Headlines

Go To MLB Trade Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

NLA

Zach Sanford Signs With NL’s HC Lugano

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

HC Lugano of the Swiss National League announced today that they’ve signed former NHL winger Zach Sanford to a one-year deal.

Sanford, 31 in November, was a second-round pick by the Capitals back in 2013. He started his career with the Caps in 2016 but played only briefly for Washington, splitting the first part of the season between the NHL and AHL rosters before he was traded to the Blues in the Kevin Shattenkirk headliner at the 2017 deadline.

He remained in the minors for an injury-plagued 2017-18 campaign but got much more of a crack at NHL minutes the following year. Sanford was among the Blues’ better fourth-line options in the regular season, totaling 20 points in 60 games, and appeared in eight playoff games as the franchise marched to its first Stanley Cup win.

The post-Cup bump was real and immediate. While he began 2019-20 on the fringes of the St. Louis lineup, he worked his way into regular top-nine minutes by the time November rolled around and carried some shooting luck to a career year. He clicked at a 17.8% rate in 58 appearances before COVID ended the season in March, scoring 16 goals and 30 points to finish seventh on the team in scoring while also finishing fourth with 109 hits.

That quality production helped the Blues along to their first division title in five years and got him penciled into the opening-night lineup when play resumed the following season in January 2021. Unfortunately, that breakout wasn’t sustainable. Despite still shooting at an above-average 14.9% rate, Sanford only managed 16 points in 52 games in his follow-up year despite averaging 14:53 of ice time per game, more than a full minute over his 2019-20 deployment.

Sanford was an RFA the following offseason and signed a one-year, $2MM deal to remain with the Blues, but he never played another game for St. Louis. They traded him to the Senators before the 2021-22 season began and had similar offensive struggles in extended minutes before getting flipped to the Jets at the trade deadline. Despite the move, he did play a career-high 80 games that year, recording a 9-12–21 scoring line with a career-high 169 hits.

The 6’4″, 206-lb winger has only logged 45 NHL appearances since then, though, and saw no usage last season. After seeing some action for the Predators, Coyotes, and Blackhawks in the past few years, he spent last year with Chicago on a two-way deal and recorded 19 goals and 43 points in 70 games for AHL Rockford.

Now headed to Switzerland, he should help replace some of the offensive production Lugano lost when high-end minor-league scorer Daniel Carr departed the club earlier this summer to make a return to North America. He brings Lugano’s roster’s tally of NHL experience to over 1,500 games, joining names like Connor Carrick, Rasmus Kupari, and Brendan Perlini, among a few others. If he lights up the Swiss circuit this year, a return to the NHL wouldn’t be out of the question for 2026-27.

Jan Rutta Signs Two-Year Deal With Switzerland’s Geneve-Servette HC

at CDT | by 2 Comments

Aug. 25: Rutta has signed on with Geneve-Servette on a two-year contract, the Swiss team announced.

Aug. 23: Last season was a tough one for veteran defenseman Jan Rutta.  He dealt with some lower-body injuries, and when he was in the lineup for San Jose, he was often on the third pairing.  That has certainly contributed to his going unsigned through the first seven weeks of free agency, but that might be coming to an end soon.  Earlier this week, Blick’s Gregory Beaud reported that the blueliner is expected to sign with Geneve-Servette in Switzerland.

Rutta played in 54 games for the Sharks last season, picking up just three goals and six assists in a little over 17 minutes a night of playing time.  However, he took a regular turn on their penalty kill and played some tough defensive minutes.  Speculatively, NHL teams could be eyeing him as a PTO candidate to fill a sixth or seventh role if things went well in training camp, but clearly, a complete contract offer has yet to materialize, and at some point, a guaranteed deal overseas could be viewed as a better option than trying to earn a contract off a tryout.

Rutta debuted relatively late in the NHL, with his first season coming at the age of 27 with Chicago.  Since then, he has suited up in 417 regular-season games between four different clubs, putting up 23 goals and 75 assists along with 479 blocked shots.  He also has a pair of Stanley Cup rings from his time with Tampa Bay.

Assuming Rutta eventually agrees to a deal with Geneve-Servette, he will be the third veteran NHL player to join that team this offseason.  Previously, they signed wingers Jesse Puljujarvi and Jimmy Vesey and have one import slot remaining that it appears they want to use to bring in a veteran defender.

Emil Bemstrom Signs In Swiss National League

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

Aug. 22: Bemstrom has officially made the jump to Bern, confirming a one-year deal today.

Aug. 12: Pittsburgh Penguins unrestricted free agent Emil Bemstrom will continue his career overseas. He has signed with SC Bern of Switzerland’s National League, per Henrik Sjöberg of Switzerland’s HockeyNews and Tony Androckitis of Inside AHL Hockey. This will mark a return to Europe for Bemstrom, who grew up through the Swedish junior hockey pipeline and has experience in Sweden’s SHL and Finland’s Liiga.

Bemstrom played through his first full season in the minor leagues last season, to great effect. He cemented a spot on the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins’ top line, and worked his way to 23 goals and 48 points across 48 games. Despite that, he was only able to manage one assist in 14 games with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The performance continued a wave of star scoring in the AHL, followed by underwhelming play in the NHL, which Bemstrom has been riding for much of the last four seasons.

The nifty forward made his NHL debut with the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2019-20 season, after posting 35 points in 47 SHL games in the 2018-19 campaign. His career started off great, with 20 points, split evenly, in his first 56 NHL games. But Bemstrom opted to move to the Liiga for the first half of the shortened 2020-21 season, and while he scored 17 points in 16 games, his NHL scoring fell to a measly five points in 20 games following a return to Columbus. He’d continue on in a depth role for the Blue Jackets through the next two seasons – and even one-upped his rookie performance with 22 points in 55 games of the 2022-23 season. His NHL performances were coupled with tremendous efforts in the AHL, marked by 47 points in just 33 games between 2021 and 2024.

Hot scoring in the minor leagues and a clear ability to outplay his opponents continued to earn Bemstrom routine NHL minutes through the 2023-24 season. But he was never able to find a true groove and found himself relegated to the minor leagues for the majority of last season. He’ll now search for a bigger opportunity on the other side of the world. He brings a resume featuring 75 points in 242 NHL games, and 95 points in 81 AHL games, with him to Switzerland.

Bemstrom will join multiple NHL features on SC Bern’s lineup, including Swedish compatriots Hardy Häman Aktell and Anton Lindholm. Bern has lost in the quarterfinals of the NL’s postseason in each of their last four playoff appearances. They’ll hope the addition of a high-scoring veteran of North American pros will be enough to boost them over tough competition, like the ZSC Lions and HC Lausanne.

Jimmy Vesey Signs With NL’s Genève-Servette HC

at CDT | by 3 Comments

Genève-Servette HC of Switzerland’s National League has agreed to a two-year deal with winger Jimmy Vesey, according to a team announcement. Vesey was reportedly considering offers from Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League but will instead move to Western Europe.

It will mark Vesey’s first season overseas following a four-year run with Harvard from 2012-16 and a nine-year NHL career. There presumably wasn’t much interest from NHL clubs this summer in making it a 10-year one. The Boston native had solidified himself as a solid bottom-six piece with PK deployability in recent years but fell out of a regular role in 2024-25, scoring only eight points in 43 games between the Rangers and Avalanche while averaging a career-low 10:39 per game.

Now 32, Vesey was a third-round pick by Nashville in 2012 but opted not to sign with the club. He tested free agency in 2016 following a standout senior season as Harvard’s captain, winning the Hobey Baker Award after scoring 24 goals and 46 points in 33 games. He landed with the Rangers, but his offensive tools never really clicked. He’s only cracked 30 points in a season once, scoring 17 goals and 35 points in 81 games for the Blueshirts in the 2018-19 season.

That ended his first stint in New York. He went on to spend the next three years with the Sabres, Maple Leafs, Canucks, and Devils before returning to Manhattan as a free agent in 2022. He only missed three games over the 2022-23 and 2023-24 campaigns but was a frequent healthy scratch for the Rangers last year, limited to six points in 33 games before being flipped to Colorado near the trade deadline in the Ryan Lindgren deal.

It’s rare that a player making the jump to Europe in his 30s manages to make a successful NHL return. While Vesey still likely has at least a few years of pro hockey left in him, they likely won’t be back in North America. Assuming he has played his final NHL game, he finishes with 101 goals, 93 assists, and 194 points in 626 appearances with a -58 rating. He averaged 13 goals and 25 points per 82 games.

International Notes: Vecchione, Andersson, Ratkovic-Berndtsson, Jurmo, Dickinson

at CDT | by 4 Comments

Veteran farmhand Mike Vecchione has signed on with Traktor Chelyabinsk of the Kontinental Hockey League, Tony Androckitis of Inside AHL Hockey reports. The Hershey Bears, where Vecchione had spent the last four seasons on both two-way deals with the Capitals and AHL-only contracts, said Monday that he would be heading overseas.

Vecchione, 32, last played in the NHL in a one-game call-up for Washington in the 2021-22 season. It was just his third career appearance, and he saw just over five minutes of ice time in a shootout win over the Hurricanes late in the year.

After also spending the following season on a two-way deal with the Capitals but not seeing any NHL recalls, Washington opted not to re-sign him. He remained in the organization on AHL contracts with the Bears, though, and finished fifth on the club in scoring last season with a 19-20–39 line in 68 games.

The former Union College standout was never drafted, but after erupting for an NCAA-leading 63 points in 38 games in his senior season at Union, he was the top college free agent in 2017 and made his NHL debut with the Flyers to end the season. Unfortunately, that never turned into anything resembling a full-time NHL role. The 5’10” forward has remained almost exclusively in the AHL ever since, recording 300 points in 473 career games over the last eight years with stops in Lehigh Valley, San Antonio, Colorado, and Hershey.

Vecchione is the second player who spent last season with the Bears to sign with Traktor in the past few days. Pierrick Dube, who was under an NHL contract with Washington for the last two years but was non-tendered last month, signed with them a few days back.

Here’s more from international waters:

  • Former lottery pick Lias Andersson has signed a two-year extension with Switzerland’s EHC Biel-Bienne through the 2027-28 season, the team announced. The 2017 No. 7 overall pick by the Rangers headed to the National League club last summer after being non-tendered by the Canadiens and flourished, recording a 15-18–33 scoring line in 40 contests to lead the team in points per game (0.825). He’ll turn 27 in October, and the chances of him ever building on his 110-game NHL career remain slim, but he’s surely happy with the fit after a couple of years of strong AHL production, with few additional NHL chances to show for it.
  • The Sabres have until June 1, 2026, to sign 2022 seventh-round pick Joel Ratkovic-Berndtsson before losing his rights, something they don’t appear likely to do based on his development trajectory so far. The 21-year-old just signed a one-year deal with Karlskrona HK, putting him in Sweden’s third-tier pro league – HockeyEttan – for 2025-26. The 6’0″ winger also spent most of last season in that league with Vasterviks IK, where he impressed with 29 points in 28 games, but failing to climb into a regular role in even the second-tier HockeyAllsvenskan at this stage of his development is essentially a disqualifier for any NHL potential. He only recorded one assist in nine second-tier games last season while on loan to Tingsryds AIF.
  • As expected, former Flames prospect Joni Jurmo has returned home after mutually terminating his entry-level contract earlier this month. The defenseman has signed a one-year deal with Liiga’s Kiekko-Espoo, per a club announcement. He last played in Finland’s top level in 2023-24, limited to five points and a plus-three rating across 46 games for Ilves and KooKoo.
  • After being non-tendered by the Blues last month, center Tanner Dickinson is headed to the Slovak Extraliga to play with HC Presov, the team announced on its Facebook page. St. Louis let the 23-year-old become an unrestricted free agent after he scored 15 points in 57 games for the AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds last season. A 2020 fourth-round pick who had good scoring numbers in juniors, COVID and injuries completely derailed his development. The Ohio native only played 38 games combined in his first three post-draft seasons, only three of which were professional.

Filip Zadina Signs Two-Year Extension In Switzerland

at CDT | by 9 Comments

Back in April, winger Filip Zadina acknowledged to Ceska Televize that he’d be open to returning to North America for the upcoming season with an NHL out clause in his deal overseas.  However, it appears the type of offer he was hoping for didn’t materialize.  Instead, HC Davos in Switzerland announced that they’ve signed Zadina to a two-year contract extension.

The 25-year-old was the sixth-overall pick back in 2018 but struggled to live up to his draft billing.  After five seasons with Detroit, Zadina surprisingly asked to be released from the final two years and $4.56MM in cash owing on his deal with the Red Wings, intent on landing a fresh start with another organization over what looked likely to be a probable assignment to the minors in 2023-24.  While it was a gamble, the thought was that over time, he’d be able to recover that money.

But that didn’t exactly happen.  Zadina signed a one-year, $1.1MM deal with San Jose soon after becoming a free agent in 2023 and tallied a career-best 13 goals along with 10 assists in 72 games.  However, that wasn’t enough to secure a qualifying offer as he was non-tendered a little more than a year ago, making him an unrestricted free agent once again.

No guaranteed NHL offer came his way so Zadina decided to sign with Davos for last season.  He was more productive with them, picking up 21 goals and 13 assists in 43 regular season games while also picking up four points in seven games for Czechia at the Worlds back in May.

But instead of getting another chance in North America, Zadina will now try to build on his performance with Davos for the next couple of years.  He’ll only be 28 when this extension expires and with 262 career NHL games under his belt, that’s enough to keep him on the NHL radar if he keeps having success overseas.

Jesse Puljujärvi Signs With NL’s Genève-Servette HC

at CDT | by 2 Comments

For the second time since being drafted fourth overall in the 2016 NHL Draft, Jesse Puljujärvi is taking his professional career overseas. According to a team announcement from the NL’s Genève-Servette HC, Puljujärvi has signed a new two-year contract with the organization.

Puljujärvi’s career trajectory is well known at this point. After scoring 13 goals and 28 points in 50 games for the Finnish Liiga’s Kärpät in the 2015-16 campaign, the Edmonton Oilers drafted Puljujärvi, believing he’d be a premier power forward for years to come.

Despite a solid showing with Edmonton’s AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors, he never gained much traction at the NHL level. Throughout his first three years playing for the Oilers, Puljujärvi scored 17 goals and 37 points in 139 games, averaging 12:28 of ice time with a -10 rating and 7.4% shooting percentage.

Knowing he needed a reset, Edmonton allowed Puljujärvi to return to his native Finland, again with Kärpät, to regain his confidence. After a few quality years with the only Liiga team he’s ever known, the Oilers quickly brought Puljujärvi back into the fold during the 2020-21 NHL season.

Although it still wasn’t up to his draft billing, there was reason for optimism in Puljujärvi’s game upon his return. In the two seasons following his return from Edmonton, Puljujärvi scored 29 goals and 61 points in 120 contests, averaging 15:44 of ice time with a +28 rating and 10.5% shooting percentage.

Unfortunately, Puljujärvi sank into his old ways during the 2022-23 campaign, and he was moved to the Carolina Hurricanes in a low-level trade. Since then, he’s had another two pit stops with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Florida Panthers.

Without knowing if he’ll make another return attempt, Puljujärvi will have last played professionally in North America for the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers. In the 2024-25 season, he scored five goals and 13 points in 22 games for the Checkers. Additionally, he contributed three goals and 11 points in 18 postseason contests, helping Charlotte reach the 2025 Calder Cup Final.

UFA Notes: Allen, Schmidt, Ceci, Perry, Asplund

at CDT | by 1 Comment

The Devils are likely to go “down to the wire” on extension talks with goaltender Jake Allen before the market opens at 11 a.m. CT today, independent insider Frank Seravalli reports.

Allen was a spectacular backup option to Jacob Markström in his first full season in Jersey. There’s no surprise that they’ve expressed strong interest in retaining him, but they’ll likely have to commit significant financial resources to do so. He’s the clear top goalie available amid a weak market and could very well have multiple offers out there for three or more years with an AAV north of $5MM.

Would the Devils be willing to make him their highest-paid goaltender for a season? Markström has some salary retained by the Flames, so he only costs $4.125MM against the cap as he enters the final season of his contract. A multi-year commitment to the 34-year-old Allen might still be a good idea to help guard against a potential Markström departure next summer, especially with no true blue-chip prospects in the system.

Despite a 13-16-1 record, Allen put up better numbers than Markström last year in 20 fewer starts with a .906 SV% and 5.0 GSAA while tying him with four shutouts. He may decide to at least wait to test the market to see if a goalie-needy team like the Sharks, who also need to add nearly $20MM in cap hits next season to reach the floor, gives him an offer he can’t refuse.

Other notes of interest before the market opens:

  • While the Panthers have managed to get extensions done for Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad, Brad Marchand, and now depth forward Tomas Nosek in the last few days, the same won’t happen for defenseman Nate Schmidt. He’ll head elsewhere on the open market today after recouping some market value on a one-year deal with Florida following a buyout by the Jets, according to Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic. Schmidt, 34 in July, had 19 points in 80 regular-season games but broke out for a 3-9–12 scoring line and a plus-nine rating in all 23 playoff games for the Cats.
  • Another UFA Florida will lose is depth forward Rasmus Asplund. Swiss National League club HC Davos announced they’ve signed him to a two-year contract. Asplund, 27, saw just six games of NHL action with Florida this year and instead spent most of the season with AHL Charlotte, where he had 20 goals and 43 points in 63 games.
  • With the Kings expecting to lose Vladislav Gavrikov in free agency today, they’ve shown interest in inking Cody Ceci on the open market to help recoup some defensive depth, per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. A righty compared to Gavrikov’s left-shot, Ceci might be more of a direct replacement for the recently-traded Jordan Spence rather than Gavrikov. The 31-year-old had 24 points and a plus-six rating in 85 games last season between the Sharks and Stars while averaging 21:13 per game, his fourth straight season above the 20-minute mark.
  • The Flyers will make a play for veteran winger Corey Perry today, Friedman says. The 40-year-old may have priced himself out of a new deal with the Oilers following a renaissance postseason performance for Edmonton, ranking second on the team with 10 goals in 22 games.

International Notes: Petan, Heatherington, Wilson, Keeper

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

Longtime NHL and AHL depth piece Nic Petan is coming off his first season overseas in 2024-25. While the 30-year-old won’t be staying with Russia’s Ak Bars Kazan, with whom he produced 44 points in 47 games, he isn’t making an NHL return, either. He’s staying on the other side of the Atlantic after Swiss club HC Ambrì-Piotta announced Monday they’ve signed him to a two-year contract.

Many would ask how a player with 120 points in 71 WHL games in their draft year wasn’t a first-round pick. It appeared that NHL teams were onto something. While the 2013 second-rounder has gone on to become an elite minor-league scorer, his lack of size (5’9″, 174 lbs) ended up proving prohibitive in making him a full-time NHLer. While Petan has recorded 35 points in 170 NHL games with four clubs in parts of nine seasons, he has only topped 20 games in a season twice and big-league opportunities were becoming increasingly few and far between for him over the past few years.

After appearing in just six games with the Wild in the 2023-24 season and not receiving a call-up after the Rangers acquired him before the trade deadline, Petan opted for more stability overseas following a nine-year pro career that saw him log NHL and AHL time each season. The move to Switzerland is somewhat closer to “home” – while Petan was born in British Columbia, he also holds Italian citizenship and will now play in an Italian-speaking region of the country.

Petan, 30, joins ex-NHLers Christopher DiDomenico, Tim Heed, Gilles Senn, and Chris Tierney on Ambrì-Piotta’s roster for 2025-26. The club finished 10th in the National League this past season, continuing a run of top-league appearances that began with their promotion from the NLB (now called the Swiss League) in 1985.

There’s more international news to pass along:

  • Former NHL defenseman Dillon Heatherington has signed a two-year contract with EHC Munich of Germany’s DEL, the club announced. It marks the 30-year-old lefty’s second time playing overseas after spending the 2020-21 season in Kazakhstan with Barys Nur-Sultan (now Barys Astana) of the Kontinental Hockey League. The former second-round pick of the Blue Jackets played this past season on an AHL contract in San Diego, serving as an alternate captain for the Ducks’ top minor-league affiliate while recording seven points and a minus-three rating in 59 games. He last appeared in the NHL with the Senators, playing three games in the 2022-23 season.
  • Forward Scott Wilson, a member of the Penguins’ 2017 Stanley Cup championship team, has signed a two-year deal with the KHL’s Sibir Novosibirsk, the league relayed. The 33-year-old has played exclusively in Russia since his last North American contract, an AHL deal in the Panthers organization, expired in 2022. He’s put up a 53-46–99 scoring line in 164 KHL games with Vityaz Moscow Region, Metallurg Magnitogorsk, and Salavat Yulaev Ufa over the past three years.
  • 29-year-old defenseman Brady Keeper has agreed to a one-year deal with the Glasgow Clan of the United Kingdom’s Elite Ice Hockey League. The 6’2″ righty did not play in 2024-25 after recording four points in 22 games the prior season with AHL Laval while on a two-way deal with the Canadiens. The Manitoba native played two regular-season games and one playoff game for the Panthers between 2019 and 2021.

Brandon Gignac Signs In Swiss League

at CDT | by Leave a Comment

Rather than test free agency next month, pending UFA Brandon Gignac has decided to head overseas.  EHC Kloten in Switzerland announced that they’ve inked the center to a two-year contract.

The 27-year-old was originally drafted by New Jersey in the third round back in 2016.  However, playing time was hard to come by at the top level as he made just one NHL appearance with them before being non-tendered in 2021.

That brought him to Montreal’s farm team on a minor-league deal, one that he was able to convert to a two-year, two-way NHL pact in 2023-24.  When that happened, Gignac got into seven games with the Canadiens, scoring once while logging a little under 12 minutes a night of playing time.  Meanwhile, he had a career year in the AHL with Laval that season, notching 55 points in 61 games.

Coming off that season, there was some thought that Gignac could push for a back-of-the-roster spot with Montreal this year or at least be in line for a recall when injuries arise.  However, after clearing waivers in training camp, Gignac suffered a long-term injury that caused him to miss 53 games, putting an end to any hopes of a promotion.  He returned for the playoffs and had just three points in 12 games.

Knowing that an NHL opportunity likely wasn’t going to be on the table this summer, Gignac’s options likely would have been limited to two-way offers next month.  Instead of taking another one of those, he’ll now try his hand in a new league altogether.

Pro Hockey Rumors is not affiliated with National Hockey League, NHL or NHL.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

scroll to top