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Minor Transactions: 12/20/2025

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The midpoint of the season has sparked a flurry of action across the hockey world. Some players are finally being moved from a slow start to the season, while others are finding their first contracts of the year. The notable moves have been rounded up and captured below:

  • Former New York Islanders center Leo Komarov has signed a one-year contract with HC Davos of Switzerland’s National League. The 38-year-old Estonian spent the last two seasons with HIFK of Finland’s Liiga. He scored 23 points in 55 games with the club, but wasn’t able to secure a contract for this season. That will change with a move to Switzerland, marking the eighth professional hockey league that Komarov has played in – on top of tenures in Finland’s Mestis and Liiga, Russia’s KHL, the AHL and NHL, and Sweden’s SHL. He will offer Davos veteran depth.
  • Also signing an overseas contract is former Buffalo Sabres goaltender Dustin Tokarski, who has left his professional try-out contract with the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins to sign a deal with Lowen Frankfurt of Germany’s DEL. Tokarski made two appearances with Grand Rapids on his try-out, posting one win and a .929 save percentage. He posted a .897 Sv% in 21 AHL games, and a .902 Sv% in six NHL games, in the Carolina Hurricanes’ organization last season. He’ll join Frankfurt for the second-half of the year and could have an open path to the starting role, with all three of Frankfurt’s goaltenders posting sub-.900 Sv% through the first half of the season.
  • Hard-hitting Utah Mammoth prospect Tomas Lavoie has been traded in the QMJHL. He will head to the Chicoutimi Saguenéens in exchange for five draft picks, including a first-rounder, headed back to the Cape Breton Eagles. Lavoie was a core piece of the Eagles this season, offering stalwart defense and reliable puck-moving. The former third-round pick has 21 points in 24 games this season and could bring a reliable, shutdown role to a Saguenéens lineup currently leaning on high-octane defenders like Alex Huang.
  • Seattle Kraken prospect Alexis Bernier will also head to the Saguenéens in exchange for Leo-Gabriel Gosselin and five draft picks. Bernier is a volume shooter who racked up 14 goals and 46 points in 59 games with the Baie-Comeau Drakkar last season, but hasn’t yet played this year. He could be due for a major breakout after rivaling point-per-game scoring last season, which should only bolster a Saguenéens lineup that has already propped up shoot-first wingers Maxim Massé and Émile Guité. The Saguenéens will go all-in on this season before likely losing Masse, Guite, and many others to pro deals.

Derick Brassard Comes Out Of Retirement, Signs In Switzerland

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Longtime NHL center Derick Brassard is coming out of retirement and has signed with Genève-Servette of Switzerland’s National League for the remainder of the season, as first reported by Nicolas St-Pierre of the “Dans le Vestiaire” podcast.

Brassard, 38, hasn’t played since suiting up for the Senators in the 2022-23 season. He tore a ligament in his ankle late in the season and, after trying to push his recovery as a free agent during 2023-24, announced his retirement after he sat out the year.

The sixth overall pick in the 2006 draft by the Blue Jackets, Brassard did manage to eke out crossing the 1,000-game mark before ending his NHL career. In his heyday, he was a high-end second-line center and fringe first-line piece for the Rangers, who acquired him from Columbus in 2013 in a deal that sent Marián Gáborík the other way. Three years later, he was involved in another high-profile trade, being sent to the Senators for Mika Zibanejad.

That deal marked a turning point for the worse in Brassard’s career. He’d flirted with the 60-point mark in his last two years with the Blueshirts and had averaged 50 points per 82 games. After the deal, he’d only top 40 points once and 30 points three times. He didn’t last a full two seasons in Ottawa either, and was shipped to the Penguins at the 2018 trade deadline. That kicked off an all-time journeyman run for Brassard, who ended up playing for eight teams in the span of five seasons. Between 2017-18 and 2021-22, he logged stints for the Panthers, Avalanche, Islanders, Coyotes, Flyers, and Oilers in addition to his time in Ottawa and Pittsburgh. He then returned to the Sens as a free agent before wrapping up his career.

Now, the Quebec native will play international hockey for only the second time in his career. He saw six games of action for Austria’s EC Salzburg during the 2012 lockout, recording four goals and an assist.

He’ll link up with a Genève-Servette roster that includes plenty of familiar faces. They boast over 2,200 games of NHL experience, including Jimmy Vesey, Jan Rutta, Jesse Puljujärvi, and Markus Granlund.

Metropolitan Notes: Hamilton, Foerster, Keller

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Devils defenseman Dougie Hamilton left Thursday’s victory over Montreal with an undisclosed injury and he’ll be out for a few games at least.  Team reporter Amanda Stein relays (Twitter link) that the veteran will be out for a minimum of a week, which suggests that he’s likely to land on injured reserve before long with New Jersey carrying the maximum of 23 players at the moment.  The 32-year-old had been off to a solid start to the season before the injury, picking up four goals and three assists in 14 games while logging nearly 21 minutes a night of playing time.  Colton White will take Hamilton’s spot in the lineup for the time being after being recalled earlier this week; he suited up this afternoon against Pittsburgh for his first NHL game since April 13, 2023.

More from the Metropolitan:

  • Flyers winger Tyson Foerster skated before practice yesterday as he works his way back from a lower-body injury, notes Gabriela Carroll of The Philadelphia Inquirer. The 23-year-old landed on IR earlier this week retroactive to November 1st, meaning he can be activated at any time since he has now served the minimum of one week.  Foerster was off to a good start before the injury, collecting four goals and three assists in 11 games while logging over 18 minutes a night of playing time.
  • Capitals goalie prospect Antoine Keller has terminated his minor league deal with Washington to head back overseas. HC Ajoie in Switzerland announced that they’ve signed the 21-year-old to a two-year contract.  Keller was a seventh-round pick by Washington back in 2023 and spent last season in the NL, albeit in a backup role with Lausanne where he only played in 13 games.  Keller was also on France’s roster at the most recent Worlds and could be part of their group for the upcoming Olympics as well.  Washington has until June 1, 2027 to sign Keller to an entry-level deal or they will lose his rights.

Minor Transactions: 11/03/2025

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It’s not a hugely packed day on the NHL schedule, with just four games on the docket. That’s also the case outside of the NHL, where most European pro leagues aren’t playing and the AHL has just one contest – a game between the Manitoba Moose, the affiliate of the Winnipeg Jets, and the Texas Stars who are the affiliate of the Dallas Stars. What has been active today, though, even without many games to be played, has been player movement outside of the NHL. There are quite a few transactions to go over from the wider world of professional hockey, so we’ll recap all the notable moves here:

  • Veteran goalie Louis Domingue, a longtime NHL backup or organizational third goalie, left KHL side Sibir Novosibirsk after just 11 games played. Per a translated copy of the team’s official announcement, Novosibirsk cited “family reasons” as the reason for Domingue’s release. The 33-year-old goalie, who has played in 144 games over the course of his NHL career, signed in Russia in July, marking his first entry into the European pro hockey circuit. His adjustment to the KHL game did not go well, as he posted an 0-9-0 record with an .892 save percentage and 3.83 goals-against average. Domingue played last season on a one-year, one-way $775K contract, and will now look to continue his career elsewhere. He has performed well as an AHL goalie throughout his time in North America, so given his level of experience and track record, a return to North America, perhaps even on an AHL contract, cannot be ruled out. A team such as the Chicago Wolves could be a fit for his services, as they could benefit from some veteran reinforcement in the crease. Their two incumbent netminders, Amir Miftakhov and Nikita Quapp, are short on AHL experience and have posted respective save percentages of .878 and .852 so far this season.
  • 2019 Anaheim Ducks first-round pick Brayden Tracey has found a place to play out the 2025-26 season, signing a one-year contract with Mora IK of HockeyAllsvenskan, Sweden’s second-tier league. Tracey originally signed his entry-level contract in November 2019, but was unable to secure a second NHL contract after three underwhelming pro campaigns with the San Diego Gulls. He was reasonably productive, scoring 31 points in 55 games as a rookie, for example, and even earned the right to make his NHL debut. But he wasn’t retained by the team and started 2024-25 on an AHL PTO with the Bakersfield Condors, one that did not materialize into a full-time AHL deal. Tracey then split the rest of the season between Jukurit of the Finnish Liiga (scoring six points in 13 games) and Slovan Bratislava of the Slovak Extraliga, scoring eight points in 11 combined regular season and playoff games. The 6’0″ forward, still just 24 years old, heads to a Mora team that has gotten off to a slow start to the season, and they will likely look for him to help boost an offense that currently ranks fourth-to-last in goals scored in the league.
  • Former Philadelphia Flyers goalie Felix Sandstrom has left Finnish Liiga side Karpat Oulu, as his fixed-term contract with the team expired Nov. 2. Sandstrom originally signed the deal in September as part of the club’s response to an injury suffered by incumbent starter Visa Vedenpaa, who is a 2023 draft pick of the Seattle Kraken. Sandstrom didn’t have a great stretch with Karpat, going 3-6-1 with a .872 save percentage. A 2015 third-round pick of the Flyers, Sandstrom ultimately became the organization’s No. 3 goalie, playing in a total of 30 NHL games across his six-year career in North American pro hockey. Sandstrom played well enough to earn a one-way contract year for 2023-24, but the Flyers ultimately moved on from him in 2024 and he signed a one-year, two-way deal with a $450K guarantee with the Buffalo Sabres for 2024-25. Sandstrom struggled to get into games for the Rochester Americans, getting into just 19 contests, in large part due to the success of top prospect goalie Devon Levi. Now that his short-term deal in Liiga has expired, the experienced goalie will need to find another spot to continue what has been a solid pro career.
  • Another goalie who was once playing on an NHL contract was involved in player transaction news today: Hugo Alnefelt. Liiga’s HIFK confirmed that the 2019 Tampa Bay Lightning draft pick would remain with the club for the duration of the 2025-26 season after passing through the trial period of his loan. Alnefelt is contracted to Swedish side HV71, but after he went 8-16-1 with a .899 save percentage in 28 SHL games last season, the club elected to move forward with other goalies for 2025-26. HV71 worked with Alnefelt to find a place for him to get playing time in 2025-26, and they elected to loan him to HIFK in Liiga. Alnefelt has played in six games so far in Finland, posting a .889 save percentage and 2.94 goals-against average. Alnefelt was a tandem goalie for the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch for three seasons, from 2021-22 through 2023-24. He posted an .895 save percentage across 86 games, and was not signed to an NHL contract extension upon the expiry of his entry-level deal, prompting his move back to Europe.
  • 2017 Detroit Red Wings fifth-round pick Cole Fraser was traded in the ECHL today, as the Worcester Railers traded the defenseman to the Cincinnati Cyclones for future considerations. The big right-shot blueliner has been in the ECHL since he signed with the Kansas City Mavericks at the conclusion of his junior career with the OHL’s Peterborough Petes. Across his 288-game career in North America’s third-tier pro league, Fraser has scored 62 points and has earned a call-up to play in the AHL once. That call-up came in 2021-22, when he skated in a Nov. 14 contest for the Belleville Senators against the Utica Comets, a 4-1 loss for the Senators. Fraser played a defensive role through six games this season with the Railers, ranking second on the team in shorthanded ice time per game.
  • The ECHL’s Maine Mariners acquired forward Owen Gallatin from the Fort Wayne Komets in exchange for cash considerations, according to a team announcement. The 23-year-old is in the first full season of his professional career, having dipped his toes into pro hockey late last season after the conclusion of his NCAA career. Gallatin signed with the Komets after playing four seasons with the University of Minnesota-Duluth, including a strong junior campaign where he scored 30 points in 37 games. Gallatin’s production dipped in his senior year, and he wasn’t able to earn consistent ice time at the start of 2025-26 with Fort Wayne, leading to this early-season trade to Maine.
  • Another first-year pro player was traded in the ECHL today, with the South Carolina Stingrays acquiring forward Tanner Edwards from the Toledo Walleye. The 25-year-old was the most penalized player in the USHL in 2019-20, his lone season of USHL hockey, racking up 206 penalty minutes in just 37 games. He then played four years of college hockey, his first three with Minnesota State (where he won two CCHA conference titles) before spending his senior year with his hometown program Alaska-Anchorage. Edwards has just one pro game to his name at this point, an Oct. 25 game against the Bloomington Bison in which he registered his first pro fight.
  • There was a trade in the Czech Extraliga today, with HC Energie Karlovy Vary acquiring Jan Bambula from HC Vitkovice Ridera in exchange for forward Jan Sir. Bambula, 24, was in the midst of his second season with Vitkovice. He scored 13 points in 35 games last season and began this year with five points in 19 games before today’s trade. A speedy, offensively-oriented undersized winger, Bambula’s acquisition could boost Karlovy Vary’s offensive attack. Sir, 25, joined Karlovy Vary for 2024-25 after a five-year pro career with Bili Tygri Liberec, which was also his junior team. The 6’2″ pivot doesn’t offer the speed or offensive ability that Bambula is credited with, but brings the ability to play down the middle, additional size, and defensive versatility. He’s gone scoreless through 20 games this season, though he has been the team’s leading penalty-killing forward so far this season. While Bambula isn’t a direct replacement in that role as a winger, his speed did allow him to carve out a role on Vitkovice’s penalty kill, meaning he could end up taking Sir’s vacated spot on Karlovy Vary’s penalty kill.
  • Liiga side Ilves Tampere announced today that forwards Julius Hermonen and Joel Kerkkanen would not continue with the club upon the recent conclusion of their fixed-term contracts. Hermonen, 28, has nearly 300 games of Liiga experience, though he only managed two assists across 14 games for Ilves. He did score a goal in Champions Hockey League play, as part of a 5-0 victory over HC Kometa Brno. Kerkkanen, 26, isn’t an established quantity in Finland’s top division the way Hermonen is, with just 41 Liiga games to his name. But he has been quite successful in Finland’s second-tier Mestis, even putting together a point-per-game season in 2022-23 with JoKP. That scoring ability hasn’t translated to the Liiga level, though, and he registered just one point in his four games in Tampere.
  • Veteran Swedish netminder Jonas Gunnarsson, who was once a member of the Nashville Predators organization, signed a deal with HockeyAllsvenskan club AIK today. The 33-year-old has experience in Sweden’s second division, helping teams to promotion to the SHL on two separate occasions: 2014-15 with the Malmo Redhawks, and 2021-22 with HV71. 2021-22 was Gunnarsson’s most recent season in the Allsvenskan, and he performed very well, registering the most shutouts in the league and posting a .907 save percentage. He served as Joni Ortio’s backup for HV71 in its first year back in the SHL in 2022-23, before earning a role as a starter in Liiga with Ilves in 2023-24. He was solid in Liiga, posting a .912 save percentage in 36 games, and then spent 2024-25 with Graz in the ICEHL. Now he’s back in the league where he’s been successful in the past, and will look to stabilize an AIK goaltending situation that has been an issue for the team so far in 2025-26.
  • The SHL’s Vaxjo Lakers signed veteran forward Erik Andersson to a one-year contract, according to a team announcement. The 31-year-old winger is a defensive specialist who brings a large amount of experience in Sweden’s top league. He has played in 471 games, and while he’s only registered 74 points, he should be able to contribute on Vaxjo’s penalty kill in short order. Vaxjo’s penalty kill currently ranks fifth in the league in success rate, but with the potential for injuries, the signing of Andersson provides the team with suitable cover to be able to sustain its shorthanded success in the event that natural attrition of a long hockey season leads to regular penalty killers becoming unavailable.

Minor Transactions: 10/29/2025

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Yesterday was a notably busy day for hockey, as all 32 NHL clubs took the ice as part of the league’s “Frozen Frenzy” programming. As a result, today’s calendar of games is light, with just one NHL game to be played: the Toronto Maple Leafs taking on the Columbus Blue Jackets. With that said, that doesn’t mean there aren’t games played in the wider world of pro hockey – the AHL has 12 games set to be played tonight, and numerous European pro leagues have also had games today.

Player movement outside the NHL has a similarly high level of activity, and here we’ll run down the notable moves of the past few days from around the world of professional hockey:

  • 170-game NHL veteran Nic Petan terminated his contract with Swiss pro side HC Ambri-Piotta today, ending a 15-game stint with the club that has gone very poorly. The 30-year-old signed a two-year deal with Ambri-Piotta this past summer with the expectation that he’d be one of the team’s most relied-upon offensive generators. But through 15 games, Petan has registered only four points. It wasn’t an issue of ice time, as he’s averaged nearly 17 minutes of time per game and two minutes of power-play time per game, both he and Ambri-Piotta as a whole have struggled immensely to put the puck in the net. That hasn’t been a problem for Petan for most of his (non-NHL) pro career, as he’s a former AHL All-Star who once led the entire CHL in scoring. He has 289 points in 296 career AHL games and was one of the AHL’s highest-paid two-way players, with a $550K AHL salary when he last played, but that sterling track record wasn’t able to translate to Switzerland. He’ll now look for a new landing spot to continue his pro career.
  • Lada Togliatti, one of the KHL’s worst teams so far this season, made a few player moves today. First, they placed 23-year-old Canadian forward Joshua Lawrence on waivers, placing in question the player’s KHL future. Lawrence, who is the brother of Tynan Lawrence, one of the top-ranked prospects for the 2026 draft, is an undrafted player who worked his way up the European pro hockey ladder to reach the KHL. After his time as a star scorer in the QMJHL ended, Lawrence played almost two highly-successful seasons in the Swiss second division before getting the chance to finish 2024-25 in Liiga with Lahti Pelicans. his 13 points in 22 games for the Pelicans earned him a shot in the KHL with Lada, but after scoring just two points in 14 games, he’s been waived.
  • To reinforce their forward group in the absence of Lawrence, Lada signed two KHL veterans to one-year contracts: Nikita Setdikov and Anton Burdasov. Setdikov, 30, brings nearly 300 games of KHL experience to the table, and he most recently played for Barys Astana, scoring 18 points in 51 games. The year prior, he was one of the top scorers for Nizhnekamsk Neftekhimik, scoring 30 points in 57 games. Burdasov, 34, has 663 games of KHL experience, and is a Gagarin Cup Champion as well as a former All-Star. He also played in Astana last season to limited success, but was a high-end, near point-per-game scorer as recently as 2022-23.
  • Former Boston Bruins farmhand Zane McIntyre has returned to the North American pro game after spending a year overseas. The 33-year-old netminder has signed a contract with the ECHL’s Tahoe Knight Monsters, per the league’s official transactions report. McIntyre spent last season with the Straubing Tigers of the German DEL, playing in 28 games to an .889 save percentage and 2.67 goals-against average. Among the 23 DEL goalies with at least 15 games played last year, McIntyre’s .889 save percentage ranked 22nd. With this newly-signed contract, he’s returning to the North American minor leagues, where he’s had quite a bit more success. A former top NCAA netminder, McIntyre has played in 300 AHL games and is a former All-Star. Since expected starter Jordan Papirny was recalled to the Henderson Silver Knights yesterday, McIntyre could get the chance to hold down the fort for the Knight Monsters for as long as Papirny remains in the AHL.
  • Former New York Rangers prospect Nico Gross signed a three-year contract extension with his current club, HC Davos of the Swiss NL. A 2018 fourth-rounder of the Rangers, Gross hasn’t played pro hockey in North America to this point in his career, but appears to have settled in nicely in the top pro league of his home country. Gross won two NL titles with EV Zug in 2021 and 2022 before transferring to Davos in advance of the 2024-25 season. This extension comes at a somewhat curious time for Gross. His ice time has declined sharply so far in 2025-26 – Gross is averaging 14:28 time-on-ice per game so far this season, per the NL’s stats page, but averaged 16:59 time-on-ice per game last season.
  • Former Chicago Blackhawks prospect Milton Oscarson signed a three-year extension with Örebro HK of the SHL, according to a team announcement. The Blackhawks spent a sixth-round pick at the 2023 entry draft to acquire him, but after he wasn’t able to develop offensively at the SHL level, they elected to let their exclusive rights to sign him expire this past summer. Although he hasn’t scored much, Oscarson has been a regular player for Örebro for more than three years now, and is currently playing 14:10 per game for the team, good for seventh among Örebro forwards.
  • After playing just six games for the team, the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs traded 2007-born defenseman Caden Campion to the WHL’s Wenatchee Wild in exchange for an eighth-round selection at the 2029 WHL Prospects Draft. The 6’1 right-shot blueliner spent last season in the BCHL, splitting his year between the Chilliwack Chiefs and Alberni Valley Bulldogs. Drafted 29th overall in the 2023 USHL Futures Draft, Campion’s WHL career hasn’t started off in ideal fashion, but this trade provides him with the chance to get a fresh start with a new team.
  • Gavin Gould, a two-time WCHA Champion with the Michigan Tech Huskies, has retired from pro hockey, per a social media announcement. Gould, 29, won back-to-back conference titles in his first two years playing college hockey but wasn’t able to build on that momentum in his final two years in the NCAA. He began his pro career in 2021 in the ECHL, and bounced between five different ECHL clubs across his nearly 200-game career. Gould’s most productive stretch came in 2021-22, when he scored 26 points in 23 games for the Allen Americans after a mid-season move from the Greenville Swamp Rabbits.

Cal O’Reilly Signs In Switzerland

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After 19 professional seasons in North America and well over 1,100 games, center Cal O’Reilly is making the jump overseas for a second time. He’s signed a contract with SCL Tigers of Switzerland’s National League that runs through the end of October with an option to extend for the remainder of the 2025-26 season, the team announced.

O’Reilly, the older brother of Ryan O’Reilly, has 145 NHL games to his name but hasn’t touched the top level since 2017-18 with the Wild. He’s played exclusively in the minors ever since, spending the last two seasons in the same organization as his brother on an AHL contract with the Milwaukee Admirals.

Long a premier playmaking threat at the game’s second-highest level this side of the Atlantic, the 6’0″, 187-lb pivot still managed an 11-38–49 scoring line in 68 games for the Admirals last season to lead the club in scoring. As he enters his age-39 season, he’s showing little sign of slowing down – rebounding quite well from some regression that saw him produce as little as 18 points in 59 games with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in 2022-23.

The move to Langnau marks O’Reilly’s first time playing in Europe in over a decade. His only previous overseas stint coincided with the 2012 lockout, when he joined the KHL’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk on a multi-year deal. For whatever reason, his offense didn’t translate – he only managed 20 points in 46 games before he was released early in the 2013-14 season and promptly returned to North America.

O’Reilly was a fifth-round pick by Nashville way back in 2005 and has since gone on to appear in five AHL All-Star games, although a Calder Cup title has eluded him. He’s notched 177 goals and 606 assists for 783 points in 1,022 career minor-league games, tied for 17th in AHL all-time total points and second among active players behind Chris Terry’s 807.

He joins the Tigers a week ahead of their regular-season opener amid some recent injuries to their forward group. He joins Saku Mäenalanen, Harri Pesonen, André Pettersson, and Juuso Riikola as the NHL-experienced talent on their roster.

Zach Sanford Signs With NL’s HC Lugano

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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

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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

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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.

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