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Tyler Ennis Linked To NHL Return

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Veteran NHL winger Tyler Ennis is open to a return to North America after spending last season playing in Switzerland and could receive a professional tryout contract from a Western Conference team, Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal reports.

After 13 NHL seasons and exactly 700 regular-season games, Ennis headed overseas full-time for the first time last season, signing a one-year contract with National League club SC Bern. He had played in the Swiss top level once before – he skated in nine games for the SCL Tigers during the 2012 lockout.

There, he showed he still had what it takes to produce at an elite level, albeit in a weaker league. He finished the season with 13 goals and 20 assists for 33 points in 37 games. That was after somewhat of a bounceback season with the Ottawa Senators in 2021-22, recording 24 points in 57 games (a 35-point pace). His strong season in Switzerland suggests he could replicate that in a bottom-six role should he return to the NHL this season.

Drafted 26th overall in 2008, it’s been an up-and-down career for the diminutive winger, who struggled with injuries during his prime and never quite reached the potential he hinted at after posting multiple 20-goal campaigns with the Buffalo Sabres early on in his career. He’d been a capable depth contributor in the past few seasons, though, bouncing around between Canadian teams in Ottawa, Edmonton and Toronto after getting bought out by the Minnesota Wild in 2018.

Now 33 years old, Ennis likely has a few good years of hockey left in him and evidently hopes to spend them back in the NHL. However, if no PTO materializes, Matheson reports Ennis still has “irons in the fire” in Switzerland and could easily find a deal again in the NL in 2023-24.

Minor Transactions: 08/30/23

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Welcome to another edition of minor transactions as we dive into the lesser-known player movements, signings, and deals that might not make the front page but are nevertheless crucial in shaping the dynamics of the hockey world in Europe and crucial NHL feeder leagues. As the 2023-24 season approaches (for some teams as early as this week), teams are still fine-tuning their rosters and adding talent. Here’s a running list of minor moves for August 30, 2023:

  • Former Florida Panthers and Philadelphia Flyers center Corban Knight remains overseas as he signed a one-year contract with SC Bern in the Swiss National League, per a team announcement. This will be Knight’s first season in Switzerland – he’d spent the last four years in the KHL with Barys Nur-Sultan and Avangard Omsk. He hasn’t played in the NHL since he appeared in 23 games with the Flyers in 2018-19. Since moving overseas, the 32-year-old has been one of the most consistent top-six centers in the KHL, earning a spot on Team Canada at the 2022 Winter Olympics and recording 162 points in 222 games throughout his time in Kazakhstan and Russia.
  • After a lengthy career spanning 16 seasons in the DEL, four-time league champion Frank Mauer has announced his retirement at the age of 35. The right winger spent most of his career in Mannheim and Munich before spending his final season with Eisbären Berlin, scoring six goals and adding 11 assists for 17 points in 51 games. A rather consistent top-six scorer for years in his home country, Mauer was also on the German team that captured the silver medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics, during which he recorded a goal and three assists in six games.
  • The ECHL’s Toledo Walleye have agreed to terms on a one-year contract with forward Orrin Centazzo, per a team release. Centazzo, 23, is undersized at 5-foot-8 and 163 pounds but has packed quite a scoring punch since turning pro in 2021. Spending the last two seasons with the ECHL’s Newfoundland Growlers, he’s been among the league’s top scorers with 49 goals and 97 points in 90 games. He spent last season under AHL contract with Newfounudland’s parent club, the Toronto Marlies, where he recorded an assist in 15 games. He was loaned to the Growlers for the majority of the season.

This page will be updated throughout the day.

Minor Transactions: 08/05/23

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While there hasn’t been much activity on the transactions front around the NHL in recent days, there continues to be activity at other levels.  Here’s a rundown of some of the recent activity around the hockey world:

  • Defenseman Tommy Cross announced his retirement, his AHL team in Springfield announced (Twitter link). The 33-year-old was limited to just 18 games last season due to injury.  Cross, a former Boston prospect, hangs up his skates with nearly 600 appearances in the AHL while also getting into a total of four NHL contests, including one playoff game.
  • Former NHL center Roman Cervenka has inked a one-year extension with Rapperswil-Jona in Switzerland, per a team release. The 37-year-old had 17 points in 39 games with Calgary a decade ago but opted to return to playing overseas the following season.  Cervenka led the NL in scoring in 2022-23, notching 16 goals and 43 assists in just 43 contests.
  • Former Coyotes prospect Alexander Ruuttu is on the move as Krefeld in Germany announced that they’ve signed the forward to a one-year contract. Ruuttu was a second-round pick by Arizona back in 2011 (51st overall) but never signed an NHL deal.  Instead, he has spent the majority of his career in Finland and had six goals and two assists with Assat in the top division last season.

This post will be updated throughout the day.

Minor Transactions: 08/02/23

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The few notable NHL signings that remain are set to wrap up in the next few days with the conclusion of arbitration hearings. It may bring the North American major pro news cycle to a halt briefly, but junior, minor pro and European teams are still making waves daily as their seasons loom. Today’s notable minor transactions can be found here:

  • The OHL’s Oshawa Generals are bringing over Minnesota Wild center prospect Rasmus Kumpulainen for the 2023-24 campaign after selecting him 13th overall in this year’s CHL Import Draft, according to a release from his team in the Finnish Liiga, Pelicans. Minnesota selected Kumpulainen with the 53rd overall pick of the 2023 NHL Draft after he notched 11 goals, 23 assists and 34 points in 41 games with Pelicans’ junior team in the U20 SM-sarja. Kumpulainen had a strong finish to the 2022-23 campaign at the IIHF U-18 World Junior Championship, recording five points in five games for Finland. A prototypical two-way center, Kumpulainen will continue to build on his offense and fill out his 6-foot-3 frame during his time in Oshawa. Pelicans also mentioned they’d reached an agreement to retain Kumpulainen’s Liiga rights through 2026.
  • Former Arizona Coyotes and Boston Bruins defense prospect Mitchell Miller is continuing his hockey career, but as expected, it’s not in North America. His 2016 assault conviction of a Black classmate with developmental disabilities has now cost him two NHL roles – including Boston parting ways with him just two days after signing him in free agency back in November. Late last month, the New York Post’s Larry Brooks reported the contract between Miller and the Bruins had officially been terminated via settlement. He’s now signed a one-year deal with HK 32 Liptovský Mikuláš in the Slovak Extraliga, per NorthStar Bets’ Chris Johnston.
  • Long-time Buffalo Sabres organizational farmhand Sean Malone is heading overseas, signing a two-year deal with NL club SCL Tigers. Malone had spent five of his six pro seasons in the Sabres organization after graduating from Harvard but got into just one NHL game with Buffalo during that time. He’d been an important top-six fixture for the AHL’s Rochester Americans, though, helping along Buffalo’s young prospects as they developed through their system. The 28-year-old center now heads to Switzerland, where he joins an offense led by Florida Panthers prospect Aleksi Saarela and former New Jersey Devil Harri Pesonen.
  • Forward Daniel Walcott is returning to the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch on a one-year deal, according to NHL.com’s Patrick Williams. A 2014 draft pick of the New York Rangers, they dealt Walcott to the Tampa Bay Lightning just a year later after signing his entry-level contract. He’s spent eight seasons with the Crunch since then, amassing 111 points across 378 games. Walcott does have one NHL appearance to his name, coming with the Lightning in 2020-21. The physical winger, who’s also played defense at times during his career, mustered a personal record of 13 goals, 32 points, and 103 penalty minutes in 67 games for Syracuse last season.
  • The OHL’s Niagara IceDogs acquired Montreal Canadiens defense prospect Daniil Sobolev from the Windsor Spitfires in exchange for three late-round 2024 OHL Draft picks today, according to a team release. Montreal drafted the physical shutdown defender with the 142nd overall pick in 2021 after he didn’t play at all in his draft year – the 2020-21 OHL season was canceled entirely due to COVID-19. Since, he’s registered three goals, 23 assists, 26 points, 92 penalty minutes, and a +37 rating in 110 games across two seasons with the Spitfires. To finish off his junior career, Sobolev joins an IceDogs team that’s finished at the bottom of the league in each of the last three seasons, winning just 12 of 68 games last season.
  • Kumpulainen isn’t the only NHL-affiliated European prospect heading to the CHL today. Carolina Hurricanes goalie prospect Jakub Vondras has committed to the OHL’s Sudbury Wolves for next season after they selected him 22nd overall in this year’s CHL Import Draft, per the league. Vondras, a sixth-round pick of Carolina in 2022, posted a sparkling .929 save percentage and 2.19 goals-against average in 29 games with HC Plzen’s U20 club in the Czech junior Extraliga last season.
  • The AHL’s Chicago Wolves have re-signed defenseman Cavan Fitzgerald to a one-year AHL contract. This move confirms that Fitzgerald, 26, will play a fourth consecutive season with Chicago. The undrafted left-shot blueliner scored 10 points in 30 games for the Wolves last season and played 17 playoff games during the team’s Calder Cup Championship run in 2022. He has 250 games of AHL experience under his belt, meaning he is just ten games away from no longer qualifying under the first tier of “development players” according to the AHL’s rules. As a result, 2023-24 is an extremely important season for Fitzgerald as he’ll need to provide consistent value for the Wolves in order to prove he’s worthy of a non-developmental player slot moving forward. AHL clubs are limited in that they can only dress five skaters who do not qualify as development players under either of the two pro games played thresholds.
  • Former Coyotes prospect Lucas Lessio has signed a one-year contract with the ICEHL’s Bolzano Foxes, making Italy the eleventh different country he’ll have played professional hockey in. Lessio, 30, has played around the world, from Croatia to China to Latvia to Germany, and spent last season playing for Klagenfurt in Austria. He didn’t score as well for Klagenfurt (14 goals, 28 points in 47 games) as he did the year before in the DEL for the Krefeld Penguins (25 goals, 41 points in 56 games) but wasn’t useless either, and will likely play an important role for the ICEHL finalists in Bolzano.
  • The Calder Cup champion Hershey Bears have signed defenseman Colin Swoyer to a one-year AHL contract. The 25-year-old spent most of last season playing AHL hockey for the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins, scoring 11 points in 36 games. Swoyer was a pending RFA for the Penguins but did not receive a qualifying offer from the organization. He did also play six games in the ECHL for the Wheeling Nailers, although those games all came in early December and after being called up for a December 17th contest against the Bears Swoyer didn’t return to the ECHL. 2022-23 was Swoyer’s first full season playing professional hockey, as he concluded his four-year NCAA career at Michigan Tech last spring and only got a five-game trial run with the Penguins before the season ended. Now he’ll head to Hershey looking to continue to establish himself in the AHL.
  • The AHL’s San Diego Gulls have signed two players to one-year AHL contracts: veteran forward Eddie Matsushima and rookie Anthony Costantini. Matsushima, 29, scored 28 goals and 47 points for the Tulsa Oilers last season, earning ECHL All-Star honors. He played NCAA Division-III hockey at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and worked his way into professional hockey starting with the Pensacola Ice Flyers of the SPHL. He produced well enough there to earn a few cameos in the ECHL before breaking in full-time with Tulsa. Now, he’ll get a chance to continue his climb up the pro hockey ladder and skate in some AHL games. As for Costantini, he’s a 20-year-old right-shot blueliner who scored 36 points in 67 games for the Ottawa 67’s of the OHL and could now be making his pro debut with the Gulls.
  • The AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds have added some depth, signing 26-year-old Jacob Hayhurst to a one-year AHL contract. Hayhurst split last season between the ECHL’s Worcester Railers (22 points in 35 games) and AHL’s Springfield Thunderbirds, where he played in a depth role and scored six points in 24 games. He’ll likely end up on the AHL/ECHL bubble for the Firebirds as well next season, serving as valuable depth as well as some veteran competition for prospects entering their first AHL campaigns such as Ryan Winterton and Tucker Robertson.
  • Rihards Bukarts, the leading scorer of the Latvian team that won the hockey-mad country their first-ever medal at an IIHF Men’s World Championship earlier this summer, will not be returning to his club of last season, Klagenfurt of the ICEHL. Bukarts, 27, scored 13 goals and 25 points in 28 games in Austria and as mentioned finished his season on a very high note, leading the Latvians with 11 points in 10 games. Bukarts has experience as a scorer in ICEHL, DEL, KHL, and Czechia, and last played in North America in 2016-17, when he scored 33 points in 37 games for the ECHL’s Manchester Monarchs.
  • Longtime University of Wisconsin forward Dominik Mersch and former Barrie Colts captain Luke Bignell have each signed ECHL contracts with the Jacksonville Icemen. Mersch, 24, concluded a five-year, 164-game career with the Badgers in March and got a two-game cameo in the AHL with the Chicago Wolves, his first taste of pro hockey. He’ll make his full-time debut as a professional player with the Icemen, as will Bignell. The 22-year-old left-shot defenseman played nearly 200 games in the OHL for the Colts and has spent the last two seasons playing on the Canadian university circuit for the University of Guelph.
  • Undrafted OHL blueliner Lleyton Moore, the former captain of the Oshawa Generals, will begin his pro career with the ECHL’s Wichita Thunder. He signed a one-year contract with the team and will look to translate his impressive numbers from major junior (he scored 54 points in 67 games in 2021-22) to the pro game in Kansas.
  • Bruising ECHL defenseman Josh Thrower, a veteran of nearly 250 games in North America’s third-tier league, has signed a one-year ECHL contract with the Norfolk Admirals. The 27-year-old played in 39 games with the Atlanta Gladiators last season and has spent three of the past four seasons with the club. Now he’s off to play for the Admirals where he will contend to lead the team in penalty minutes having already racked up 389 in the ECHL.
  • Former Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Stephen Desrocher has signed with the Fife Flyers of the EIHL. The six-foot-four defenseman and former Kingston Frontenacs captain heads to Scotland having played just 31 total games of pro hockey. He played four seasons and spent five years at the University of Western Ontario before signing in the ECHL with the Florida Everblades. He made his pro debut there and lifted the Kelly Cup with the team. He played 10 games in the AlpsHL last season with Merano HC and now heads to the United Kingdom to continue his young pro career.

This page will be updated throughout the day.

Patrik Nemeth Signs In Switzerland

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After more than a decade playing hockey in North America and over 500 NHL games, veteran defenseman Patrik Nemeth has made the choice to sign in Switzerland and continue his pro career overseas.

According to a team announcement, he’s signed a two-year deal with SC Bern of the Swiss National League, joining other former NHLers Julius Honka, Sven Baertschi, Martin Frk, Oscar Lindberg, Colton Sceviour, and Dominik Kahun playing for the 16-time NL champions.

This move concludes a steep decline in NHL value for Nemeth, who only two years ago today signed a three-year, $2.5MM AAV contract with the New York Rangers as an unrestricted free agent.

The hope was that Nemeth could anchor the Rangers’ bottom-pairing and be the sort of stay-at-home left-shot defenseman who could help prized prospect Nils Lundkvist, a young right-shot blueliner and fellow Swede, adjust to the NHL.

Nemeth struggled badly in New York, though, ultimately spending most of the team’s run to the Eastern Conference Final as a healthy scratch.

He was subsequently traded to the Arizona Coyotes with the Rangers attaching two second-rounders in order to incentivize Arizona to take on Nemeth’s deal. The fact that the Rangers were willing to sacrifice two genuinely valuable draft picks just to be rid of Nemeth illustrates how far his value had fallen after just one season, and unfortunately, that decline would continue into his Coyotes tenure.

The fact that Arizona spent last season short on established defensive talent meant that Nemeth would play a larger role for the Coyotes than he did in New York. Nemeth averaged nearly 18 minutes of ice time per night, up from 16:38 with the Rangers, and he was head coach André Tourigny’s most frequently-used penalty killer averaging 3:15 per night short-handed.

Despite boasting an above-average goalie in Karel Vejmelka, though, the Coyotes had the sixth-worst penalty kill in the NHL, indicating that Nemeth was likely overmatched as a team’s short-handed minutes-eater.

The Coyotes ultimately opted to buy out Nemeth rather than retain him for the final year of his deal, giving them significant cap savings this upcoming season at a $1.167MM cost for 2024-25.

Seeing as he’s still just 31 years old, played a relatively significant role last season, offers over 500 games of NHL experience, and offers the type of size (six-foot-four, 230 pounds) NHL teams covet, it’s somewhat surprising Nemeth opted to sign in Switzerland rather than hold out for an NHL contract.

But seeing as he might be in two-way deal territory, opting for some more security and stability to play in Switzerland (which is also closer to home for Nemeth, who hails from Stockholm) is a completely understandable choice.

Now Nemeth, who played significant minutes representing Sweden at the 2023 IIHF Men’s World Championships, will likely play a significant role on Bern’s blueline and look to lead the team on a bounce-back season after they finished eighth out of 14 in the regular-season standings in 2022-23.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Aleksi Heponiemi Signs In Switzerland

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Florida Panthers forward and former top prospect Aleksi Heponiemi has signed a one-year contract with EHC Biel-Bienne of Switzerland’s National League. The signing suspends Heponiemi’s formal playing relationship with the Panthers organization, though it may not end it.

Since Heponiemi received a qualifying offer from Florida, the Panthers will retain the exclusive rights of any NHL team to sign him until July 1st, 2027.

Keeping in mind the overall trajectory of Heponiemi’s career, this is a disappointing outcome for a player once touted as one of the Panthers’ better prospects.

Heponiemi, 24, is a Finnish center who scored 86 points in 72 games as a WHL rookie, winning the league’s Rookie of the Year award.

Off the back of that season, Heponiemi was drafted in the second round, 40th overall at the 2017 draft. The following campaign, Heponiemi clearly outplayed his draft position, scoring 118 points in just 57 regular-season games and 30 points in 26 playoff games en route to a WHL title and First-Team WHL All-Star honors.

He turned pro in 2018-19 directly afterward and was exceptional once again. Heponiemi scored 16 goals and 46 points in 50 games for Karpat in the Finnish Liiga, an impressive feat for a 20-year-old rookie professional. By that point, even though Heponiemi’s three points in 17 playoff games gave some cause for concern, the prevailing belief was that he’d end up a productive NHL center.

Heponiemi seemed to hit a wall after crossing the Atlantic in 2019-20. He scored just 14 points in 49 games for the Springfield Thunderbirds in the AHL, and although he was used to the smaller ice surfaces due to his time in the WHL the smaller ice combined with the relentless physicality of the AHL proved quite the challenge. Heponiemi would end up earning an NHL call-up the following season, but he only played a total of six games in the AHL.

In 2021-22 Heponiemi turned in a productive AHL campaign with 39 points in 56 games, though it was becoming more and more clear that he likely wouldn’t end up the difference-making NHLer it once appeared he would become. This past season was more of the same, 43 points in 62 AHL games but just three points in 10 NHL contests.

It appears now with this signing in Switzerland Heponiemi has opted to likely play a starring role for an overseas club rather than continue the status quo, which for him has been existing on the Panthers’ roster bubble.

He could play his way back into the NHL, of course. But given how successful Heponiemi has been in the past in top European pro leagues and how that success failed to translate to the NHL, it’s also certainly a possibility that Heponiemi’s chances of becoming a productive NHL center have all but evaporated.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Derek Grant Signs In Switzerland

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Just one season removed from scoring a career-high 15 goals and 29 points in the NHL, veteran center Derek Grant is continuing his career in Europe. Grant has signed a one-year deal with the ZSC Lions of the Swiss National League.

The addition of Grant adds 427 games of NHL experience to a team bursting at the seams with players who either recently played in the NHL or saw significant time in the league in the past. He joins former NHLers Yannick Weber, Dean Kukan, Sven Andrighetto, Jesper Froden, Mikko Lehtonen, Denis Malgin, and Juho Lammikko in Zurich, as well as 2022 Montreal Canadiens third-round pick Vinzenz Rohrer.

Seeing as Grant is 33 years old, it’s fair to wonder if Grant has played his final NHL game now that he’s headed overseas.

Although he didn’t have the best season, Grant’s most recent season gave reason to believe he was still a capable NHLer.

Grant won a whopping 55.2% of his draws, scored at a 32-point 82-game pace, and ranked third among Ducks forwards in average short-handed ice time per game with 2:24.

Sure, there were some cracks under the hood, such as the fact that with Grant as a regular contributor, the Ducks’ penalty kill was the NHL’s second-worst with a 72.1% kill rate, and Grant himself only managed to play in 46 games, his fewest in any unshortened NHL season since 2016-17. But seeing as he was genuinely quite a valuable bottom-sixer in 2021-22, seeing him leave the NHL entirely is a bit of a surprise.

Switzerland is an exceptional country to play in, of course, and Grant wouldn’t be the first veteran player to prefer spending the later years of his career there rather than on two-way deals in North America. But with how many teams could use a versatile, experienced bottom-sixer at an affordable price, this move to Switzerland is certainly unexpected, though certainly not unreasonable.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images. 

Denis Malgin Signs Long-Term In Switzerland

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Swiss forward Denis Malgin is departing the NHL for his home country for the second and likely final time. The 26-year-old unrestricted free agent signed a five-year deal with NL club ZSC Lions today, keeping him overseas through 2027-28 and through his age 31 season.

Malgin split last season with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Colorado Avalanche thanks to a mid-season trade. After recording career-highs with 13 goals and 65 games played last year, though, the Avalanche did not issue him a qualifying offer, making him a UFA.

Oddly enough, Malgin recently walked away from a multi-year commitment he signed with ZSC in 2021. After spending the 2020-21 campaign on loan to Swiss club Lausanne from the Maple Leafs, Malgin signed a four-year deal with ZSC that offseason and was one of the best players in the league in the first year of the deal, recording 52 points in 48 games. He walked away from the remaining three years to rejoin the Maple Leafs last summer, who retained his rights with a qualifying offer in 2021.

It seems unlikely he’d terminate with the same club twice, however, especially after one NHL comeback that, while successful, obviously didn’t translate to any offers on the open market that he was interested in. The fourth-round pick of the Florida Panthers in 2015 will return to ZSC on a team stacked with former NHL forwards such as Sven Andrighetto, Rudolfs Balcers, Jesper Froden, and Juho Lammikko, although he’s the biggest fish of the bunch.

If it is the end of the road for Malgin in the NHL, he wraps up his career with 41 goals, 40 assists, 81 points, and a -16 rating in 257 games split between the Panthers, Maple Leafs, and Avalanche.

Minor Transactions: 06/30/23

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We’re in the heart of the NHL offseason now, with free agency set to open tomorrow. As NHL clubs ready for the free agent frenzy tomorrow, numerous clubs in minor and foreign leagues are signing players and completing transactions. We’ll keep track of those here.

  • Four-time NHL 15-goal scorer Brett Connolly has signed with SC Rapperswil-Jona Lakers, leaving his former club HC Lugano after one season. The 31-year-old 2010 sixth-overall pick scored 12 goals and 38 points in 45 games for Lugano, and now joins former NHLer Victor Rask on a club set to play in the Champions Hockey League next season.
  • Zaccharya Wisdom, a prospect who was drafted by the Seattle Kraken 212th overall yesterday, has committed to Colorado College to play NCAA hockey. He’ll join NHL draft picks such as Noah Laba of the New York Rangers, and will hope to carry over the success of his final USHL season (28 goals, 48 points) to his collegiate career.
  • Washington Capitals 2021 fifth-round pick Haakon Hanelt has signed a contract with the German DEL’s Cologne Sharks. The Capitals have the exclusive rights to sign Hanelt until June 1st, 2025, and will now track his development in a men’s pro league. Hanelt spent the last two seasons with the Gatineau Olympiques of the QMJHL, and this past year scored 18 points in 34 games.
  • Veteran Liiga defenseman Mikko Niemela has signed with the Lahti Pelicans, a club he played six games with in 2014-15. Niemela is a three-time Liiga champion who has played over 500 games in Finland’s top league, meaning he’ll bring a wealth of experience to the blueline of Liiga’s runner-ups. Niemela split last season between Karpat in Liiga and Brynas in the SHL, and although he played well he could not save Brynas from relegation to the HockeyAllsvenskan, and now he heads back to Liiga.
  • ECHL All-Star forward Mathew Santos has signed a deal to play in Slovakia next season, per a social media post from his new team HK Dukla Michalovce. Santos is a 28-year-old Canadian winger who has been an electric scorer in two seasons with the ECHL’s Maine Mariners. He’s scored 103 points in 91 games for Maine, earning AHL call-ups for three teams, including 17 games with the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals. He only scored one point in that 17-game span, though, and now with his chances at climbing the North American pro hockey ladder potentially drying up, he’ll head to an overseas club for the first time.
  • Former Chicago Blackhawks prospect David Gilbert will not be returning to EIHL Champions Belfast Giants for next season, according to the team. The 32-year-old forward signed with Belfast a year ago after a high-scoring year with Rouen in France’s Ligue Magnus. Gilbert is a former high-scoring ECHLer who has 54 games of AHL action on his resume, and career highlights that include a championship in Belfast as well as a three-year stint in Czechia that included winning his club promotion to the country’s top league.

This page will be updated throughout the day.

Minor Transactions: 06/02/23

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With the Stanley Cup Final set to start tomorrow, we are getting increasingly close to the start of the NHL offseason and the period of the summer where every club across the hockey world is in between seasons. Even as some teams vie for some of hockey’s highest honors, such as the Stanley Cup and Memorial Cup, most clubs are getting to work on building their teams for next season. We’ll keep track of any notable transactions overseas or minor league clubs make here:

  • Curtis McKenzie, the captain of the AHL’s Texas Stars, has signed a two-year contract extension to remain in Texas. McKenzie is on his second tour of duty with AHL Texas and has 99 NHL games on his resume, all with the Dallas Stars. A beloved part of the Stars’ 2014 Calder Cup-winning squad, McKenzie has scored 104 points in 142 games over the last two AHL campaigns. He is valued for both his on-ice contributions and also his off-ice leadership, and will now be able to help shepherd the next generation of Stars prospects on their way from Cedar Park to Dallas.
  • Former Ottawa Senator Filip Chlapik is returning to HC Sparta Praha in his native Czechia after spending last season with Switzerland’s HC Ambri-Piotta, per a team announcement. The move is a massive one for Prague as Chlapik, 25, was a dominant force during his one season in the Czech capital. In 2021-22 Chlapik scored 70 points in 53 games, leading the Czech Extraliga in all major offensive categories and winning Extraliga Player of the Year. Ambri-Piotta have already secured Chlapik’s replacement, Laurent Dauphin, but will surely miss having the 2015 second-rounder as he scored 24 goals and 37 points in 50 games in his debut season in the Swiss League.
  • Longtime AHL and ECHL netminder Joe Cannata is leaving the SHL’s IK Oskarshamn after three seasons spent with the club. The 33-year-old goalie arrived in the SHL after he was named Goalie of the Year of the second-division HockeyAllsvenskan in 2019-20, having posted a .938 save percentage in 41 games for IF Bjorkloven. Cannata, who last played in North America in 2019 with the ECHL’s Utah Grizzlies, served as Oskarshamn’s number-one goalie in 2020-21 before transitioning to more of a tandem role the last two years, ceding starts to 28-year-old Tim Juel. Now with Cannata departed and Juel signing a three-year deal with Timra, Oskarshamn will turn to Liiga star and former Arizona Coyote Marek Langhammer to man their crease.
  • Ryan Lasch, a well-traveled star in multiple major European pro leagues, is returning to Liiga’s Lahti Pelicans, the club he played for in both 2011-12 and 2020-21. The 36-year-old American has been a difference-maker at each stop of his pro career, perhaps most notably at Frolunda in the SHL where he has won the Champions Hockey League three times and the SHL title twice. Lasch has led the SHL in points three times and Liiga once, and is likely to be a key contributor for a Pelicans team hoping to win a championship after falling just short against Tappara Tampere in the finals this past season.
  • In advance of their first season in the SHL since winning promotion in April, MoDo Hockey Ornskoldsvik have signed Mikael Ruohomaa from rival SHL side Leksands IF. While Ruohomaa had a difficult 2022-23, scoring just four goals in 41 games, he is an established, productive player in Liiga, the KHL, and SHL, and should bring some reliability and scoring ability to MoDo’s lineup. As MoDo are looking to avoid relegation back to HockeyAllsvenskan next season, signings that bring in quality players such as Ruohomaa will be crucial.
  • While they’ll lose Ruohomaa to MoDo, Leksands IF have made a signing of their own, bringing in defenseman Eddie Larsson from Liiga’s HIFK Helsinki. Larsson, 32, won an SHL title with Vaxjo in 2014-15 and has nearly 500 games of SHL experience on his resume. He’ll help bolster a solid Leksands blueline that surrendered the fifth-fewest goals in the SHL last season.
  • Samuel Bucek, a star of the Slovakian league, is headed back to Slovakian side HK Nitra after a difficult campaign split between Russia and Czechia. The 24-year-old is headed home to Nitra, the club where he scored 41 goals in 50 games in 2021-22 and won the league’s MVP award. Nitra lost in the finals to HC Slovan Bratislava that season and then this season fell to 10th place in the league standings, meaning Bucek’s return to their lineup serves as a significant boost to Nitra’s hopes of returning to title contention.
  • After starring in the ECHL for the past three seasons, former Miami University (Ohio) captain Gordie Green is headed overseas to continue his pro career. The 26-year-old has signed with HC Innsbruck of the ICEHL, and will likely be counted on as a possible top scorer. Green scored 71 points in 62 games for the Toledo Walleye this past season but failed to register on the scoresheet in the six AHL games he received with the Grand Rapids Griffins and Miluwakee Admirals. Now, he’ll get a chance to impress in Austria and potentially begin the process of moving up the European pro hockey ladder.

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