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Hurricanes Waive, Assign Juha Jaaska

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The Carolina Hurricanes placed centerman Juha Jaaska on waivers on Tuesday. He cleared waivers on Wednesday, and will be assigned to the AHL’s Chicago Wolves, per NHL.com’s Walt Ruff.

Jaaska spent the majority of the 2024-25 season in the Chicago lineup. It was his first year in North American pros after playing in Finland’s Liiga from 2017 to 2024. Jaaska made quick work of the rookie year, earning an alternate captain role on the Wolves and posting 12 goals and 33 points in 53 games. His scoring ranked fifth on the Wolves and would have rivaled the top-30 in league-wide rookie scoring, though at 26, Jaaska was excluded from rookie counts.

Still, his debut year in Chicago was a promising one. It came as no surprise for those who followed the bulky winger’s career in Finland. He has long been lauded as a leader for his clubs, and wore a letter in all five years he spent with HIFK’s junior program. That includes captaining the U20 team in 2016-17 – his first year of draft eligibility – when he scored 24 points in 25 games in Finland’s top U20 league.

Despite the hot scoring, Jaaska’s struggles to match pace at the top level held back a lot of NHL attention. Those concerns continued through his final two years of draft eligibility, leaving Jaaska to pursue HIFK’s men’s team rather than a move to North America. That proved a fruitful decision, as the Helsinki-native began to claw his way up the lineup between 2018 and 2023. He showed his might at the pro level with 12 goals, 37 points, and a plus-14 in 56 games of the 2022-23 season; then matched that performance with 30 points and a plus-four in 57 games of the 2023-24 season. He wore an ’A’ in both seasons.

Those performances were enough to earn Jaaska a spot on Finland’s World Championship roster, and a contract with the Carolina Hurricanes. In addition to a prominent role on the Chicago Wolves, Jaaska also made his NHL debut last season, and totaled four assists in 18 games with the Hurricanes. Now, he’ll return to his role of alternate captain for the Wolves, with the goal of improving on a strong push into North America. With the right start to the season, or a few injuries ahead of him on the depth chart, Jaaska could quickly find his way into routine minutes on Carolina’s fourth-line.

Ducks’ Ville Husso Clears Waivers

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10/8: Husso has cleared waivers per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. That will open the door for Husso to take on the starting role for the AHL’s San Diego Gulls. He has posted 66 wins and a .909 save percentage in 152 career appearances in the AHL.

10/7: The Anaheim Ducks have placed goaltender Ville Husso on waivers, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. The move cuts the Ducks roster to two goalies – Lukas Dostal and Petr Mrazek – with a few days left before opening night. Anaheim signed Husso to a two-year, $4.4MM contract extension in late June. Should he make it to the minor leagues, he would only carry a $1.05MM hit against Anaheim’s cap.

It’s no surprise to see Husso back on the waiver wire. He was waived by the Detroit Red Wings almost exactly one year ago, after starting their season with a 1-5-2 record and .866 save percentage in nine games. He moved to the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins and started to bounce back, marked by an 8-4-0 record and .912 save percentage in 13 games.

That was enough to catch the eye of a Ducks, who had lost goalie prospects Calle Clang and Tomas Suchanek to knee injuries. Anaheim acquired Husso in exchange for future considerations in February, and initially kept him in the minor-leagues. He suited up for nine games with the AHL’s San Diego Gulls, posting seven wins and a team-best .907 save percentage. When Anaheim lost John Gibson to injury in March and April, Husso stood as their go-to call-up, helping him push into four games at the end of Anaheim’s season. Husso was surprisingly sharp in the small sample, posting a .925 save percentage – higher than any of his prior seasons in the NHL.

With stout play at both levels, Anaheim opted to sign Husso to a more manageable cap hit this summer. Speaking about the deal, and about trading Gibson to Detroit, Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek told Derek Lee of The Hockey News that Husso offers a helpful bit of veteran reliability. He said:

If we have any injuries up top, it allows to be able to call that third goaltender up to support (Dostal or Mrazek). It also allows San Diego to have a good goaltender to carry a lot of the load and allow our younger guys to keep maturing

Goalies have been a popular commodity on the waiver wire. Each of Pheonix Copley, Cayden Primeau, and Colten Ellis have already been claimed by new teams. That means there’s no guarantee that Husso will fall through 31 other teams. If he does, he’ll be the clear starter for the San Diego Gulls, operating ahead of Suchanek and Clang.

Mammoth Waive Kevin Rooney, Assign To AHL

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10/8: Rooney has cleared waivers and will be assigned to the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners.

10/7: The Utah Mammoth have placed centerman Kevin Rooney on waivers. He signed a one-year, two-way contract with the club this summer. The deal moved Rooney away from three years with the Calgary Flames organization.

Rooney was on the Flames’ roster for the entirety of the 2024-25 season. He filled a true fourth-line role, and posted just 10 points in 70 games on the full year. Despite that, Rooney was routinely rotated onto the team’s penalty-kill, and his 47.2 faceoff percentage ranked third among all Flames centers to take at least 400 draws.

Rooney pulled his way back into an NHL role after spending the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons split between the NHL and AHL lineups. He totaled five points in 50 NHL games and 18 points in 56 AHL games between the two years. Before then, he found routine play in the Metropolitan Division, serving as a depth center for the New Jersey Devils, and then the New York Rangers, between 2016 and 2022. Through his career, Rooney has posted 60 points and 134 penalty minutes in 330 NHL appearances and 93 points and 156 penalty minutes in 242 AHL games.

An assignment to the minor-leagues comes as no surprise after Rooney signed a two-way deal. It would be a surprise to see a team claim the low-event center, only to be forced to hold him on their NHL roster or place him back on waivers. Instead, it seems more likely that Rooney will clear waivers and serve as the Tucson Roadrunners’ reliable veteran, until the Mammoth are in need of a call-up.

Sabres’ Alexandar Georgiev Clears Waivers

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10/8: Georgiev has cleared waivers for the Sabres, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. He will head to the AHL’s Rochester Americans, per Chad DeDominicis of Expected Buffalo. DeDominicis points out that Georgiev will become the fourth goalie on Rochester’s lineup, likely prompting another move or demotion to the ECHL for one of the quartet.

10/7: The Sabres will be placing goaltender Alexandar Georgiev on waivers today, head coach Lindy Ruff told reporters (including Bill Hoppe of the Olean Times Herald).

Georgiev was listed on Buffalo’s opening night roster yesterday, but they were carrying three goalies after claiming Colten Ellis off waivers from the Blues. The Sabres value the latter more, with Ruff telling Rachel Lenzi of The Buffalo News that Ellis is someone the Sabres have been “really high on” for quite some time and were unwilling to pass up the opportunity to have him on the wire. As a result, Georgiev won’t be starting the season with the club and will head to AHL Rochester should he clear waivers.

Georgiev, 29, finished top 10 in Vezina Trophy voting as recently as 2022-23 but is now scrambling to find an NHL job. He made 49 appearances last year between the Avalanche and the Sharks, heading to San Jose in the midseason deal that sent Mackenzie Blackwood the other way. Among goalies with at least 30 starts, no one had a worse save percentage or GAA than Georgiev’s marks of .875 and 3.71, and that includes making over a third of his appearances behind a dominant group of Colorado skaters in the first half of the year.

He still has roughly league-average numbers for his career. Since debuting with the Rangers in the 2017-18 season, he’s logged a 151-108-26 record with 15 shutouts, a 2.99 GAA, and a .903 SV% in 303 appearances. He’s allowed 21.1 goals (4%) more than the average netminder during that time. It’s his last two seasons of work that have soured teams. Despite posting a league-leading 38 wins for the Avs in 2023-24, he only managed a .897 SV% in 63 appearances. That preceded a 2024-25 campaign where only the Flyers’ Samuel Ersson posted a worse goals saved above expected figure than Georgiev’s -17.9, according to MoneyPuck.

That three-goalie figure from yesterday doesn’t include starter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who begins the season on injured reserve after suffering a lower-body injury late in preseason. That’s a different injury from the one he showed up to camp with, which was the motivator for Buffalo to sign Georgiev to a one-year, $825K deal last month in the first place. Luukkonen has improved in the past few days, according to Paul Hamilton of WGR Sports Radio 550, although he still carries a week-to-week designation. Buffalo certainly wasn’t going to carry four goalies after he returned, so it’s no surprise to see them get ahead of the wheel and remove one from their active roster now – especially after Georgiev allowed 11 goals on 74 shots in four preseason games for a .851 SV% and 4.19 GAA.

The Sabres might very well carry three goalies when Lukkonen returns, though. It’s hard to see them risk losing Ellis on waivers unless he struggles in his first taste of NHL action. The club also signed Alex Lyon to a two-year, $3MM deal in free agency over the offseason to be Luukkonen’s primary backup option. He might have an easier time passing through waivers thanks to his $1.5MM cap hit, so if Buffalo does want to only carry the traditional pair, Lyon might end up hitting the wire, too.

Golden Knights Sign Alexander Holtz, Waive Jeremy Davies

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10/8: In a corresponding move to Holtz’s signing, Vegas did indeed place defender Davies on waivers. He cleared earlier today, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, officially granting the cap space needed to register Holtz’s contract. Davies will be a top call-up option, while Holtz looks to stay above that standing as the season kicks off.

10/7: The Vegas Golden Knights have signed winger Alexander Holtz to a two-year, $1.675MM contract. The deal will carry an $825K salary in year one, and a $850K salary in year two, per PuckPedia. This move likely indicates that defenseman Jeremy Davies will be placed on waivers and assigned to the minor leagues, opening up $1.15MM in cap space for Vegas to sign Holtz. Davies signed a two-year deal with Vegas just a few days ago.

Holtz sat as an unsigned restricted free agent for the entire summer. He had to wait patiently for a new deal after splitting last season between Vegas’ NHL and AHL rosters. He began the year in the NHL, vying for routine ice time among the Golden Knights’ bottom-six. His season kicked off with a six-game scoring drought that he spurred with a five-game scoring streak, and seven points in nine games, during November. But Holtz’s scoring would prove cold more often than not, and he was assigned to the AHL in February with only 11 points in 49 NHL games.

Holtz found fire in the minor-leagues, netting seven goals and 13 points in 16 games with the Henderson Silver Knights. The second-tier flight shined as a proving ground of the flashy play-driving and quick shooting Holtz has long showed off. It was exactly those attributes that earned him the seventh-overall selection in the 2020 NHL Draft, coming off the heels of a standout rookie year in the SHL.

The New Jersey Devils originally drafted Holtz. He joined the organization’s ranks the next season, and quickly found a rut as a top-end AHL scorer but quiet NHL performer. Through four years split between the Devils’ NHL and AHL rosters, Holtz posted 65 points in 76 AHL games but only 34 points in 110 NHL games. Those totals include Holtz’s 2023-24 campaign, when he spent all 82 games in the Devils lineup and managed only 16 goals and 28 points.

Holtz will likely begin the 2025-26 season back on the cusp between major and minor rosters. Davies’ assignment could help Vegas keep the Swedish sniper as their extra forward for a bit longer, though a return to the AHL could make sense as a way to spur Holtz towards scoring early in the year. Meanwhile, Vegas will be pushed against the salary cap ceiling with this move.

Cam Atkinson To Retire

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After a 13-season NHL career, veteran winger Cam Atkinson is hanging up his skates. The Blue Jackets announced Wednesday that they’ll be signing him to a one-day contract and will officially honor his retirement on Oct. 16 against the Avalanche. He’s expected to join Columbus in a front-office capacity at some point down the road, but that announcement won’t be coming now, he told Aaron Portzline of The Athletic.

Atkinson is one of the better draft steals in Blue Jackets franchise history, coming to them in the sixth round in 2008. He signed with Columbus three years later after a great run at Boston College and made his NHL debut in 2011-12, although it took him another two years to fully establish himself on the active roster. After going up and down between Columbus and AHL Springfield, Atkinson broke out into a top-six role for the 2013-14 season. He finished third on the team with 21 goals and fourth with 40 points in 79 appearances, helping fuel the Jackets to a then-franchise record 43-win season that resulted in their second-ever playoff appearance.

The undersized but skilled Atkinson remained a fixture in Columbus’ top six for the balance of the decade. He was a two-time All-Star, including his career-best 41-goal, 69-point effort in 2018-19 – leading the team in goals in the year they orchestrated one of the most drastic upsets in league history by sweeping the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Lightning in the first round for their first series win in franchise history. After the COVID-shortened 2021 season, Atkinson had totaled a 213-189–402 scoring line in 627 games for Columbus, still holding up as the second-leading goalscorer and point-getter in the Jackets’ record books behind Rick Nash.

After Atkinson’s points per game production peaked at 0.86 in that career year, he only managed to produce at about a 0.60 pace over the next two years. That soft decline led Columbus to ship Atkinson to the Flyers in the 2021 offseason in a one-for-one swap for Jakub Voráček. In hindsight, it ended up being a bit of a lose-lose endeavor. Atkinson seemed to pop back into form with a 23-27–50 effort in 73 games in 2021-22, but a neck injury sustained in the following training camp ended up costing him the entire 2022-23 season and accelerating his decline. He had just 28 points in 70 games for Philly upon returning to play in 2023-24, leading the club to buy out the final year of the seven-year, $41.13MM extension he signed with Columbus back in 2017.

Atkinson became an unrestricted free agent a year ahead of schedule and signed on with the Lightning on a one-year deal worth $900K. The bounceback he was looking for never came, though. He struggled to stick in the lineup and played sparingly when he did dress, averaging just nine minutes per game across 39 contests. After finishing the year with a 4-5–9 scoring line, the Lightning were quick to say Atkinson wouldn’t be brought back.

Atkinson told Portzline that he received professional tryout offers this summer but declined them, saying he essentially made up his mind when he made his final regular-season appearance for Tampa. He ends his career with a 253-236–489 scoring line in 809 appearances, including a -11 rating while averaging north of 17 minutes per game. We at Pro Hockey Rumors congratulate Atkinson on a lengthy and successful pro career and wish him the best in whatever comes next.

Image courtesy of Kim Klement-Imagn Images.

Avalanche Reassign Jack Ahcan

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The Avalanche assigned defenseman Jack Ahcan outright to AHL Colorado, according to a team announcement. Ahcan had cleared waivers on Monday but was not immediately reassigned, remaining with the club as a healthy scratch for their opening night win over the Kings on Tuesday. His demotion indicates that defenseman Ilya Solovyov, whom Colorado plucked off the wire from the Flames last week, has resolved his work visa issues and is ready to come off the non-roster list.

Ahcan, 28, is entering his third season in the Colorado organization. He was very briefly an unrestricted free agent on July 1 before opting to return to Colorado on a one-year, two-way deal that guarantees him at least $450K. He initially joined the Avs on a two-year, two-way deal as a Group VI UFA back in 2023.

Before that, Ahcan was in the Bruins’ pipeline. They signed him as an undrafted free agent out of St. Cloud State in 2020. He saw brief NHL looks with Boston in his first two professional seasons, making nine appearances for the club from 2020-22. He was given a somewhat long leash, averaging 17:34 per game, but only scored one goal with a -6 rating with middling possession numbers. After that, Ahcan didn’t appear in an NHL game again until last season, skating in a pair of late-season games as Colorado rested its NHL regulars. He averaged 15:48 over that pair of games while recording a shot, block, and three hits.

The 5’9″ lefty has created enough offense at the minor-league level to stay afloat. He’s coming off a career-best effort with Colorado’s AHL affiliate, the Eagles, posting a 5-36–41 line in 69 appearances. In 272 career AHL appearances, he has 23 goals and 125 assists for 148 points with a +22 rating.

Colorado will keep Ahcan in the organization for the balance of the season as one of their primary recall options should they need a fill-in on the NHL roster, particularly if there’s a need for a puck-mover.

2026-27 Salary Cap Will Likely Increase Past $104MM

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Last season, the NHL made an unprecedented decision to release an official salary cap figure well in advance of the upcoming campaign. Not only did they lock in this year’s $95.5MM upper limit number well in advance of when they normally do, but they also informed teams that the league and NHLPA had agreed upon a $104MM cap for 2026-27 and a $113.5MM cap for 2027-28.

Those figures were subject to “potential minor adjustments,” however, and it appears those may already be coming into play. Next season’s figure may rise by as much as $3MM to an upper limit of $107MM, sources tell Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet.

That would be a 12% increase from this season’s number, almost as large a jump as the change from last year to this one that kicked off the post-pandemic era of rapid salary cap growth. Last year’s salary cap was set at $88MM before jumping to $95.5MM for 2025-26, a 13.1% increase.

An upper limit of $107MM for 2026-27 would thus mean a salary cap increase of $19MM in just two years. For context, a player who signed a contract carrying a $5MM cap hit in 2024-25 would be making $6.1MM per season if he signed for the same percentage of the cap in 2026-27 as he did two years prior. For the league’s new highest-paid player, Kirill Kaprizov, his $17MM AAV extension that takes effect next season would be equivalent to $14MM if signed for the same percentage of the cap in 2024-25.

While not a sure thing, it’s a fair assumption that a slight increase in next year’s cap would mean further upscaling of 2027-28’s $113.5MM number as well. The percentage increase between the initial two figures for 2026-27 and 2027-28 was 9.1%. If that’s now based on an $107MM upper limit for 2026-27, the upper limit for 2027-28 could theoretically be near the $117MM range.

It’s great news for the 2026 free agent class, particularly since a good portion of its high-profile names have come off the market in the weeks leading up to this season. Kaprizov, Connor McDavid, and Kyle Connor have taken themselves off the market, leaving remaining headliners like Jack Eichel, Adrian Kempe, Martin Nečas, and Artemi Panarin even more room to cash in, whether that’s as a UFA or on an extension.

Devils Recall Zack MacEwen

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The Devils announced today that they have recalled forward Zack MacEwen from AHL Utica. He was acquired from the Senators in exchange for fellow enforcer Kurtis MacDermid last week, but was placed on waivers the following day and subsequently cleared. No corresponding transaction is required; the team opened up two spots by reassigning Lenni Hämeenaho and Shane Lachance to Utica last night, and only filled one of them by signing veteran camp invite Luke Glendening.

MacEwen, 29, is now on his fourth team in the last four years. The undrafted 6’4″ forward can play all forward positions and, while he’s enjoyed some offensive success at the AHL level, has been a fourth-line tough guy type through the entirety of his seven-year NHL career to date. He has a 17-17–34 career scoring line in 237 appearances, including 323 PIMs and 523 hits for averages of 112 and 181 per 82 games, respectively.

While Hämeenaho and Lachance are a pair of intriguing youngsters in New Jersey’s pipeline, it’s clear now they were only included on the opening night roster for salary cap purposes as they aimed to maximize the initial relief from placing defenseman Johnathan Kovacevic on long-term injured reserve. Glendening should be in the opening-night lineup – he spent most of camp centering the fourth line between Paul Cotter and rookie Arseny Gritsyuk – while MacEwen should be ticketed for a press-box role to start.

He could end up back on waivers once winger Stefan Noesen is ready to come off injured reserve, which isn’t expected to be anytime soon. If it’s before Nov. 4, though, MacEwen could head straight back to Utica without clearing waivers since he’s already done so in the last 30 days.

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