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Several Teams Showing Interest In Vitali Pinchuk

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There are still several months to go until the end of the regular season, when the international free agent market begins to pick up. Nonetheless, European leagues start their seasons earlier than the NHL, meaning sample sizes are large enough by the time November rolls around for teams to begin to identify breakout targets.

One of those names to keep an eye out for is Belarusian center Vitali Pinchuk, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. “Several teams” have made contact with his representation as he mulls a jump to North America following the conclusion of his season with Dinamo Minsk of the Kontinental Hockey League, where he’s spent the vast majority of his professional career.

Pinchuk, 23, isn’t a total stranger to North American hockey. He was initially draft eligible in 2020 and spent that season in the Ontario Hockey League in hopes of boosting his chances of being picked. The 6’3″, 203-lb pivot recorded 13 goals and 34 points in 54 games with a -12 rating, but wasn’t picked. When the OHL closed its doors for the 2020-21 season due to the pandemic, Pinchuk returned to Belarus, where he has remained ever since.

He made his KHL debut for Dinamo the following year. He was a fixture of Belarus’ teams at the World Juniors until the country was banned from international competition by the IIHF for its part in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – in fact, he was named the country’s top young player in 2021. His development has been a slow burn, but he had his first meaningful breakthrough in the 2023-24 season. After posting limited point totals in bottom-six jobs over the previous few years and struggling to stay in the lineup, he worked his way into a top-nine job with Dinamo with nine goals and 22 points in 43 games.

It was last season that Pinchuk began to take on star status in the KHL. Dinamo’s 39-21-8 record last season was its best in eight years, and Pinchuk finished second on the club with 25 goals and fifth with 43 points in 66 games. This season, the club is off to a torrid 13-5-3 start with Pinchuk clicking at a point per game, logging a 9-12–21 scoring line through 21 contests.

A point-per-game season in the more offensively conservative KHL is no small feat. Only three players hit the mark last season after seven achieved it in 2023-24. Keeping up that pace will be challenging for Pinchuk, but even still, he’s one of only 13 names with at least five games played at this point in the year to be at or above the mark.

Pinchuk turns 24 in January, so that will be his signing age if he inks an NHL contract next summer. That limits him to landing a one-year, entry-level contract that would make him a restricted free agent in 2027.

Minor Transactions: 11/03/2025

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It’s not a hugely packed day on the NHL schedule, with just four games on the docket. That’s also the case outside of the NHL, where most European pro leagues aren’t playing and the AHL has just one contest – a game between the Manitoba Moose, the affiliate of the Winnipeg Jets, and the Texas Stars who are the affiliate of the Dallas Stars. What has been active today, though, even without many games to be played, has been player movement outside of the NHL. There are quite a few transactions to go over from the wider world of professional hockey, so we’ll recap all the notable moves here:

  • Veteran goalie Louis Domingue, a longtime NHL backup or organizational third goalie, left KHL side Sibir Novosibirsk after just 11 games played. Per a translated copy of the team’s official announcement, Novosibirsk cited “family reasons” as the reason for Domingue’s release. The 33-year-old goalie, who has played in 144 games over the course of his NHL career, signed in Russia in July, marking his first entry into the European pro hockey circuit. His adjustment to the KHL game did not go well, as he posted an 0-9-0 record with an .892 save percentage and 3.83 goals-against average. Domingue played last season on a one-year, one-way $775K contract, and will now look to continue his career elsewhere. He has performed well as an AHL goalie throughout his time in North America, so given his level of experience and track record, a return to North America, perhaps even on an AHL contract, cannot be ruled out. A team such as the Chicago Wolves could be a fit for his services, as they could benefit from some veteran reinforcement in the crease. Their two incumbent netminders, Amir Miftakhov and Nikita Quapp, are short on AHL experience and have posted respective save percentages of .878 and .852 so far this season.
  • 2019 Anaheim Ducks first-round pick Brayden Tracey has found a place to play out the 2025-26 season, signing a one-year contract with Mora IK of HockeyAllsvenskan, Sweden’s second-tier league. Tracey originally signed his entry-level contract in November 2019, but was unable to secure a second NHL contract after three underwhelming pro campaigns with the San Diego Gulls. He was reasonably productive, scoring 31 points in 55 games as a rookie, for example, and even earned the right to make his NHL debut. But he wasn’t retained by the team and started 2024-25 on an AHL PTO with the Bakersfield Condors, one that did not materialize into a full-time AHL deal. Tracey then split the rest of the season between Jukurit of the Finnish Liiga (scoring six points in 13 games) and Slovan Bratislava of the Slovak Extraliga, scoring eight points in 11 combined regular season and playoff games. The 6’0″ forward, still just 24 years old, heads to a Mora team that has gotten off to a slow start to the season, and they will likely look for him to help boost an offense that currently ranks fourth-to-last in goals scored in the league.
  • Former Philadelphia Flyers goalie Felix Sandstrom has left Finnish Liiga side Karpat Oulu, as his fixed-term contract with the team expired Nov. 2. Sandstrom originally signed the deal in September as part of the club’s response to an injury suffered by incumbent starter Visa Vedenpaa, who is a 2023 draft pick of the Seattle Kraken. Sandstrom didn’t have a great stretch with Karpat, going 3-6-1 with a .872 save percentage. A 2015 third-round pick of the Flyers, Sandstrom ultimately became the organization’s No. 3 goalie, playing in a total of 30 NHL games across his six-year career in North American pro hockey. Sandstrom played well enough to earn a one-way contract year for 2023-24, but the Flyers ultimately moved on from him in 2024 and he signed a one-year, two-way deal with a $450K guarantee with the Buffalo Sabres for 2024-25. Sandstrom struggled to get into games for the Rochester Americans, getting into just 19 contests, in large part due to the success of top prospect goalie Devon Levi. Now that his short-term deal in Liiga has expired, the experienced goalie will need to find another spot to continue what has been a solid pro career.
  • Another goalie who was once playing on an NHL contract was involved in player transaction news today: Hugo Alnefelt. Liiga’s HIFK confirmed that the 2019 Tampa Bay Lightning draft pick would remain with the club for the duration of the 2025-26 season after passing through the trial period of his loan. Alnefelt is contracted to Swedish side HV71, but after he went 8-16-1 with a .899 save percentage in 28 SHL games last season, the club elected to move forward with other goalies for 2025-26. HV71 worked with Alnefelt to find a place for him to get playing time in 2025-26, and they elected to loan him to HIFK in Liiga. Alnefelt has played in six games so far in Finland, posting a .889 save percentage and 2.94 goals-against average. Alnefelt was a tandem goalie for the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch for three seasons, from 2021-22 through 2023-24. He posted an .895 save percentage across 86 games, and was not signed to an NHL contract extension upon the expiry of his entry-level deal, prompting his move back to Europe.
  • 2017 Detroit Red Wings fifth-round pick Cole Fraser was traded in the ECHL today, as the Worcester Railers traded the defenseman to the Cincinnati Cyclones for future considerations. The big right-shot blueliner has been in the ECHL since he signed with the Kansas City Mavericks at the conclusion of his junior career with the OHL’s Peterborough Petes. Across his 288-game career in North America’s third-tier pro league, Fraser has scored 62 points and has earned a call-up to play in the AHL once. That call-up came in 2021-22, when he skated in a Nov. 14 contest for the Belleville Senators against the Utica Comets, a 4-1 loss for the Senators. Fraser played a defensive role through six games this season with the Railers, ranking second on the team in shorthanded ice time per game.
  • The ECHL’s Maine Mariners acquired forward Owen Gallatin from the Fort Wayne Komets in exchange for cash considerations, according to a team announcement. The 23-year-old is in the first full season of his professional career, having dipped his toes into pro hockey late last season after the conclusion of his NCAA career. Gallatin signed with the Komets after playing four seasons with the University of Minnesota-Duluth, including a strong junior campaign where he scored 30 points in 37 games. Gallatin’s production dipped in his senior year, and he wasn’t able to earn consistent ice time at the start of 2025-26 with Fort Wayne, leading to this early-season trade to Maine.
  • Another first-year pro player was traded in the ECHL today, with the South Carolina Stingrays acquiring forward Tanner Edwards from the Toledo Walleye. The 25-year-old was the most penalized player in the USHL in 2019-20, his lone season of USHL hockey, racking up 206 penalty minutes in just 37 games. He then played four years of college hockey, his first three with Minnesota State (where he won two CCHA conference titles) before spending his senior year with his hometown program Alaska-Anchorage. Edwards has just one pro game to his name at this point, an Oct. 25 game against the Bloomington Bison in which he registered his first pro fight.
  • There was a trade in the Czech Extraliga today, with HC Energie Karlovy Vary acquiring Jan Bambula from HC Vitkovice Ridera in exchange for forward Jan Sir. Bambula, 24, was in the midst of his second season with Vitkovice. He scored 13 points in 35 games last season and began this year with five points in 19 games before today’s trade. A speedy, offensively-oriented undersized winger, Bambula’s acquisition could boost Karlovy Vary’s offensive attack. Sir, 25, joined Karlovy Vary for 2024-25 after a five-year pro career with Bili Tygri Liberec, which was also his junior team. The 6’2″ pivot doesn’t offer the speed or offensive ability that Bambula is credited with, but brings the ability to play down the middle, additional size, and defensive versatility. He’s gone scoreless through 20 games this season, though he has been the team’s leading penalty-killing forward so far this season. While Bambula isn’t a direct replacement in that role as a winger, his speed did allow him to carve out a role on Vitkovice’s penalty kill, meaning he could end up taking Sir’s vacated spot on Karlovy Vary’s penalty kill.
  • Liiga side Ilves Tampere announced today that forwards Julius Hermonen and Joel Kerkkanen would not continue with the club upon the recent conclusion of their fixed-term contracts. Hermonen, 28, has nearly 300 games of Liiga experience, though he only managed two assists across 14 games for Ilves. He did score a goal in Champions Hockey League play, as part of a 5-0 victory over HC Kometa Brno. Kerkkanen, 26, isn’t an established quantity in Finland’s top division the way Hermonen is, with just 41 Liiga games to his name. But he has been quite successful in Finland’s second-tier Mestis, even putting together a point-per-game season in 2022-23 with JoKP. That scoring ability hasn’t translated to the Liiga level, though, and he registered just one point in his four games in Tampere.
  • Veteran Swedish netminder Jonas Gunnarsson, who was once a member of the Nashville Predators organization, signed a deal with HockeyAllsvenskan club AIK today. The 33-year-old has experience in Sweden’s second division, helping teams to promotion to the SHL on two separate occasions: 2014-15 with the Malmo Redhawks, and 2021-22 with HV71. 2021-22 was Gunnarsson’s most recent season in the Allsvenskan, and he performed very well, registering the most shutouts in the league and posting a .907 save percentage. He served as Joni Ortio’s backup for HV71 in its first year back in the SHL in 2022-23, before earning a role as a starter in Liiga with Ilves in 2023-24. He was solid in Liiga, posting a .912 save percentage in 36 games, and then spent 2024-25 with Graz in the ICEHL. Now he’s back in the league where he’s been successful in the past, and will look to stabilize an AIK goaltending situation that has been an issue for the team so far in 2025-26.
  • The SHL’s Vaxjo Lakers signed veteran forward Erik Andersson to a one-year contract, according to a team announcement. The 31-year-old winger is a defensive specialist who brings a large amount of experience in Sweden’s top league. He has played in 471 games, and while he’s only registered 74 points, he should be able to contribute on Vaxjo’s penalty kill in short order. Vaxjo’s penalty kill currently ranks fifth in the league in success rate, but with the potential for injuries, the signing of Andersson provides the team with suitable cover to be able to sustain its shorthanded success in the event that natural attrition of a long hockey season leads to regular penalty killers becoming unavailable.

KHL’s Avangard Omsk Signs Klim Kostin

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Klim Kostin is returning to a KHL organization where he has already had plenty of success. According to an announcement from the league, Kostin has signed a contract with Avangard Omsk for the remainder of the 2025-26 KHL season.

It’s been five years since Kostin played for Avangard. As part of the St. Louis Blues organization, Kostin spent the 2020-21 season on loan in the KHL, scoring seven goals and 18 points in 43 games. In the playoffs, he registered five goals and nine points in 24 games, helping Avangard win its first Gagarin Cup.

The former 31st overall pick returned to North America the next season, scoring four goals and nine points in 40 games for the Blues, and three goals and six points in 17 games for their AHL affiliate, the Springfield Thunderbirds. That was the end of Kostin’s leash in St. Louis as the team traded him to the Edmonton Oilers before the start of the 2022-23 season.

Undeniably, the 2022-23 season with the Oilers was the best of Kostin’s professional career up to this point. He scored 11 goals and 21 points in 57 games, more than double what he had scored up to that point. There was some belief at the time that Edmonton had found itself a quality young power forward for a relatively cheap price.

Unfortunately, that was surprisingly the end of Kostin’s tenure with the Oilers. Due to the growing cap crunch in Edmonton, the team moved Kostin and Kailer Yamamoto to the Detroit Red Wings for future considerations. Kostin is the only one who played for Detroit, as the team chose not to qualify Yamamoto, who eventually signed with the Seattle Kraken.

Kostin failed to improve upon his impressive year with Edmonton, scoring three goals and one assist in 33 games for the Red Wings, averaging 8:55 of ice time in a fourth-line role. Although there’s no evidence of a trade request, Kostin likely asked Detroit’s management for a change of scenery given his lack of ice time. The team eventually traded him to the San Jose Sharks at the trade deadline.

He finished the year strong with San Jose, scoring five goals and 10 points in 19 games to finish the season. He re-signed with the Sharks for the 2024-25 campaign, but finished the year on a disappointing note. Looking for a new contract this past summer, it wasn’t surprising to learn that Kostin’s preference was to return to Edmonton.

Central Notes: Zuccarello, Kantserov, Aamodt

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The Wild could soon be getting a needed boost up front.   On Friday, head coach John Hynes indicated (Twitter link) that winger Mats Zuccarello is within a week or so of returning to the lineup.  The 38-year-old has yet to suit up this season due to a back injury that also caused him to miss training camp.  While Zuccarello isn’t a major scoring threat, he’s one of Minnesota’s better playmakers and is coming off a solid showing in 2024-25 that saw him record 19 goals and 35 assists in 69 games.  His eventual return would go a long way to giving them a second scoring line, an area that has been an issue in the early going this season.

Elsewhere in the Central:

  • Blackhawks prospect Roman Kantserov is in the final year of his KHL contract, leading some to hope that he will come to North America for next season. Speaking with RG’s Sergey Demidov, the 21-year-old indicated that he’d like to test himself in the NHL but isn’t planning on making a decision on his future until next year when his deal expires.  A second-round pick in 2023 (44th overall), Kantserov had 38 points in 47 games last season and is off to a better start in 2025-26, notching a league-high 13 goals and eight assists in 21 appearances so far.
  • Wyatt Aamodt’s stint with the Avalanche was short-lived. Just two days after recalling the blueliner, the team announced (Twitter link) that they have sent him back to AHL Colorado.  The 27-year-old didn’t play on this recall, keeping his career NHL appearance total at two and his point total at one, a tally in last season’s final game.  Aamodt has a goal and five assists in nine games with the Eagles so far this season.  The move leaves Colorado with just six healthy blueliners at the moment but Samuel Girard has been skating in recent days and is thought to be nearing a return.

Max Willman Signs In KHL

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It took a while but veteran Max Willman has found a team for this season.  The KHL announced that the winger has signed with Barys Astana for the rest of the 2025-26 campaign.

The 30-year-old was originally drafted by Buffalo back in 2014, going in the fifth round but he ultimately never signed with them.  After playing out his college career, he signed with Philadelphia’s farm team, eventually playing his way into an NHL contract two years later for the 2021-22 campaign.

Willman wound up getting into 41 games with the Flyers that season, seeing more time with them than he did in the minors with AHL Lehigh Valley.  However, his playing time at the top level was much more limited the following year as Willman got into just nine games with Philadelphia.

It took some time for Willman to get a guaranteed deal as he played through a training camp tryout in New Jersey before inking a two-way contract for the 2023-24 campaign.  However, he performed well enough in the minors to earn an 18-game stint with the Devils plus a new contract well before free agency, giving him some extra security heading into last season.  However, he didn’t see any NHL action last season, instead potting 10 goals and 20 assists in 69 games in Utica.

Over his three NHL stints, Willman has seven goals and three assists in 68 games while being considerably more productive in the minors, notching 54 goals and 65 helpers in 244 games over parts of six seasons.  With his professional games played total likely to surpass 320 once he gets into some KHL contests, he’ll qualify as a veteran for AHL purposes beginning next season which could significantly affect his chances of returning to play in North America with AHL teams only being allotted five skater slots for veterans in their lineups.

Ilya Samsonov Signs Two-Year Deal With HC Sochi

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Free agent goaltender Ilya Samsonov is returning home on a two-year contract with Sochi of the Kontinental Hockey League, the league announced. Sochi had to acquire Samsonov’s KHL signing rights from Metallurg Magnitogorsk, who drafted and developed him before his arrival in North America in 2018, which they did so in exchange for cash.

Samsonov, 28, had held out as long as possible while waiting for a suitable NHL offer to materialize. The 28-year-old was a UFA for the second summer in a row after landing a one-year, $1.8MM deal from the Golden Knights on his second go-around on the open market. He was previously a UFA after being nontendered by the Capitals in 2022. The 2015 first-round pick underwhelmed as Adin Hill’s backup in Vegas, recording a .891 SV% and 2.82 GAA in 29 starts with a 16-9-4 record. The Knights didn’t shelter him very well defensively, though, meaning he still saved 0.6 goals above expected, per MoneyPuck.

While that last number should have created at least some intrigue on the market, particularly with someone whose raw talent level is as high as Samsonov’s, it didn’t result in a deal. Teams looking for a reliable backup option were likely scared off by his poor overall save percentage over the last two years. He dipped to a .890 mark for the Maple Leafs in 2023-24, bringing his numbers down to a .890 SV% and even 3.00 GAA over 69 starts in the last two years.

It’s been a relatively quick fall for Samsonov, who emerged as Toronto’s 1A option in 2022-23 and backstopped the franchise to its first playoff series win in 19 years. That career year saw Samsonov post a 27-10-5 record in 40 starts while logging a .919 SV%, 2.33 GAA, four shutouts, and 18.0 GSAx that placed him 10th in the league. Samsonov’s league-wide GSAx rank for the following two seasons, however, was 87th in 2023-24 and 46th in 2024-25.

The 6’3″ netminder returns home after playing six seasons in the NHL, the first three coming with the club that drafted him in Washington. He leaves the NHL for now with 200 games played, a 118-48-25 record, 15 shutouts, a 2.77 GAA, and a .902 SV%.

He now joins one of the KHL’s most consistent bottom-feeder clubs in Sochi. They’re 4-12-2 out of the gate this season and haven’t secured a playoff berth since 2019. He comes over as the club’s starter and only capable option between the pipes, Pavel Khomchenko, is out with an undisclosed injury.

During Samsonov’s first stint in the KHL, he won a Gagarin Cup with Metallurg in 2016 and recorded a 33-16-9 record, .929 SV%, 2.20 GAA, and seven shutouts in 73 games over four seasons.

Minor Transactions: 10/29/2025

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Yesterday was a notably busy day for hockey, as all 32 NHL clubs took the ice as part of the league’s “Frozen Frenzy” programming. As a result, today’s calendar of games is light, with just one NHL game to be played: the Toronto Maple Leafs taking on the Columbus Blue Jackets. With that said, that doesn’t mean there aren’t games played in the wider world of pro hockey – the AHL has 12 games set to be played tonight, and numerous European pro leagues have also had games today.

Player movement outside the NHL has a similarly high level of activity, and here we’ll run down the notable moves of the past few days from around the world of professional hockey:

  • 170-game NHL veteran Nic Petan terminated his contract with Swiss pro side HC Ambri-Piotta today, ending a 15-game stint with the club that has gone very poorly. The 30-year-old signed a two-year deal with Ambri-Piotta this past summer with the expectation that he’d be one of the team’s most relied-upon offensive generators. But through 15 games, Petan has registered only four points. It wasn’t an issue of ice time, as he’s averaged nearly 17 minutes of time per game and two minutes of power-play time per game, both he and Ambri-Piotta as a whole have struggled immensely to put the puck in the net. That hasn’t been a problem for Petan for most of his (non-NHL) pro career, as he’s a former AHL All-Star who once led the entire CHL in scoring. He has 289 points in 296 career AHL games and was one of the AHL’s highest-paid two-way players, with a $550K AHL salary when he last played, but that sterling track record wasn’t able to translate to Switzerland. He’ll now look for a new landing spot to continue his pro career.
  • Lada Togliatti, one of the KHL’s worst teams so far this season, made a few player moves today. First, they placed 23-year-old Canadian forward Joshua Lawrence on waivers, placing in question the player’s KHL future. Lawrence, who is the brother of Tynan Lawrence, one of the top-ranked prospects for the 2026 draft, is an undrafted player who worked his way up the European pro hockey ladder to reach the KHL. After his time as a star scorer in the QMJHL ended, Lawrence played almost two highly-successful seasons in the Swiss second division before getting the chance to finish 2024-25 in Liiga with Lahti Pelicans. his 13 points in 22 games for the Pelicans earned him a shot in the KHL with Lada, but after scoring just two points in 14 games, he’s been waived.
  • To reinforce their forward group in the absence of Lawrence, Lada signed two KHL veterans to one-year contracts: Nikita Setdikov and Anton Burdasov. Setdikov, 30, brings nearly 300 games of KHL experience to the table, and he most recently played for Barys Astana, scoring 18 points in 51 games. The year prior, he was one of the top scorers for Nizhnekamsk Neftekhimik, scoring 30 points in 57 games. Burdasov, 34, has 663 games of KHL experience, and is a Gagarin Cup Champion as well as a former All-Star. He also played in Astana last season to limited success, but was a high-end, near point-per-game scorer as recently as 2022-23.
  • Former Boston Bruins farmhand Zane McIntyre has returned to the North American pro game after spending a year overseas. The 33-year-old netminder has signed a contract with the ECHL’s Tahoe Knight Monsters, per the league’s official transactions report. McIntyre spent last season with the Straubing Tigers of the German DEL, playing in 28 games to an .889 save percentage and 2.67 goals-against average. Among the 23 DEL goalies with at least 15 games played last year, McIntyre’s .889 save percentage ranked 22nd. With this newly-signed contract, he’s returning to the North American minor leagues, where he’s had quite a bit more success. A former top NCAA netminder, McIntyre has played in 300 AHL games and is a former All-Star. Since expected starter Jordan Papirny was recalled to the Henderson Silver Knights yesterday, McIntyre could get the chance to hold down the fort for the Knight Monsters for as long as Papirny remains in the AHL.
  • Former New York Rangers prospect Nico Gross signed a three-year contract extension with his current club, HC Davos of the Swiss NL. A 2018 fourth-rounder of the Rangers, Gross hasn’t played pro hockey in North America to this point in his career, but appears to have settled in nicely in the top pro league of his home country. Gross won two NL titles with EV Zug in 2021 and 2022 before transferring to Davos in advance of the 2024-25 season. This extension comes at a somewhat curious time for Gross. His ice time has declined sharply so far in 2025-26 – Gross is averaging 14:28 time-on-ice per game so far this season, per the NL’s stats page, but averaged 16:59 time-on-ice per game last season.
  • Former Chicago Blackhawks prospect Milton Oscarson signed a three-year extension with Örebro HK of the SHL, according to a team announcement. The Blackhawks spent a sixth-round pick at the 2023 entry draft to acquire him, but after he wasn’t able to develop offensively at the SHL level, they elected to let their exclusive rights to sign him expire this past summer. Although he hasn’t scored much, Oscarson has been a regular player for Örebro for more than three years now, and is currently playing 14:10 per game for the team, good for seventh among Örebro forwards.
  • After playing just six games for the team, the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs traded 2007-born defenseman Caden Campion to the WHL’s Wenatchee Wild in exchange for an eighth-round selection at the 2029 WHL Prospects Draft. The 6’1 right-shot blueliner spent last season in the BCHL, splitting his year between the Chilliwack Chiefs and Alberni Valley Bulldogs. Drafted 29th overall in the 2023 USHL Futures Draft, Campion’s WHL career hasn’t started off in ideal fashion, but this trade provides him with the chance to get a fresh start with a new team.
  • Gavin Gould, a two-time WCHA Champion with the Michigan Tech Huskies, has retired from pro hockey, per a social media announcement. Gould, 29, won back-to-back conference titles in his first two years playing college hockey but wasn’t able to build on that momentum in his final two years in the NCAA. He began his pro career in 2021 in the ECHL, and bounced between five different ECHL clubs across his nearly 200-game career. Gould’s most productive stretch came in 2021-22, when he scored 26 points in 23 games for the Allen Americans after a mid-season move from the Greenville Swamp Rabbits.

Ben Harpur Signs In KHL

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Veteran defenseman Ben Harpur has signed with the Shanghai Dragons of the Kontinental Hockey League for the remainder of the season, per Anton Panchenko of Championat. Harpur had hoped to land an NHL deal for this year and signed a professional tryout with the Panthers, but was released at the beginning of the month and wasn’t invited to their AHL camp, either.

Harpur, 30, has nearly 200 NHL games to his name but hasn’t logged any action since 2022-23 with the Rangers. He remained in New York’s organization for the following two seasons but played only for their AHL affiliate in Hartford. Injuries limited the 6’6″ lefty to just 36 total appearances in the minors from 2023-25, too.

An NHL return was an understandable long shot as a result, but a minor-league contract may have been within reach. Instead, the Ontario-born defender heads overseas for the first time in his 11-year pro career. He’ll do in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the China-based Dragons, who have longtime NHL bench boss Gerard Gallant at the helm and, with Harpur now in tow, carry nearly 2,000 games of combined NHL experience on their roster after rebranding from their former Kunlun Red Star identity last offseason. Harpur joins some familiar faces in Kevin Labanc, Alexander Burmistrov, and Ryan Spooner, among others. Gallant also oversaw Harpur’s most recent NHL games over two years ago.

Harpur joins a Dragons club that is quickly on the rise. The franchise never finished above .500 in their days as Kunlun Red Star, which began play back in 2016, but is off to a 9-3-3 start under Gallant and ranks second in the KHL’s Western Conference.

A fourth-round pick by the Senators in 2013, Harpur has logged time at the game’s top level with them, the Rangers, and the Predators. Topping out as a semi-reliable No. 7, the big stay-at-home rearguard has a career 2-19–21 scoring line with a -42 rating while averaging 15:38 of ice time per game. He also has 69 points and a -12 rating in 229 career AHL appearances.

Michael McLeod Signs With KHL’s Avangard Omsk

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After some lukewarm interest from the Carolina Hurricanes, Michael McLeod’s comeback bid to the NHL will prove unsuccessful. He will return to the organization where he played last season, as the KHL announced a three-year deal for McLeod with Avangard Omsk.

Toward the beginning of training camp, reports indicated that McLeod would inevitably sign with the Hurricanes to return to the North American professional circuit. Still, since the NHL determined that none of the acquitted players from the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial could sign until October 15th, it gave Carolina plenty of time to change their mind.

The Hurricanes faced significant backlash from fans over their decision to target McLeod and former Philadelphia Flyer Carter Hart after they became eligible to return. Carolina pivoted relatively quickly, with TSN’s Chris Johnston saying the two sides couldn’t “get to something both sides would be comfortable with.”

Now, McLeod will return to Russia on a relatively lengthy three-year pact with Avangard Omsk. He spent much of last season with the team, scoring three goals and 13 points in 19 games, and another three goals and six points in 13 games for Barys Astana. He had much improved offensive production in the Gagarin Cup playoffs, tallying one goal and eight points in nine postseason contests.

Avangard Omsk doesn’t have much in the way of former NHL talent outside of McLeod, though they do have former three-time AHL scoring champion Andrew Poturalski and former first overall pick Nail Yakupov. Additionally, the team is coached by Guy Boucher, former head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Ottawa Senators.

Kevin Labanc Signs With KHL’s Shanghai Dragons

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Winger Kevin Labanc has signed with the Shanghai Dragons of the Kontinental Hockey League, the team announced. He had attended the Hurricanes’ training camp on a PTO but was released several days ago.

Labanc, 30 in December, was once one of the league’s more intriguing young players, but his peak was early and short-lived. He fell to the Sharks in the sixth round of the 2014 draft but immediately exploded for a pair of 100-point seasons with the OHL’s Barrie Colts before turning pro with San Jose in 2016.

He stuck immediately, barely seeing any minor-league action in his first pro season and quickly emerging as a top-nine threat on a loaded Sharks group that still included all of Logan Couture, Tomáš Hertl, Patrick Marleau, Joe Pavelski, and Joe Thornton. By his second year, he was averaging over 14 minutes per game and by Year 3, he played in all 82 games while recording a 17-39–56 scoring line to rank sixth on the team in scoring.

That would be the end of Labanc’s forward progress. He was a restricted free agent after his breakout year and, in hindsight, the Sharks were blessed to be cap-strapped and only sign him to a one-year, $1MM bridge. As the Sharks crumbled the following season, so did Labanc, whose production dropped to 33 points in 70 games along with a team-worst -33 rating. They still chose to reward that with a four-year, $18.9MM contract, betting on his upside. He still averaged 32 points per 82 games over that deal, but availability was an issue – dragged down by the pandemic and a dislocated shoulder that cost him most of the 2021-22 campaign, Labanc only averaged 49 appearances per season. By the end of the contract, he was no longer a regular in San Jose’s lineup and sat as a healthy scratch 32 times in the 2023-24 season.

Unsurprisingly, the Sharks moved on. Labanc even failed to land a guaranteed offer in free agency and settled for a camp tryout with the Devils, who ultimately decided not to sign him. He still ended up landing a one-year, league-minimum contract with the Blue Jackets, though. He was a serviceable bottom-six depth scorer for Columbus, notching a 2-10–12 scoring line in 34 games in just 10:30 per night until another shoulder surgery ended his season in February.

Like the summer before, Labanc didn’t have any offers on July 1. He was receiving KHL interest from CSKA Moscow relatively early in free agency, but declined it in hopes of still landing an NHL deal. After not converting on his PTO with Carolina, though, he’ll head to the KHL’s lone China-based club (although they currently play in St. Petersburg) to play under longtime NHL head coach Gerard Gallant.

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