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Josh Norris To Miss A Significant Amount Of Time

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Oct. 13th: According to Sabres correspondent Heather Engel, head coach Lindy Ruff suggests that Norris is expected to miss eight weeks of action. Still, he is receiving a second opinion on the injury. Should the second opinion agree on the recovery timeline, that would project Norris’ return in the first week of December, costing him over 25 games of the 2025-26 campaign.

Oct. 11th: On Friday, the Sabres were still evaluating Josh Norris’ upper-body injury to determine how long he might be out for.  The evaluation appears to be ongoing still but the outcome is not ideal as head coach Lindy Ruff told reporters, including Rachel Lenzi of The Buffalo News (Twitter link), that Norris will miss “a significant amount of time” due to the injury.

It is a tough but all-too-familiar blow for the 26-year-old as injuries have dogged him throughout his seven NHL seasons.  The injury occurred late in Thursday’s season opener against the Rangers off a faceoff and while he was eventually able to get up and go to the bench under his own power, he didn’t take a shift after that.

Norris was acquired by Buffalo in one of the bigger trades near the trade deadline last season, coming over from Ottawa with Dylan Cozens being the most significant piece going the other way in a swap of centers that might benefit from the change of scenery.  However, Norris wasn’t able to get a chance to prove that as he suffered a season-ending mid-body injury in just his third game with the team.  Now, he’s suffered another serious setback in his fourth game more than six months later.

Norris was coming off a 21-goal season in 2024-25, the second-best output of his career only coming behind the 35 tallies he had in 2021-22 with Ottawa.  The hope was that he’d be able to bring some extra firepower to their top six forward group and while that still could be the case, it clearly won’t be happening anytime soon.  Fortunately, Ruff later clarified to reporters, including WGR 550’s Paul Hamilton (Twitter link), that the injury isn’t related to any injuries he has had in the past.

If it’s determined that Norris will miss at least 10 games and 24 days with this latest injury, he will become LTIR-eligible.  However, with Buffalo having a little more than $2.2MM in cap space, per PuckPedia, they’re not necessarily in a spot where they should need to use that.  In the meantime, it’s likely that the Sabres will place him on regular injured reserve in the near future, opening up a roster spot for a recall from AHL Rochester.

Canadiens Sign Lane Hutson To Eight-Year Extension

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The Montreal Canadiens have gotten their young defensive star locked up for the foreseeable future. According to a team announcement, the Canadiens have signed Lane Hutson to an eight-year, $70.8MM ($8.85MM AAV) contract extension.

Shortly after the announcement, PuckPedia broke down the structure of Hutson’s new extension:

  • Year 1: $1MM salary, $11MM signing bonus
  • Year 2: $1MM salary, $11MM signing bonus
  • Year 3: $1MM salary, $9.5MM signing bonus
  • Year 4: $1MM salary, $6.5MM signing bonus
  • Year 5: $1.2MM salary, $6MM signing bonus
  • Year 6: $1.2MM salary, $6MM signing bonus, 10 team no-trade clause
  • Year 7: $2.2MM salary, $5MM signing bonus, 10-team no-trade clause
  • Year 8: $7.2MM salary, 10-team no-trade clause

The news is somewhat of a surprise, given last week’s update from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. Friedman noted that while both parties were close on terms and salary, there was a disagreement regarding “philosophy” concerning a Retirement Compensation Agreement (RCA). This agreement was the Canadiens’ attempt to maximize Hutson’s after-tax earnings while keeping his salary below $10MM.

In our update regarding Hutson, PHR’s Josh Erickson broke down an RCA, writing, “An RCA agreement allows a player to defer up to 49% of their salary – delaying earnings but retaining more of them. The deferred money isn’t taxed at its usual rate, which can exceed 50% in Canada for top NHL earners. Whatever is deferred is split in half, with one half going to a refundable deposit with Canada’s tax agency and the other half going into the trust. After an American player (i.e., Hutson) retires and returns to the United States, they receive the deposit back with no tax deducted. In contrast, withdrawals from the trust are taxed at American federal and state rates, which are often lower than the rates the player would pay in Canada.”

In their announcement, the Canadiens didn’t allude to the inclusion of an RCA in the new extension, and we’ll likely never know. Still, today’s agreement indicates that it wasn’t as much of a hangup as previously believed.

Objectively, Hutson’s most obvious comparable would be New Jersey Devils’ defenseman Luke Hughes, who signed a seven-year, $63MM deal shortly before the start of the 2025-26 season. Impressively, the Canadiens were able to keep Hutson’s salary lower than Hughes’ (albeit minimally), while gaining another year of him on the roster.

Still, this contract is more of a gamble than Hughes’ is. Despite winning the Calder Memorial Trophy last season as the league’s top rookie, Hutson only has 92 games of NHL experience (including playoffs) compared to Hughes’ 161.

Regardless, Hutson made the most of his only full season in the league. He tied Larry Murphy’s all-time assist record for rookie defensemen (60), and tied Phil Housley with 66 points, the fourth-most in NHL history for a freshman blueliner. Further, Hutson finished 9th in voting for the James Norris Memorial Trophy, joining Rasmus Dahlin, Thomas Harley, and Jake Sanderson as the only under-25 defenseman to finish top-10 in voting.

Unfortunately, although his offensive prowess is palpable, Hutson brings a lot of question marks on the defensive side of the puck. He finished last year with an 88.7% on-ice save percentage at even strength, despite starting 66.7% of his shifts in the offensive zone.

Meanwhile, although he spent much of the year next to Jayden Struble, his primary defensive partner was Kaiden Guhle before he suffered a longer-term injury. According to MoneyPuck, when paired with Guhle, who is his defensive partner this season, the two combined for a 48.1% xGoals%, which was middle-of-the-pack production on a playoff-caliber Canadiens lineup.

Another cause for concern would be Hutson’s size. While height and weight have become less important for forwards, they remain significant qualities for most teams’ defensive cores in the league. Hutson stands at 5’9″, 162 lbs, which may make him more susceptible to injuries, especially if Montreal lines up against a heavy-hitting team such as the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Regardless, Montreal now has three of its top-four defensemen signed to long-term contracts. Even after Hutson’s contract takes effect, the Canadiens will have approximately $28MM in cap space, leaving them plenty of room to sign Mike Matheson and keep their defensive core intact for the foreseeable future.

Photo courtesy of Timothy T. Ludwig-Imagn Images.

Blue Jackets Name Jet Greaves Opening Night Starter

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Blue Jackets head coach Dean Evason confirmed to reporters today that Jet Greaves will open the season as Columbus’ starting netminder, via Aaron Portzline of The Athletic.

Given how last season transpired, it’s not much of a surprise. While Elvis Merzļikins remains under contract at a $5.4MM cap hit and has been the team’s starter since 2021-22, his workload in recent seasons has been because of a lack of other quality options, not because of his performance. He had a couple of excellent showings as Joonas Korpisalo’s backup to begin his NHL career, but hasn’t had an average showing since his first year as Columbus’ No. 1. He’s rebounded somewhat from a disastrous 2022-23 season, but still posted an uninspiring .892 SV% and 3.18 GAA in 53 appearances for the Jackets last year.

Greaves, on the other hand, has gone from unheralded prospect to one of the league’s most intriguing young goalies over the past couple of seasons. The 24-year-old has operated as the Blue Jackets’ third-stringer for the past two years and got into a career-high 11 games last year – including five straight starts to end the season as the Jackets chased a playoff berth. He went 5-0 in those games, but they’d fallen too far back in the race by that point and missed out on a wild-card spot by two points.

The undrafted netminder has logged a stellar .924 SV% in 21 career NHL appearances over the last three years, including a sparkling .938 mark and 1.91 GAA with a pair of shutouts in last season’s body of work. In those 11 games, Greaves managed to stop 14.5 goals saved above expected, per MoneyPuck – 15th in the league and more than what high-end starters like Mackenzie Blackwood, Adin Hill, and Linus Ullmark managed to produce over a full season’s worth of work.

Greaves was similarly outstanding as the starter for AHL Cleveland in 2024-25. His .920 SV% and 2.62 GAA in 40 appearances, the former of which ranked fourth in the league among goalies who saw that kind of workload.

The writing was also on the wall based on his and Merzļikins’ preseason performances. Greaves got slightly more minutes and had much better results – a .917 SV% in three outings compared to an .896 mark from his Latvian counterpart.

It remains to be seen how Evason manages Greaves’ workload this season, or whether he operates as an outright starter rather than a tandem lead. Given he’s untested in the NHL for extended periods, it will likely be the latter. The season might start with a rotation approach and, if Greaves still holds up as the clearly better option, he could be in line for more consistent usage in the back half of the year.

Oilers Sign Jack Roslovic

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The Oilers announced they’ve signed forward Jack Roslovic to a one-year deal worth $1.5MM. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was first to report the deal. Edmonton won’t be able to officially register the contract until they make a corresponding roster move, as they’ve got a full 23-man contingent.

Roslovic, 28, finally lands a contract after going all summer on the free agent market, not even opting to ink a PTO for training camp. He was PHR’s 20th-ranked UFA and had been the highest-profile skater available from Day 4 of free agency onward after Nikolaj Ehlers signed his deal with the Hurricanes, Roslovic’s now-former team.

It’s not often a 22-goal man stays unsigned into August, let alone October, but for whatever reason, that was the case. It’s not Edmonton’s first attempt to bring Roslovic in – they made a pitch early in the summer, which he declined, Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic reported at the beginning of camp. After tying his career-high in goals and totaling 39 points in 81 games with the Canes last year, he may well have asked for too much for too long in negotiations and ended up pricing himself out of a multi-year deal when the game of musical chairs stopped.

He now takes a nearly 50% pay cut from the one-year, $2.8MM deal he signed with Carolina last summer. There’s immense value potential for the Oilers here. The 2015 first-rounder brings over 500 games of NHL experience, can play all three forward positions, and has consistently hovered around a 40-point pace over the past few years. He’s a career 12.4% shooter and has posted a 16-25–41 scoring line per 82 games since debuting with the Jets back in 2017.

Roslovic will provide early-season top-nine reinforcements to a club missing Zach Hyman and Mattias Janmark to begin the season due to injuries. Early on, the Oilers haven’t opted to elevate their young players in the lineup as most expected. Only Matthew Savoie has managed to latch onto a top-six role, skating with Andrew Mangiapane and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on opening night, while fellow rookie Isaac Howard has been relegated to fourth-line duties. That’s led to names like Kasperi Kapanen and Noah Philp potentially being overtaxed in third-line duties out of the gate, something adding Roslovic into the mix will help avoid.

Roslovic’s up-and-down versatility means he could conceivably slot in as high as first-line right wing with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl or usurp the inexperienced Philp for third-line center duties. It’s not clear who he’ll force out of the roster in the coming days when Edmonton registers his contract. Waiver-exempt forwards on Edmonton’s active roster include Howard, Savoie, and international free agent signing David Tomasek.

Golden Knights To Sign Jack Eichel To Eight-Year Extension

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The Vegas Golden Knights are expected to sign star center Jack Eichel to an eight-year, $108MM contract extension, per the Vegas Review Journal’s Danny Webster. The move was first reported by TSN’s Darren Dreger. Weber adds that the deal is believed to carry a $13.5MM cap hit.

On a day where the Winnipeg Jets extended star winger Kyle Connor, the Golden Knights have still found a way to steal the show. Eichel’s extension was long anticipated, both for his impact on the Golden Knights’ roster and the intricacies of how Vegas would fit the deal in alongside the $12MM cap hit of Mitch Marner. That question has now been answered, with Vegas locking up the tandem through the next eight seasons for $25.5MM each season.

Landing a max-term extension with Eichel before he has a chance to play alongside 100-point scorer Marner could prove lucrative for the Golden Knights. Eichel had a career-year last season, setting career-highs with 94 points and a plus-32 in 77 games. It was a major leap over the 31 goals and 68 points that Eichel managed in 63 games of the 2023-24 season – and the 66 points he scored in 67 games of the 2022-23 campaign. It seems the top center simply needed to ease into his starring role in Vegas after going through a true saga with the Buffalo Sabres.

Buffalo drafted Eichel second-overall in 2015, properly dubbing him second-fiddle to Connor McDavid’s historic draft season. Despite that seat, Eichel boasted plenty of reason for excitement in his own right, and seemed to single-handedly will Boston University to a National Championship loss in his draft year. He brought that team-leading drive straight into the NHL, marked by 24 goals and 56 points in 81 games of the 2015-16 season. That remains the most a Sabres rookie has scored since the 1980s. Even better, Eichel matched it in fewer games of his sophomore season, with 24 goals and 57 points in 61 games.

But – that quickly became Eichel’s M.O. He was oft-injured, but proved to be the undeniable star of Buffalo’s lineup when healthy. He reached at least 25 goals in each of his next three seasons in Buffalo, and even showed his strength with 82 points in 77 games of the 2018-19 season, when the Sabres collectively only won 33 games. The tension between a struggling club and their productive star reached a peak as the 2020s rolled around – and a breaking point when the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement on how Eichel should handle an unprecedented shoulder surgery in 2021.

After multiple bouts back-and-forth, and a seemingly endless run of trade rumors, Buffalo decided to trade Eichel to Vegas in November, 2021. In return, the Sabres received Alex Tuch, Peyton Krebs, the draft pick used on Noah Ostlund (2022: 1-16) and a second-round pick traded to Minnesota. All three players remain with Buffalo.

Meanwhile, Eichel quickly received the surgery he had preferred upon arriving in Vegas. His 2021-22 campaign was limited to 34 games as he recovered from injury, but he was back to health in time for the 2022-23 season. Routine injury still marred his year, but he stayed healthy long enough to lead Vegas on a run to the Stanley Cup in 2023. He led the Golden Knights, and the postseason, in scoring with a dazzling 26 points in 22 games – though the Conn Smythe trophy would go to his goal-scoring teammate Jonathan Marchessault.

Regardless, Eichel’s push towards a Cup win showed the Golden Knights, and the hockey world, that he had the grit to be the star center on an NHL champion. He has reaffirmed that thought with 17 points in 18 playoff games since Vegas lifted the Cup.

With this move, Vegas will place a strong bet on Eichel’s ability to hang onto that role through his 30s. More importantly, they’ll give him a big bode of confidence as he heads into his age-29 season. Eichel has never played alongside a 100-point scorer, nor broken that ceiling himself, but he’ll get his first chance this season. Like Eichel, Marner struggled to crack the century mark for multiple seasons, recording at least 85 points three times between 2021 and 2024. He even reached 99 points in 2022-23. But it wasn’t until last season, when he scored 27 goals and 102 points in 81 games, that Marner was finally able to achieve the feat.

In a rare shift, he has now changed teams following the career-year, and will look to keep the good times rolling on a recent Cup winner. The top of Vegas’ offense is truly a stacked group, featuring Mark Stone, Tomas Hertl, William Karlsson, Pavel Dorofeyev, and Ivan Barbashev to support Eichel and Marner. The heights of the lineup seem hard to place, and should all go well, Vegas has ensured they can keep the band together with a pair of max-term extensions for their two stars.

Photo courtesy of Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports.

Sabres’ Alexandar Georgiev Clears Waivers

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10/8: Georgiev has cleared waivers for the Sabres, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. He will head to the AHL’s Rochester Americans, per Chad DeDominicis of Expected Buffalo. DeDominicis points out that Georgiev will become the fourth goalie on Rochester’s lineup, likely prompting another move or demotion to the ECHL for one of the quartet.

10/7: The Sabres will be placing goaltender Alexandar Georgiev on waivers today, head coach Lindy Ruff told reporters (including Bill Hoppe of the Olean Times Herald).

Georgiev was listed on Buffalo’s opening night roster yesterday, but they were carrying three goalies after claiming Colten Ellis off waivers from the Blues. The Sabres value the latter more, with Ruff telling Rachel Lenzi of The Buffalo News that Ellis is someone the Sabres have been “really high on” for quite some time and were unwilling to pass up the opportunity to have him on the wire. As a result, Georgiev won’t be starting the season with the club and will head to AHL Rochester should he clear waivers.

Georgiev, 29, finished top 10 in Vezina Trophy voting as recently as 2022-23 but is now scrambling to find an NHL job. He made 49 appearances last year between the Avalanche and the Sharks, heading to San Jose in the midseason deal that sent Mackenzie Blackwood the other way. Among goalies with at least 30 starts, no one had a worse save percentage or GAA than Georgiev’s marks of .875 and 3.71, and that includes making over a third of his appearances behind a dominant group of Colorado skaters in the first half of the year.

He still has roughly league-average numbers for his career. Since debuting with the Rangers in the 2017-18 season, he’s logged a 151-108-26 record with 15 shutouts, a 2.99 GAA, and a .903 SV% in 303 appearances. He’s allowed 21.1 goals (4%) more than the average netminder during that time. It’s his last two seasons of work that have soured teams. Despite posting a league-leading 38 wins for the Avs in 2023-24, he only managed a .897 SV% in 63 appearances. That preceded a 2024-25 campaign where only the Flyers’ Samuel Ersson posted a worse goals saved above expected figure than Georgiev’s -17.9, according to MoneyPuck.

That three-goalie figure from yesterday doesn’t include starter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who begins the season on injured reserve after suffering a lower-body injury late in preseason. That’s a different injury from the one he showed up to camp with, which was the motivator for Buffalo to sign Georgiev to a one-year, $825K deal last month in the first place. Luukkonen has improved in the past few days, according to Paul Hamilton of WGR Sports Radio 550, although he still carries a week-to-week designation. Buffalo certainly wasn’t going to carry four goalies after he returned, so it’s no surprise to see them get ahead of the wheel and remove one from their active roster now – especially after Georgiev allowed 11 goals on 74 shots in four preseason games for a .851 SV% and 4.19 GAA.

The Sabres might very well carry three goalies when Lukkonen returns, though. It’s hard to see them risk losing Ellis on waivers unless he struggles in his first taste of NHL action. The club also signed Alex Lyon to a two-year, $3MM deal in free agency over the offseason to be Luukkonen’s primary backup option. He might have an easier time passing through waivers thanks to his $1.5MM cap hit, so if Buffalo does want to only carry the traditional pair, Lyon might end up hitting the wire, too.

Cam Atkinson To Retire

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After a 13-season NHL career, veteran winger Cam Atkinson is hanging up his skates. The Blue Jackets announced Wednesday that they’ll be signing him to a one-day contract and will officially honor his retirement on Oct. 16 against the Avalanche. He’s expected to join Columbus in a front-office capacity at some point down the road, but that announcement won’t be coming now, he told Aaron Portzline of The Athletic.

Atkinson is one of the better draft steals in Blue Jackets franchise history, coming to them in the sixth round in 2008. He signed with Columbus three years later after a great run at Boston College and made his NHL debut in 2011-12, although it took him another two years to fully establish himself on the active roster. After going up and down between Columbus and AHL Springfield, Atkinson broke out into a top-six role for the 2013-14 season. He finished third on the team with 21 goals and fourth with 40 points in 79 appearances, helping fuel the Jackets to a then-franchise record 43-win season that resulted in their second-ever playoff appearance.

The undersized but skilled Atkinson remained a fixture in Columbus’ top six for the balance of the decade. He was a two-time All-Star, including his career-best 41-goal, 69-point effort in 2018-19 – leading the team in goals in the year they orchestrated one of the most drastic upsets in league history by sweeping the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Lightning in the first round for their first series win in franchise history. After the COVID-shortened 2021 season, Atkinson had totaled a 213-189–402 scoring line in 627 games for Columbus, still holding up as the second-leading goalscorer and point-getter in the Jackets’ record books behind Rick Nash.

After Atkinson’s points per game production peaked at 0.86 in that career year, he only managed to produce at about a 0.60 pace over the next two years. That soft decline led Columbus to ship Atkinson to the Flyers in the 2021 offseason in a one-for-one swap for Jakub Voráček. In hindsight, it ended up being a bit of a lose-lose endeavor. Atkinson seemed to pop back into form with a 23-27–50 effort in 73 games in 2021-22, but a neck injury sustained in the following training camp ended up costing him the entire 2022-23 season and accelerating his decline. He had just 28 points in 70 games for Philly upon returning to play in 2023-24, leading the club to buy out the final year of the seven-year, $41.13MM extension he signed with Columbus back in 2017.

Atkinson became an unrestricted free agent a year ahead of schedule and signed on with the Lightning on a one-year deal worth $900K. The bounceback he was looking for never came, though. He struggled to stick in the lineup and played sparingly when he did dress, averaging just nine minutes per game across 39 contests. After finishing the year with a 4-5–9 scoring line, the Lightning were quick to say Atkinson wouldn’t be brought back.

Atkinson told Portzline that he received professional tryout offers this summer but declined them, saying he essentially made up his mind when he made his final regular-season appearance for Tampa. He ends his career with a 253-236–489 scoring line in 809 appearances, including a -11 rating while averaging north of 17 minutes per game. We at Pro Hockey Rumors congratulate Atkinson on a lengthy and successful pro career and wish him the best in whatever comes next.

Image courtesy of Kim Klement-Imagn Images.

Oilers Extend Mattias Ekholm

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The Oilers announced that they have agreed to a three-year contract extension with defenseman Mattias Ekholm. It runs from 2026-27 through 2028-29 with a cap hit of $4MM and a total value of $12MM. According to Ryan Rishaug of TSN, he’ll have a $2MM signing bonus with a $2MM salary in 2026-27, followed by a flat $4MM salary in the final two years. He will have a no-movement clause for the life of the contract. Ekholm was previously slated for unrestricted free agency after this season.

Ekholm, 35, has long been a quality top-four piece and one of the league’s better two-way defenders. The 6’5″ lefty was drafted in the fourth round in 2009 by the Predators, with whom he’s spent the vast majority of his career. He first cracked the NHL lineup two years later and was a full-timer by 2013, one of many high-end young defenders Nashville was churning out in that era alongside Ryan Ellis, Seth Jones, and Roman Josi. He was a top-four staple by the time Nashville’s championship contention window opened, culminating in a Stanley Cup Final appearance in 2017, and peaked with a 10th-place finish in Norris Trophy voting in the 2018-19 season.

While Ekholm signed a four-year, $25MM extension with Nashville in 2021, he wouldn’t play very much for the Preds under that deal. With the club falling out of the playoff race in 2022-23 and the Oilers in desperate need of a needle-mover on defense, Edmonton surrendered a haul that included Tyson Barrie, recent first-round pick Reid Schaefer, plus their 2023 first-round pick to acquire Ekholm with three full seasons still left on his deal at a $6.25MM cap hit, which Nashville brought down to $6MM for the Oilers with a small amount of retention.

Since the deal, Ekholm has more than held up his end of the bargain. He’s been a staple on Edmonton’s top pair alongside offensive dynamo Evan Bouchard, highlighted by a dominant 2023-24 campaign that saw him record a career-high 11-34–45 scoring line in 79 games along with a dominant +44 rating. He finished 12th in Norris voting that year, controlling a remarkable 62.8% of expected goals on his pairing with Bouchard, according to MoneyPuck.

Last year was more of the same. He had 33 points in 65 games with a +11 rating, averaging north of 22 minutes per game, until a torn adductor effectively ended his regular season in March. He missed the vast majority of Edmonton’s second straight run to the Cup Final as a result, although he did return for the clinching Game 5 of the Western Conference Final and played through the entirety of the Cup Final. He wasn’t fully healthy and had his minutes capped at a slightly more conservative 21:35 per game as a result, but he still managed an even rating and remained involved offensively with a goal and five assists.

He remained stapled to Bouchard, and while they weren’t quite as dominant at controlling play as they were in 2023-24, they still controlled a sparkling 59.5% of expected goals together, finishing second in the league among pairings who logged at least 500 minutes. With his point production yet to see a sharp decline and his under-the-hood numbers remaining some of the best in the league in a system that serves him well, it’s easy to see why the Oilers don’t have a ton of concern about signing him through his age-38 season – particularly at a price as attractive as $4MM per season for a top-pair blue liner, far below his present market value.

Last week, it looked like Edmonton would enter the season with four big-name pending UFAs: Ekholm, Stuart Skinner, Jake Walman, and, in a category of his own, Connor McDavid. Three of those names have signed in the last three days. Walman’s seven-year, $49MM extension means Edmonton’s top four blue-liners, Bouchard and Darnell Nurse included, are now all signed through 2029, when Bouchard and Ekholm will be UFAs. There’s McDavid’s “win-now-or-lose-me” two-year, $25MM extension as well that keeps all of Edmonton’s true core in place through at least 2028, giving them three more legitimate chances at a championship before their window might begin to close.

With Ekholm and McDavid taking significant discounts, things are looking quite comfortable for Edmonton next summer. The club projects to have at least $18.71MM in cap space to fill eight roster spots, a number that could rise by a few million if the cap increases past its projected $104MM limit. While the big names are taken care of, there’s still serviceable depth like Adam Henrique, Kasperi Kapanen, and Brett Kulak on expiring deals, plus their top two goalies in Skinner and Calvin Pickard.

Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images.

Jets Sign Kyle Connor To Eight-Year Extension

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Oct. 8: 8:37 a.m.: It will indeed be an eight-year, $96MM deal that pays Connor $41MM in signing bonuses over the life of the deal, according to Darren Dreger of TSN. The Jets have now announced the deal.

Oct. 8, 7:00 a.m.: Connor’s deal is expected to come in around the $12MM mark per season when done for a total value of $96MM, Friedman adds Wednesday. That would be the largest contract in franchise history. He’s also set to receive a full no-move clause and significant signing bonuses – something Winnipeg has never given out, not even in their landmark extensions for Connor Hellebuyck and Mark Scheifele two years ago.

Oct. 7: The Winnipeg Jets and star forward Kyle Connor have “made progress on a long-term extension,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported Tuesday night. Friedman added that both Connor’s camp and the Jets are working to secure an extension before the team’s season opener on Thursday. TSN’s Darren Dreger seconded Friedman’s report, saying both sides “are getting closer to a contract extension.” At the same time, The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun added that he expects the upcoming contract extension to carry an eight-year term.

While a complete agreement on a deal has thus far proved elusive, the widespread expectation has long been that Connor would re-sign with the Jets, the only NHL franchise he has ever played for. Last month, owner Mark Chipman expressed confidence that the club would be able to re-sign its star winger, even going so far as to say that he expected that a deal would be completed “sooner rather than later.”

With today’s reports from some of the game’s most connected insiders, it appears Chipman was right. While the full terms of this expected contract extension are still unknown, signing Connor to such a deal would be a significant win for the Jets organization. Despite the Jets’ consistent on-ice success, Winnipeg has long faced an uphill battle in convincing players to commit to playing there.

The Jets are owned by a committed ownership group and are managed by a hockey operations department with a consistent track record of success. They can offer players the opportunity to play in front of a die-hard fan base that is the envy of most of the league. However, despite this, the Jets have had to contend with a perception among players that Winnipeg is not a premier free agent destination, a perception that has proved frustratingly persistent.

Back in 2019, 42% of NHL players polled by ESPN listed Winnipeg as the “road city [they] dread the most.” The team has not been a significant player at the highest levels of unrestricted free agency and is reportedly listed as a standard on players’ trade protection lists.

All of that is to say that the Jets face a different player acquisition landscape compared to other NHL teams. Teams such as the Florida Panthers and Dallas Stars have a favorable climate and tax situation, while others, like the New York Rangers or Los Angeles Kings, can market themselves as unique, destination cities to prospective players. Winnipeg has not been able to employ similar tactics to recruit players, instead building its Stanley Cup-contending team through a diligent draft-and-develop model combined with savvy work on the trade market.

Their model only works, though, if they are able to convince the players they draft and/or develop to remain in Winnipeg for the best years of their career, and in many recent cases, the Jets have had remarkable success doing so.

They’ve been able to re-sign franchise pillars such as Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck, as well key contributors such as Neal Pionk.

With today’s reports, it seems Connor’s name will soon be added to that list of key Jets players to commit to a long-term extension with the franchise. In re-signing Connor, they’ll manage to keep their most lethal scorer, and arguably their most important forward, on their roster for eight years after this one.

Since the Jets returned to Winnipeg, just two forwards have scored more points than Connor, and just one has scored more goals. His 0.95 career points-per-game ranks first in modern Jets franchise history. Connor also owns the two highest-scoring seasons in the modern history of the Jets, including his fantastic 2024-25 when he scored a franchise-record 97 points in 82 games.

He’s one of the game’s elite play-driving wingers, and he’s a threat to score whenever he steps on the ice. He’s a consistent playoff performer as well, and is coming off of the best postseason run of his career – he scored 17 points in 13 games during the Jets’ most recent playoff run.

All of that means Connor is unlikely to come cheap. It’s difficult to project long-term contracts at the top of the market at this point, as two of the most recent big signings were impacted by unique circumstances that are not applicable to other players and situations. Minnesota Wild superstar winger Kirill Kaprizov is in some ways comparable to Connor (both are play-driving true number-one wingers) but Kaprizov was widely seen as far more of a threat to test unrestricted free agency – making the Wild all the more willing to pay whatever it took to get his signature on an extension. That resulted in a $17MM AAV, something Connor, or any other player, for that matter, appears likely to match anytime soon.

And then there is the recent re-signing of Connor McDavid with the Edmonton Oilers. McDavid is the game’s unquestioned best player, but his extension carries a two-year term and just a $12.5MM AAV. Under normal circumstances, it’d be hard for Connor to argue that he deserves to make as much – let alone more – than McDavid, but again, it was a unique circumstance. It was widely reported that McDavid opted to be paid a notable amount less than his market value in order to maximize the Oilers’ ability to field an elite team to support him.

For what it’s worth, AFP Analytics projected Connor’s next contract to be worth just north of $12MM annually, and that would seem to be an appropriate price for Connor given his abilities, the market environment, and the rising salary cap. But at this stage, the only reports are that there is serious momentum to complete a deal on both sides of the negotiation, not that there is a completed deal at this point. So until there is further reporting, all we can do is speculate on what the terms of Connor’s extension will ultimately be.

Photos courtesy of Terrence Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Oilers To Recall Isaac Howard, Will Make NHL Debut

at CDT | by 1 Comment

The Edmonton Oilers are expected to recall winger Isaac ’Ike’ Howard and award him with his NHL debut in Wednesday’s season opener, per Daniel Nugent-Bowman of The Athletic. Howard is the reigning Hobey Baker Award-winner as college hockey’s most valuable player. Howard was traded to the Oilers in exchange for center prospect Sam O’Reilly in July after not agreeing to terms on an end-of-year contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning last season.

Howard earned his MVP-recognition while standing as the star on the Big Ten championship-winning Michigan State Spartans. He was a true workhorse in East Lansing, filling the presence of a heavy play-driver, hard-hitter, and leading scorer. Wherever there was play going on, Howard seemed to be involved, and he worked to an impressive 26 goals and 52 points in 37 games as a result. Those marks ranked Howard third in the country in goals, and fifth in points.

Diligent two-way play has been a core part of Howard’s game since his junior career with the U.S. National Team Development Program. He was the reliable backing behind high-offense teammates Logan Cooley, Frank Nazar, and Lane Hutson. That responsible role helped Howard lead the NTDP’s 2004-class in scoring during their U18 season with 82 points in 60 games. He ended up the sixth player from th3 team to be selected in the 2023 draft, though, landing 31st-overall.

With this move, Edmonton will give Howard a chance to show he can stay an impactful part of the lineup through another jump in competition. He scored one goal and three assists in six preseason games. That tied him with Noah Philp (five games played), Darnell Nurse (four games), and Connor McDavid (three games) for second on the team in preseason scoring. He will battle with Andrew Mangiapane and Vasily Podkolzin for ice time on the left-wing. Past NHL experience will make that duo easier to trust than the rookie Howard, though the true shape of Edmonton’s lineup will likely come down to performance through the first few games of the season.

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