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KHL’s Shanghai Dragons Name Gerard Gallant Head Coach

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Aug. 13: After rebranding as the Shanghai Dragons earlier this month and announcing plans to move back to China following the 2025-26 season, the club has officially named Gallant as its new head coach. It’s a two-year deal, the league announced.

July 17: Veteran NHL coach Gerard Gallant is officially heading overseas, having agreed to a deal with the KHL’s Kunlun Red Stars, according to RG’s Daria Tuboltseva. While the team had previously been linked to other high-profile NHL coaches like Mike Babcock and John Tortorella, Gallant will ultimately take the reins.

The team is technically based in Beijing, but Kunlun hasn’t played in China since the pandemic. Instead, they’ve played out of a suburb in Moscow the last few years, but will now begin playing out of St. Petersburg’s SKA Arena, which has an impressive capacity of 22,500.

While last season marked the team’s best finish in five years, Kunlun Red Stars still posted a lackluster 19-34-9-6 record. The club hasn’t made the KHL playoffs since the 2016-17 season, and now they will turn to Gallant—who has coached 705 NHL games—to lead their turnaround.

Gallant, 61, last coached in the NHL with the New York Rangers during the 2022–23 season, guiding the team to a 47-22-13 record. However, the Rangers were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, leading to his departure. Despite his .662-point percentage with the Rangers, the team went a different direction following the 2022-23 season (replacing Gallant with Peter Laviolette).

Gallant’s most successful season as a head coach came during the 2017-18 season when he improbably led the Vegas Golden Knights to the Stanley Cup Final during their first season. He led the expansion team to a 51-24-7 record, clinching first place in the Pacific Division, and won the Jack Adams Award as the league’s top coach. However, two seasons later, Gallant was fired and replaced by Peter DeBoer.

Over parts of 11 seasons as an NHL head coach, Gallant has compiled a 369-262-4-70 record, good for a .576 points percentage. The Prince Edward Island native also enjoyed a productive playing career, appearing in 615 NHL games and tallying 480 points over 11 seasons. After hanging up his skates, Gallant worked his way through the coaching ranks, holding positions in the IHL, QMJHL, and AHL before eventually making the jump to the NHL.

 

Rocco Grimaldi, Joseph Blandisi Sign In KHL

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Former New Jersey Devils forward Joseph Blandisi has signed a two-year contract with SKA St. Petersburg of Russia’s KHL. Blandisi will be joined in the move by fellow AHL veteran Rocco Grimaldi, whose contract details haven’t yet been revealed, per Pavel Panyshev of Russia’s Championat. This will mark the first overseas move of both player’s careers, after years of rooted roles in the minor leagues.

Grimaldi boast the slightly richer career of the two, accumulating 203 NHL games and 499 AHL games over his nine-year career. He was originally drafted with the 33rd-overall pick in the 2011 NHL Draft by the Florida Panthers. Grimaldi followed his draft selection with three seasons at the University of North Dakota. He found great success in college, despite a freshman year derailed by injury, and entered the pros with wind behind his sails in the 2014-15 season.

Grimaldi scored a hot 42 points in 64 games of his AHL rookie season. That was enough to earn the first seven games of his NHL career, though he only managed one goal in those appearances. He spent the next four years firmly rooted in the rut of hot AHL scoring and meager NHL totals, until the 2018-19 Nashville Predators opted to reward Grimaldi with his first full year in the NHL. He scored just 13 points in 53 games with the club, but shined through enough to cement a bottom-six role for the next three seasons. But after not finding another gear at the top flight, Grimaldi was relegated back to the minors in 2022. His role was defined as a top AHL scorer with limited upward mobility – a sentiment that’s kept Grimaldi from receiving any NHL games in three years, despite scoring 256 points in 252 games since 2022.

Blandisi has fallen into a similar rut over recent years. After bearing through split AHL and NHL minutes between 2015 and 2020, the former sixth-round selection landed a full-time role in the minors in the 2020-21 season. He’s since found upside as both a scorer and bruiser, a role best highlighted by his 59 points and 110 penalty minutes in 70 games with the Toronto Marlies in the 2023-24 season. He followed that performance with 35 points and 82 penalty minutes in 58 games last season, bringing his career-long totals up to 321 points and 664 penalty minutes in 448 games and 10 seasons in the AHL. He also has 31 points in 101 NHL games.

Both players will look to escape middling roles in North America with a move to Russia’s top squad. They’ll join a rich squad in SKA, headlined by returning scorers Sergei Plotnikov and Marat Khairullin. Grimaldi and Blandisi should have no trouble finding hardy middle-six minutes, following SKA’s loss of Evgeny Kuznetsov and Mikhail Grigorenko this off-season. SKA finished second in their division, and got bumped from the conference quarterfinals, last season.

Morning Notes: Price, Leivo, Duclair

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Despite not having played since the 2021-22 campaign and being unofficially retired, Carey Price’s contract could become a trade chip for the Montreal Canadiens in a few weeks. In a new report from RG Media, the Canadiens are already gauging interest in Price’s $10.5MM cap hit, especially for teams looking to create a significant gap between themselves and the salary cap floor, with any hypothetical deal taking place after September 1st.

The significance of the September 1st date lies in the structure of Price’s contract. Despite carrying a $10.5MM cap hit, Price is only receiving $7.5MM in actual salary for the final year of his contract, with $5.5MM of that being paid out via signing bonus on September 1st. Furthermore, with only $2MM remaining, $1.2MM of that will be paid by insurance, leaving the acquiring team on the hook for $800K assuming Montreal pays the first signing bonus.

However, the number of trade partners is thin, as only the Anaheim Ducks, Chicago Blackhawks, and San Jose Sharks would be the only teams to truly benefit from acquiring Price’s contract, although it’s even difficult to make an argument for the Ducks, given that they’re trying to compete this upcoming season. Hypothetically, either the Blackhawks or Sharks could take on the $10.5 million salary cap hit. This move would provide them with greater flexibility to trade higher-priced veterans next season at the trade deadline, such as Alexander Wennberg, Nick Foligno, or Jason Dickinson, without risking falling below the salary cap floor.

Other morning notes:

  • Earlier this morning, Patrick Williams of FloHockey reported that Josh Leivo’s contract with the KHL’s Salavat Yulaev Ufa had been terminated. A few moments later, Williams shared that the KHL is not allowing the termination of the agreement, but Leivo is dealing with significant visa issues. Given the global political climate, it’s nearly impossible to enter Russia from a Western country without a visa, which has caused Leivo to miss a decent chunk of training camp. Leivo was one of the best players in the KHL last season, scoring 49 goals and 80 points in 62 games with a +26 rating.
  • Last season, an end-of-the-year feud between New York Islander Anthony Duclair and head coach Patrick Roy caused the former to step away from the team. Still, Duclair is coming into the 2025-26 season more motivated than ever. In a new article from Stefen Rosner of The Hockey News, Rosner quoted Duclair saying, “The Islanders right now are my team. I love them. I love playing for them. I love the fans. We got a great hockey rink. It’s been a joy, and  I’m looking forward to a great season. And I’m looking forward to bouncing back and hopefully getting into the playoffs.“

Snapshots: Blackhawks, Mittelstadt, Chelios

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New Blackhawks head coach Jeff Blashill spoke at length to Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times about his philosophy to steer the team out of its rebuild in an interview published Sunday.

That will revolve around making Chicago’s young forward group more backcheck-oriented. “The reason for that is, one, it’s a work-ethic indicator,” Blashill said, “…it’s one of the best ways to create transition offensive opportunities — by being smothering in your effort to come back as forwards. That allows your [defensemen] to gap up, create turnovers and go the other way.”

As Blashill states, that style of play should better suit one of the league’s youngest defense groups that’s heavily stocked with offensive-minded players. Doing so should help accentuate the strengths of names like 2022 No. 7 overall pick Kevin Korchinski, looking to get back on his feet after spending most of his sophomore professional season with AHL Rockford.

Blashill also clarified the responsibilities of his assistants. Anders Sorensen, staying on as an assistant after ending last season as their interim head coach, will manage the team’s defensemen. Incoming assistants Michael Peca and Mike Vellucci will both work with the forward group, while Peca oversees the penalty kill and Vellucci oversees the power play.

More from around the league this Sunday evening:

  • A tumultuous run for Casey Mittelstadt might continue. While the Bruins acquired him from the Avalanche at last year’s trade deadline in exchange for Charlie Coyle, the organization isn’t deadset on keeping him long-term and would listen to trade interest, James Murphy of RG reports. Mittelstadt was the most widely known portion of their trade return, but Boston’s focal point in the return for sending Coyle to Colorado was picking up the signing rights to forward prospect Will Zellers, a league source told Murphy. The 2024 third-rounder had 71 points in 52 games for the USHL’s Green Bay Gamblers last season and will kick off his freshman year with North Dakota in a few weeks.
  • As the KHL’s Kunlun Red Star rebrands to the Shanghai Dragons, defenseman Jake Chelios won’t be staying with the team, per Anton Panchenko of Championat. The former Red Wings rearguard and son of Hall-of-Famer Chris Chelios had played for Kunlun since the 2019-20 season, ranking as the franchise’s all-time leader in games played. That was long enough for him to obtain Chinese nationality, allowing him to suit up for the country at the 2022 Winter Olympics, 2022 Division 2A World Championship, and the 2023 Division 1B World Championship. The 34-year-old had just five points and a -25 rating in 31 appearances last season, though.

Morning Notes: Roslovic, Bonk, Avalanche

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The free agent market for centerman Jack Roslovic is growing richer by the day. In addition to garnering interest from multiple teams across the league, Roslovic has also received multiple offers from teams in Russia’s KHL, per Dylan Griffing of EliteProspects. Those offers will likely ring on deaf ears for a centerman who has spent the last nine seasons in the NHL, but they will ramp up the pressure on NHL clubs to get a deal in place.

Roslovic is certainly worth the late-summer intrigue. He’s filled the role of gritty and responsible bottom-six center through multiple stops in the league. His career began with the Winnipeg Jets, who drafted Roslovic at 25th-overall in the 2015 NHL Draft. The Jets provided a chance for Roslovic to plant his feet in the NHL, but he didn’t find a true breakout until a 2021 move to the Columbus Blue Jackets. He scored 34 points in 48 games of the shortened 2021 season with Columbus – or, an 82-game pace of 58 points – then followed it up with 45 points and 44 points in two full seasons. He’s since toured through stops with the New York Rangers and Carolina Hurricanes, and continues to offer a mix of gritty physical and near-40 points each season. That standing will make him a desirable asset for all leagues, though a stay in the NHL seems all-but-guaranteed.

Other notes from around the league:

  • Philadelphia Flyers prospect Oliver Bonk shared that his sights are set high for his first professional season in a motivated interview with Jordan Hall of NBC Sports Philadelphia. He shared that his goal will, of course, be to make the Flyers lineup out of training camp – but that he’s putting equal attention towards making sure he keeps his eyes set on the ultimate goal, no matter the outcome of camp. Bonk is coming off an incredibly successful junior hockey career, capped off with a Memorial Cup win with the OHL’s London Knights. He scored 54 points in 69 games this season, and 73 points in 78 games in the 2023-24 campaign. It will be an uphill battle to jump straight to the NHL, but Bonk will have the upper hand as a 6-foot-2, 210-pound defender with speed and puck-moving ability.
  • The Colorado Avalanche could be searching for depth forwards for the extent of another season. A recent breakdown of their roster by Aarif Deen of Colorado Hockey Now reveals a shortage of talent at the center position – a group that the Avalanche have long struggled to stock fully. The Avalanche will have the benefit of getting a full year out of 25-year-old center Jack Drury, who split last season between Colorado and Carolina. But in the mixed year, Drury’s 18 points in 72 games still looks meager. A lack of depth could offer Drury – or a player currently on the outside, like Ivan Ivan – a chance to show his might before the Avalanche have time to bring in another new face. Colorado currently sits with a little more than $2MM in available cap space, per Puckpedia.

Minor Signings: Russell, Berdin, Welsh

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The ECHL’s Savannah Ghost Pirates have signed forward Mitchell Russell for the 2025-26 campaign, per a team announcement.

Russell, 24, was an undrafted free agent signing by the Sharks in 2022 from the OHL’s North Bay Battalion. Injuries limited him out of the gate, making just two appearances for the ECHL’s Wichita Thunder in his first professional season.

The 6’0″, 194-lb winger didn’t see NHL ice over the duration of his three-year, entry-level contract. He was non-tendered in June, making him an unrestricted free agent after he scored two goals in 12 games for the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda and a 19-25–44 scoring line in 81 games for Wichita over his brief pro career.

He’ll now head to Savannah, the second-tier affiliate of the Panthers, to further his pro career. The team only has eight players under contract for 2025-26, including Russell, and will no doubt have most of their roster filled out by loans from their AHL parent, the Charlotte Checkers.

More minor moves from around the sport:

  • Former Jets goaltending prospect Mikhail Berdin is on the move in his native Russia, with the KHL announcing he’s signed a one-year deal with Ak Bars Kazan. Berdin, who became a Group VI unrestricted free agent in 2023, was limited to just 11 appearances last season with Avangard Omsk. He was spectacular when available, though, recording a .929 SV%, 1.87 GAA, and a 7-1-2 record. If the 27-year-old puts up a season like that for Ak Bars, he should put himself in contention for an NHL contract next summer.
  • Journeyman defenseman Nicholas Welsh has signed with the Manchester Storm of the EIHL, the United Kingdom’s highest level of competition. Welsh, 28, was a dynamic threat in the QMJHL and racked up 181 points in 329 junior games for Shawinigan and Moncton but only sniffed a pro career in North America, recording three points in 17 games for the Sabres’ AHL affiliate in Rochester in 2020-21. He’s since made stops in Slovakia, Germany, Finland, and Austria. He ended last season with Liiga’s KooKoo, where he had four points in 14 combined regular-season and playoff games.

Minor Transactions: 8/4/25

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As we creep a little closer to training camps starting up, there have been a handful of minor moves around the hockey world recently.  We’ll run through those here.

  • Veteran goaltender Anton Khudobin has announced his retirement at the age of 39, Shaiba.kz relays. Khudobin spent parts of 14 seasons in the NHL, compiling a 114-92-33 record with a 2.52 GAA and a .916 SV% with six different teams.  After spending most of 2022-23 in the minors, he opted to play in Russia but didn’t play much at the VHL or KHL levels.  Khudobin didn’t suit up at all last season but has now made his retirement official.
  • The Hurricanes’ affiliate, the Chicago Wolves, announced (Twitter link) the re-signing of center Nikita Pavlychev and the signing of defenseman Jacob Friend to one-year contracts. Pavlychev had his best AHL performance last season, picking up 25 points in 63 games after primarily playing in the ECHL for the previous four years.  As for Friend, he split last season between playing in Austria and Germany but has three years of playing in the minor pros in North America.
  • After being moved in the KHL just a few days ago, Matvei Guskov has a new team once again as he has signed with HK Sochi. The Wild drafted Guskov in the fifth round back in 2019 but he has struggled since then, especially last season where he had just four goals in 38 games spread between three other KHL teams.  Sochi’s rosters usually aren’t as deep so Guskov may have a pathway to a bigger role and more production now with this move.  Minnesota continues to hold his NHL signing rights indefinitely.
  • AHL Rockford, affiliate of the Blackhawks, announced the signing of defenseman Tyson Feist to a one-year deal. The 24-year-old only played in six AHL games last season, spending most of the year with ECHL Orlando where he had 17 points in 57 appearances.  However, Feist saw action in 32 AHL contests in 2023-24 and will be looking to see more regular action at that level in 2025-26.

Central Notes: Girard, Milota, Guskov

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While Colorado ultimately wasn’t able to re-sign defenseman Ryan Lindgren (who instead inked a four-year deal with Seattle), their efforts to do so called into question the future of Samuel Girard with the team.  Aarif Deen of Colorado Hockey Now speculates that the Avalanche could be open to moving the blueliner.  While he was deployed as their third defender during the regular season, his usage dropped to third-pairing minutes in the postseason and if head coach Jared Bednar feels that’s the more optimal spot for him moving forward, he’d be a pricey third-pairing player at $5MM through the next two seasons.

Although the Avs are into cap compliance after some offseason shuffling, they could still use some more flexibility on that front, especially with Martin Necas eyeing a significant extension for 2026-27.  On the other hand, Girard is one of just two left-shot blueliners in the Avalanche’s top six so if they were to move him, it might be more of a player-for-player swap that would see them get another blueliner in return rather than a true cap-clearing move.

Elsewhere in the Central:

  • Predators prospect Jakub Milota has been traded in the QMJHL as Cape Breton announced that they traded the netminder to Blainville-Boisbriand. The 19-year-old was a fourth-round pick in 2024, going 99th overall and is coming off a decent season with the Eagles that saw him post a 3.22 GAA and a .903 SV% while also earning a late-season ATO with AHL Milwaukee.  The Preds have until June 1, 2026 to sign Milota so it’s safe to say 2025-26 will be a key season for him.
  • Wild draft pick Matvei Guskov is on the move in the KHL as the league announced earlier this week that he has been traded from Traktor Chelyabinsk to Severstal Cherepovets. The 24-year-old was a fifth-round pick back in 2019 with Minnesota holding his rights indefinitely with no transfer agreement in place between the NHL and the Russian Hockey Federation.  Guskov is coming off a tough year that saw him record just one goal and three assists in 38 games between three different KHL teams.

Jimmy Vesey Receiving KHL Offers

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Free agent winger Jimmy Vesey is receiving offers from multiple Kontinental Hockey League clubs without an NHL offer on the table so far this offseason, according to Daria Tuboltseva of RG.org.

Vesey, 32, finished the season with the Avalanche after they acquired him from the Rangers in March in the Ryan Lindgren deal. He was hoping for a more consistent role in Denver after a string of healthy scratches in New York led Vesey to tell Larry Brooks of the New York Post that he was “kind of dying by being here,” but that didn’t happen. He only played in 10 of Colorado’s final 21 regular-season games and did not dress in their first-round playoff loss to the Stars.

Vesey finished the season with a 5-3–8 scoring line in 43 games of action between the Rangers and Avs, his fewest NHL appearances in a single season since beginning his career in 2016. The 6’2′, 203-lb winger also averaged a career-low 10:39 per game with only 12 blocks and 32 hits. His possession impacts were similarly pedestrian, as they have been for most of his nine NHL seasons.

Understandably, Vesey was not offered an extension by the Avs and has had a hard time finding a deal nearly a month into free agency. That has him “seriously considering offers” from the KHL as compared to trying to look for a minor-league contract to continue playing in North America.

SKA St. Petersburg has been the most aggressive in pursuing the veteran of over 600 NHL games, Tuboltseva reports. He’s also fielded calls from Ak Bars Kazan, Dinamo Minsk, and Kunlun Red Star, where he could reunite with former Rangers coach Gerard Gallant, under whom he spent the 2022-23 season.

East Notes: Dadonov, Gritsyuk, Hagens, Peddle

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One of the more under-the-radar signings on the opening day of unrestricted free agency this month was the Devils signing winger Evgenii Dadonov to a one-year, $1MM contract that also contains $2.25MM in games played and playoff bonuses.  He told Sports.ru’s Dmitry Shevchenko that he had two or three other similar offers on the table in terms of money and bonus-laden structure while not giving much consideration to the offers made for him to return home to the KHL.  Dadonov is coming off a 20-goal, 20-assist season in Dallas but saw his role reduced in the playoffs which likely didn’t help his cause on the open market this month.

Elsewhere in the East:

  • Still with the Devils, prospect winger Arseni Gritsyuk acknowledged to Alexey Shevchenko of Sport-Express that he has a European Assignment Clause in his deal. It will kick in if he’s not on New Jersey’s roster by November 15th.  The 24-year-old had a strong showing with SKA St. Petersburg of the KHL last season, notching 17 goals and 27 assists in 49 games, helping earn him a one-year, entry-level pact back in May.  It appears Gritsyuk is open to starting the season with AHL Utica but only for a short period of time.
  • While the Bruins could probably use James Hagens in their lineup for the upcoming season, Boston.com’s Conor Ryan suggests that the best thing for their new top prospect would be to stay in college for another year. Hagens was a point-per-game player in 37 games for Boston College last season, an impressive performance as an underager, leading some to think he could be ready to make the jump.  But rather than throw him into the mix in what could be another retooling season, Hagens might be better off being the undisputed top player for the Eagles (following the departures of Ryan Leonard and Gabe Perreault) for next season, then getting a few games in with Boston once his college campaign comes to an end.
  • Penguins prospect Brady Peddle has decided to head to major junior as QMJHL Charlottetown announced that they’ve signed the blueliner for the upcoming season. The 18-year-old was a third-round pick last month, going 91st overall after spending last year with USHL Waterloo where he had 10 points in 62 regular season games and 10 more in 15 playoff outings.  Peddle is committed to Michigan State for 2026-27 and that appears to remain the intention so his junior stint is expected to just be for 2025-26.

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