to rejoin the Maple Leafs last summer, who retained his rights with a qualifying offer in 2021.
It seems unlikely he’d terminate with the same club twice, however, especially after one NHL comeback that, while successful, obviously didn’t translate to any offers on the open market that he was interested in. The fourth-round pick of the Florida Panthers in 2015 will return to ZSC on a team stacked with former NHL forwards such as Sven Andrighetto, Rudolfs Balcers, Jesper Froden, and Juho Lammikko, although he’s the biggest fish of the bunch.
If it is the end of the road for Malgin in the NHL, he wraps up his career with 41 goals, 40 assists, 81 points, and a -16 rating in 257 games split between the Panthers, Maple Leafs, and Avalanche.
Calgary Flames To Retire Miikka Kiprusoff’s Number
Long-time Calgary Flames goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff will have his jersey number retired by the team next season, according to a media release this morning. Kiprusoff’s number 34 will be the fourth in franchise history to receive the honor, and the ceremony will take place on March 2, 2024, before a game against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
One of the greatest Finnish netminders of all time, Kiprusoff played nine seasons and nearly 600 games for the Flames across the late 2000s and early 2010s. His goaltending oversaw one of the more sustained periods of success in recent years for the Flames, highlighted by a run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2004 and a Vezina Trophy win in 2006.
That 2004 run is the defining achievement in Kiprusoff’s career – and it came before he had solidified himself as the full-time starter he’s remembered as. His 38 games played in the 2003-04 regular season was a career-high, but his .933 save percentage and league-leading 1.69 goals-against average that year was good enough to earn him second place in Vezina voting despite the lack of playing time.
He stepped it up a notch in the postseason, taking the Flames to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final with a 15-11 record, .928 save percentage, 1.85 goals-against average, and a league-leading five shutouts. They would eventually lose to the Tampa Bay Lightning despite holding a 3-2 series lead thanks to Martin St. Louis‘ Game 6 overtime heroics and a two-goal performance from Ruslan Fedotenko in Game 7. In the process of getting to the Final, Kiprusoff became the only goalie in NHL history to defeat three division winners in the same postseason.
After the 2004-05 lockout, Kiprusoff would become nothing short of a workhorse. He played at least 70 games in the eight following seasons, consistently sitting near the league’s top in most statistical categories throughout that run. He played just 24 games in his final season, the 2012-13 lockout-shortened campaign, before calling it a career.
“I am honored and humbled by this recognition of my career in Calgary,” said Kiprusoff. “To have my name and number hanging next to those great Flames players, and especially my friend and legendary goalie Mike Vernon is truly a highlight of my career.”
In hindsight, the seemingly menial trade that brought him to Calgary at the time is now one of the most consequential in franchise history for both teams. After several seasons as a backup to Evgeni Nabokov with the San Jose Sharks, the Flames acquired him for a 2005 second-round pick early into the 2003-04 campaign. The Sharks would select defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic with Calgary’s pick, arguably the greatest shutdown defender in Sharks history (even if he is in a steep decline now) and their all-time leader in games played by a defenseman with 1,239.
Kiprusoff remains the Flames’ franchise leader in games played (576), wins (305), saves (14,631), shutouts (41), and save percentage among goalies with at least 50 games in a Flames jersey with a .913 mark. Among Finnish netminders, only Pekka Rinne has won more NHL games.
He joins Lanny McDonald‘s number 9, Jarome Iginla‘s number 12, and Vernon’s number 30 atop the rafters of the Scotiabank Saddledome.
New York Islanders Re-Sign Oliver Wahlstrom
The New York Islanders have taken care of business with their last notable restricted free agent, re-signing forward Oliver Wahlstrom to a one-year deal. The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz reports that Wahlstrom agreed to his qualifying offer, which would carry a cap hit of just $874,125 next season.
The 23-year-old sniper went 11th overall to the Islanders in the 2018 NHL Draft, but he’s yet to really hit his stride as a pro hockey player. Last season certainly didn’t help matters – a lower-body injury kept him out past the new year and limited him to just 35 games.
He’s played 161 NHL games thus far in his career, notching decent production with 32 goals and 61 points, but he hasn’t cemented himself in a top-six role yet. That’s what he was drafted to do, and he’ll need to impress in his standard third-line minutes in order to move up a famously rigid Islanders depth chart.
He should get some help playing alongside Jean-Gabriel Pageau, one of the better third-line centers in the league, but he’ll likely need some more power play opportunities under head coach Lane Lambert to get his goal-scoring confidence back after a trying couple of campaigns.
This is an important signing for the Islanders to get done in salary cap terms. They had very little flexibility, and getting Wahlstrom to agree to his qualifying offer leaves them with just enough space to remain cap-compliant to start the season with a full 23-player roster with no corresponding moves. However, it won’t be much – likely less than $500K of cap space on opening night.
If the Islanders are to reach the playoffs again in a competitive Eastern Conference, Wahlstrom’s depth scoring will likely be a big part of it. He’s set to be a restricted free agent again next summer.
Florida Panthers Agree To Terms With Casey Fitzgerald
The defending Eastern Conference champions have made their second signing of the day. Defenseman Casey Fitzgerald is running it back with the Florida Panthers on a one-year, two-way contract after testing the open market, the team announced today. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Fitzgerald hit unrestricted free agency this summer under Group VI rules. This special designation applies to players with significant professional experience who don’t meet the standard eligibility guidelines for unrestricted free agency but have played less than 80 NHL games, allowing them perhaps to find a more significant role with another team earlier in their career. However, the 26-year-old Fitzgerald liked his fit in the Panthers organization, and he’s opted to return for another season.
The son of New Jersey Devils general manager Tom Fitzgerald found his way to the Sunshine State via waivers in January, heading south to the Panthers after the Buffalo Sabres attempted to assign him to the minors. He would play quite sparingly, though, playing just four out of 40 Panthers regular-season games after the claim and two out of 21 playoff games. All in all, that’s 55 healthy scratches for Fitzgerald in 61 games he’s been rostered for as a Panther.
A puck-mover by trade, Fitzgerald’s been adequate in limited NHL action but hasn’t demonstrated enough to push into an everyday spot in the lineup. The right-shot defender has nine assists in 63 games of NHL experience between the Sabres and Panthers but is still looking for his first NHL goal.
Buffalo’s third-round selection in 2016, Fitzgerald likely remains in a press-box role to start the season, even with Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour out with injuries. The team went bargain bin shopping on the back end, and their earlier UFA additions of Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Dmitry Kulikov, Niko Mikkola, and Mike Reilly likely push him down the depth chart. He could very well be waived again later on in the season and, if he clears, would be assigned to the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers.
Snapshots: Pekarcik, ECHL, Hurricanes
One St. Louis Blues 2023 draft choice has found a playing home for next season. 76th overall pick Juraj Pekarcik will be heading stateside to the USHL, committing to the Dubuque Fighting Saints for 2023-24 after spending his career until now in his native Slovakia.
This is a rather consequential choice for the QMJHL’s Acadie-Bathurst Titan, who just used the second overall pick on Pekarcik in this year’s CHL Import Draft. However, the USHL has had quite the influx of Slovak talent in recent seasons, and it makes sense Pekarcik would choose to go to a league where he knows what the development experience will be like. The 6-foot-2 winger doesn’t turn 18 until September and registered 20 points in 16 games with HK Nitra’s junior club in the Slovak U-20 circuit last season. He also added ten points in seven games for Slovakia at last year’s IIHF U-18 World Junior Championship.
More from across the league today:
- The Buffalo Sabres confirmed the Jacksonville Icemen as their next ECHL affiliate today, as expected. It amounts to a swap of affiliates between the Sabres and New York Rangers, now affiliated with the Cincinnati Cyclones, Buffalo’s previous affiliate in the second-tier minor league. The current Sabres team does have one connection to the Icemen – assistant coach Jason Christie, who coached the Icemen for four seasons before heading to the Sabres in 2021 and remains the ECHL’s all-time leader in games coached.
- Without an AHL affiliate to store their prospects next season, the Carolina Hurricanes have loaned a trio of Finnish prospects back to their home country, per team reporter Walt Ruff. 20-year-old defenseman Aleksi Heimosalmi will head back to Assat, where he’s spent the past two seasons on loan from Carolina after they selected him 44th overall in 2021. Right wing Tuukka Tieksola, their 2019 fourth-round pick, is heading back to Finland with Lukko after recording 24 points in 52 games with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves last year. Lastly, forward Ville Koivunen is heading back to Karpat, where he’s played most of his career to date after recording 28 points in 52 games with them last season. Doing this early in the summer gives Carolina less to worry about when figuring out where to assign their prospects closer to the start of the season.
Florida Panthers Sign John Ludvig
The Florida Panthers announced today they’ve agreed to terms with restricted free agent defenseman John Ludvig on a two-year, two-way contract. The team did not disclose financial details.
The 22-year-old left-shot defender will be a restricted free agent again at the end of his new deal and will likely be eligible for arbitration at that point. After COVID and injuries significantly limited Ludvig’s playing time since turning pro in 2020, he finally put together a full-time pro campaign last year with the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers, skating in 54 games and recording 17 points.
It really was a strong first impression for Ludvig, who worked his way into Charlotte’s top four with solid defensive awareness and a good bit of physicality to his game. Born in Canada to Czech parents, Ludvig went to the Panthers with the 69th overall pick in the 2019 NHL Draft.
Standing at 6-foot-1 and 213 pounds, Ludvig still needs another season or two before he’s ready for NHL action considering his delayed development, but it does look like there’s some NHL upside there. He flashed solid offensive instincts in his post-draft season with the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks, serving as the team’s captain in 2019-20 and exploding for 62 points in 60 games before turning pro the following year.
Connor Bedard Signs Entry-Level Contract With Blackhawks
9:08 a.m.: Chicago has now made the deal official, confirming the maximum cap hit of $950K for Bedard on his three-year ELC. CapFriendly provides the full breakdown of the deal, which carries the same structure in all three seasons: an NHL salary of $855K, a $95K signing bonus, a Schedule ‘A’ performance bonus worth $1MM, and a Schedule ‘B’ performance bonus worth $2.5MM.
8:09 a.m.: 2023 first-overall pick Connor Bedard has agreed to terms with the Chicago Blackhawks on his three-year entry-level contract today, The Athletic’s Scott Powers reports.
The surely multi-million dollar commitment from Chicago to Bedard on his 18th birthday is quite the present. Signing Bedard to his ELC officially paves the way for him to suit up in a Blackhawks uniform on opening night in a few months, as expected.
Labeled the best prospect since Connor McDavid in 2015 and Auston Matthews in 2016, Bedard will look to make a splash with the Blackhawks next season after dominating the WHL with the Regina Pats, notching 71 goals and 72 assists for 143 points in just 57 games. His 2.51 points per game tied him for the highest rate in a single season for a 17-year-old with former Pittsburgh Penguins forward Rob Brown, who had 173 points in 69 games with Kamloops in 1985-86.
With that in mind, Bedard is expected to assume a first-line center role in the Windy City out of the gate, a glimpse into the team’s long-term future after an aggressive roster restructuring. The Blackhawks made multiple roster moves this offseason with Bedard in mind, acquiring a former Hart Trophy winner in Taylor Hall and retaining some skill for the top-six in Andreas Athanasiou to give Bedard at least some talent to play with in a Chicago forward group devoid of much to write home about.
Bedard’s six-figure cap hit could be the biggest bargain bin deal in the league by its conclusion in 2025-26, at which point he’ll be able to sign quite a lucrative second deal with the salary cap expected to rise north of $92MM by that point.
Among U-25 forwards in Chicago’s top-six next season, he’ll likely be joined by 2020 17th overall pick Lukas Reichel, who’s coming off a pair of excellent campaigns in the minors with the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs and added 15 points in 23 games with the Blackhawks last year. Those two are the shining stars at forward of a prospect pool that’s quickly grown into one of the league’s best, including a pair of top-20 picks in Frank Nazar and Oliver Moore still to come.