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Lightning Sign Jake Guentzel To Seven-Year Contract

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The Lightning have taken our No. 1-ranked UFA off the board. After acquiring his signing rights from the Hurricanes yesterday, they’ve locked in left winger Jake Guentzel on a seven-year, $63MM deal ($9MM cap hit), per a team announcement.

Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic has the full breakdown of the deal:

2024-25: $1MM base salary, $12.26MM signing bonus, no-move clause
2025-26: $1MM base salary, $8.95MM signing bonus, NMC
2026-27: $3.96MM base salary, $4MM signing bonus, NMC
2027-28: $1MM base salary, $6.96MM signing bonus, NMC
2028-29: $1MM base salary, $6.96MM signing bonus, 10-team trade list
2029-30: $1MM base salary, $6.96MM signing bonus, 10-team trade list
2030-31: $1MM base salary, $6.96MM signing bonus, 10-team trade list

While many had questioned Guentzel’s value after spending nearly all of his eight-year NHL career stapled to Sidney Crosby’s wing in Pittsburgh, a trade deadline deal to Carolina proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he’s a top-flight first-line talent in his own right. The 29-year-old has averaged more than a point per game over the last six seasons, totaling 189 goals, 221 assists and 410 points in 398 games since his breakout 40-goal campaign with the Penguins in 2018-19.

Carolina acquired Guentzel at the trade deadline, hoping to get him signed to an extension as he hurtled toward free agency, but it wasn’t in the cards. Guentzel’s initial ask was a reported eight-year, $64MM deal ($8MM AAV), something the Hurricanes weren’t willing to meet until too late in the process, LeBrun said last week. He was excellent down the stretch while alternating between Carolina’s top two forward lines, ending the year with eight goals and 17 assists for 25 points in 17 games with a +16 rating. Playing mostly alongside Sebastian Aho in the playoffs, Guentzel continued his reputation as a strong playoff performer with four goals and five assists in 11 contests.

A third-round pick of the Penguins in 2013, Guentzel played a key role in the second of the Penguins’ back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2017. He led the league in playoff goal-scoring as a rookie, lighting the lamp 13 times in 25 games – five of which were game-winners.

It’s clear that Lightning GM Julien BriseBois is banking on Guentzel being a more expensive yet more sustainable long-term replacement for Steven Stamkos. Their longtime captain is expected to find a new home on the open market today after failing to come to terms on an extension.

In Tampa, Guentzel could form one of the most terrifying top lines in the league alongside Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point. Kucherov is coming off a 100-assist, 144-point campaign that won him the second Art Ross Trophy of his career, while Point has hovered around the 50-goal mark for the past two seasons.

The Lightning have $7.5MM in projected cap space remaining for 2024-25 after the Guentzel signing, per CapFriendly. They still have six open roster spots, including newly acquired RFA defenseman J.J. Moser.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Jonathan Marchessault To Hit Open Market

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It appears the Jonathan Marchessault era in Vegas is over. The Golden Knights’ 2023 Conn Smythe Trophy winner didn’t agree to an extension as of last night and is set to find a new home in free agency today, Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports.

Getting a Marchessault extension done in Vegas was always going to be a difficult proposition without a significant cap-clearing move, something that hasn’t happened to date. He’s likely to command upward of $6MM annually on the open market, a figure that would have swallowed up all of the Golden Knights’ remaining space, even with goaltender Robin Lehner’s $5MM cap hit projected to remain on long-term injured reserve next season.

Among the teams expected to express interest in the 33-year-old today include the Devils, reports The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta. They’re on the hunt for a top-six winger, especially after parting ways with prospect Alexander Holtz via trade to the Golden Knights and with Dawson Mercer and Ondřej Palát coming off underwhelming seasons.

Both Vegas and Marchessault were intent on a reunion, but today’s news isn’t the most surprising. LeBrun had indicated last week that Marchessault was preparing to move on from Sin City without an agreement in close reach.

The Québec native immediately becomes one of the most attractive goal-scoring options on the market and will almost certainly have a new home within hours. He’s coming off a career-high 42 goals for Vegas while also playing in all 82 games for the second time in his career. He added 27 assists for 69 points, six short of his career-high of 75 set with the Knights back in 2017-18. Some regression should be expected, though, as he shot 4.2% higher than his career average of 11.6% last year.

Rangers Sign Sam Carrick To Three-Year Deal

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The New York Rangers are expected to sign forward Sam Carrick to a three-year, $3MM contract per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period (Twitter link). The deal was first reported by St. Louis Blues rinkside reporter Andy Strickland (Twitter link).

Carrick continued to improve his stat line this season – though he wasn’t focused much on scoring. Instead, Carrick recorded 111 penalty minutes in 77 games this season, a career-high in the NHL and the most he’s recorded since the 2014-15 AHL season. 90 of those penalty minutes came in 61 games with the Anaheim Ducks, though Carrick dialed things back a bit after moving to the Edmonton Oilers are the Trade Deadline. He recorded a much more modest 12 penalty minutes in 16 regular-season games with Edmonton, though he added 12 more penalty minutes in 10 postseason games. Between the two teams, Carrick also posted a meager 10 goals and 16 points.

Carrick is certainly not known for his scoring, with his career totals up to 53 points and 316 penalty minutes in 240 games after his eighth season in the NHL. But Carrick makes up for the lack of scoring with grit and intangibles, boasting a dazzling 63.1 faceoff-percentage in his brief stint with Edmonton – bringing his success rate at the faceoff dot up to 50.7 percent across his career. He’s served as a stout, bottom-line centerman with the ability to play penalty-killing minutes, when it’s not his own penalties that are being killed. He’ll offer depth down New York’s depth chart, following the loss of Alexander Wennberg to the open market.

Hurricanes Sign Eric Robinson

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The Carolina Hurricanes are expected to sign forward Eric Robinson to a one-year deal with a cap hit of $950K, per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period (Twitter link). Robinson spent last season with the Buffalo Sabres, where he recorded nine points across 40 games.

Buffalo acquired Robinson in December, dealing a conditional 2025 seventh-round pick back to the Columbus Blue Jackets – though Columbus would only receive the pick if Robinson played in 45 games. He fell just shy of that mark and is now moving on from Buffalo, effectively giving the Sabres a trial run of his services.

Columbus originally signed Robinson as an undrafted free agent in 2018, following the end of his tenure at Princeton University. He spent the 2018-19 season with the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters, where he scored an evenly split 24 points in 45 games. The strong AHL year was enough to earn Robinson 13 appearances in the NHL that year, though he’d go without a point. Still, he caught the ice of someone in Columbus, and would earn a consistent role as the team’s extra forward in 2019-20. Robinson served that role proudly, and even managed a career-high of 10 goals and 27 points in the 2021-22 campaign.

Robinson couldn’t hang onto his modest scoring in Buffalo, as he faced hefty pressure for his role on the team’s fourth line. He should receive some relief with the Hurricanes, who sit three forward spots shy of a full roster with $23.874MM in cap space. Carolina still needs to re-sign or replace restricted free agents Martin Necas, Seth Jarvis, and Jack Drury – with the latter offering the most competition for Robinson’s spot on the bottom line.

Blackhawks Sign Tyler Bertuzzi To Four-Year Deal

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Multiple reports overnight indicate the Blackhawks are expected to land winger Tyler Bertuzzi when the UFA market opens at 11 a.m. CT today, although Daily Faceoff’s Jay Rosehill was on it first. It’ll be a four-year, $22MM deal ($5.5MM AAV), David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reports.

Chicago will be Bertuzzi’s first turn after a one-year stint with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Bertuzzi joined Toronto on a one-year, $5.5MM deal last summer and proceeded to have a fine year, netting 21 goals and 43 points in 80 games. He also added four points in seven postseason games. It was a middling performance, though still a step up from Bertuzzi’s 2022-23 campaign.

He kicked off that year with 14 points in 29 games with the Detroit Red Wings before being traded to the Boston Bruins at the 2023 Trade Deadline in exchange for a 2024 first-round pick and a 2025 fourth-round pick. Bertuzzi managed a modest 16 points in 21 regular season games with Boston, though he found his spark when the team needed him – tallying 10 points, split evenly, in seven games during the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Bertuzzi looked comfortable in Boston after spending the previous six seasons with the Detroit Red Wings. Detroit originally drafted Bertuzzi in the second half of the 2013 NHL Draft’s second round, promoting him to the NHL in the 2016-17 season. And while he was able to set a trend of topping 45 points each season in Detroit, there were concerns about how his rough-and-tumble style would translate to a new scene. That made a strong performance with the Bruins imperative – and Bertuzzi held up enough to convince Toronto that they were missing his top-of-the-lineup grit.

But Bertuzzi wasn’t able to carve out too comfortable of a role with the Leafs. He spent the year bouncing around the team’s top six as they looked for how to best deploy their new additions of Bertuzzi and Max Domi. In the end, it was Domi who found more comfort next to stars Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner – ultimately kicking Bertuzzi down to the second line. Toronto, amidst their typical cap crunch, was only expected to keep one of these new additions and made their choice by delivering a four-year extension to Domi.

That leaves Bertuzzi free to join an up-and-coming Blackhawks club. He joins the lineup as, presently, their highest-paid forward, speaking to the leadership role he’ll have over a group of young forwards, headlined by star youngsters Connor Bedard and Artyom Levshunov. Bertuzzi could vie for a role on Bedard’s line, sat opposite Taylor Hall, though it seems more likely that the Hawks keep Philipp Kurashev next to their star and use Bertuzzi to offer a punch on the second line. If that is the role he finds himself in, Bertuzzi will instead be supporting top prospect Frank Nazar, who’s poised for his rookie season after signing an entry-level contract this summer.

A four-year deal will carry Bertuzzi through his age-33 season in 2027-28. With Bertuzzi signed, Chicago now has $23.4MM in cap space, with one forward spot and three defense spots still open. Some of those roles could go to prospects like Nick Lardis, Ethan Del Mastro, or Nolan Allan – though Chicago still has plenty of budget for other free-agent additions.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Stars Re-Sign Sam Steel

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July 1, 6:08 a.m.: While the team hasn’t announced it, CapFriendly reflects that Steel’s deal has been signed.

June 30, 10:40 p.m.: Although he wasn’t tendered a qualifying offer earlier today, it looks like Sam Steel will be staying in Dallas.  Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports (Twitter link) that the center is expected to ink a one-year, $1.2MM contract to remain with the Stars.

The 26-year-old has actually been non-tendered in three straight years to avoid giving him arbitration eligibility which could have pushed the price tag higher than his previous teams wanted to pay.  That resulted in Anaheim letting him go in 2022 while Minnesota did the same last summer, paving the way for him to sign a one-year, $850K deal with the Stars on the open day of free agency last summer.

Steel had a quality year with Dallas in their bottom six, recording 24 points in 77 games while averaging a little over 13 minutes per game including nearly two minutes per night shorthanded.  He also suited up in all 19 playoff contests, picking up a goal and four helpers.

For his career, Steel has played in 339 NHL games between the Ducks, Wild, and Stars.  While he was a high-end scorer in junior, that hasn’t translated to the pros as he has just 43 goals and 74 assists in those appearances; the fact that he has become a capable defensive forward will help extend his career as it makes him a better fit to play in the bottom six.

In the end, Steel will wind up with a $350K raise, a pretty good outcome as it will be the first seven-figure contract of his career.  Meanwhile, the Stars were able to avoid the risk of going to arbitration while ensuring they can keep him at a rate they can afford.  With at least seven more players needed to fill out their roster, expect Dallas to be busy in the coming days.

Kraken Sign John Hayden, Others To Extensions

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July 1, 6:03 a.m.: The Kraken also re-upped veteran depth winger Max McCormick on a two-year, two-way deal last night with a $775K cap hit. McCormick, 32, has been in the Seattle organization since its inception. He’s spent his time with the Kraken primarily in the minors, where he’s captained the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds to back-to-back Calder Cup Final appearances. The feisty, 5’11”, 187-lb forward has continued to be a solid offensive presence on the farm, coming off a strong 2023-24 campaign with 32 goals and 60 points in 68 games. He’s made 11 NHL appearances with Seattle over the past three years, going without a point.

June 30, 4:00 p.m.: The Seattle Kraken have signed forward John Hayden to a one-year, one-way contract extension (Twitter link). The deal will carry an average annual value of $775K, the league minimum. Seattle has also signed the inaugural Kraken, Luke Henman, to a one-year, two-way extension, also carrying league minimum pricing (Twitter link). Continuing the string of signings, Seattle also inked goaltender Ales Stezka to a one-year, two-way, league-minimum contract (Twitter link).

It will mark Hayden’s third straight year in the Kraken organization as he’s begun seeing his time wane at the NHL level. After playing in 55 contests for the Buffalo Sabres during the 2021-22 NHL season, Hayden has only played in nine games in Seattle since the start of the 2022-23 NHL season. Primarily playing for the AHL affiliate, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, Hayden has been a big part of the young team securing back-to-back Western Conference Final Championships.

The now-veteran forward has appeared in 112 regular season games for the Firebirds as he’s collected 32 goals and 59 points in the process. During the 2024 Calder Cup playoffs, Hayden was one of the more effective players on the roster as he scored nine goals and 13 points over 18 games. Due to his efforts both on and off the ice in Coachella Valley, the Kraken made an easy call of re-upping him for another year.

Seattle also extends the first official player of the Kraken organization in Henman. Since signing his entry-level contract with the team on May 12th, 2021, Henman has played 162 games at the AHL level with Coachella Valley and the Charlotte Checkers. As more of a depth piece even in the AHL, Henman has only put up 20 goals and 43 points throughout his three-year tenure in the Kraken organization.

Lastly, Stezka represents a good bit of organizational depth in the goaltender position as he served in a backup role with the Firebirds last year. In 27 games played, Stezka produced a record of 18-6-2 with a 2.48 goals against average and a .914 save percentage in addition to two shutouts. Unfortunately, Stezka would fail to collect any minutes during the 2024 Calder Cup playoffs as the team elected to run with veteran option Chris Driedger through the spring contest.

Snapshots: Murray, Canucks, Studenic, Lomberg

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Defenseman Ryan Murray has had a long history when it comes to chronic back injuries.  He played just 13 games in 2022-23 and didn’t play anywhere this past season.  However, Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that Murray had surgery which he believes has solved his chronic back troubles and he will be looking to land a PTO with an NHL team this summer.  The 29-year-old was the second-overall pick back in 2012 and has played in 445 career contests at the top level so far, recording 15 goals, 116 assists, and 716 blocked shots.  PTO agreements often take longer to materialize so Murray will likely have to wait a while to see what opportunities might become available closer to training camp in September.

More from around the hockey world:

  • Although the expectation was that the Canucks would go with Arturs Silovs as Thatcher Demko’s backup next season, that might no longer be the case.  Thomas Drance and Rick Dhaliwal of The Athletic report (subscription link) that Vancouver will be shopping for a veteran netminder on the open market and it appears that they’re willing to spend around $1.5MM for that player.  Casey DeSmith served as the second-string option this past season but does not appear to be an option at this time.  Silovs still has one year of waiver exemption remaining so there’s a case to be made that he’d be better served playing as the starter in the minors over seeing second-string duty with Vancouver.
  • Kraken free agent winger Marian Studenic has inked a two-year deal with SHL Farjestad, per a team release. The 25-year-old spent most of the year with AHL Coachella Valley, recording 15 goals and 29 assists in 64 games, earning him a two-game recall to Seattle.  Studenic also added 11 points in 18 playoff contests for the Firebirds.  However, rather than stick around in the minors, he’s opting to try his hand overseas.
  • Pending UFA winger Ryan Lomberg appears to have priced himself past what the Panthers can afford, relays David Dwork of The Hockey News (Twitter link). The 29-year-old put up 12 goals and 20 points in 2022-23 but was limited to just five goals and two assists in 75 games this past season although he added a career-high 175 hits.  Lomberg played on an $800K AAV for the last two years and Florida will need to have several players at that price point again next season.  If Lomberg believes he can beat that on the open market – a reasonable assumption – then he’ll have to go elsewhere to get it.

Free Agent Notes: Reinhart, Ekman-Larsson, Joseph, Lafferty

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Contract discussions between the Panthers and Sam Reinhart appear to be going down to the wire, reports Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic (Twitter link).  The 28-year-old is coming off a career year, one that saw him score 57 goals and 37 assists while playing in all 82 games, setting new personal bests in goals and points.  He didn’t produce at quite the same rate in the playoffs but still managed 16 points in 24 games to help lead Florida to their first Stanley Cup title.  Reinhart is in line for a significant raise on the $6.5MM AAV he had over the last three seasons while getting a max-term agreement.  However, the length of that max-term contract is about to change.  Unless a contract is agreed to by 11 PM CT, Florida will be capped at offering only seven years.  If a deal is reached before that time, they can make it an eight-year agreement.

More free agent news:

  • While the Panthers are hoping to keep Reinhart in the fold, it looks like they won’t be re-signing Oliver Ekman-Larsson, at least not yet. Rick Dhaliwal of TSN and The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that the veteran blueliner will be testing the open market.  After being bought out by Vancouver last summer, the 32-year-old signed a one-year, $2.25MM deal with Florida to try to rebuild his value.  The move worked as Ekman-Larsson had a solid season, notching 32 points in 80 games while logging over 18 minutes a night.  He also recorded six points in 24 playoff contests.
  • Although the Penguins non-tendered defenseman Pierre-Olivier Joseph earlier today, TVA Sports’ Renaud Lavoie reports (Twitter link) that the two sides are still discussing a new deal. The 24-year-old had more of a limited role in 2023-24, getting into 52 games where he had 11 points while logging a little over 15 minutes a night.  Joseph was arbitration-eligible and Pittsburgh didn’t want to give him that option, resulting in him not getting his qualifying offer.  It’s a tactic we’re seeing more of lately with teams then sometimes circling back to work out a deal after.  We’ll see if this is one of those cases.
  • While the Blackhawks asked for the negotiating rights to Sam Lafferty to be added in the Ilya Mikheyev trade earlier this week, Scott Powers and Mark Lazerus of The Athletic report (subscription link) that the veteran will test the market. Lafferty spent parts of two years with Chicago and had discussions on a new deal with them following his rights being acquired but instead will see what’s out there.  The 29-year-old had 13 goals and 11 assists in 79 games with Vancouver after being acquired late in training camp from Toronto.

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