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Golden Knights Place Mark Stone On Long-Term Injured Reserve

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Oct. 23: Stone’s IR placement has turned into an LTIR placement, per PuckPedia. They were short on cap space after recalling Carl Lindbom and Jaycob Megna from AHL Henderson on Wednesday, so this was the expected outcome. With an additional $3.82MM in their LTIR pool, they now have just under $2.5MM in cap space following the recalls. Since the placement is retroactive to Oct. 18 and he needs to miss at least 10 games and 24 days before he’s eligible to return, the soonest he’ll be back is Nov. 13 against the Islanders.

Oct. 21: Stone landed on injured reserve last night, per Danny Webster of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It’s purely a formality; a week-to-week designation ensured he’d missed the seven days required for IR. Vegas now has an open roster spot, but there’s only $310,275 remaining in their LTIR pool, according to PuckPedia. That doesn’t leave them enough room to make a corresponding recall unless they play short a skater for a game, allowing them to use an emergency exception and temporarily exceed the cap by recalling a player with a cap hit of $875,000 or less.

Oct. 20: Vegas Golden Knights head coach Bruce Cassidy announced that winger Mark Stone is out week-to-week with a wrist injury in a Monday press conference, per Jesse Granger of The Athletic.

Stone fell face-first into the boards and briefly returned to the locker room in Vegas’ Thursday win over the Boston Bruins. He remained in the lineup and scored four points in Saturday’s win over the Calgary Flames, but appeared to take another awkward fall midway through the third period, also captured by Granger.

It’s not clear if either fall is connected to Stone’s injury. He’ll be forced out of the short term, leaving Vegas with a big hole in their top six. Stone ranks second on the team and across the NHL, scoring 13 points in six games. He has found a comfortable role next to scoring leader Jack Eichel and winger Ivan Barbashev, forming a top line that’s outscored opponents five-to-three at even-strength.

Stone has long been among Vegas’ best players but struggles with routine injury. He has missed 170 games across six full seasons with the Golden Knights, or roughly 35 percent of a possible 492 games. He’s also averaged 26 goals and 80 points per 82 games played in that period. That productivity and a lofty impact on defense make Stone a standout whenever he’s in the lineup. Now, Vegas will have to push through at least a few games without that difference-maker.

In Stone’s absence, Vegas will likely turn towards Brandon Saad or Reilly Smith to fill a top-six winger role. Smith has one point, while Saad hasn’t scored through six games this season. More pressingly, Stone’s absence should give Shea Theodore a chance to return to the top power-play unit. Vegas has been operating with five forwards on their top unit, thanks to Pavel Dorofeyev’s five power-play points to start the year. That’s left Theodore with just five minutes of ice time and no scoring on the power-play. Vegas could also turn towards William Karlsson, who has one power-play point and three total points in six games.

Predators Assign Brady Martin To OHL

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The Predators announced Wednesday that they’ve assigned center Brady Martin to the OHL’s Soo Greyhounds. They now have two open roster spots, although roster considerations aren’t playing a factor in this move.

Martin, 18, has seen his stock rise more than most prospects over the past year. Viewed as a late first-round selection early in 2024-25, he rocketed his way up draft boards enough to earn the call at fifth overall from Nashville. That was fueled by an offensive explosion in juniors from the physical pivot, who produced 33 goals and 72 points in 57 games for the Greyhounds after recording just 10 goals and 28 points in 52 games the year prior.

That carried over into the preseason, where Martin converted a two-goal, one-assist performance in four games into a spot on Nashville’s opening roster submission. Initially, it looked like he would get quite a long leash. Martin started the opener on the top line with Filip Forsberg and Ryan O’Reilly, but only factoring in at even strength meant he only averaged 12:42 of ice time through a pair of games, recording an assist and an even rating, before the Predators scratched him in what they referred to as a preset development plan. Martin ended up sitting in the press box for four straight before re-entering the lineup for last night’s loss to the Ducks. He only skated 10:51 but managed his first two career shots on goal, along with one block and going 2-for-6 on faceoffs.

Yet Martin, still a raw prospect, needs playing time more than anything else. He’ll get that now in spades in Sault Ste. Marie, where he’ll be their top skater and should aim to be among the OHL’s leading scorers at season’s end, at least in terms of points per game. The demotion to the Greyhounds is permanent for the remainder of 2025-26, save for an extremely rare emergency exception in a catastrophic injury situation or until the Soo’s season comes to an end.

Martin still checks in as the Preds’ No. 1 prospect and is the highest-ceiling middle-man they’ve developed in-house in years. After another close-to-full season of development in juniors, he’ll be given plenty of leeway to secure a more permanent slot in Nashville’s forward group to begin the 2026-27 campaign.

Since Martin played fewer than 10 games before being sent back to juniors, his entry-level contract will not take effect this season and will not count toward Nashville’s 50-contract limit. He is now on track to reach restricted free agency in 2029 with an additional four years of team control after that. He still earns his $97,500 signing bonus for 2025-26, bringing his cap hit down from $975,000 to $942,500 for next year.

A corresponding recall in the coming days should still be expected. With Martin no longer in the picture, the Predators aren’t carrying any extra forwards with them. As things stand, they’ll need to dress 11 forwards and seven defensemen against the Canucks tomorrow if Jonathan Marchessault, who’s missed the last two games with a lower-body issue, can’t play.

Anze Kopitar Out Week-To-Week With Foot Injury

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The Kings announced that captain Anže Kopitar has been listed out week-to-week with a foot injury. There’s no IR placement for him yet, but there could be one coming soon to give L.A. a roster spot as they’re down to 12 healthy forwards.

Kopitar, who said last month that 2025-26 will be his final season, is now ticketed for what could be the lengthiest absence of his 20-year career. The ever-durable Slovenian center has never missed more than 10 consecutive regular-season games, and that came all the way back in his rookie season in 2006-07. He hasn’t missed more than a single game in a season since 2016-17. He sustained the injury in Monday’s shootout loss to the Wild, blocking a shot with his foot that caused him to miss yesterday’s loss to the Penguins (although he was initially considered a game-time decision). He hasn’t practiced since the injury, so it’s unlikely he’s stressed it further.

The 38-year-old has been a bright spot in what’s otherwise been a dismal start to the season in Los Angeles. The club is 1-3-1, tied for the second-lowest points total in the league, and is now without its top center for the foreseeable future. Kopitar was still holding down the workload he’s had for so many years, rattling off four assists in four games while averaging 18:45 per game and going 49-for-77 (63.6%) on faceoffs. The Kings were also allowing just 1.1 goals against per 60 minutes with Kopitar on the ice at even strength, the third-best figure on the team among forwards behind Phillip Danault and Samuel Helenius.

Under the hood, things don’t look particularly dire for the Kings. They’re still controlling possession well at 5-on-5 but have fallen victim to poor finishing (8.7%) and goaltending (.861 combined SV%). Missing Kopitar’s still high-end playmaking ability won’t help the former number, though. Losing his intangibles, as well as shouldering the loss of still a top-10 two-way forward in the league, is a hard pill to swallow for a club needing to string together a few wins to avoid sinking too far below the playoff line too early in the season.

Danault was elevated into Kopitar’s role between Andrei Kuzmenko and Adrian Kempe last night. It’s unclear if that will hold or if the club might rather give the younger Quinton Byfield, who’s largely assumed to be Kopitar’s long-term successor as the Kings’ new No. 1 pivot, a shot in those minutes. They’re also without offseason addition Corey Perry, who’s missed the entire year to date with a knee injury.

Brady Tkachuk Out 6-7 Weeks Following Hand Surgery

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Oct. 16: Tkachuk underwent surgery to repair a ligament issue in his right hand in New York today, Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia reports. The procedure extends his return timeline to six to seven weeks and, with the clock resetting to today, won’t be back in the lineup until Thanksgiving at the earliest. That’s a 20-game minimum absence, including last night’s loss to the Sabres.

Oct. 14: Senators captain Brady Tkachuk will miss at least four weeks due to the right wrist injury he sustained in yesterday’s game against the Predators, head coach Travis Green said (via Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia). They’ve yet to decide on whether surgery is required. If so, his return timeline will be extended.

Tkachuk sustained the injury early in the game. While on the power play, he took a cross-check from Nashville captain Roman Josi near the goal line that carried enough force to cause Tkachuk to fall forward into the boards, bending his right wrist awkwardly in the process. He didn’t immediately leave the game but ended up taking his last shift midway through the third period. Green said immediately after the match that Tkachuk was going for evaluation and that his absence wasn’t precautionary.

This will stand as Tkachuk’s largest absence to date. While he’s missed games due to injury in four of his seven full NHL seasons, none of them were serious enough to warrant lengthy recovery times. The most time he ever missed was nine games due to a leg injury early in his rookie season. His four-week minimum means his earliest return is Nov. 11 against the Stars, meaning at least a 13-game absence for the star winger.

Thankfully for Ottawa, they have a relatively easy stretch of games ahead. Only three of those 13 contests are against teams that made the playoffs last season. They’ve gotten off to a tough start, though, especially defensively. They’re 1-2-0 through their first three contests and have yet to give up fewer than four goals, averaging a 4.67 GA/GP mark that ranks 31st in the league. While their 26.0 shots against per game figure is sixth-best in the NHL, their 64.3% success rate on the penalty kill – fifth-worst in the league – hasn’t helped matters. Linus Ullmark has also allowed a league-worst 5.4 goals above expected in his three starts, per MoneyPuck. Tkachuk doesn’t factor in shorthanded, so in that sense, his absence won’t mean much as Ottawa looks to address its biggest early-season weaknesses.

His missing offense and intangibles will, though. Tkachuk had three assists and a +1 rating through his first three outings and, although his 29-26–55 scoring line in 72 games last year was underwhelming by his standards, he received Hart Trophy consideration for the first time as he captained Ottawa to its first playoff berth since 2017. Despite missing a good portion of yesterday’s contest, he still ranks third on the team so far with 10 hits, is tied for the team lead with 21 shot attempts, and has controlled possession well with a 56.5 CF% at even strength.

Now, it’ll be mid-November until he’s consistently in the mix this season. The Senators can place him on injured reserve whenever they need a roster spot. That will likely come in conjunction with activating Drake Batherson, who is expected to come off IR before tomorrow’s game, according to Garrioch. Tkachuk is eligible for long-term injured reserve as well and can yield up to $3.82MM in cap relief, but with the Sens already banking over $2.45MM in space, that won’t be necessary, at least for now.

Luckily for the Sens, they don’t have any mounting injuries behind their leader. They have all available options, including Batherson, to elevate into top-line duties alongside Tim Stützle and Fabian Zetterlund in his absence.

Wild Reassign David Jiricek

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The Wild have reassigned David Jiricek to AHL Iowa, according to a team announcement. There’s no corresponding transaction yet for the roster spot that their No. 2 prospect is vacating.

Today marks a week since opening night for the Wild, which was Jiricek’s only appearance out of the club’s first four games. That’s despite the 21-year-old having a strong showing in what was his first outing for the club since January of last season. He only saw 14 minutes of ice time and didn’t record a point, but had a +3 rating in their 5-0 win over the Blues. He won his minutes possession-wise with a 53.3 CF% at even strength.

Then, Jonas Brodin returned to the lineup after missing the first game while recovering from offseason upper-body surgery. That pushed Jiricek out of the picture, with Minnesota opting for a more veteran lineup on the right side of their defense, with Zach Bogosian slotting in behind top-four staples Brock Faber and Jared Spurgeon. It’s hard at the moment for head coach John Hynes to justify scratching Bogosian to get Jiricek another look. The 35-year-old has also done well in his limited minutes, recording a +3 rating with seven blocks and four hits in four appearances while averaging 14:19 per game. He’s trusted on the penalty kill and has yet to be on the ice for a goal against at even strength.

Minnesota wants its promising young righty playing, and that isn’t happening on the NHL roster right now. As such, they’ll take advantage of his continued waiver-exempt status and return to Iowa, where he spent most of last season after the Wild acquired him from the Blue Jackets in November. The only player Minnesota surrendered in that deal, Daemon Hunt, is now back with the organization after being claimed off waivers from Columbus and will serve as their lone healthy extra for the time being, with Jiricek down.

It’s an inauspicious sign amid a tough couple of years for the 2022 No. 6 overall pick. After the former AHL All-Star looked like he was on the verge of capturing a regular role with Columbus after making 43 appearances for them in 2023-24, he was a frequent scratch to begin last season, leading to his trade out of town. Yet even amid mounting injuries on the Wild’s blue line last year, Jiricek, included in those troubles amid a ruptured spleen, didn’t get much of a chance and only made six NHL appearances after the swap. In 27 appearances with Iowa, he only mustered seven assists and a -1 rating.

He’ll be destined for as many minutes as he can handle now in the minors as he looks to get consistent playing time and fuel some long-awaited forward progress in his development. For now, Minnesota will be operating with an open roster spot to fill as necessary if more injuries pop up.

Jacob Markström Out “A Couple Of Weeks”

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The Devils announced that goaltender Jacob Markström will be sidelined for “a couple of weeks” after sustaining an injury in Monday’s win over the Blue Jackets. It’s a lower-body concern, per the team’s Amanda Stein. The starting netminder appeared banged up after being caught in a pileup during a Columbus goal with 21 seconds left in the contest. He stayed in the game, which backup Jake Allen started but left after the second period due to cramping, but was visibly ginger while leaving the ice.

Markström was not present at this morning’s practice. The team already recalled Nico Daws from AHL Utica this morning to serve as Allen’s backup while the veteran takes over the starter’s crease for the time being. The latter was a full participant today and looks clear to play against the Panthers tomorrow despite his early departure from Monday’s game.

Markström, a one-time All-Star and Vezina Trophy finalist, made 49 starts last season en route to a 26-16-6 record, .900 SV%, 2.50 GAA, and four shutouts. He hadn’t been out to as strong a start this year. While he’s been the goalie of record in all three games for New Jersey’s 2-1-0 start, allowing that goal in his relief performance brought his individual numbers down to a .845 SV% and 3.89 GAA, allowing nine goals on 58 shots faced. The injury comes in a contract year for Markström, who was reported to be in extension talks with the Devils earlier this month.

In the interim, the Devils shouldn’t be too uncomfortable with an Allen-Daws tandem, providing the former can stay healthy. The 24-year-old Daws was exceptional when called upon in similar situations last year, posting a 3-1-0 record and .939 SV% with a 1.60 GAA in six appearances. With that in mind, it might behoove the Devils to give them a split workload for the time being instead of overrelying on the 35-year-old Allen, ensuring they don’t lose both of their top two goaltending options to injuries.

Behind Daws, New Jersey doesn’t have a ton of available depth and would need to make a trade, signing, or waiver claim if someone else gets hurt. Their first recall option would be 23-year-old Jakub Málek, a 2021 fourth-round pick in his first season in North America. Behind him on the depth chart is 22-year-old Tyler Brennan, a 2022 fourth-rounder who’s starting his season down with ECHL Adirondack and has zero games of AHL experience through two pro seasons.

Panthers’ Dmitry Kulikov Out Five Months Following Shoulder Surgery

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Oct. 15: Florida’s doctors have determined surgery is required for Kulikov’s injury. It was actual a labral tear in his shoulder, not a wrist issue, per the team’s Jameson Olive. The procedure carries a recovery time of five months, head coach Paul Maurice told Sean Shapiro of DLLS Sports. The team ended up recalling Björnfot from AHL Charlotte a few days after Kulikov’s IR placement, and it’s now clear he won’t be heading back to the minors anytime soon while he and Balinskis fill Kulikov’s shoes for what will be the vast majority of the regular season. A five-month return timeline puts Kulikov back in Florida’s lineup in mid-March, shortly after the trade deadline.

Oct. 11: The Panthers have placed defenseman Dmitry Kulikov on injured reserve due to an apparent right wrist injury, via Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald. The team hasn’t made any comment on his status, so his return is unknown. They haven’t made a corresponding transaction, either.

Kulikov left Thursday’s game against the Flyers midway through the second period and did not return. He left the ice holding his right wrist after it got crunched while trying to check Philadelphia winger Bobby Brink against the wall in the neutral zone. The IR placement is backdated to then, meaning he’ll be eligible for activation on Oct. 16. Florida plays the Devils that night, but Kulikov has been automatically ruled out for three games in the interim.

It’s yet another blow to a skater corps that’s been decimated early in the season. The Cats survived preseason injury scares for Aaron Ekblad and Anton Lundell but didn’t avoid LTIR placements for Aleksander Barkov (ACL and MCL tear), Tomas Nosek (knee), and Matthew Tkachuk (adductor) to open the season. The defense started fully healthy to help compensate for the loss of forward depth, but they’ve now lost half of their veteran third pairing with Jeff Petry for at least a few games, if not more.

Uvis Balinskis will step into Kulikov’s spot as the lefty on that bottom pairing alongside Petry. Balinskis is a quality option to pull from the press box. He spent most of last season as Nate Schmidt’s partner until the acquisition of Seth Jones near the trade deadline pushed him down the depth chart and out of the regular playoff lineup. That wasn’t before the 29-year-old Latvian made 76 appearances in the regular season, posting a 4-14–18 scoring line with a -7 rating in 14:51 of ice time per game. Florida signed the 6’0″ lefty as an undrafted free agent in 2023, and he played in only 26 NHL games the year prior.

As for Kulikov, the 17-year veteran looks on track to continue posting stable results in a depth role for Florida. He only had a -1 rating and one hit through one-and-a-half games but posted good possession results on his unit with Petry, controlling 60% of expected goals, per MoneyPuck. Florida has also outattempted opponents 17-16 with Kulikov on the ice at even strength so far.

Kulikov will be 35 in a few weeks. The first-round pick by the Panthers back in 2009 isn’t the minute-muncher he was during his first stint in Florida, but he’s been a strong support piece and frequent penalty killer since returning to the club in free agency in 2023. He’s beginning Year 2 of a four-year, $4.6MM deal he signed last summer.

The IR placement leaves Florida with an open roster spot but doesn’t change their cap picture. The Panthers have $2.27MM remaining in their LTIR pool, though, more than enough to make a corresponding recall from AHL Charlotte. Atop their minor-league depth chart, particularly among lefties, is former Kings first-rounder Tobias Björnfot.

Canadiens Extend Jeff Gorton, Kent Hughes

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11:53 a.m.: Montreal has officially announced the deals. They’re both five-year extensions, per Eric Engels of Sportsnet.

9:33 a.m.: The Canadiens are closing in on contract extensions for front office cornerstones Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. Gorton, the team’s president of hockey operations, and Hughes, their general manager, were in the final years of their current deals.

Gorton and Hughes are both in the early stages of their fourth full season in Montreal. Gorton was the first of the duo to be brought into the organization, stepping in as the top hockey decision-maker in the organization in November 2021 after the club fired previous GM Marc Bergevin. He was the interim GM as well for a few months before hiring Hughes later that season.

They inherited a sticky situation – a club in the early stages of a rebuild despite coming off a Stanley Cup Final appearance in 2021. Hughes immediately got to work accumulating assets, trading away veterans Tyler Toffoli, Ben Chiarot, Brett Kulak, and Artturi Lehkonen in the handful of weeks between his hiring and the 2022 trade deadline. The following offseason saw them retool further, acquiring Kirby Dach but surrendering Alexander Romanov in a three-team deal while also swapping aging puck-moving blueliners Jeff Petry and Mike Matheson for each other.

Things have been quieter on the trade front since, but they’ve been busy drafting hopeful franchise cornerstones in the first round – Juraj Slafkovsky first overall in 2022 and Ivan Demidov fifth overall in 2024 being the ones so far to establish themselves as NHLers. Their depth picks have already reached heights as well, with 2022 second-rounder Lane Hutson coming off a Calder Trophy and now a fresh eight-year extension. Even with those names aging out, they boast a universally recognized top-five prospect pool and still retain a good amount of draft capital moving forward.

While still early in the life of Montreal’s young core, initial indications are that Gorton and Hughes have pulled off an accelerated rebuild. They have blue-chip prospects at every position – particularly with goaltender Jacob Fowler working his way up from a 2023 third-round pick to being the reigning NCAA Goalie of the Year – and are coming off their first playoff berth since their Cup Final loss.

Undoubtedly, Gorton and Hughes’ asset management has opened the door for Montreal’s playoff window to begin as quickly as it did. In the past few years, they’ve pulled off one of the more impressive asset flips in recent memory – acquiring a first-round pick to take on Sean Monahan’s contract from the Flames before acquiring another from the Jets when they traded him to Winnipeg two years later. They began conservatively and targeted with their additions last year, acquiring high-priced winger Patrik Laine for barely any assets and upgrading their blue line by swapping youngster Justin Barron for the more experienced Alexandre Carrier a few weeks into the season. Only after reaching the postseason has Montreal really pressed the gas on their rebuild, making one of the biggest deals of last summer with the Noah Dobson sign-and-trade.

In all of that, they’ve also assembled one of the more enviable salary cap pictures in the NHL. Amid rapidly rising market values for players and an aggressively rising cap for the next few years, Montreal has no cap hits above $10MM on its roster while having the vast majority of its core signed through the remainder of the decade. Up front, there’s captain Nick Suzuki at a $7.875MM cap hit through 2029-30, Cole Caufield at $7.8MM through 2030-31, and Slafkovsky at $7.6MM through 2032-33. Their defense has Dobson at $9.5MM through 2032-33, Hutson at $8.85MM starting next season through 2033-34, and Kaiden Guhle at $5.55MM through 2030-31. At present, the only RFAs who will really cash in over the next few years are Zachary Bolduc next summer and Demidov in 2027.

Of course, they still have to finish the job. Montreal’s forward depth remains a concern, particularly in the second-line center slot. That’s a question they’ve been looking to answer long-term since assuming their posts. Nothing about their track record suggests it’ll be a rushed decision, nor does it have to be with multiple core contributors not even at their 23rd birthday yet.

With all that in mind, it’s no surprise that the Canadiens are moving quickly to get these deals done early in the season. Gorton had received interest from other clubs looking to fill GM vacancies last summer, including the Islanders, but the Habs denied him permission to interview.

He’s a seasoned executive, spending previous tenures at the helm of the Bruins and Rangers. For Hughes, though, it’s quite a success story. This post is his first front-office job at any level after working on the other side of the coin as a player agent for Quartexx, a career he held since 1998.

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.

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