Minor Transactions: 09/15/23
Hockey season is underway across the world, with numerous NHL teams competing in prospect tournaments and the various top European leagues beginning their regular season games. Today has already featured quite a bit of action, highlighted by a late comeback win in the Finnish Liiga by Tappara Tampere against HIFK Helsinki, led by former Buffalo Sabre Nick Baptiste.
We’re still a ways away from the start of full regular-season hockey in North America, and as a result teams in this continent’s minor leagues are still adding players in preparation for this upcoming campaign. We’ll keep track of those moves here:
- Big six-foot-six netminder Déreck Baribeau has made it back to the ECHL. The 24-year-old has signed with the Norfolk Admirals, securing himself a chance to return to North America’s third-tier professional hockey league after a year spent in Quebec playing LNAH hockey. Baribeau is the former starting goalie for the Quebec Ramparts of the QMJHL who began his pro career in 2019-20. He’s actually played in more AHL games than ECHL contests, and he has a career .903 save percentage in 29 career AHL games. Now, he’ll get the chance to compete for a role in the crease in Norfolk.
- Physical defenseman Jake Schultz has signed in the ECHL for next season, joining the Worcester Railers. The six-foot-three blueliner played in five games for Worcester last season, scoring two goals. He spent most of the year with the Binghamton Black Bears in the fourth-tier FPHL, scoring 12 goals and 33 points alongside 136 penalty minutes. Schultz was named the FPHL’s defenseman of the year last season and led the FPHL in scoring by a defenseman in 2020-21. If he can translate some of that FPHL success to the ECHL level, he could greatly expand on the 48 ECHL games already on his resume. He’ll get a chance to do so at the start of the season with Worcester.
This page may be updated throughout the day.
Minor Transactions: 09/14/23
The 2023-24 NHL season is coming into clearer view as each day passes, and today marks the start of the NHL Prospect Tournament in Traverse City, Michigan. Tomorrow, the Tom Kurvers Prospect Showcase begins, and can’t-miss prospect Connor Bedard was on the ice today preparing, already showcasing his impressive skills.
Overseas, today marks opening night for two major European leagues. The SHL kicks off today with seven games set to be played, highlighted by a battle between 2022 champions Färjestad BK and 2023 champions Växjö Lakers. In Germany, the DEL begins play today with defending champions EHC Red Bull München against Düsseldorfer EG.
With the hockey season finally re-starting in many places across the world, there is still some player movement as teams look to make some late additions to their lineup for the season. As always, we’ll keep track of notable transactions here.
- Former Minnesota Wild prospect and point-per-game ECHL scorer Shawn Boudrias has decided to head overseas to continue his professional career. The 24-year-old 2018 sixth-round pick signed with Kalmar HC, a club in HockeyAllsvenskan, the second tier of Swedish hockey. Kalmar has the chance to add some serious firepower to their roster with this signing, as Boudrias scored 33 goals and 65 points for the Fort Wayne Komets in the ECHL last season. Although he faltered in the playoffs, Boudrias has put together a total of 106 points in 125 career games in the ECHL, and will now take his talents to Sweden.
- The ECHL’s Kalamazoo Wings have signed bruising winger Nico Blachman to a one-year contract. Blachman, 25, is a six-foot-two winger who spent time with three ECHL teams last season. He was at his best in the final stop of his campaign, an 18-game run with the Norfolk Admirals. There, the Florida native scored eight points and racked up a whopping 131 penalty minutes. He’ll bring energy and physicality to Kalamazoo, who are hoping to spark a return to the postseason having not qualified for the playoffs since 2018-19.
- Swiss forward Marc Marchon has played a big role for National League side EHC Kloten for the past few seasons now. He was with the club as they were relegated from the NL to the second-tier SL in 2017-18, and then spent four seasons playing second-division hockey with the team in an effort to push their promotion back to the NHL. Marchon’s 62 points in just 45 games powered Kloten to promotion in 2021-22, and his 22 points in 44 games (as well as leadership as the club’s captain) last season helped the club earn survival in the National League for another season. Now, it appears 2023-24 will be the end of Marchon’s current tenure in Kloten. The 28-year-old forward has signed a three-year contract with NL rivals SC Bern, a deal that contains an option for a fourth year. Marchon will play this season alongside Montreal Canadiens top prospect David Reinbacher (assuming Reinbacher doesn’t make the Canadiens out of training camp) before heading to Bern for 2024-25.
- Responding to an injury to club captain David Warsofsky, the DEL’s Augsburg Panthers have signed well-traveled defenseman Otso Rantakari to a contract. Rantakari, 29, was a quality blueliner for HIFK Helsinki in Liiga last season, leading their defensemen in scoring with 29 points in 53 games. Rantakari has been a regular in some of Europe’s top leagues for a while, ever since his 2014-15 campaign where he won Liiga’s Rookie of the Year award. Rantakari won a Liiga title with Tappara Tampere in 2016-17 and his high-level experience in many top leagues and the Champions Hockey League will certainly assist Augsburg in the absence of Warsofsky.
This page may be updated throughout the day.
Minor Transactions: 09/08/23
The professional hockey season has begun in earnest this month, with clubs across Europe beginning their seasons. Five Champions Hockey League contests were played today, with games taking place between clubs from seven different countries. Highlights include third-period heroics from American blueliner Les Lancaster to lift Finland’s Ilves Tampere over Czechia’s HC Oceláři Třinec and a 27-save shutout victory for 23-year-old Jasper Patrikainen lifting his hometown Lahti Pelicans over HC Vítkovice.
Over in the KHL, six league games were played and 2015 first-round pick Evgeny Svechnikov potted his first career KHL goal with a wrap-around tie-breaking marker for Ak Bars Kazan against the Kunlun Red Star. Even as the seasons of many clubs across the hockey world have begun, there’s still quite a bit of player movement happening in foreign and minor pro leagues. As always, we’ll keep track of those transactions here:
- Former Detroit Red Wings forward Chase Pearson has made the choice to play overseas for the first time in his hockey career. He’s signed a contract with HC HK Dukla Michalovce, a club in the top league of Slovak professional hockey. The six-foot-three center was a 2015 fourth-round pick of the Red Wings out of the USHL’s Youngstown Phantoms. Pearson played three seasons of college hockey at the University of Maine (and was named Hockey East’s best defensive forward in 2018-19) before beginning his pro career with the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins full-time in 2019-20. He has totaled nearly 200 career AHL games and has scored 78 career points. He has three NHL games on his resume and now heads to Slovakia where he could end up playing a big all-around role.
- Minor league netminder Jake Theut has called it a career at the age of 29, announcing his retirement on social media. Theut worked his way up from playing as a college hockey depth netminder through the lower minor leagues all the way to the ECHL and then AHL, the latter league he finally got into last season. Theut was the SPHL’s goaltender of the year in 2020-21, an honor that helped him earn a full-time ECHL job for the following two seasons. Theut played in over 60 games across two seasons for Wichita and Adirondack, and even earned an AHL call-up last March allowing him to make two starts for the Utica Comets.
- The ECHL’s Rapid City Rush have acquired the playing rights to defenseman Will Riedell from the Savannah Ghost Pirates, sending a player to be named later in return. Although Riedell will look to claim an AHL job this fall, Rapid City is where he’ll now land should he end up playing in the ECHL. The 26-year-old North Carolina native skated in 32 games for the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda last season and only 15 for the Ghost Pirates. It was an encouraging first season as a full-time pro hockey player for the former Ohio State Buckeye, and although he’ll hope to remain in the AHL for the coming season in the case he ends up needing to play in the ECHL he’ll now have to do so in Rapid City.
- The ECHL’s Tulsa Oilers have made an intriguing signing, inking netminder Julian Junca to a one-year contract. The 25-year-old French netminder has spent the past two seasons as the number-one goalie for Rapaces de Gap in Ligue Magnus, the top tier of pro hockey in France. He posted a .921 save percentage in 39 games last season, taking home Ligue Magnus’ Jean Ferrand Trophy for top netminder. He also served as France’s number-two goalie at this year’s IIHF Men’s World Championships, getting into two games for his country. Now he’ll head to Tulsa, where he’ll compete for starts against 27-year-old Rylan Toth, a former top goalie in the Canadian University circuit who played in the Erste Liga (Hungary and Romania) last season.
This page may be updated throughout the day.
Snapshots: Calder Trophy, Ullmark, Fritz
The 2023-24 Calder Trophy race should be one of the most exciting in recent memory. While Connor Bedard is undeniably the runaway favorite, there is a suite of other talented rookies that could challenge Bedard’s title. The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler and Harman Dayal recently ranked their top-20 Calder candidates. Bedard unsurprisingly took the top spot, with Arizona Coyotes center Logan Cooley, Buffalo Sabres goalie Devon Levi, and Columbus Blue Jackets forward Adam Fantilli making up the rest of the top four. The list also included names like Luke Hughes, Matthew Knies, and Joel Hofer.
The list featured more Anaheim Ducks prospects than any other team, with Leo Carlsson (#7) and Olen Zellweger (#9) ranked in the Top 10, while Lukas Dostal, Jackson LaCombe, and Pavel Mintyukov were all listed as honorable mentions. The Buffalo Sabres, Minnesota Wild, and Chicago Blackhawks were among other teams with multiple prospects featured.
Some other notes from around the NHL:
- Ty Anderson, a reporter for Boston radio show 98.5 The Sports Hub, shared that one team approached the Bruins with a, “fair, market value return” for reigning Vezina Trophy-winner Linus Ullmark. Ullmark posted a league-best save percentage (.938) and goals-against-average (1.89) last season. He followed it up with a .896 save percentage and 3.33 goals-against-average while appearing in six of Boston’s seven postseason games. And while he didn’t walk out of the postseason with any hardware, he confidently won the Vezina, receiving 22 votes to win it where no one else received more than three. Ullmark is signed to a $5MM cap hit through the next two seasons.
- The Bridgeport Islanders have signed 32-year-old forward Tanner Fritz. Fritz has been a minor league player since 2015-16 when he split time between the ECHL’s Missouri Mavericks and the Islanders AHL affiliate. His performances that season – notably his 12 points in 19 AHL games – were enough to earn him a consistent AHL role. The Grand Prairie, Alberta native got a taste of NHL experience in 2017-18, appearing in 34 games with the Islanders. He tacked on an additional eight NHL games in the following year but has been in the AHL ever since. With this deal, Fritz will remain a core piece of the Islanders depth chart, after recording 10 points in nine AHL playoff games last season.
Minor Transactions: 09/02/23
Although the NHL season won’t begin for more than a month, the professional hockey season in Europe has just begun. The Champions Hockey League is already fully underway, and there have already been some notable contests. For example, today the Norwegian champion Stavanger Oilers nearly defeated the reigning SHL title winners, the Växjö Lakers, but ended up falling in a shootout.
The KHL also had its season-opening games today, highlighted by a contest between Dinamo Minsk and HC Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk that saw Minsk come back from down three goals to win in overtime, powered by a two-point performance from 2015 first-round pick Nick Merkley. As more and more clubs across the hockey world return to competitive play, teams in North American minor leagues and those overseas leagues are continuing to add players. We’ll keep track of those moves here, as always.
- Former Chicago Blackhawks prospect Sam Jardine has signed a one-year deal with the ECHL’s Greenville Swamp Rabbits, confirming his return to North American pro hockey after two years in Europe. The 30-year-old defenseman has played for the Swamp Rabbits before, in 2020-21 when he scored 44 points in 67 games for the club. That year, he earned ECHL First-Team All-Star honors as well as a chance the following season to play for HC Slovan Bratislava in the Slovak capital as well as HIFK Helsinki in Finland. Jardine spent last season playing in Wales with the EIHL’s Cardiff Devils, and now will return to his old stomping grounds for 2023-24.
- Turner Ottenbreit, a former captain of the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds, has signed a one-year contract with the KHL’s Kunlun Red Star. Ottenbreit is a six-foot-three left-shot defenseman who has spent the last two seasons in the AHL with the Iowa Wild. He played in 57 games last season and scored 12 points, and should be able to beef up a Kunlun blueline that surrendered 44 shots in today’s season-opening victory over Spartak Moscow.
- Former WHL star forward Luka Burzan signed a one-year contract with the ECHL’s Cincinnati Cyclones, locking himself into another campaign with the team he finished 2022-23 on. Burzan, 23, is a former Colorado Avalanche draft pick who scored a solid 13 points in 17 games last season in Cincinnati. Burzan has scored well at each of his ECHL stops so far in his career and will look to do the same next season while potentially earning his way back to the AHL, where he played in 10 games last year.
This page may be updated throughout the day.
Snapshots: Parayko, Norfolk Admirals, Penguins TV Deal
When a team in the NHL takes a step back and performs below expectations, typically there will also be a few key players on that team who have taken individual steps back, steps back that help contribute to the larger decline. The St. Louis Blues had a difficult 2022-23 season, one that saw them finish outside the playoffs. That’s been a rarity during the Blues’ current competitive run, one that yielded the franchise’s first-ever Stanley Cup championship in 2019, and one of the bigger reasons for that step back was the decline of key defenseman Colton Parayko.
Parayko, 30, is making $6.5MM AAV through 2029-30 but saw his all-around results decline from 2021-22 to 2022-23. He went from 35 points scored to 27, his ice time went down a tick, and his defensive play was not up to his usually high standards. That led to speculation that the Blues and Parayko could seek out a change of scenery in the offseason, though that didn’t end up coming to pass. Those trade rumors haven’t deterred Parayko, either, who told The Athletic’s Jeremy Rutherford that he plans on remaining a Blue “for a long time.” (subscription link) As the owner of a full no-trade clause, it’s going to be up to him whether that actually happens, and it appears moving forward both parties view a bounce-back season as the optimal solution to Parayko’s decline rather than a trade.
Some other notes from across the NHL:
- The Carolina Hurricanes have announced a working agreement with the ECHL’s Norfolk Admirals that will allow the Hurricanes to assign prospects to the ECHL club. The Admirals are the official affiliates of the Winnipeg Jets, but per this agreement, they’ll share the ability to send prospects to Norfolk alongside Winnipeg. The ECHL is typically not where NHL teams send most of their prospects, but in the case that the Hurricanes find they need to send a prospect to North America’s third-tier league they now have a clear path to do so.
- The Pittsburgh Penguins announced “SportsNet Pittsburgh” today, finalizing the home of Penguins hockey for all regionally televised games. Per the announcement, the Penguins “entered into an agreement to acquire and re-brand the existing AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh network,” the Penguins’ regional sports network from last season. There has been significant uncertainty in the regional sports broadcasting market in recent months, but with this announcement Penguins fans get some clarity as to what entity will broadcast their team’s games moving forward.
Minor Transactions: 08/31/23
It’s a big day in the wider world of professional hockey, as some of the top clubs in Europe are set to do battle in the first matchday of the Champions Hockey League. Highlights include Finnish champions Tappara Tampere taking on the Aalborg Pirates (Danish Champions) and the Liiga silver medalists, Lahti Pelicans, against the SHL champion Växjö Lakers HC. Clubs outside the Champions League as well as North American teams are still making moves to add players, so as always we’ll keep track of those transactions here.
- Former Cornell University defenseman Cody Haiskanen had an exceptional rookie season in pro hockey, leading the ECHL in plus-minus with a +53 rating, the second-highest single-season rating in ECHL history. The rangy six-foot-four blueliner scored five goals and 29 points in 61 games, and played 19 playoff games en route to the Kelly Cup Finals. Today, he signed a one-year contract extension with the Idaho Steelheads to remain with the club for this upcoming season.
- 21-year-old winger Pavel Tyutnev signed a contract with Admiral Vladivostok of the KHL today, committing his services to the club for the next two seasons. The Russian winger was ranked 49th among European skaters by NHL Central Scouting in 2020, but ended up going undrafted. He scored 17 points in 23 games at the junior level for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl last season and got into 5 games with the senior club, scoring his first KHL goal in the process. Now with this two year deal Tyutnev heads to Vladivostok with the hope of making a push for a full-time KHL job.
- Matt Tugnutt, the son of former NHL netminder Ron Tugnutt, is returning to North America after playing last season overseas in France’s Ligue Magnus. Tugnutt, 27, spent last year with Chamonix, scoring 13 goals and 29 points in 37 games. He’s signing with the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays, re-joining the league he played 2021-22 in. He has 25 career ECHL points in 53 career games, and has played in South Carolina before as he’s skated four games for the Greenville Swamp Rabbits.
- Former Los Angeles Kings winger Nikolay Prokhorkin has signed a one-year contract with the KHL’s Sibir Novosibirsk. Prokhorkin, 29, has 43 NHL games on his resume and has, as a 2012 fourth-round pick, attempted to break into the North American game on two occasions. Both occasions ended with his departure to the KHL, the league he’s settled into as a capable scorer. Prokhorkin’s best season came in 2018-19, when he scored 41 points in 41 games for SKA St. Petersburg. Prokhorkin is a KHL All-Star, Gagarin Cup Champion, and Olympic gold medalist, but only managed to play in three KHL games last season. Novosibirsk is where he’ll look to construct a bounce-back season on this one-year deal.
- Former Anaheim Ducks prospect Jack Badini, the 91st overall pick at the 2017 NHL draft, has signed with Stjernen Hockey, a club in the top division of Norwegian hockey. The 25-year-old American forward spent most of last season with the ECHL’s Newfoundland Growlers, scoring 16 points in 31 regular-season games. He earned nine games at the AHL level with the Toronto Marlies and has 78 career games at the AHL level, where he’s scored eight points. Badini was a solid prospect in his days in the USHL and at Harvard, but he hasn’t been able to put together a strong resume in the North American pro game, prompting this signing overseas.
This page may be updated throughout the day.
Minor Transactions: 08/30/23
Welcome to another edition of minor transactions as we dive into the lesser-known player movements, signings, and deals that might not make the front page but are nevertheless crucial in shaping the dynamics of the hockey world in Europe and crucial NHL feeder leagues. As the 2023-24 season approaches (for some teams as early as this week), teams are still fine-tuning their rosters and adding talent. Here’s a running list of minor moves for August 30, 2023:
- Former Florida Panthers and Philadelphia Flyers center Corban Knight remains overseas as he signed a one-year contract with SC Bern in the Swiss National League, per a team announcement. This will be Knight’s first season in Switzerland – he’d spent the last four years in the KHL with Barys Nur-Sultan and Avangard Omsk. He hasn’t played in the NHL since he appeared in 23 games with the Flyers in 2018-19. Since moving overseas, the 32-year-old has been one of the most consistent top-six centers in the KHL, earning a spot on Team Canada at the 2022 Winter Olympics and recording 162 points in 222 games throughout his time in Kazakhstan and Russia.
- After a lengthy career spanning 16 seasons in the DEL, four-time league champion Frank Mauer has announced his retirement at the age of 35. The right winger spent most of his career in Mannheim and Munich before spending his final season with Eisbären Berlin, scoring six goals and adding 11 assists for 17 points in 51 games. A rather consistent top-six scorer for years in his home country, Mauer was also on the German team that captured the silver medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics, during which he recorded a goal and three assists in six games.
- The ECHL’s Toledo Walleye have agreed to terms on a one-year contract with forward Orrin Centazzo, per a team release. Centazzo, 23, is undersized at 5-foot-8 and 163 pounds but has packed quite a scoring punch since turning pro in 2021. Spending the last two seasons with the ECHL’s Newfoundland Growlers, he’s been among the league’s top scorers with 49 goals and 97 points in 90 games. He spent last season under AHL contract with Newfounudland’s parent club, the Toronto Marlies, where he recorded an assist in 15 games. He was loaned to the Growlers for the majority of the season.
This page will be updated throughout the day.
Minor Transactions: 08/28/23
The last week of August is upon us, meaning NHL training camps are now just a few weeks away. Across the hockey world, seasons are much closer to beginning, however, meaning transaction activity is beginning to dry up. There are still a few pieces of news to parse through, however.
- The Reading Royals, ECHL affiliate of the Philadelphia Flyers and Lehigh Valley Phantoms, have locked in forward Mason McCarty and goalie Jacob Kucharski for the 2023-24 season, per a team release. McCarty, hailing from Blackie, Alberta, is entering his third professional season after accruing 13 goals and 12 assists for 25 points in 43 games with the ECHL’s Kalamazoo Wings last season. Now 26, McCarty’s history includes stints in the WHL with the Red Deer Rebels and Saskatoon Blades, as well as three years suiting up for Acadia University in the Canadian collegiate circuit. Kucharski, a seventh-round pick in the 2018 NHL Entry Draft by the Carolina Hurricanes (who still hold his NHL signing rights), will suit up for his inaugural full professional season in Reading. He’s earned NCAA Atlantic Hockey Goaltender of the Year honors and won two consecutive NCAA titles with American International College. Kucharski also participated in development camp with the Hurricanes in 2018 and 2019 but hasn’t yet landed an entry-level deal.
This page will be updated throughout the day.
Minor Transactions: 08/25/23
The following is a list of notable minor-league and overseas transactions for August 25, 2023:
- Former Pittsburgh Penguins forward Adam Johnson has signed a one-year deal with the EIHL’s Nottingham Panthers, according to a team release. Johnson, 29, heads to Britain after spending last season in Germany with the DEL’s Augsburger Panther. There, he tied for fifth in team scoring with seven goals and 15 assists for 22 points in 45 games. An undrafted free agent signing out of the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 2017, Johnson recorded four points in 13 games with Pittsburgh from 2018 to 2020. He last suited up in North America in the AHL in 2021-22, splitting the season between the Ontario Reign and the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
- The ECHL’s Cincinnati Cyclones have signed OHL standout James Hardie to a one-year contract extension, per a team announcement. Hardie, 21, suited up in two regular-season games and ten playoff games for the Cyclones to conclude last season after finishing his major junior career as captain of the Mississauga Steelheads. After clocking over a point-per-game over the past three seasons with Mississauga, it’s admittedly surprising Hardie wasn’t able to secure an AHL contract, but perhaps a lackluster playoff performance in Cincinnati (just a goal and an assist) hurt his ability to land a contract in North America’s second-highest pro tier. Instead, he’ll again suit up for the new ECHL affiliate of the New York Rangers, hoping to work his way up the pro ladder.
This page will be updated throughout the day.