Ducks Sign Jackson LaCombe To Max-Term Extension
The Ducks have handed out the largest total-value contract in franchise history to pending RFA defenseman Jackson LaCombe, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. It’s an eight-year deal worth $9MM per season for a sum of $72MM. The contract is paid out entirely in base salary with no year-to-year variation, per PuckPedia. It includes a full no-trade clause from 2028-31, a 15-team no-trade clause from 2031-33, and a 10-team no-trade clause in the final year of the deal in 2033-34.
It’s an astronomical pay bump for the 24-year-old, who emerged as Anaheim’s No. 1 defenseman just last season. LaCombe, a 2019 second-round pick, signed a two-year deal as an RFA following his rookie season in 2023-24 that pays him $1.85MM in total – one-fifth of what he’ll be making per year on his new deal. He’s entering the final year of that deal, which costs $925K against the cap and would have left him arbitration-eligible next summer.
LaCombe’s emergence wasn’t entirely out of nowhere – he’d been viewed as a higher-end prospect for quite some time – but it was a more explosive breakout than most expected after his rookie campaign fell flat. Coming off four years with the University of Minnesota, LaCombe turned pro in 2023 and broke camp with the Ducks the following fall.
Anaheim was bullish on the three-time Big 10 All-Star, and he spent most of the year in a top-pairing role alongside Cam Fowler. The duo really struggled to control play, though, even for the Ducks’ lowered standards as one of the league’s worst defensive squads. Averaging 19:23 per game, LaCombe had 17 points and a -24 rating in 71 appearances. In 55 games where he was paired with Fowler, they controlled just 39.5% of expected goals – the worst mark of Anaheim’s seven D pairings to log more than 150 minutes together that year, according to MoneyPuck.
LaCombe’s chemistry was much better in more limited usage with captain Radko Gudas on his right side. The Ducks took note of that and made that their new top pairing heading into 2024-25, a move that was only solidified when Fowler was dealt to the Blues a couple of months into the campaign. LaCombe flourished, getting an ice time bump to 22:18 per game while recording a 14-29–43 scoring line in 75 games, posting an even rating on a team with a -44 goal differential to boot. His 49.1% Corsi share at even strength led Ducks defenders, as did all of his offensive metrics.
League-wide, LaCombe quietly moved into consideration as a top-25 rearguard. His 33 even-strength points were tied for 18th, and his 0.57 points per game were 27th – above other established No. 1 guys like Drew Doughty, Colton Parayko, Moritz Seider, and even Miro Heiskanen.
The lack of sample size as a No. 1 will be cause for concern. Still, as the salary cap sharply increases, a $9MM AAV falls more into the “top-pair” category for defenders than “true No. 1.” It’s a matching cap hit to Devils rearguard Luke Hughes, who signed a new deal yesterday after posting comparable offensive stats last year. While there’s some sticker shock compared to what his extension projection would have been at the beginning of the offseason, it’s an in-line response to the recent spike in market values for premier defensemen.
Getting LaCombe’s contract done now is an important piece of business for general manager Pat Verbeek, who still has four other high-profile pending RFAs to contend with. Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, Pavel Mintyukov, and Olen Zellweger are all entering the final years of their entry-level contracts. LaCombe was likely the highest-priority target as the only one of the group who had enough professional experience to qualify for arbitration.
The Ducks now have LaCombe, Lukáš Dostál, Mason McTavish, and Troy Terry signed through at least 2030 as their new core continues to take shape. The club still has over $40MM in cap space to burn and 10 open active roster spots for 2026-27, according to PuckPedia.
Image courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images.
Jack St. Ivany Out Six Weeks With Lower-Body Injury
Penguins defenseman Jack St. Ivany will miss six weeks with a lower-body injury, the team announced Thursday. As a player on a two-way deal who played fewer than 50 games last season, he will be eligible for season-opening injured reserve. His $775K cap hit will be prorated down to around $200K as a result, offering some relief to Pittsburgh while they’re unable to waive him because of his injury.
St. Ivany left last night’s 5-3 exhibition win over the Sabres midway through the first period, but it wasn’t apparent what caused him to exit, Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review noted. His hopes of cracking the opening night roster for the second year in a row have now been dashed.
The 26-year-old was a free agent signed out of Boston College back in 2022 after the Flyers, who selected him with a fourth-round pick in 2018, opted not to sign him. He spent the next year and a half playing exclusively for AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, but a breakout defensive showing in 2023-24 ended up getting him a call-up to the Pens for the last few weeks of the season. He impressed in a bottom-pairing role in his first big-league look, recording an assist with an even rating and 30 hits in 14 appearances while averaging 13:42 per game. He parlayed that performance into a unique three-year extension that carried a two-way structure for the first two years before becoming a one-way deal for 2026-27.
That also carried St. Ivany through to an opening-night job for the 2024-25 season, but it didn’t stick. He had a lone assist and a -3 rating in 19 appearances before being returned to the AHL in early December. He remained there for the rest of the season aside from an emergency recall in March that didn’t result in any playing time.
It’s worth noting that St. Ivany had a great stretch of play in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton after the demotion. He was one of the AHL club’s best two-way defenders and finished the year with 16 points and a +9 rating in 37 games. The bevy of depth additions Pittsburgh made on the blue line in free agency this summer, plus wanting to keep paths open for youngsters like Harrison Brunicke and Owen Pickering to grab spots, made an opening-night job a problematic task for St. Ivany to achieve this time around, though.
He’ll now look to make his season debut sometime in November. Whether that’s in Pittsburgh or WBS remains to be seen. He’s waiver-eligible for the first time this season, so he’ll need to pass through them unclaimed if it’s the latter.
St. Ivany is the third player projected to carry a prorated cap hit on SOIR for the Penguins, per PuckPedia. They’ll have around $700K in cap space tied up in him, Joel Blomqvist, and Rutger McGroarty, all of whom are expected to miss a significant chunk of time. They’ll also likely have veterans Kevin Hayes and Bryan Rust on standard injured reserve, the latter of whom was just ruled out today for two weeks with an undisclosed injury.
Panthers Release Ben Harpur From PTO
Ben Harpur‘s NHL comeback attempt is over, for now. The Panthers announced today that they released the veteran defenseman from his professional tryout. He was not assigned to AHL Charlotte’s camp, so it’s a clean cut that results in him still searching for a home for 2025-26.
Harpur, 30, last appeared in the NHL with the Rangers in the 2022-23 campaign. He played 42 games that year, spending most of the season as the Blueshirts’ No. 7. He’d remained in the New York organization since on a two-way deal but played exclusively with AHL Hartford, where injuries have limited him to 36 appearances over the last two years combined.
The 6’6″, 231-lb lefty has never been an offensive threat at any level in his pro career, but was once an intriguing shutdown option with the Senators in his younger years. He quickly settled in as a fringe NHLer through most of his prime, sitting anywhere between No. 6 and No. 10 on his club’s depth chart in any given season.
He could have been an appealing veteran recall option for the Cats this year, even if he wasn’t in legitimate competition for an NHL job. Nonetheless, it appears they’re comfortable with Tobias Björnfot and Michael Benning as their top recall options from Charlotte on the blue line this year, assuming the former clears waivers in the coming days.
Bryan Rust Out Two Weeks Due To Undisclosed Injury
Penguins winger Bryan Rust will be sidelined for the start of the regular season after sustaining an undisclosed injury in practice on Wednesday, per Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He’ll miss at least two weeks, with his earliest return date set for Oct. 16 against the Kings. That’s a minimum absence of four games. He will be eligible for an injured reserve placement when opening night rosters are due.
Any trade talks that may still be ongoing for the top-six forward will now take a brief pause. Coming off the first 30-goal, 60-point season of his career, the 33-year-old Rust was in trade rumors all offseason long as the Penguins descended deeper into rebuild territory. Like fellow trade candidates Erik Karlsson and Rickard Rakell, though, he’ll be remaining with the organization to begin the regular season.
With on-ice expectations for the Penguins quite low this season, at least externally, the primary impact of Rust’s absence lies not with his missing offense, but with Pittsburgh’s opening night roster composition. Stashing Rust on IR for a week or two will allow general manager Kyle Dubas to punt some tough decisions for the final few roster spots down the road. The club has multiple young talents at both forward and defense looking to break camp, and leaving Rust off the 23-man limit will make life easier for some of them.
In fact, Rust’s injury could be the final straw for the Pens to decide to give No. 11 overall pick Benjamin Kindel a nine-game trial before returning him to WHL Calgary. Some viewed the 5’11” winger as a reach on draft day in June, but he’s averaged over 17 minutes per game in five preseason contests while registering a goal and an assist. If not him, Rust’s absence could be a pathway for a name like Filip Hallander or Samuel Poulin to avoid waivers, at least for a few extra days.
Still, Rust’s injury brings the Penguins to three forwards on IR to begin the season who would otherwise be opening-night likelies or locks. Veteran Kevin Hayes was shut down at the beginning of camp and isn’t expected back until late October, while top prospect Rutger McGroarty is out indefinitely with an upper-body issue.
Flames Sign Ryan Huska To Two-Year Extension
The Flames have signed head coach Ryan Huska to a two-year contract extension, per a team release Thursday. He was entering the final year of his current deal and is now signed through the 2027-28 season, Pat Steinberg of Sportsnet 960 reports.
Huska is entering his third season as Calgary’s bench boss, but his tenure with the organization dates back more than a decade. He joined the AHL’s Adirondack Flames as their head coach for the 2014-15 season, his first coaching job in the pros after a lengthy run with the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets as an assistant and head coach that spanned 12 years. He spent one year in Adirondack before the Flames moved their top affiliate closer to home to Stockton, California, where he served as the head coach of the Stockton Heat for their first three seasons. He was then promoted to the Flames’ NHL bench as an assistant, a position he held from 2018 to 2023, before being elevated once again to his current role.
The 50-year-old replaced Darryl Sutter, who was fired after the team missed the playoffs in 2022-23 despite winning a Pacific Division title the year prior. Sutter was the third head coach Huska has worked under in Calgary, a list that included Bill Peters and Geoff Ward.
Calgary has yet to make it back to the playoffs under Huska, but that’s more attributable to their status as a retooler than a coaching failure. His two-year sample is limited, but he’s notably guided a recent first-round pick to a breakout season despite an underwhelming forward group on both occasions. It was Connor Zary in 2023-24, who finished eighth in Calder Trophy voting after registering a 14-20–34 scoring line in 63 appearances following an early-season callup from the minors. This past year saw Matthew Coronato get the same treatment. He finished third on the team in goals (24) and points (47) in 77 games while stepping into an everyday top-six role, averaging north of 17 minutes per game.
The upcoming season could see Huska oversee the NHL transition for another pillar of Calgary’s future – defenseman Zayne Parekh. The 2024 ninth overall selection is ticketed for an opening-night job after a raucous major junior career that saw him lead the OHL in scoring among defensemen in back-to-back years, including an incredible 33-74–107 line in 61 showings for the Saginaw Spirit last year.
Huska enters Year 3 with Dan Lambert and Cail MacLean serving as assistants, as they have since he took over head coaching duties. He’ll have a new third assistant for the third straight year, though – after Brad Larsen replaced the one-and-done Marc Savard for 2024-25, ex-Flames winger Dave Lowry now steps in after Larsen departed the club for family reasons.
Image courtesy of James Carey Lauder-Imagn Images.
Panthers Sign Niko Mikkola To Max-Term Extension
The Panthers have reached an agreement with defenseman Niko Mikkola on a max-term, eight-year extension, per a team announcement Thursday. It carries a cap hit of $5MM for a total value of $40MM, Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports. He was ticketed for unrestricted free agency next summer. His new deal now carries him through the 2033-34 campaign.
Mikkola will only earn $1MM in base salary in each season of the deal, according to PuckPedia. The other $32MM will be paid via signing bonuses. He will land $5.5MM bonus checks in 2026 and 2027, $5.2MM in 2028, $4MM in 2029, $3.1MM in 2030, and $2.9MM from 2031-33. The contract carries a no-movement clause from 2026-27 to 2030-31, downgrading to a 20-team no-trade clause for 2031-32 and a 16-team no-trade clause for 2032-33 and 2033-34. The low base salary creates tax advantages for Mikkola, as well as making a buyout near the end of the contract a disadvantageous maneuver for Florida.
Mikkola, 29, will cash in with the biggest deal of his career after breaking out as a legitimate top-four threat in Florida. He signed a three-year, $7.5MM contract with the Cats in free agency in 2023. He’s in the final year of that deal now, which carries a bargain $2.5MM cap hit. At the time, it was a somewhat risky bet for a player who had demonstrated fine defensive skills but little to no offensive utility in his platform year, recording just six points in 81 games split between the Blues and Rangers.
However, Mikkola quickly proved not to be a drag when deployed as a stabilizing partner for Florida’s top offensive threat on the blue line – first Brandon Montour in 2023-24, then Seth Jones after the Panthers acquired him from the Blackhawks at last year’s trade deadline. The 6’6″, 204-lb lefty has averaged over 20 minutes per game in both of his seasons in Sunrise, logging a 9-30–39 scoring line with a +23 rating in 158 appearances from 2023-25.
His calling card is still that of a prototypical hard-nosed, shutdown defender, just one with enough offensive utility to maintain being a net positive in a top-four role and not drag down a puck-moving partner’s impact. No Florida defender is more physically involved in the game than Mikkola, who had 88 blocks and 137 hits last year. He would have led the team in the former had he not missed a handful of games with an upper-body injury. Those numbers were still down from 2023-24, when he led the team in both blocks (124) and hits (198).
Oftentimes, a player recording high block/hit totals is a good indicator of individual defensive skills that don’t translate to tangible possession impacts. That’s not the case with Mikkola, who, despite having negative relative Corsi impacts over his two years in Florida, has still managed to control 53.2% of expected goals at even strength, losing the quantity battle but winning the quality one.
With Aaron Ekblad, Gustav Forsling, and Jones all signed through at least 2030, Mikkola was the only long-term question mark in a top-four group that’s helped fuel the Panthers to back-to-back Stanley Cup championships. Even bottom-pairing veteran Dmitry Kulikov is signed through 2027-28, leaving the Cats with very little expected movement among their defense corps over the next few years. Eleven skaters – nearly half of their active roster – are now signed through at least the end of the decade, an unmatched amount of long-term commitment anywhere else in the league.
That’s great news for the Panthers, who have no blue-chip prospects in the organization after graduating Mackie Samoskevich to full-time NHL duties. Their top prospect from an already league-worst pool, winger Justin Sourdif, was traded to the Capitals over the offseason. There are still a couple of intriguing forwards in the system, but the same can’t be said for their defense group – led by the team’s new No. 1 prospect according to NHL.com, 2024 third-round pick Matvei Shuravin, who isn’t expected to make an NHL impact for another few years and likely won’t peak above a bottom-pairing option if he does.
Mikkola was one of two big-name pending UFAs in Florida, the other being starting netminder Sergei Bobrovsky. Getting one done before the start of the regular season only opens up more resources and financial stability to aid in smoothing over negotiations with the other.
Image courtesy of James Carey Lauder-Imagn Images.
Emily Kaplan of ESPN was first to report the two sides were close on a long-term deal.
Evgeny Kuznetsov Signs With KHL’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk
There will be no NHL return for Evgeny Kuznetsov, at least for now. The veteran of 11 NHL seasons had been the subject of rumors for most of the summer but has now signed on to remain in his native Russia for another season with the Kontinental Hockey League’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk, according to a league press release.
Kuznetsov, 33, returned to Russia last summer after a short-lived tenure with the Hurricanes. He managed six goals and 13 points in 30 combined regular-season and playoff games for the club after they acquired him from the Capitals at the trade deadline. The one-time All-Star had cleared waivers days before after exiting the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program. On the whole, his scoring line for 2023-24 read 8-16–24 through 63 appearances. That was by far the worst point-per-game production he had, marking a sharp decline after having managed nearly a point per game for the Caps just two years prior.
Seeking stability, Kuznetsov accepted a mutual contract termination with Carolina last summer and promptly signed a four-year contract with SKA St. Petersburg. The move home allowed him to rediscover his once-consistently top-six caliber offensive skill set, flourishing alongside young NHL prospects like Ivan Demidov and Alexander Nikishin, and recording 12 goals and 37 points in 39 appearances. That resurgence rekindled his desire for NHL success, and he obtained a release from SKA back in April to facilitate it. There were still two undisclosed teams interested in signing him at the beginning of September, but training camp has now mostly passed without a contract being signed.
Another KHL season at or near a point per game could make Kuznetsov’s transition back to North America easier next summer, but for now, it’s still prove-it time. Kuznetsov joins a hot Metallurg squad off to a 7-1-2 start to rank fourth in the league, fueled by an early-season breakout from Blackhawks prospect Roman Kantserov, who has five goals and 10 assists through his first 10 games.
Kuznetsov was a first-round pick by Washington in 2010 and was dominant in their run to the 2018 Stanley Cup, leading the league in postseason scoring with 20 assists and 32 points in 24 appearances. His 568 points in 723 regular-season appearances for the Caps rank seventh in franchise history.
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Nils Höglander Out Eight To Ten Weeks With Sprained Ankle
Sept. 30: Höglander will be missing quite a bit of time. The team announced that he has undergone successful lower-body surgery and will miss eight to ten weeks as a result. That would put him on track to return between late November and early December.
Sept. 26: Canucks winger Nils Höglander‘s availability for the beginning of the regular season is in doubt after the team announced Friday he’s been given a week-to-week designation with a lower-body injury, according to Jeff Paterson of Rink Wide: Vancouver. His injury is a sprained ankle, according to Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK.
Evidently, Höglander was banged up in Vancouver’s preseason win over the Flames on Wednesday. He scored the first goal of that 3-1 win, a power play marker. Shift and time on ice data for the game, which was played at the home of the Canucks’ AHL affiliate in Abbotsford, isn’t available. It’s unclear if he finished the contest or not.
Now entering his age-25 season, Höglander remains a bit of a unicorn. He’s undersized and flashy, but at 5’9″, he plays with a physical bend, recording 76 hits last year. The 2019 second-round pick has steadied his development and, over the past two seasons, has emerged as a consistent top-nine piece. He’s played in 152 out of 164 possible regular-season games during that frame and broke out in a big way in 2023-24, shooting at a 20% clip for a career high 24 goals while seeing a good chunk of time in the top six at even strength.
Like many other Canucks, last year wasn’t as fruitful for Höglander. His shooting percentage regressed to 9.6% and he finished the year with an 8-17–25 scoring line in 72 appearances. He was deployed as a Swiss army knife nonetheless, logging time seemingly everywhere in Vancouver’s top nine and not logging more than 90 total minutes with the same set of linemates.
His deployment in camp suggested he was ticketed for a middle-six role to start the campaign, perhaps on a third-line unit with Teddy Blueger and Conor Garland. He’s still got 13 days until Vancouver’s first regular-season game to recover. That’s unlikely but not impossible for a week-to-week timeline.
If he can’t go, the Canucks have some quality wing depth they can elevate. Drew O’Connor and Kiefer Sherwood combined for nearly 30 goals and 65 points last year. Either could seamlessly slot in next to Blueger and Garland, a combination that new head coach Adam Foote seems intent on keeping together. Former top-10 pick Vitali Kravtsov, whom the organization brought back over from Russia this offseason, could be the recipient of those minutes as well.
Training Camp Cuts: 9/30/25
There’s now one week to go until the regular season opens, meaning six days until opening night rosters are due. Most teams have gotten their last round of sweeping cuts done and now only have a handful of names to trim to get down to 23 players. We’ll keep track of additional cuts as they roll in today:
Carolina Hurricanes (per team announcement)
D Gavin Bayreuther (to AHL Chicago, pending waivers)
F Noel Gunler (to AHL Chicago, pending waivers)
F Tyson Jost (to AHL Chicago, pending waivers)
D Oliver Kylington (released from PTO)
F Kevin Labanc (released from PTO)
D Bryce Montgomery (to AHL Chicago)
F Bradly Nadeau (to AHL Chicago)
D Joel Nyström (to AHL Chicago)
G Nikita Quapp (to AHL Chicago)
F Justin Robidas (to AHL Chicago)
F Ivan Ryabkin (to AHL Chicago)
F Josiah Slavin (to AHL Chicago, pending waivers)
F Ryan Suzuki (to AHL Chicago, pending waivers)
F Gleb Trikozov (to AHL Chicago)
F Felix Unger Sörum (to AHL Chicago)
Calgary Flames (per team announcement)
F Clark Bishop (to AHL Calgary pending waiver clearance)
D Hunter Brzustewicz (to AHL Calgary)
D Nick Cicek (to AHL Calgary)
D Artem Grushnikov (to AHL Calgary)
F Samuel Honzek (to AHL Calgary)
F Dryden Hunt (to AHL Calgary pending waiver clearance)
D Yan Kuznetsov (to AHL Calgary pending waiver clearance)
F Sam Morton (to AHL Calgary pending waiver clearance)
G Owen Say (to AHL Calgary)
F William Stromgren (to AHL Calgary)
F Aydar Suniev (to AHL Calgary)
Chicago Blackhawks (per team announcement)
D Kevin Korchinski (to AHL Rockford)
Los Angeles Kings (per team announcement)
D Parker Berge (released from PTO to AHL Ontario)
F Aatu Jämsen (to AHL Ontario)
F Kaleb Lawrence (to AHL Ontario)
F Koehn Ziemmer (to AHL Ontario)
Minnesota Wild (per team announcement)
F Brett Leason (released from PTO)
New York Rangers (per Vince Z. Mercogliano of The Athletic)
F Anton Blidh (to AHL Hartford)
G Talyn Boyko (to AHL Hartford)
F Brendan Brisson (to AHL Hartford, pending waivers)
G Dylan Garand (to AHL Hartford)
D Blake Hillman (released from PTO to AHL Hartford)
D Connor Mackey (to AHL Hartford, pending waivers)
F Bryce McConnell-Barker (to AHL Hartford)
F Brennan Othmann (to AHL Hartford)
F Dylan Roobroeck (to AHL Hartford)
D Brandon Scanlin (to AHL Hartford)
F Carey Terrance (to AHL Hartford)
Nashville Predators (per team announcement)
D Kevin Gravel (to AHL Milwaukee)
F Jake Lucchini (to AHL Milwaukee)
G Matt Murray (to AHL Milwaukee)
F Navrin Mutter (to AHL Milwaukee)
D Jordan Oesterle (to AHL Milwaukee)
Philadelphia Flyers (per team announcement)
D Emil Andrae (to AHL Lehigh Valley)
F Denver Barkey (to AHL Lehigh Valley)
G Carson Bjarnason (to AHL Lehigh Valley)
F Alex Bump (to AHL Lehigh Valley)
F Alexis Gendron (to AHL Lehigh Valley)
D Helge Grans (to AHL Lehigh Valley)
F Devin Kaplan (to AHL Lehigh Valley)
G Aleksei Kolosov (to AHL Lehigh Valley)
D Hunter McDonald (to AHL Lehigh Valley)
D Ty Murchison (to AHL Lehigh Valley)
F Anthony Richard (to AHL Lehigh Valley pending waiver clearance)
San Jose Sharks (per team announcement)
F Filip Bystedt (to AHL San Jose)
G Gabriel Carriere (to AHL San Jose)
F Igor Chernyshov (to AHL San Jose)
D Cole Clayton (to AHL San Jose)
G Matt Davis (to AHL San Jose)
D Jake Furlong (to AHL San Jose)
D Braden Hache (to AHL San Jose)
F Kasper Halttunen (to AHL San Jose)
F Oliver Wahlstrom (released from PTO to AHL San Jose)
While not listed in today’s cuts by the team, forwards Shane Bowers, Jimmy Huntington, Oskar Olausson, and Pavol Regenda along with goaltender Jakub Skarek are on waivers today.
Washington Capitals (per team announcement)
D Cam Allen (to AHL Hershey)
F Terik Parascak (to WHL Prince George)
F Patrick Thomas (to AHL Hershey)