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Josh Ho-Sang Contemplating Retirement

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According to a report in Sport Express, former New York Islanders forward Josh Ho-Sang is reportedly considering retirement and has informed his KHL club, Ufa Salavat Yulaev, that he is still talking to his family about a decision. Ho-Sang was a first-round pick of the Islanders in 2014 and was never able to establish himself as an NHL regular despite possessing a ton of offensive talent.

Ho-Sang signed in the KHL last year with Ufa and in his first game against SKA in September he had an assist. Unfortunately, in that same game, he was injured and missed the remainder of the regular season. He underwent surgery and returned to play in four playoff games, where he went scoreless.

The injury itself isn’t the issue holding up Ho-Sang’s return as according to David Alter of The Hockey News it is possible that Ho-Sang could return to the KHL, but if he were to do this, he would need to become a Russian citizen. While he hasn’t ruled this out, the Thornhill, Ontario native hasn’t said that he has an interest in doing this, which is likely the issue being discussed with his family at the moment.

According to Alter, Ufa Salavat Yulaev has prepared the paperwork for Ho-Sang to become a citizen, should he decide to return to the team this season.

Ho-Sang lasted played in North America with the Toronto Marlies in 2021-22. During his time in the AHL with Toronto, he posted 16 goals and 19 assists in 47 games.

Michael Dal Colle Signs In Germany

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Former New York Islanders forward Michael Dal Colle is extending his stay overseas by signing a one-year deal with the DEL’s Iserlohn Roosters, per an announcement from the German club. The 2014 fifth-overall pick has not suited up in the NHL since a lone appearance with the Islanders in 2021-22.

To say Dal Colle’s career has stagnated since his draft year would be an understatement. He never stuck in the NHL full time, spending most of his pro tenure with the Islanders organization with their AHL affiliate in Bridgeport. The team cut ties with their former top prospect in the summer of 2022, letting him become a UFA by not issuing him a qualifying offer. With no other NHL offers, Dal Colle signed in Finland with Liiga club TPS, where he registered just four goals in 36 games. However, he did add a respectable 15 assists for 19 points in total.

Still, it’s far below expectations for Dal Colle, who now seems destined to play out the remainder of his pro career in Europe. The 27-year-old winger totaled just 112 NHL appearances for the Islanders across five seasons, scoring eight goals and 13 assists for 21 points. It wasn’t a case of strong minors production not translating to the pros, either. He only had one standout year in the AHL, recording 18 goals and 34 points in 34 games for Bridgeport in 2018-19, but otherwise posted rather pedestrian point totals representative of a middle-six AHL forward.

In Iserlohn, Dal Colle joins a team stuck in the throes of DEL mediocrity – never good enough to advance deep in the postseason nor bad enough to get relegated to the DEL2, Germany’s second-tier pro league. In fact, the current iteration of the Roosters has never been demoted from the DEL since their inception in 2000-01, but they’ve yet to advance past the quarterfinals in the DEL’s postseason. Iserlohn has also missed the playoffs entirely in each of the past two seasons.

Dal Colle will look to regain some scoring confidence in Germany, while Iserlohn will bank on the former top-five pick producing well for them in an extended role. He joins former Tampa Bay Lightning defense prospect Ben Thomas and former Chicago Blackhawks forward Drew LeBlanc as players with NHL experience on Iserlohn’s roster.

New York Islanders Sign Jakub Skarek

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The New York Islanders today signed restricted free agent goaltender Jakub Skarek to a two-year, two-way contract, per a team release. Skarek’s new deal carries a $775K cap hit with the following breakdown, per the New York Post’s Ethan Sears:

2023-24: $775K NHL salary, $85K minors salary, $100K minimum guaranteed salary
2024-25: $775K NHL salary, $105K minors salary, $135K minimum guaranteed salary

After signing Oliver Wahlstrom to a deal equivalent to his qualifying offer yesterday, the Islanders have re-signed all of their restricted free agents this offseason.

Skarek, 23, sits third on the team’s goalie depth chart behind Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov. He’s expected to take on a slightly more significant role in the minors next season with the AHL’s Bridgeport Islanders, as they haven’t retained veteran netminder Cory Schneider, who split starts with Skarek last season, for 2023-24.

The 6-foot-4, 205-pound netminder has shown good flashes of play for Bridgeport, but he’s been inconsistent throughout his time there. He’s yet to record above a .900 save percentage in his four seasons in the minors.

Drafted by the Islanders in the third round of the 2018 NHL Draft, Skarek’s accumulated a 37-49-10 record, a 3.34 goals-against-average, a .893 save percentage and four shutouts in 103 career games with Bridgeport. Next season, he projects to be the team’s first call-up option if Sorokin or Valramov goes down with an injury or is otherwise unavailable.

New York Islanders Re-Sign Oliver Wahlstrom

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The New York Islanders have taken care of business with their last notable restricted free agent, re-signing forward Oliver Wahlstrom to a one-year deal. The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz reports that Wahlstrom agreed to his qualifying offer, which would carry a cap hit of just $874,125 next season.

The 23-year-old sniper went 11th overall to the Islanders in the 2018 NHL Draft, but he’s yet to really hit his stride as a pro hockey player. Last season certainly didn’t help matters – a lower-body injury kept him out past the new year and limited him to just 35 games.

He’s played 161 NHL games thus far in his career, notching decent production with 32 goals and 61 points, but he hasn’t cemented himself in a top-six role yet. That’s what he was drafted to do, and he’ll need to impress in his standard third-line minutes in order to move up a famously rigid Islanders depth chart.

He should get some help playing alongside Jean-Gabriel Pageau, one of the better third-line centers in the league, but he’ll likely need some more power play opportunities under head coach Lane Lambert to get his goal-scoring confidence back after a trying couple of campaigns.

This is an important signing for the Islanders to get done in salary cap terms. They had very little flexibility, and getting Wahlstrom to agree to his qualifying offer leaves them with just enough space to remain cap-compliant to start the season with a full 23-player roster with no corresponding moves. However, it won’t be much – likely less than $500K of cap space on opening night.

If the Islanders are to reach the playoffs again in a competitive Eastern Conference, Wahlstrom’s depth scoring will likely be a big part of it. He’s set to be a restricted free agent again next summer.

New York Islanders Name Rick Kowalsky Head Coach Of AHL Affiliate

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The New York Islanders have promoted Rick Kowalsky to the role of head coach of the Bridgeport Islanders, their AHL affiliate.

Kowalsky has served as an assistant coach in Bridgeport for the last two seasons, and now with former Bridgeport bench boss Brent Thompson off to the Anaheim Ducks, Kowalsky has been tapped to lead the Islanders’ AHL development efforts.

Kowalsky, 51, has prior experience as a head coach in the AHL. He led the New Jersey Devils’ AHL affiliate for eight seasons. In that span, Kowalsky’s teams posted a combined 281-249-82 record.

Although he only made the AHL playoffs three times with the Devils and won just one playoff series in eight seasons, Kowalsky’s teams produced some players who would go on to establish themselves in the NHL. Players such as Adam Henrique, Blake Coleman, Mackenzie Blackwood, Kevin Rooney, and Scott Wedgewood each spent time developing under Kowalsky and went on to become legitimate NHLers.

After a difficult 2017-18 season, Kowalsky moved to a role as an assistant coach with the Devils’ NHL squad, and helped shepherd them through some rebuilding seasons. Now, after two seasons spent as an assistant in Bridgeport, Kowalsky will have a second chance to lead an AHL team and will look to deliver NHL talent to Long Island.

The Islanders have some promising prospects set to play in the AHL, such as William Dufour, Ruslan Iskhakov, and Matt Maggio. The hope will be that Kowalsky can help those players develop and build towards NHL readiness.

Pageau And Wahlstrom Part Of Offer For DeBrincat

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The Islanders were one of the teams interested in winger Alex DeBrincat with Newsday’s Andrew Gross reporting that Jean-Gabriel Pageau and winger Oliver Wahlstrom were part of their pitch to Ottawa to try to get DeBrincat’s services.  Presumably, the offer would have also featured a first-round pick and another younger element.  Pageau is no stranger to Ottawa having spent parts of eight seasons with the team but the 30-year-old has three years left on his contract with a $5MM AAV, a price tag the Sens likely didn’t want to take on.  The total salary in the trade they did make with Detroit was assuming the final year and $2.5MM of Dominik Kubalik’s contract.

Snapshots: Snow, Flames, Morozov

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Former Islanders GM Garth Snow hasn’t been officially on the job since 2018 but is only now officially a free agent with his payout from the team ending last month.  Now that he’s allowed to speak publicly, he told Kevin Kurz of The Athletic (subscription link) that he is hoping to join another franchise in some sort of front-office capacity.  Snow had a rather strange journey to the front office, going from being New York’s backup goalie to their GM in a matter of weeks.  The team didn’t have a lot of playoff success under his watch (they got past the first round just once) but several players he drafted during his tenure are playing key roles for the Isles.  While a GM job doesn’t seem likely, it’s possible that Snow could land a different role in someone’s front office in the coming months.

Elsewhere around the hockey world:

  • Speaking with reporters today including Ryan Pike of Flames Nation (Twitter link), Calgary GM Craig Conroy stated that he’s hoping to have a new AHL head coach in place within the next week or so. Mitch Love was the reigning two-time Louis AR Pieri Memorial Award winner for Coach of the Year but after being passed up for the top job in Calgary, he accepted an assistant coaching role with Washington earlier this summer.
  • Vegas’ AHL team in Henderson announced that they have loaned winger Ivan Morozov to Spartak of the KHL for next season. The 23-year-old played his first full season in North America last season, picking up six goals and 11 assists in 57 games.  Morozov has one year left on his contract with the Golden Knights and considering that he’ll be spending next season overseas, it seems safe to infer that he’s unlikely to be re-signed at this point in time.  If that’s the case, it won’t be a great return on a late second-round selection from back in 2018 (61st overall).

Detroit Red Wings Expected To Terminate Filip Zadina’s Contract

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Jul 6: As expected, Zadina is on the waiver wire today for the purposes of mutual contract termination, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. He’s joined by New York Islanders farmhand Andy Andreoff, who had one season left on a two-way contract.

Jul 5: The Detroit Red Wings are expected to place 2018 sixth-overall pick Filip Zadina on waivers again tomorrow, this time for the purpose of terminating his contract, reports Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.

There’s little reason to believe anyone would issue a claim if Detroit does opt to go the contract termination route, considering Zadina cleared just yesterday and was made available to all 31 teams via trade – yet he remains a Red Wing today.

The reason for that isn’t necessarily that no one wants to take him on as a reclamation project. It’s the financial commitment that comes with him – he’s got two seasons remaining on a backloaded $1.825MM AAV contract that would result in a costly gamble for a team claiming him if it doesn’t pan out. In real cash, he’s owed $4.56MM over the next two seasons.

It’s money that Zadina could willing to walk away from entirely to have a better chance of a successful NHL career, says Friedman. Although Zadina’s agent, Darren Ferris, declined to comment on the matter, Friedman’s reporting suggests Zadina has made it clear he would not report if assigned to the AHL next season, which would violate his contract and result in suspension without pay.

With both Zadina and Detroit cleared of any contractual obligation to each other, he would then be free to sign with any team in the league – giving him full control over his destiny, at least among the teams interested in adding him. Zadina had already requested a trade before the draft, which Detroit general manager Steve Yzerman expressed earlier in the week, but again cited Zadina’s contract as a significant obstacle in moving him.

Yzerman had expressed his reluctance to put Zadina on waivers, considering he’d signed the winger to a three-year contract just a year ago with the belief that he would continue to develop. It didn’t happen this season, as he posted just seven points in 30 games and averaged 13:05 per game.

All that being said, it’s fair to speculate now which teams could have interest in picking up the Czech-born winger, and where he could have success and ultimately develop into the top-six (or top-nine, at this point) forward he was projected to be.

Somewhat ironically, Zadina has some history with two teams that could make sense. Before falling to Detroit at sixth overall at the 2018 Draft, Zadina said regarding two teams, the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators, that “if they will pass on me, I’m going to fill their nets with pucks.” Montreal selected Jesperi Kotkaniemi third overall, while Ottawa selected now-captain Brady Tkachuk with the fourth selection. Both teams are looking to add some forward depth today, and Montreal has displayed a liking to taking on reclamation projects in recent years (Kirby Dach, Denis Gurianov, Alex Newhook).

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

New York Islanders Sign Three Players

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The New York Islanders made a trio of depth forward additions today, signing Julien Gauthier, Karson Kuhlman, and Brian Pinho in free agency. Per the team, Gauthier received a two-year deal, while Kuhlman and Pinho received one-year, two-way contracts.

CapFriendly confirms Gauthier’s contract carries an average annual value of $787.5K, paid out as $775K in 2023-24 and $800K in 2024-25. Ethan Sears of the New York Post adds Kuhlman and Pinho’s deals both carry cap hits of $775K, with Kuhlman’s deal earning him $300K in the minors and a $350K guaranteed salary.

Gauthier is an interesting addition, especially on a one-way deal. The former first-round pick hasn’t lived up to expectations and is now on his fourth NHL organization, although he did score a career-high nine goals and 14 points in 57 games last season, split between the New York Rangers and Ottawa Senators.

The 25-year-old does have good size at 6-foot-4 and 227 pounds, but it’ll be tough to land an everyday spot in the Islanders’ lineup. He’ll most likely compete for a third-line role with Hudson Fasching, a career AHLer who broke out for 10 goals and 19 points in 49 games with the Islanders and earned the trust of the team’s coaching staff. With the team unlikely to break up their longstanding fourth line of Cal Clutterbuck, Casey Cizikas, and Matt Martin until one of them retires, bottom-six roles will be scarce.

Kuhlman joins the Islanders after spending the last two seasons entirely in the NHL and being claimed on waivers twice, once by the Seattle Kraken in 2021-22 and the Winnipeg Jets in 2022-23. In his five-season, 147-game NHL career, the 27-year-old American has 12 goals and 30 points. The two-way deal suggests he could be heading back to the minors for his first extended stint there since 2018-19, where he put up 12 goals and 30 points in 58 games with the Providence Bruins.

Pinho comes over as a veteran AHLer, amassing 225 games in the minors over five seasons spent with the Washington Capitals and New Jersey Devils organizations. With only two NHL regular-season games to his name, both coming in the 2020-21 season, Pinho is likely destined for a middle-six role with the Islanders’ AHL affiliate in Bridgeport.

More On Alex DeBrincat, Vladimir Tarasenko

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Ottawa Senators winger Alex DeBrincat was expected to be one of the hottest commodities on the offseason trade front for the second season in a row. After heading over to the Sens by way of Chicago last season, his offensive production took a small step back in 2022-23, and he then informed Ottawa he wasn’t willing to sign a long-term extension with them – or anywhere in Canada. Yesterday, general manager Pierre Dorion admitted to Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch that he’d granted DeBrincat’s camp permission to speak to teams about an extension on “multiple occasions,” but that proposed deals had fallen through at that point.

Garrioch was able to independently confirm that today, saying that DeBrincat’s desired contract extension is what’s holding up a trade going through – not the offers Ottawa is receiving for trade returns.

DeBrincat’s agent, Jeff Jackson, has been granted permission by the Senators to engage in contract extension talks with at least three different teams, Garrioch said. He’s reportedly seeking an eight-year, $70.2MM deal, coming in just under the $70.4MM extension Timo Meier signed with the New Jersey Devils last month. That would be an $8.775MM cap hit for DeBrincat, with Garrioch saying teams are trying to get him signed to a contract closer to the $8MM mark.

Obviously, the ongoing delay in resolving DeBrincat’s contract situation is hampering other important business for the Senators. Clearing his $9MM cap hit for the upcoming season would free up significant cap space, enabling the team to sign other players ahead of a 2023-24 season where the expectation is to unequivocally turn a corner in their rebuild – including, potentially, Vladimir Tarasenko, who The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta says is nearing a decision on where to sign. Ottawa remains in the running for his services, as do the Carolina Hurricanes (who’ve already added Dmitry Orlov and Michael Bunting as UFAs).

The New York Islanders and Anaheim Ducks have shown interest in acquiring DeBrincat, Garrioch reiterates, with offers likely to include a roster player that can contribute immediately.

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