Justin Schultz Signs With HC Lugano
HC Lugano of the Swiss National League has agreed to a one-year deal with UFA defenseman Justin Schultz, per a team release. He’s headed overseas after failing to land a one-way deal, two-way deal, or even a PTO from an NHL club this offseason.
Schultz, 34, had spent the last two years in Seattle after inking a two-year, $6MM contract with the Kraken in free agency. He remained what he has been for much of the last few years, a capable depth puck-moving presence with too many defensive shortcomings to truly lock down a top-four role. He made 143 appearances in a Kraken jersey, posting 60 points (14 G, 46 A), a -19 rating, and 62 PIMs.
A second-round pick of the Ducks back in 2008, Schultz didn’t sign with Anaheim coming out of a three-year run at Wisconsin in 2012 and instead landed with the Oilers as a free agent. The two-time NCAA All-American broke into the NHL immediately, playing in all 48 games for Edmonton during the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season and finishing seventh in Calder Trophy voting. He was a top-four fixture for the Oilers, averaging over 22 minutes per night over 248 appearances in parts of four seasons, but his box stats clearly paint the picture of a one-dimensional blue-line threat – 101 points with a -78 rating.
Edmonton traded Schultz to the Penguins near the 2016 trade deadline, where he’d have the best years of his career. While Kris Letang missed significant time with injury in the 2016-17 campaign, Schultz was briefly Pittsburgh’s No. 1 defenseman. He had a career-high 12 goals, 39 assists, and 51 points with a +27 rating in 78 games for the Pens that year, finishing 10th in Norris voting, before adding 13 points in 21 playoff games to help Pittsburgh to its second straight Stanley Cup championship.
Schultz’s offensive production and all-around play continually declined from that point, though. Upon finishing up a three-year, $16.5MM extension in 2020, he landed a two-year deal with the Capitals. He played 120 games for Washington, posting 50 points (7 G, 43 A) with a -3 rating, before heading to Seattle.
A move overseas well into his 30s could signal the end of Schultz’s NHL career. If so, he finishes with 71 goals, 253 assists, 324 points, a -57 rating, and a 49.4 CF% in 745 regular season games. He joins a Lugano defense corps with two other former NHLers, Carl Dahlström and Mirco Müller.
Antti Raanta Signs In Switzerland
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%.
Dominik Kubalík Signs In Switzerland
Unrestricted free agent winger Dominik Kubalík has agreed to join HC Ambrì-Piotta of the Swiss National League for this season, according to a team announcement. Should he land a deal stateside before Dec. 15, his contract has an NHL opt-out clause.
Kubalík, 29, played for Ambrì-Piotta for two seasons before coming to the NHL. He recorded 89 points in 78 games there across the 2017-18 and 2018-19 campaigns, playing a pivotal role in helping them avoid relegation to the second-tier Swiss League in 2018. The following season, he was named the National League’s MVP and led the circuit in scoring before landing an NHL deal the following summer.
Kubalík heads overseas following an incredibly disappointing 2023-24 season with the Senators. After four consecutive seasons of 30-plus points with the Blackhawks and Red Wings, he produced just 11 goals and four assists for 15 points in 74 games in Ottawa while averaging a career-low 12:07 per game with a -30 rating, tied with Jakob Chychrun for the worst on the team.
The Kings selected Kubalík with the 191st pick in 2013 and sent his rights to the Blackhawks nearly six years later, never signing him to an entry-level contract. He joined Chicago for the 2019-20 season, breaking out for 30 goals and 46 points in 68 games and finishing third in Calder Trophy voting.
After two more years of decent middle-six production in the Windy City, he signed a two-year, $5MM deal in Detroit as a UFA in 2022 after going non-tendered by the Hawks. He posted 20 goals and 45 points in 81 games for the Wings in 2022-23, his best production since his rookie season, but he was traded to the Sens last summer in the Alex DeBrincat deal.
For now, Kubalík hits pause on his NHL career after making 357 appearances with three teams, averaging 21 goals, 19 assists and 40 points per 82 games. He’s also coming off a strong showing at the 2024 World Championship, where he had five goals and three assists in 10 games for Czechia as he won his first gold medal on the international stage.
International Notes: Curran, Kirk, Studenič
Veteran defenseman Kodie Curran is continuing his lengthy career overseas. Swiss club HC Ambrì-Piotta announced Friday that they’ve signed him through the November international break with an option to extend the deal for the rest of the season.
Curran, 34, was never drafted and wound his way through various leagues, going from the Canadian university system to the AHL and ECHL, also making stops in Denmark and Norway before ending up in a starring role for Rögle BK of the Swedish Hockey League, one of the world’s best circuits. He landed his first NHL deal as a 30-year-old undrafted free agent signed by the Ducks in 2020.
However, that contract with Anaheim didn’t result in an NHL call-up. Curran spent his two-year, $2MM deal buried in the minors, recording 29 points (7 G, 22 A) in 61 games with the AHL’s San Diego Gulls before going pointless in 11 games with the AHL’s Providence Bruins after his NHL rights were dealt to Boston at the 2022 trade deadline.
Curran has spent the last two seasons in the Kontinental Hockey League with Russia’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk and Belarus’ Dinamo Minsk. He hasn’t been able to replicate his past offensive success, posting a more conservative 50 points (14 G, 36 A) in 122 games with a -5 rating. The 6’2″, 201-lb puck mover will look to impress in a depth role with Ambrì-Piotta and earn a spot on the team for the rest of the season. There, he joins former NHLers Tim Heed, Jakob Lilja, Philippe Maillet, and Gilles Senn.
More notes from the international stage:
- Former Coyotes prospect Liam Kirk already has a home for this season with Germany’s Eisbären Berlin, but he’s still looking to put himself back on the map in hopes of another NHL deal. The 24-year-old’s performance for Great Britain at the ongoing final qualification tournament for the 2026 Winter Olympics could go a long way toward doing that, and he already has a goal in the Brits’ lone outing – unfortunately, it was a 3-1 loss to Denmark yesterday. The 2018 seventh-rounder impressed in World Championship action earlier this year, posting four points in six games, but it wasn’t enough for GB to avoid relegation back to the Division 1A tournament for 2025. Kirk also had three goals and seven assists in three games at last year’s Olympic pre-qualifiers. Kirk, who’s aiming to be the first born-and-trained British NHLer, was strong in Czech league action last season with 30 points in 52 games for HC Litvínov.
- Ex-depth NHLer Marián Studenič was supposed to help his native Slovakia qualify for one of the three spots remaining for the Olympics, but the country’s federation announced the 25-year-old abruptly left the roster due to a disagreement over his role. The winger was a Group VI UFA this summer and opted to head overseas, signing a two-year deal with Sweden’s Färjestad BK after spending the last six years playing professionally in the Devils, Stars and Kraken organizations. He posted six points in 46 NHL games over the past four seasons and had 44 points in 64 games on assignment to the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds while under contract with Seattle last year.
International Notes: Filppula, Has, Andrighetto
Triple Gold Club member Valtteri Filppula appears to be returning home for what is likely his final professional season. The 40-year-old is expected to join Jokerit of Finland’s second-tier Mestis for 2024-25, Sami Hoffrén and Marko Lempinen of Helsingen Sanomat report.
Filppula, a third-round pick of the Red Wings back in 2002, won the Stanley Cup with them six years later as part of a 16-year, 1,056-game NHL career. Split between the Wings, Lightning, Flyers and Islanders, he amassed 197 goals, 333 assists, 530 points, a -4 rating, and a 50.5% career win rate in the dot in the regular season.
The two-way pivot returned to Europe after becoming a free agent in 2021, and he’s spent the last three seasons in Switzerland with Genève-Servette HC of the National League. He was a premier offensive presence there, even in his late 30s, scoring 47 goals and 84 assists for 131 points in 145 games. But after a pair of seasons around a point per game, his production dropped off to 33 points in 51 games last year.
Filppula was a member of the Finnish national team that won gold at the Winter Olympics and the World Championship in 2022, making him the first Finn to win both in addition to a Stanley Cup. He now returns to Jokerit, where he played for two seasons before coming to the NHL in 2005.
The Helsinki-based franchise was once one of the top clubs in Europe, but their decision to leave the top Finnish league for Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League in 2013 proved fateful. They withdrew from the KHL midseason in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and missed 2022-23 entirely before restarting operations in Mestis last year.
More notable items from abroad:
- Former Capitals defense prospect Martin Has has signed a tryout with HC Plzen of the Czech Extraliga, per a team announcement. A fifth-round pick back in 2019, Has never rose above the ECHL level in the Washington organization, spending 2022-23 with the South Carolina Stingrays before his signing rights expired, making him a UFA. Has, 23, spent last season with the ECHL’s Fort Wayne Komets, where the 6’4″ right-shot was limited to five points and a -14 rating in 62 games. The Czech native will now look to latch on in one of the premier European professional leagues.
- It doesn’t appear that an NHL comeback is in the cards for Sven Andrighetto, as he’s inked a four-year extension with the Swiss National League club ZSC Lions. Andrighetto, 31, is a Zurich native, and he had 31 points in 40 games for his hometown club last year before leading them to an NL championship. The 2013 third-round pick of the Canadiens scored 31 goals and 83 points in 216 NHL games with Montreal and Colorado between 2014 and 2019.
Capitals Loan Leon Muggli To EV Zug
The Capitals have officially loaned 2024 second-round pick Leon Muggli back to Switzerland’s EV Zug for 2024-25, the team announced today. The National League club said last month that they were in discussions to take the 18-year-old defenseman back on loan for this season after he signed his entry-level contract with Washington.
It will be Muggli’s second season with the big club after spending his entire development process in the Zug system, suiting up for their U-15, U-17 and U-20 teams since 2019. Last year, his first professional season, he became a depth fixture on the Zug blue line with 12 points (3 G, 9 A) and a +13 rating in 42 games.
The smooth-skating two-way defender was Washington’s third choice of the 2024 draft class, following winger Terik Parascak at No. 17 and diminutive defenseman Cole Hutson at No. 43. Muggli came off the board at No. 52, a pick the Caps acquired from the Golden Knights in last season’s Anthony Mantha trade.
With the loan, Muggli’s entry-level contract will slide to next season as expected since he won’t see any NHL action. If he plays fewer than 10 NHL games in 2025-26, the deal could slide again to the 2026-27 campaign, meaning he won’t be an RFA for the first time until 2028-29. That likely scenario will result in his cap hit reducing from its initial $940.8K to $875.8K due to signing bonuses being paid out in the 2024-25 and 2025-26 campaigns (contract details via PuckPedia).
Muggli returns to a Zug squad that won back-to-back NL titles in 2021 and 2022 but has been eliminated in the semifinals in two straight years. Their roster is dotted with a few former NHLers, including Gabriel Carlsson, Gregory Hofmann, and Fredrik Olofsson.
NL’s ZSC Lions Sign Santtu Kinnunen
After making a brief go of it in North America, defenseman Santtu Kinnunen is heading back overseas. The right-shot Finn has inked a one-year deal with the ZSC Lions of the Swiss National League, per a team announcement. The former Panthers prospect was a UFA after being non-tendered last month.
Kinnunen, 25, was the Panthers’ seventh-round pick in 2018. He played four seasons in the Liiga with Pelicans and Tappara before eventually signing his entry-level contract with Florida in May 2022. Kinnunen seemed to fit in well upon arriving in the Panthers’ system and didn’t have many adjustment pains while on assignment to AHL Charlotte. The smooth-skating defender finished second among Charlotte blue-liners in scoring in 2022-23, posting 35 points (nine goals, 26 assists) with a -7 rating in 69 games.
But it wasn’t enough to earn him any in-season call-ups amid competition from a deep Florida defense at both the major and minor-league levels, nor was it enough to give him any serious chance at a roster spot last fall. Thus, entering the second and final year of his ELC, he was returned to Charlotte, where his offensive production dipped last season to four goals and 21 points in 68 games, along with a -15 rating. After spending two seasons without a call-up, it wasn’t surprising to see Kinnunen’s name on the list of RFAs who didn’t receive qualifying offers by June 30.
He returns to Europe, although not his native Finland. He signs on with a Zurich-based Lions club whose roster for next season includes former NHLers Sven Andrighetto, Rudolfs Balcers, Derek Grant, Dean Kukan, Denis Malgin, and Yannick Weber, as well as head coach Marc Crawford. Prior to heading to the Cats’ system, Kinnunen was one of the better two-way defenders in Finland, posting 23 points and a +18 rating in 54 games with Tappara in 2021-22 while helping them to the league title.
NL’s HC Lugano Signs Radim Zohorna
HC Lugano of the Swiss National League has signed forward Radim Zohorna to a one-year deal, per a team announcement.
Zohorna, 28, has been a fringe NHLer for the past four years, mostly with the Penguins. He made a combined 25 appearances for them in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons, 10 appearances split between the Flames and Maple Leafs in 2022-23, and returned to Pittsburgh for a career-high 33 games played in 2023-24. He accumulated 18 points in that total 68-game sample. He reached UFA status last week after wrapping up his one-year, two-way deal with the Pens.
A few years ago, Zohorna was a relative unknown, spending all of his professional career in his native Czechia until the Pens took a swing on the 6’6″, 230-lb forward as an undrafted free agent signing in 2020. In the preceding season with the Extraliga’s BK Mladá Boleslav, Zohorna hit career highs with 22 points (10 goals, 12 assists) in 46 games. After beginning his entry-level contract with Pittsburgh back on loan to Mladá Boleslav during COVID, he erupted for 22 points and a +19 rating in just 21 games before the 2020-21 NHL season began in January, at which point he joined AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
The Pens briefly lost Zohorna for the 2022-23 season after Calgary claimed him on waivers and later traded him to Toronto at the deadline, but he was brought back as a free agent last summer. His AHL results since coming to North America have been strong, posting 32 goals and 92 points in 132 games. But he was never able to convert that appealing blend of size and scoring ability into consistent NHL minutes, serving primarily as a fourth-line fixture during his various call-ups. He only averaged more than 10 minutes per game in a single season once.
He’ll now look for more opportunity in Switzerland, joining a Lugano forward core rife with former NHLers (Mark Arcobello, Daniel Carr, Jiří Sekáč, Calvin Thurkauf). To open up a roster spot for Zohorna, Lugano released undersized forward Arttu Ruotsalainen, who was disappointing with 14 points in 43 games last year. Ruotsalainen’s NHL rights are still held by the Sabres, who signed him as a UDFA in 2019, but he won’t be coming back to Buffalo – he already found a new home on a one-year deal with Frölunda HC of the Swedish Hockey League today.
NL’s EV Zug Signs Fredrik Olofsson
July 8: It took a while, but Olofsson is indeed heading to Zug. It’s a two-year deal, the team announced.
March 21: After two seasons in the NHL and AHL, Avalanche forward Fredrik Olofsson‘s time stateside may be coming to an end. The pending UFA has been linked to EV Zug of the Swiss National League on the open market this summer, Johan Svensson of the Swedish publication Expressen reports. Notably, it appears the Swedish forward won’t be returning to SHL club IK Oskarshamn, where he spent two seasons prior to signing as a free agent with the Stars in 2022.
Olofsson, 27, was a fourth-round pick of the Blackhawks in 2014. However, after a post-draft season in major junior play with the USHL’s Chicago Steel and a four-year career with the University of Nebraska-Omaha, he was not signed to an NHL contract and became a free agent when his exclusive signing rights expired in the summer of 2019. He headed back home to Sweden for the first time in his career, having played all of his youth hockey in the United States, and signed a one-year deal with MODO Hockey, then of the second-tier HockeyAllsvenskan. After impressing with 34 points and a +15 rating in 52 games, he garnered interest from teams in Sweden’s top division and landed with Oskarshamn in 2020.
The 6-foot-2 forward was a natural fit there, recording 42 points in 49 games during the 2021-22 campaign and generating NHL interest as a result. Dallas landed him after his SHL season ended, inking him to a one-year, one-way contract in May 2022. He didn’t crack the team out of camp but ended up getting significant NHL time nonetheless, recording a goal and three assists in 28 games while playing fourth-line minutes. Injuries and suspensions meant Olofsson had a chance to play in a handful of postseason contests, too, playing twice in the Stars’ Western Conference Final loss to the Golden Knights.
Olofsson was looking for more NHL opportunities than that, however. With Dallas unlikely to re-sign him, they traded his signing rights to the Avalanche last June in exchange for future considerations. He immediately inked a one-year (and, surprisingly, two-way) contract with the Avs, who were facing a heavy amount of turnover among their depth forwards.
As a result, Olofsson cracked the squad out of camp during his second NHL try. He spent most of this season centering Colorado’s fourth line but hasn’t been much of a factor, recording nine points, a -5 rating, an abysmal 39.7 FO%, and subpar possession metrics in heavy defensive usage while averaging only 9:45 per game. He hasn’t avoided minor-league assignments, either, as Colorado placed him on waivers and assigned him to AHL Colorado in late February. The team recalled him under emergency conditions shortly after the trade deadline, with injuries sidelining multiple depth forwards such as Zach Parise and Chris Wagner, but he was returned to the minors after a five-day stint with the Avs.
Now back with the Eagles, where he has six points and a +8 rating in eight games, it seems likely Olofsson will head back to Europe for increased ice time and responsibility, even if a deal with Zug falls through. If the report comes to fruition, though, Olofsson would be joining one of the top teams in Switzerland – Zug won back-to-back championships in 2021 and 2022 and has made the NL championship series four times since 2017. The club is currently tied 1-1 in their first-round series against SC Bern as the NL postseason began earlier this week. The team boasts only a handful of players with NHL experience, though – only former Blue Jackets winger Gregory Hofmann, former Devils center Brian O’Neill, and former Canucks winger Marc Michaelis, who all combine to only 61 games.
Daniel Winnik Announces Retirement
Versatile forward Daniel Winnik has retired, as he announced on his personal X page this morning. A veteran of 11 NHL seasons, Winnik had a respectable journeyman career, suiting up for eight major league teams after being taken in the ninth round of the 2004 draft by the Coyotes. The 39-year-old last suited up in the NHL in 2018 before heading to Genève-Servette HC of the Swiss National League, where he’s spent the last six seasons.
“For the past 19 years, I have lived a dream, from signing my first contract with the Phoenix Coyotes to my last with Geneva Servette,” Winnik wrote in his announcement. “Some experiences I thought would only remain dreams became reality: being coached by Wayne Gretzky, playing for my hometown team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and representing Canada at the Olympic Games.”
As expected for a late-round pick, Winnik took a few years to break into the NHL. But unexpectedly, he wasn’t a depth piece or a fringe player subject to endless recalls and reassignments. Instead, he immediately cemented himself as a full-time piece for Phoenix upon making his debut in 2007-08, making 79 appearances in his rookie season while contributing 11 goals and 26 points in 14:06 of ice time per game, a good portion of which came on the penalty kill. Winnik spent the first three years of his NHL career with the Coyotes, recording 52 points (18 goals, 34 assists) in 202 games before they traded him to the Avalanche for a fourth-round pick in the 2010 offseason.
In 2010-11, Winnik rediscovered his valuable depth-scoring contributions from his rookie season, matching his 11 goals and 26 points in 80 games for the Avs while averaging 16:33 per game, the most he’d played at that point in his career. He was also one of Colorado’s most-used forwards in shorthanded situations that season, averaging 2:44 per game while down a man. Unfortunately, he was slugging it out on an Avs team that finished with only 68 points, earning them the right to select future captain Gabriel Landeskog with the second-overall pick in that summer’s draft.
Winnik was dealt again to the Sharks midway through the 2011-12 season, beginning a run of playing for seven different teams in the final seven seasons of his NHL career, including two separate stints with the Maple Leafs. He would also end up logging action for the Capitals, Ducks, Penguins and Wild, although he only managed to play more than 150 games for one team, the Coyotes. His career-defining season was split between Toronto and Pittsburgh in 2014-15, recording a career-high 34 points (nine goals, 25 assists) in 79 games and a +23 rating, earning him a second- and fifth-place vote in Selke Trophy polling.
However, after completing a one-year, $660K contract with the Wild in 2017-18, which saw him produce six goals and 23 points in 81 games, there wasn’t much interest in his services stateside. That led him to head to Geneva, where he broke out immediately as one of the best two-way threats in the top-flight Swiss league. Over six seasons with the club, he recorded 91 goals and 234 points in 270 games, winning three major trophies – a Spengler Cup in 2020, an NL championship in 2023, and a Champions Hockey League title this season. He also represented Canada at the 2022 Winter Olympics, contributing a goal and an assist in five appearances.
Ultimately, Winnik ended his NHL career with 82 goals, 169 assists, 251 points and a +52 rating in 798 games. We all at PHR congratulate Winnik on such a lengthy stint in the pros, especially for a ninth-round pick.