Flyers Sign Jacob Gaucher To One-Year Contract
According to a report from PuckPedia, the Philadelphia Flyers have signed forward Jacob Gaucher to a one-year, $850K contract for the 2026-27 season. Gaucher was scheduled to become a restricted free agent this summer with arbitration rights.
Gaucher, 25, was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Flyers back in 2024. The Longueuil, Quebec native spent most of his QMJHL days with the Val-d’Or Foreurs before spending his final season with the Baie-Comeau Drakkar while also serving as the team’s captain.
Unfortunately, Gaucher didn’t produce enough in the QMJHL to warrant a draft selection. He scored 35 goals and 68 points in 66 games during his final season in 2021-22, but he already turned 21 by that point.
In fact, it wasn’t until a successful campaign in the ECHL that any team became interested in giving him an NHL contract. Before the 2022-23 season, Gaucher signed an AHL deal with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms, yet he spent the entire year with the Reading Royals, scoring 22 goals and 61 points in 71 games with a +22 rating.
After that year, the Flyers felt comfortable giving him a two-year, two-way contract, but he’s still spent much of his time in the AHL since. He’s been a solid secondary scorer, registering 48 goals and 90 points in 198 games with the Phantoms, but has zero points to show for in eight NHL contests with the Flyers.
His next contract should offer him a similar role. The Phantoms didn’t have the best season, finishing four points shy of a spot in the Calder Cup playoffs, but Gaucher finished fourth on the team in scoring, and the organization likely has an interest in retaining the handful of players that performed well this season.
Maple Leafs Interview Dallas Eakins For Head Coaching Vacancy
The Toronto Maple Leafs interviewed former Anaheim Ducks and Edmonton Oilers head coach Dallas Eakins earlier this week, David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reports.
Toronto’s new hockey operations leadership – GM John Chayka and executive advisor Mats Sundin – appear to have zeroed in on coaches with previous head coaching experience in this stage of their coaching search.
Yesterday, we covered reports indicating that the Maple Leafs entered the interview stage with former New York Islanders head coach Patrick Roy, and former New York Rangers head coach Peter Laviolette. 
Like Roy and Laviolette, Eakins would bring experience as an NHL head coach at multiple stops if he were to be hired as head coach in Toronto. Eakins is currently the head coach and sporting director of Adler Mannheim, a club in the DEL, the top division of professional hockey in Germany.
He has been in the role since the 2023-24 season. Mannheim have made steady progress under Eakins’ leadership. They lost in the DEL quarterfinals in his debut campaign, the semifinals in his second season there, and the DEL finals in 2025-26. One of Eakins’ top players in Mannheim, two-time DEL Defenseman of the Year Nicolas Mattinen, is a former member of the Maple Leafs organization.
Before he left to begin his career in European pro hockey, Eakins had a lengthy career as a coach in North America. It began just a season removed from the end of his playing career in 2005-06, as an AHL assistant coach for the Toronto Marlies on the staff of future Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice. Maurice was promoted to the head coaching job in Toronto for 2006-07, and Eakins followed him to the NHL.
After two years as an assistant coach with the Maple Leafs, Eakins returned to the AHL. He served as head coach of the Marlies from 2009-10 through 2012-13, reaching the Calder Cup Final in 2012. Eakins’ success in Toronto earned him his first shot to become an NHL head coach, hired for the 2013-14 season by the Oilers. But the early 2010s Oilers were not an easy place for a young coach to begin his career, and Eakins was fired 31 games into his second season with the club. Across approximately one and a half seasons in Edmonton, Eakins’ Oilers went 36-63-14.
Eakins returned to the AHL for what would become a four-year stint with the San Diego Gulls, the AHL affiliate of the Anaheim Ducks. Eakins’ Gulls posted a winning record in every season he coached, making runs in the playoffs in three of four campaigns. Once again, Eakins’ success as an AHL coach – in terms of both winning games and developing players – earned him another NHL head coaching job.
But just like in Edmonton, Eakins joined a Ducks organization lacking the kind of talent to make a serious push for playoff contention. Eakins coached in Anaheim during the bulk of the early portion of the Ducks’ rebuild, going 100-147-44 in his four seasons there.
While Eakins was an NHL head coach for 404 games, he has not had the chance to coach a team in a true contention phase. That could change if he receives the job in Toronto.
While the Maple Leafs endured a nightmarish 2025-26 season, the organization intends on returning to contention very quickly. Chayka has indicated the club believes it can make the necessary changes to return to the playoffs quickly – and their ability to retain star center Auston Matthews may depend on the front office delivering on that belief.
While Eakins doesn’t have a playoff track record in the NHL to this point, he’s put together an impressive resume at the AHL level and over the past three years in Germany. He also has experience in the ever-demanding Toronto market, which can be a factor working to his benefit.
If he’s hired in Toronto, the hope will be that the level of talent the Maple Leafs have to will allow him to reach greater heights compared to what he had access to in Anaheim or Edmonton.
Photos courtesy of James Carey Lauder-USA TODAY Sports
Draft Notes: Ruck Twins, Belchetz, Cali
Liam Ruck and Markus Ruck, two top WHL scorers who expect to go in the first two rounds of the upcoming NHL draft, will return to the WHL for the 2026-27 season. (Via NHL.com’s Mike Morreale) In doing so, they will bypass opportunities to spend the season playing college hockey. Many of the Ruck twins’ peers among the elite draft prospects in the CHL have elected to make college commitments over the past week. The Rucks have decided that remaining with the Medicine Hat Tigers for an additional campaign is the best path for their development en route to the NHL.
The Ruck twins enjoyed a rapid rise up draft boards over the course of the 2025-26 season as they tore up the WHL as leading scorers for the Medicine Hat Tigers. Both Rucks stand 6’0″, while Liam is a winger and Markus a center. Liam scored 45 goals and 104 points in 68 games last season, while Markus scored 21 goals and 108 points. Neither brother came close to the point-per-game mark the previous year, making 2025-26 quite the breakout season for each player. Of the two, Liam is considered by most public-facing scouts to be the superior prospect. In the poll of 10 NHL scouts conducted by Cam Robinson of Elite Prospects, Liam slotted in as the No. 24-ranked prospect, while Markus ranked No. 33.
Other notes from the NHL Draft Combine in Buffalo, NY:
- Ethan Belchetz, one of the draft’s top prospects from the OHL, appears to have recovered well from his season-ending injury, per Scott Wheeler of The Athletic. Belchetz’s season ended in March after he suffered a broken clavicle. Belchetz told Wheeler that he could play and feel “close to 100 percent” if there was a game tomorrow, and is participating in all of the fitness testing at the combine outside of the pullups and bench press. A Michigan State commit, Belchetz has a chance to be a top-10 pick. The 6’5″, 228-pound winger scored 34 goals and 59 points in 57 games for the Windsor Spitfires last season, and was ranked as the No. 9 prospect in the class by Elite Prospects.
- OHL prospect center Ryder Cali has generated some buzz recently, and Morreale reported from the combine that he is set to interview with 29 of the league’s 32 clubs. The 6’2″, 219-pound center is one of the draft’s youngest players (born September 6, 2008) and scored 16 goals and 36 points in 47 games for the North Bay Battalion as an OHL rookie. Cali recently committed to play NCAA hockey at Providence College and has a somewhat wide range of rankings by public-facing scouts. He generally sits somewhere on the bubble of the first-round, such as No. 33 (McKeen’s Hockey) or No. 37 (Wheeler), but as low as No. 68 (The Hockey News’ Tony Ferrari).
Oilers Looking To Trade Darnell Nurse
Veteran defenseman Darnell Nurse is “headed for a breakup” with the Edmonton Oilers, Mark Spector of Sportsnet reported today. Spector cited conversations with “several current and former [Oilers] employees” that have indicated the Oilers “are ready and willing to trade Nurse as soon as they are able.” 
Spector also reported that Oilers GM Stan Bowman will meet with Nurse in the coming days to discuss his future plans. Nurse holds full control over whether or not he’ll be traded this summer.
The $9.25MM AAV contract Nurse signed on August 2021 contains a full no-movement clause for its first five seasons, meaning Nurse can block any transaction that would send him to another team through the end of next season.
As a result, Spector noted that if Nurse indicates to Bowman in their upcoming conversation that he would like to remain an Oiler for another year, “trade talk will be shelved and the team will welcome him back for one more year.”
But the Oilers’ preference is to trade Nurse before the start of next season. According to Spector, this is not a sudden development, but rather something the Oilers have been quietly laying the groundwork to do for more than a year.
Spector reported that the Oilers have been “open to moving Nurse since the conclusion of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final” and that Nurse’s form had become such a concern during the 2024 Stanley Cup Final that there were even discussions of healthy scratching him during the series. The Oilers fell into a 3-0 hole against the Florida Panthers that year, but rattled off three straight wins to tie the series before falling in a close seventh game.
Edmonton is entering an extremely important offseason after a disappointing first-round playoff exit. Comments to the media made by franchise center Connor McDavid after the team’s loss to the Anaheim Ducks shed some light on the task Bowman faces: he simply has to make substantial upgrades to the team’s roster, or they risk losing the confidence of the face of their franchise. McDavid signed a two-year contract extension in October, meaning he is only committed to the Oilers through the end of the 2027-28 campaign.
Unfortunately for Bowman, he doesn’t have a huge amount of financial flexibility to work with this summer. The team is projected to have just over $14.5MM in space according to PuckPedia, but that number is likely to decline quickly if the Oilers re-sign some of their pending free agents, such as Jason Dickinson or Connor Murphy.
Moving Nurse alone would clear $9.25MM off the Oilers’ books, creating a substantial amount of cap space for Bowman to work with. But the fact that Nurse has full control over his playing future for one more season will make finding a deal difficult – if not impossible.
The issue for Nurse and the Oilers isn’t that Nurse is in any way a bad player. He was Edmonton’s No. 2 defenseman in terms of ice time last season, averaging just under 21:00 per game. The 31-year-old is a big, athletic defenseman (6’4″, 215 pounds) who pairs mobility with physicality and the ability to provide secondary offense – around 35 points per season but as many as 43. Nurse’s offensive numbers declined this past season, as his 24 points were his lowest in a season since 2017-18. But he still played significant minutes for the team, minutes that would need to be replaced if the Oilers trade Nurse.
The bet Bowman would be making in any Nurse deal would be that he could replace the tough minutes Nurse soaks up for the Oilers with another defenseman, at a cheaper rate. There’s no guarantee he can do that, of course, but with limited options to create cap space, it seems the Oilers have identified trading Nurse as a path they want to try to go down.
If Nurse does block a deal this summer, it seems overwhelmingly likely that the Oilers would pursue trading him next summer, when his NMC becomes a 10-team no-trade list. So, while Nurse does have the leverage of being able to block a trade, he may only end up postponing his exit from Edmonton.
The Oilers could therefore argue that he is better-served working with the team to facilitate a trade this summer, where he would be able to exercise control over the process and select a preferred landing spot.
Next summer, a little over two-thirds of the league would open up as possible destinations to receive Nurse. But he may also be willing to accept the risk of being traded next summer to a sub-optimal destination in exchange for the chance to stay in Edmonton. With one more year in Edmonton, Nurse could push for a Stanley Cup with McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and the other teammates he has shared the ice with for more than a decade.
It’s not clear what Nurse will choose, or what route he’ll elect to take with his playing future. What is clear is what the Oilers want, which according to Spector’s report is a divorce from one of the long-term staples of their blueline.
Photos courtesy of Perry Nelson-Imagn Images
Dylan Larkin Requests Trade From Red Wings
Detroit Red Wings captain and No. 1 center Dylan Larkin has requested to be traded from the team, reports Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. Darren Dreger added that “this move has been in the works for a while.”
According to Friedman, that neither Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman nor Larkin’s agent Pat Brisson would comment on the report, but cited a “frosty relationship” between Larkin and Yzerman as potential factor that have contributed to Larkin’s decision, alongside the team’s inability to reach the postseason at any point beyond the center’s rookie campaign. 
Larkin made headlines at the end of the Red Wings’ season when he criticized Yzerman and the team’s hockey operations department for not adding enough talent at the trade deadline.
In his end-of-season media availability, Larkin told reporters “it was hard that we didn’t do anything,” and “we didn’t gain any momentum from the trade deadline. Guys were kind of down about it. So it would have been nice to add something and bring a little bit of a spark on the ice.”
The Red Wings traded first and second-round picks to the St. Louis Blues to acquire veteran Justin Faulk at the trade deadline. The club also traded a fourth-rounder to the Ottawa Senators for veteran forward David Perron. Those additions were not enough to halt the Red Wings’ second-half slide out of playoff position.
Per Emily Kaplan of ESPN, the issues between Larkin and the Red Wings’ front office “[date] back at least to testy contract negotiations in 2023,” meaning beyond just Larkin’s unhappiness with the team’s work at the trade deadline.
If his request is fulfilled, a Larkin trade would mark the end of the player’s decade-long tenure in Detroit. The Waterford, Michigan native has spent his entire hockey career in the state. He spent his amateur career at the U.S. National Team Development Program in Plymouth, Michigan, his collegiate career at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, his very brief minor-league career in Grand Rapids, and his NHL career in Detroit. That Larkin is not only willing to move on from the Red Wings, but is actively pursuing the move, suggests something in his relationship with the team has become fractured – though it is important to stress that is just speculation.
What’s clear is that this will not be an easy trade to complete. That is not because there will not be league-wide interest in Larkin, of course. Roster building in the NHL is defined by scarcity at the center position, and in-their-prime No. 1 centers are very rarely ever available on the trade market. Those factors alone will mean there is likely to be a massive amount of interest in Larkin from across the league. Rather, the path to an eventual Larkin trade will be a difficult one because of the two key parties involved at its outset, and the varying degrees of control and leverage each party has.
Larkin, 29, signed an eight-year contract extension with the Red Wings in March 2023. The deal carries an $8.7MM AAV (which may be below market-value for No. 1 centers at this point) and crucially carries a full no-trade clause through next season. That will allow Larkin to hand-pick what teams he is willing to be traded to.
In the past, players empowered by no-trade protections have been able to severely constrict how many teams their clubs are able to negotiate with, often dramatically reducing what the acquiring team needs to surrender in order to acquire the player. Notable examples of this include this past season’s Artemi Panarin deal, or the trade that brought Taylor Hall to the Boston Bruins from the Buffalo Sabres.
Although the no-trade clause gives Larkin the ability to exert a significant amount of control over the trade process, there are limits to his leverage. Larkin is under contract through the 2030-31 season, a factor that gives Yzerman and the Red Wings a considerable amount of their own leverage. Larkin has requested to be traded, but the Red Wings have zero obligation to acquiesce to his request. He is contracted to the team, and will remain so until his age-34 season. They are fully capable of retaining Larkin through what could be the end of his prime playing years.
That could limit the extent to which Larkin is able to wield his no-trade clause. If he wants to hand-pick his destination, leaving Detroit in a position where they would need to accept a sub-optimal return package for their No. 1 center, it’s likely the Red Wings would simply elect to keep Larkin. But if Larkin does want to be traded as his No. 1 priority, he may need to allow the Red Wings to open up the trade process and allow for as many bidders as possible. His best chance of securing a trade from Detroit could very well be Yzerman simply receiving an offer he can’t refuse – something that is unlikely to happen if he exercises his contractual right to severely restrict what teams he can be traded to.
There is also the chance that Detroit very simply will not entertain a Larkin trade, regardless of the player’s wishes. Teams typically only want to roster players who actually want to play there, but Larkin would not be the first player to make a trade request that goes unfulfilled. While Friedman called the relationship between Larkin and team management “frosty,” it may not be an irreparable fracture. For both Larkin and the Red Wings, the best course of action could very well be staying the course.
For the Red Wings, it’s difficult to imagine them winning a Larkin trade. As previously mentioned, finding a No. 1 center is extremely difficult in the NHL, let alone one who is under team control and within the prime years of his career. Larkin fits the bill there, having scored at just below a point-per-game rate over the last half-decade. The Red Wings are the owners of the league’s longest playoff drought, and are desperate to return to the playoffs after an extended rebuild.
For as much talent as the team has right now – like young stars Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond – they lack a center at Larkin’s level. J.T. Compher and Andrew Copp are both middle-six types, and top prospects Marco Kasper and Nate Danielson are both considered by most public-facing scouts to have a No. 2 center ceiling. Unless the Red Wings can find a pivot with true No. 1 center upside as part of a return package for Larkin (and the odds of doing that seem long), a Larkin trade could set their franchise back at an extremely important time.
But without question, there will be a lot of interest from around the league to navigate. The Minnesota Wild stick out as a team likely to be proactive in pursuing Larkin. Wild GM Bill Guerin got to see Larkin up close in his position as GM of the U.S. Men’s National Team, and Larkin’s efforts helped the nation secure a gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina. The Wild believe they have a championship-level roster, just missing a top-line center to pair with No. 2 pivot Joel Eriksson Ek. Larkin immediately surpasses Vincent Trocheck as the top veteran center potentially available via trade, meaning he will be a key target for Guerin.
Other teams, such as the Montreal Canadiens (who need a No. 2 center behind Nick Suzuki) and Los Angeles Kings (who need help at the position in the wake of Anze Kopitar‘s retirement) stick out as potential bidders. But in the former’s case, the Red Wings may be loath to deal Larkin to a division rival. And in the latter’s, the Kings may not be willing to part with the high-end assets necessary to put together a winning offer for Larkin.
In any case, this is an absolutely seismic development, one that has franchise-altering potential for the Red Wings. If the Red Wings do end up seriously considering trading Larkin, his presence on the trade market will likely shape the course of the offseason.
Photos courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
Bruins Sign Navrin Mutter To One-Year Extension
The Boston Bruins announced that AHL forward Navrin Mutter has been signed to a one-year, two-way contract extension. Mutter was a pending UFA through Group VI status, so this contract keeps him from hitting the open market.
Boston did not disclose the full financial terms of the contract beyond that it will contain an NHL cap hit of $850K, the new league minimum for 2026-27. According to PuckPedia, the deal carries a $95K AHL salary. That represents a modest pay bump for Mutter, whose previous contract contained a $70K AHL salary. Mutter is repped by Andrew & Dave Maloney of Maloney & Thompson Sports Management.
Mutter, 25, was acquired by the Bruins in a trade on March 12. The Nashville Predators dealt Mutter to the Bruins in exchange for former University of Denver star Massimo Rizzo and low-scoring winger Dalton Bancroft. Mutter ended up playing in 16 total games for Providence, 12 in the regular season and then four in the playoffs. His production in that span of games was just one goal, no assists, but offense has never been his calling card.
A 6’3″, 213-pound undrafted winger, Mutter has been able to carve out a career in professional hockey as a result of his work ethic and relentless physicality. In a four-year OHL career, Mutter only produced 58 points in 217 games. Mutter has not produced much offense regardless of what level he’s played at, as he has 21 points in 161 career AHL games, and had 11 points in a 33-game stint in the ECHL during the 2023-24 campaign.
But, as mentioned, Mutter has been able to hold down a spot in two NHL organizations thanks to his work ethic, character, and physical play. Players who have a similar value proposition at the professional level often try to refine their defensive game in order to be able to contribute to a penalty kill, but thus far Mutter has not been able to do so. That is the case throughout his professional career, including when he was in the ECHL with the Atlanta Gladiators.
While Mutter is of course a long-shot to have an NHL career, from his perspective, that’s still what he’s working towards and pushing for. And with this new extension, the door on getting into NHL games is technically not closed to him. But for Mutter to have any real prospect of not only earning an NHL call-up, but holding down a role on an NHL roster, he’ll likely need to show a greater level of versatility and defensive ability than he has so far – and bring more than just competitiveness and physicality to the table if offense is out of the question.
Blues Sign Zach Dean, Dylan Peterson To One-Year Extensions
The St. Louis Blues announced that a pair of young forwards – Zach Dean and Dylan Peterson – have each been signed to a one-year, two-way contract extension. Dean is a client of Matthew Oates of O2K Worldwide Management Group, while Peterson is repped by Randy Robitaille of Edge Sports Management.
Peterson, 24, was a pending restricted free agent with arbitration rights. Dean, 23, was also a pending RFA but did not have arbitration rights. The contracts signed today are both players’ first deals outside the entry-level system.
The financial terms of each contract were not officially disclosed, but were reported by PuckPedia. According to the platform, Peterson’s deal carries an $850K NHL salary, $100K AHL salary, and a $125K guarantee for its one-year term. Dean’s deal carries an $850K NHL salary and a $95K AHL salary, and does not have a guaranteed sum beyond that $95K minor-league salary.
For Peterson, this deal represents a small pay cut, something that is not uncommon for players leaving the entry-level system who have not yet established themselves as NHL players or high-level AHL depth. He took home $172.5K last season ($80K AHL salary plus a $92.5K signing bonus) which is slightly above the $125K guarantee on this deal, though he could exceed that guarantee if he manages to get into some NHL games.
The 6’4″, 203-pound center set a career-high in scoring at the AHL level in 2025-26, putting up 12 goals and 24 points in 57 games for the Springfield Thunderbirds.
He played a bottom-six center role for the team and was a secondary part of the Thunderbirds’ penalty-killing rotation, so it does not seem as though he is truly likely to make a push to win an NHL spot in the fall.
But he could conceivably play his way into being a candidate for a call-up if the Blues have any injuries in their bottom-six, which would therefore position him to exceed the guarantee on this contract. Set to turn 25 in January, next season is an important one for the 2020 third-round pick.
In Dean’s case, this contract is actually a modest pay bump compared to what he earned in 2025-26. A 2021 first-round pick of the Vegas Golden Knights, Dean signed his entry-level deal in December of that season.
Since entry-level deals only have three years of signing bonus – but his deal slid for its first two seasons – Dean has spent the last two years playing on his entry-level contract but without a signing bonus. As a result, while Peterson took home $172.5K last season, Dean was only entitled to his $80K AHL salary. Therefore, the $95K AHL salary on the contract signed today is a small pay raise.
It hasn’t been the easiest road for Dean, 23, in his time in pro hockey. A hard-nosed 6’0″, 176-pound forward, Dean hasn’t been able to translate the offense he displayed at the QMJHL level to the pro game. He scored 70 points in 50 regular-season games in his final season for the QMJHL’s Gatineau Olympiques, and had 26 points in 13 playoff games. But since turning pro, he has just 32 points in 96 AHL games.
In September of last year, Dean entered the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program, returning to the ice in January. While his efforts as a bottom-six forward helped the Thunderbirds pull off playoff upsets of the Charlotte Checkers and Providence Bruins, two of the AHL’s top five regular-season teams, his 17 points across 48 regular season and playoff contests suggests he still has to develop his game before he can become an NHL player.
Midday Notes: Dupont, McKenna, USHL Expansion
According to Cam Robinson of Elite Prospects, Landon Dupont, a top prospect for next year’s NHL Draft, is getting closer to a commitment to an NCAA school. The development of Denver winning the Daxon Rudolph sweepstakes leaves two schools in Michigan and Michigan State as the front-runners for Dupont, as he is expected to visit both campuses next week, per Robinson.
The 17-year-old defenseman ended his 2025-26 season winning a WHL championship with Everett, scoring 23 points in 18 playoff games. DuPont added six points in the Silvertips Memorial Cup run, which ended as the runner-up. His regular season saw 73 points scored in 63 WHL games, adding four assists and a +5 rating at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, winning Bronze with Canada. The Calgary native totaled 133 points across 127 WHL games over his last two seasons, winning the league’s Rookie of the Year award last season.
Additional notes:
- According to Sheng Peng of SJHockeyNow, Gavin McKenna, the top-ranked prospect in the 2026 NHL Draft, is having dinner with only the Vancouver Canucks (selecting No. 3) at the Scouting Combine. Peng added that McKenna isn’t scheduled to have dinner with the San Jose Sharks (selecting No. 2) or the Toronto Maple Leafs (selecting No. 1), but he probably met with these teams in other settings. Notably, the Leafs GM John Chayka visited the 18-year-old at his home in Whitehorse, Yukon, McKenna said on the NHL Draft Class podcast. Toronto, along with McKenna and Swedish forward Ivar Stenberg, is scheduled to interview with 51 different prospects at the Combine.
- According to a league announcement, the USHL is set to expand out west, first reported by John Buccigross of ESPN. The league, along with a group of stakeholders including the NHL and USA Hockey, plans on establishing three new clubs in Arizona, California, and Nevada. Further information regarding member club principals, markets, and timelines will be announced on Wednesday, June 24.In the press release, USHL President and Commissioner Glenn Hefferan said, “This expansion is about more than adding teams. It is about expanding opportunity.” Adding these teams will grow the USHL to 19 clubs, with the Madison Capitols being the last expansion team, joining the tier-one junior league in 2014.
Marcus Foligno Awarded 2026 King Clancy Trophy
The NHL has announced that Marcus Foligno has won the King Clancy Memorial Trophy. The award is given to the player who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and has made a noteworthy humanitarian contribution in his community.
The 34-year-old finished his ninth season with the Minnesota Wild, scoring 13 points in 56 games. He has two-years remaining on a four-year, $16M contract signed back in 2024-25. Marcus becomes the second Foligno to win the award, alongside his brother and teammate Nick Foligno, the 2017 winner of the King Clancy trophy. Nick surprised his brother with the trophy today while Marcus was touring the Masonic Cancer Center at the University of Minnesota.
Per the NHL press release, Marcus and Nick had a campaign called The Foligno Face-Off, which raised more than $200,000, funding a research grant for breast cancer research that will be named in honor of their mother Janis. The campaign evolved with the Wild trading for the former Blackhawks captain from Chicago, joining Marcus as a teammate for the first time in both players’ NHL careers.
Foligno won a $25,000 donation from the National Hockey League to benefit a charity or charities of his choice. The Wild are eligible to receive a grant of up to $20,000 from the NHL, as directed by Foligno, to organize a special activation related to his cause.
Each NHL team nominated a player for the King Clancy Trophy. The winner is determined by a selection committee consisting of Commissioner Gary Bettman and former winners of the trophy and the historic NHL Foundation Player Award.
Daxon Rudolph Commits To Denver for 2026-27 Season
According to his Instagram, top NHL Draft prospect Daxon Rudolph announced his commitment to the University of Denver for the 2026-27 season, first reported by Brad Elliott Schlossman of Grand Forks Herald.
Rudolph has a consolidated ranking of ninth among the major outlets that cover prospects eligible for the 2026 NHL Draft and is seventh on the Elite Prospects 2026 NHL Draft Guide. In his second season with Prince Albert, he scored 28 goals, tying Josh Morrissey for the club’s record in scoring by a defenseman, for 78 points in 68 WHL games. The 18-year-old added 27 points in 19 playoff games for the Raiders, losing in the Western league final to the Everett Silvertips. As an assistant captain for Canada’s U18 team at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, he scored four points in five games and notched two assists in three games for the CHL team at this past Prospects Challenge.
That capped off a career with 119 points and a +45 rating in his two seasons there. Formerly the first overall pick in the 2023 WHL Draft, the Lacombe, Alberta native has demonstrated an ability to score, even registering 15 multi-point games within a 20-game stretch.
Rudolph is described by draft outlets as an offensive defenseman. The 6-foot-2.5 right-shot profiles as a player whose tools can produce high-end goals and effective playmaking. Combine that with his poise, and he’s able to make plays calmly to help him in his transition game and complement the steady offensive reads he visualizes. Defensively, he utilizes his stick as the primary approach. He’s said to have precision in the on-puck game due to his hand speed and quick reaction. What Rudolph needs to work on is his physicality, as he transitions into the NCAA, a big question mark will be how he acclimates to a much more steady gamestyle with bigger competition.
According to Cam Robinson of Elite Prospects, Rudolph had narrowed down his choice of NCAA schools to three top-tier programs. Aside from Denver, which emerges triumphant in the race for Rudolph, Michigan State and Boston College were also in the running as his preferred destinations. A visit to Denver was in the young defenseman’s travel plans in late May, per Robinson.
Set to join the defending national champions in Denver, Rudolph will round out an elite right side that already has fellow top 2026 prospect Ryan Lin, who recently announced his commitment to the Pioneers, and Blake Fiddler (2025-SEA-2nd), both of whom also stem from the WHL. Add on Calgary natives Ben Macbeath and sophomore Eric Jamieson, and that totals five blueliners with WHL roots for the Pioneers. Rudolph certainly adds intrigue to this blueline, but he will have some competition for top-pair minutes among his teammates.
David Carle’s program has dominated during the young coach’s tenure. Since 2019, Carle has taken Denver to five Frozen Fours in nine seasons, winning three national championships in the last five years, all with 29+ wins. Peter Baugh of The Athletic spoke to Rudolph at the NHL Scouting Combine, where he said, “It’s so appealing the amount of success they’ve had in that program, especially with him. Looking forward to playing for a guy like that.”
Carle has seen a few defenders in recent memory carry on their talents to the NHL past the NCAA, like former Hobey Baker winner Will Butcher, Scott Mayfield of the Islanders, and most notably, Zeev Buium.