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Flyers’ Alexei Kolosov Will Report To Remainder Of Training Camp

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The Flyers and goaltending prospect Alexei Kolosov have settled their months-long dispute, per multiple reports Thursday morning. The Belarusian netminder is on his way to Philadelphia, according to ESPN’s Kevin Weekes, and will see action with the Flyers before their preseason schedule comes to an end, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman adds.

Concern around the 2021 third-round pick first arose in May, when reports out of Belarus indicated he felt isolated during his brief stint with the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms to end last season and wanted to be loaned back to Dinamo Minsk of the Kontinental Hockey League for 2024-25. Inside AHL Hockey’s Tony Androckitis then reported in late July that Kolosov had informed the Flyers he wouldn’t report to the Phantoms this season, which general manager Daniel Brière later refuted.

Kolosov, 22, then switched his representation to Gold Star Hockey’s Dan Milstein, who informed the Flyers in a late August meeting that the netminder wanted to return to Minsk on loan for the second year of his entry-level contract, something Brière was unwilling to do. With no change in either side’s position over the past few weeks, Kolosov remained in Belarus and was not listed on the Flyers’ initial training camp roster. He’d recently been made available in trade talks, Friedman said last week, although Philly could very well take his name off the block if his return to North America goes well.

The netminder will see preseason action and accept an initial assignment to AHL Lehigh Valley, Friedman reports Thursday. He adds they’ve reached an agreement for a “potential return” to the KHL if Kolosov doesn’t get an NHL chance with the Flyers during the season, though.

While he’s likely not ready for full-time NHL duties yet, there’s legitimate upside in Kolosov’s game. He’s already built up quite the professional resume at a young age, serving as Dinamo’s starter for the past three seasons. He’s been steady for a largely middling squad, posting a career-best 22-21-3 record in 47 games last year with a .907 SV% and 2.39 GAA. Kolosov had a .885 SV% and 3.03 GAA in two appearances for the Phantoms to end last season.

The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz was first to indicate that Kolosov would be reporting to camp.

Ryan Lindgren Out “At Least” Multiple Weeks With Upper-Body Injury

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Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren will miss “at least a few weeks” with an upper-body injury sustained in last night’s win over the Islanders, head coach Peter Laviolette told reporters today (including the New York Post’s Mollie Walker).

Lindgren’s availability for the start of the regular season is now squarely in doubt. He did not return after fighting Islanders defenseman Scott Mayfield in the first period. The fight followed a knee-on-knee hit that Mayfield laid on Rangers center Filip Chytil, temporarily knocking him out of the game, but he later returned and isn’t expected to miss any time.

The 26-year-old Lindgren is no stranger to injuries. He powered through to play 76 games last season, but he was rarely healthy – manifesting in the form of the worst possession play he’s displayed in his six-year NHL career. His -3.0 relative CF% and 48.6 xGF% were career-lows despite still seeing routine top-pairing usage at even strength alongside Adam Fox.

When healthy, Lindgren is a minute-munching stay-at-home defender who regularly contributes between 15 to 20 points and hovers around 20 minutes per game without being a possession liability. The Rangers were banking on him returning to that form alongside Fox once again, but they’ll have to wait to get him back in the regular rotation.

In the meantime, it’s a premier opportunity for 23-year-old Zachary Jones. He’s now slated for top-four duties to start the campaign after spending most of last season in the press box as the Blueshirts’ seventh defenseman, limited to 31 appearances. The 2019 third-round pick has 17 points and a -10 rating in 69 career NHL appearances over the last four seasons, averaging 15 minutes per game.

He’ll see a sharp uptick in usage, especially if he’s deployed as a direct replacement for Lindgren alongside Fox. That could very well be the case, allowing the Rangers to keep having K’Andre Miller anchor his own pairing behind Fox.

Lindgren’s season-opening absence also means a left-shot defenseman previously expected to start the season with the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack will be on the NHL roster instead to assume third-pairing duties as Jones was expected to. Line rushes today indicate that it could be 28-year-old Connor Mackey, who skated alongside Fox, per Walker. Mackey made a lone appearance for the Rags last year but has 40 total NHL appearances to his name. He posted 11 points, 82 PIMs and a +12 rating in 44 contests for Hartford in 2023-24.

Jets Sign Cole Perfetti To Two-Year Deal

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The Winnipeg Jets have reportedly signed restricted free agent forward Cole Perfetti to a two-year bridge deal (as per TSN’s Darren Dreger). The deal comes with a $3.25MM AAV and will see the 22-year-old receive $3MM in the first year and $3.5MM in year two. The former 10th overall pick in 2020 will be a restricted free agent once again in 2026 and will require a qualifying offer of $3.5MM for Winnipeg to retain his rights.

The question entering this summer was whether Winnipeg and Perfetti could reach a long-term deal or whether both sides would opt to go short-term. The two-year deal makes sense given that the Jets likely want to see more from the Whitby, Ontario native, and Perfetti likely feels as though he has another gear to find.

Perfetti was good last season for the Jets posting 19 goals and 19 assists in 71 games but struggled in the second half of the season after a solid start. His offensive numbers represented a career-high in his brief three-year NHL career, but he could just be scratching the surface. Perfetti only averaged 13:35 of ice time per game last season and could see a big offensive bump if he gets consistent top-six minutes this year.

Perfetti will look to find consistency next season after an unbalanced 2023-24 in which he was healthy scratched 11 times and played just 10:56 total in the playoffs. He remains a gifted playmaker with incredible hockey sense, but his skating has been an issue through much of his professional career. Perfetti isn’t the fastest player on the ice, which can limit his ability to create open space for himself, particularly when the puck is on his stick.

Avalanche Sign Logan O’Connor To Six-Year Extension

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The Colorado Avalanche have gotten to work early on one of their key secondary scorers by announcing a six-year contract extension for forward Logan O’Connor. O’Connor was set to become an unrestricted free agent next summer with his three-year, $3.15MM contract expiring. TSN’s Pierre LeBrun reports O’Connor will earn $2.5MM each year of the deal.

Although he was raised in Calgary after his father, Myles O’Connor, retired from professional hockey in 1998, O’Connor has spent much of his adult life in Denver, CO. He spent three years just south of Ball Arena at the University of Denver from 2015-18 collecting 16 goals and 43 points in 108 games while helping his team to a National Championship in 2017. He signed a two-year entry-level contract with the Avalanche after his junior season in 2018 and made his NHL debut with the club the following season.

O’Connor performed admirably in his first two years with the AHL’s Colorado Eagles but struggled to find his footing in the NHL. He registered only two goals in 21 games in his first two years with Colorado before injuries limited him to only three goals and five points in 22 games during the 2020-21 regular season.

He finally came into his current role during the 2021-22 NHL season scoring eight goals and 24 points in 81 games while averaging just under 14 minutes of ice time per game. He became a physical player and an effective penalty killer becoming an all-out annoying presence for the opposition. He helped the Avalanche to their first Stanley Cup championship since 2001 that spring scoring one goal in game three of Colorado’s semi-final matchup against the St. Louis Blues while registering three more assists throughout the postseason.

O’Connor played similarly for the Avalanche the following season scoring nine goals and 26 points in 82 contests but failed to register any points in Colorado’s seven-game loss to the Seattle Kraken in the opening round of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs.

The 2023-24 season was a breakout season for O’Connor before a hip injury ended his year early. He scored 13 goals and 25 points in 57 games including three goals on the penalty kill which was good for a share of fifth amongst the NHL by season’s end. His shooting percentage more than doubled to 15.3% and Colorado’s third line was noticeably weaker after O’Connor went down with injury.

O’Connor is once again expected to be a major bottom-six piece for the Avalanche as they look to regain their footing in a tough Western Conference. The team hasn’t advanced beyond Round Two of the playoffs since winning the Stanley Cup in 2022 largely because of their lack of depth. His $2.5MM salary should be more than digestible for a cash-strapped team such as the Avalanche as they hope O’Connor will be a focal point of their third line for years to come.

Meghan Angley of Guerilla Sports shared a quote from Avalanche general manager Chris MacFarland surmising O’Connor’s importance to the team by saying, “He is a relentless worker and competitor who brings energy and grit to the lineup every night. His speed and skating ability makes him a dangerous two-way player and he is one of our top penalty killers. Logan is also a great teammate and takes pride in being a part of the Denver community“. 

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports images. 

Matt Boldy Out Week-To-Week With Lower-Body Injury

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Wild winger Matt Boldy is listed as week-to-week with a lower-body injury, the team announced Monday. He was an unexpected absence from today’s practice and there’s no clarity on when he sustained the injury. He’s expected to return by the end of training camp and should be ready for opening night, head coach John Hynes said (via Sarah McLellan of the Minnesota Star Tribune).

It’s tough news for Minnesota, which missed out on the playoffs last season for just the second time since 2012. Their poor record was largely due to injuries. Captain Jared Spurgeon was limited to just 16 games, while core pieces Jonas Brodin and Mats Zuccarello also missed significant chunks of the campaign.

Boldy, the No. 12 pick in the 2019 draft, has quickly grown into a core piece for the Wild in his own right. The 23-year-old set career highs last season with 40 assists and 69 points in 75 games, finishing second on the team in scoring behind Kirill Kaprizov.

He shoots the puck with aplomb – his 595 shots on goal rank 40th in the league since he made his NHL debut on Jan. 6, 2022. His strong offensive showing has been backed up by good possession metrics. The Wild have controlled 53.2% of shot attempts and 56.1% of expected goals with Boldy on the ice at even strength over the past three seasons, per Hockey Reference.

Boldy’s importance is magnified on a Wild roster that doesn’t have a ton of other high-skill scoring threats. A potential season-opening absence puts even more pressure on the likes of Kaprizov and the aging Zuccarello to put up points.

There will be a few options to take Boldy’s place in Minnesota’s top six if he’s not ready for opening night. The most intriguing is certainly Liam Ohgren, Minnesota’s first-rounder in 2022. The sharp-shooting Swede made his NHL debut at the tail end of last season, posting a goal and an assist in four games. He’s a likely candidate for a roster spot for no other reason than his cheap entry-level cap hit, but a short-term vacancy higher up in the lineup could be his to fill, at least to start. The 20-year-old had 12 goals and 19 points in 26 games while on loan to Sweden’s Färjestad BK last season.

Boldy is entering the second year of a seven-year, $49MM extension he signed in January 2023.

Antti Raanta Signs In Switzerland

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Veteran netminder Antti Raanta has signed a one-year contract with Genève-Servette HC of the Swiss National League, per a club announcement. The move comes after Raanta indicated last week his next deal would come in Europe, effectively announcing his retirement from NHL play.

The Geneva-based club moved to sign Raanta after backup netminder Gauthier Descloux sustained an injury last weekend that will keep him out indefinitely, the team said. Raanta will support 34-year-old incumbent starter Robert Mayer, who was the NL’s Goalie of the Year in 2023 and has a sparkling .923 SV% through Geneva’s first two regular-season contests.

It wasn’t surprising to see Raanta, now 35, put an end to his NHL career due to a lack of interest in him for full-time roles. Interested parties were looking at keeping Raanta in the organization as a third-string option, an understandable assumption after he posted a crater-like .872 SV% in 24 games behind the defensively stout Hurricanes last season. Instead, he’ll now land a full-time tandem role with one of Europe’s better teams. Geneva won the NL title in 2023 and won the Champions Hockey League last season and boasts NHL-experienced talent such as Markus Granlund and Sami Vatanen.

An undrafted free agent signing by the Blackhawks in 2013 out of Finland’s Ässät, Raanta went on to make 277 NHL appearances in parts of 11 seasons. Despite how last season ended, he was an extremely serviceable, if not above-average, netminder when healthy. He owns a career record of 139-80-29 with 20 shutouts, a 2.48 GAA, and .915 SV%.

Chris Tierney Signs With Dinamo Minsk

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Free agent center Chris Tierney has signed a one-year deal in the Kontinental Hockey League with Belarus’ Dinamo Minsk, the team announced Monday on Telegram.

Tierney, 30, was one of three UFA centers remaining who logged significant NHL time last season and the only one who wasn’t in an NHL training camp on a professional tryout. He was a serviceable fourth-line piece for the Devils last season, recording 12 points in 52 games with a +3 rating while averaging a career-low 9:02 per game, winning 57.2% of his draws.

A second-round pick of the Sharks back in 2012, Tierney grew into a full-time NHLer down the stretch of his first professional season two years later and never looked back. Within a few years, he was one of the league’s premier third-line centers, capping off his tenure in San Jose with a career-high 17 goals and 40 points in 2017-18.

The Sharks traded Tierney to the Senators the following offseason in the blockbuster swap that sent Erik Karlsson to the Bay Area. Early on, Tierney was a serviceable middle-six piece for Ottawa, averaging north of 17 minutes per game during his first two seasons in the Canadian capital and averaging 0.56 points per game.

But after the pandemic hit, Tierney’s offense dropped off. He was limited to only 12 goals and 37 points in 125 contests over the 2020-21 and 2021-22 campaigns while seeing his ice time drop accordingly. Following the expiry of a two-year, $7MM contract, Tierney had to settle for a two-way deal with the Panthers for 2022-23. He split his brief tenure in Florida between the Panthers and their AHL affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers, before he was claimed off waivers by the Canadiens in February. He finished out the year with seven points in 23 games for Montreal, doing well to rebuild his stock somewhat and stick in the NHL with New Jersey last season.

He wasn’t so lucky this summer, though. With presumably no NHL offers, the Ontario native lands in Minsk to continue his career. He becomes the eighth player with NHL experience on Dinamo’s roster, joining Dillon Dubé, Jordan Gross, Dmitry Korobov, Nicolas Meloche, Xavier Ouellet, Vadim Shipachyov, and Alexander Volkov.

If this marks the end of Tierney’s NHL career, he finishes with 80 goals, 168 assists, 248 points, and a -70 rating in 649 regular-season games.

Tony DeAngelo Signs With SKA St. Petersburg

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Sep. 23: DeAngelo is indeed heading to SKA on a one-year contract, the team announced Monday on Instagram.

Aug. 14: Tony DeAngelo seems likely to head overseas with SKA St. Petersburg of the Kontinental Hockey League after a tough year with the Hurricanes, Anton Panchenko of Championat reported Monday. DeAngelo was the subject of more speculative rumors about a move to SKA earlier this month, which he refuted at the time and said he was focused on landing another NHL opportunity.

But in the days following DeAngelo’s statement, SKA head coach Roman Rotenberg confirmed that his club had contacted DeAngelo and maintained interest (via Championat’s Anton Nekrasov). Panchenko’s report from Monday, albeit translated from Russian, indicates that DeAngelo has now agreed to a contract with the KHL powerhouse.

DeAngelo, 28, became a UFA this summer after a second stint with the Hurricanes failed. The right-shot defenseman, whose play style is as one-dimensional as they come, enjoyed an offensive revival in Carolina in 2021-22, leading the club’s defense in scoring across the board with 10 goals, 41 assists, 51 points, and a career-high +30 rating in 64 games.

He gave Carolina that production on a dirt-cheap one-year, $1MM deal after he played just six games the year prior with the Rangers. That resulted from an early-season altercation with then-teammate Alexandar Georgiev, which resulted in DeAngelo being placed on waivers and assigned to the minors. He didn’t report to the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack and instead sat out most of the shortened 2021 season before the Rangers bought out the final season of his contract, making him free to sign with the Canes as a UFA.

The Hurricanes couldn’t afford to keep him around after he punched far above his weight financially, trading his signing rights to the Flyers during the 2022 offseason. Philadelphia promptly signed him to a two-year, $10MM contract, and he entered 2022-23 near the top of their defensive depth chart.

However, DeAngelo’s defensive struggles became much more apparent outside of a strong Carolina system. He posted a team-worst -27 rating and became a healthy scratch at times near the tail end of the campaign. He was still a respectable contributor offensively, leading Flyers blueliners with 11 goals, 31 assists and 42 points in 70 games, but his relationship with head coach John Tortorella was fractured as a result of the scratches.

Shortly after the season ended, the Flyers made DeAngelo the first player in NHL history to be bought out twice. He then returned to Carolina on a one-year, $1.675MM deal to try and rediscover past magic. But he wasn’t their only notable free agent signing on the back end, and he was relegated to the No. 7 spot on their defense depth chart for most of the season after Dmitry Orlov was brought into the mix. He was a healthy scratch for over half the season, limited to 11 points in 31 games while averaging a career-low 14:20 per contest.

It’s not just DeAngelo’s poor defensive play that’s limited his interest from NHL teams. His lack of discipline has rendered him wholly ineffective at times. Aside from the Georgiev incident in New York, he was suspended for physical abuse of an official while with the Coyotes in 2017 and again for spearing during the tail end of his time with the Flyers. During his junior hockey days with the Sarnia Sting, he was suspended twice for violating the Ontario Hockey League’s Abuse/Diversity policy.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Kings’ Arthur Kaliyev Out Indefinitely With Broken Clavicle

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9/22: The manager of editorial content for the Kings, Zach Dooley, shares that Kaliyev suffered a broken clavicle on Friday and will be out indefinitely.

9/21: Kings winger Arthur Kaliyev is expected to miss “an extended period of time” after sustaining an upper-body injury during a scrimmage Friday, Mayor’s Manor reports. An official announcement from the team is expected later Saturday after Kaliyev went through further testing to diagnose the injury this morning.

Kaliyev, 23, left yesterday’s scrimmage after taking a hit in the corner from defenseman Kyle Burroughs. He’d started training camp in a fourth-line role alongside Trevor Lewis and Akil Thomas.

The 2019 second-round pick was a restricted free agent for most of the offseason, officially putting pen to paper on a one-year deal worth $825K on Wednesday. He’s had an active trade request since at least May, as reported by David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period.

Signing the cheap deal should have benefitted Kaliyev in one of two ways – either by giving him the runway to prove to head coach Jim Hiller that he can handle a full-time top-nine role or by making it easier for general manager Rob Blake to find a trade partner with cost certainty for this season in hand. A long-term injury puts a significant damper on either of those possibilities.

The Uzbekistan-born winger is coming off his worst season as a full-time NHLer, recording career lows across the board with 15 points (7 G, 8 A) in 51 games. Despite seeing fourth-line minutes at even strength and fringe second-unit power-play time throughout his four-year career, Kaliyev has still managed at least 100 shots on goal in his three full-time NHL seasons.

Kaliyev has also consistently managed strong shot-attempt and possession-quality numbers. He was also on pace for 41 points had he played all 82 games in the 2022-23 season despite playing just 11:41 per game.

That’s led many to question why he hasn’t received a longer look higher in the Los Angeles lineup. If his trade request wasn’t granted by the start of the season, there was ample opportunity for him to land a top-nine role at left wing, with his offensive upside trumping that of youngster Alex Laferriere and trade addition Tanner Jeannot.

Instead, it looks like he’ll start the season on the shelf for the second straight year. Kaliyev was unavailable for the first two games of the 2023-24 regular season while serving the final two games of a four-game suspension he received during preseason.

Kaliyev’s absence bodes well for fellow 2019 draftee Alex Turcotte’s chances of cracking the opening night roster. That year’s fifth overall pick took his place alongside Lewis and Thomas in fourth-line duties today. He played a career-high 20 games last season after a late-season call-up from the AHL’s Ontario Reign, posting a goal and three assists for four points while averaging 9:17 per game.

Evander Kane Expected To Miss At Least Four Months

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Oilers winger Evander Kane had surgery Friday in New York City to repair two torn hip adductor muscles, two hernias, and two torn lower abdominal muscles, as indicated last week. There’s no firm timeline for his return, but he won’t be back in the lineup until January or February at the earliest, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports.

All those injuries stemmed from Kane playing through a sports hernia for much of last season, including the playoffs. They didn’t limit his availability too much, costing him just 10 games combined over the course of the regular season and postseason.

They did significantly hamper his effectiveness, though. Kane’s 0.31 goals per game and 0.57 points per game were his worst rates since the 2015-16 season. He was especially diminished in the playoffs, posting four goals and eight points in 20 games while averaging under 15 minutes per night. It was a far cry from his showing just two years ago in the 2022 playoffs, where he averaged nearly 20 minutes per game for the Oilers and led the league in postseason goals with 13 despite Edmonton being eliminated in the Western Conference Final by the Avalanche.

Now, as expected, the Oilers will have the opportunity to place Kane’s $5.125MM cap hit on long-term injured reserve. However, it’s unlikely they will. It was viewed as a potential necessity a few weeks ago, but after opting not to match the offer sheets the Blues tendered for Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway and trading Cody Ceci and his $3.25MM cap hit to the Sharks, Edmonton projects to be fully cap-compliant with a 22-player roster that includes Kane, per PuckPedia.

The Oilers can place Kane on standard IR to free up a roster spot if they so choose. They enter the season with $945,833 in space, so the player they’re adding to the roster to replace Kane will need to have a cap hit equal to or lower than that amount. Potential candidates include recent PTO signee Mike Hoffman and minor-leaguers James Hamblin and Raphael Lavoie.

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