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Luke Philp Signs With SHL’s Farjestad BK

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Free agent center Luke Philp has signed a contract with Farjestad BK of Sweden’s SHL, per a team release. This marks the first overseas move of Philp’s six-year pro career. He’s only played in the AHL up to this point, across tenures with the Stockton Heat, Rockford IceHogs, and Hershey Bears.

Philp signed with Stockton as a college free agent in 2019. He spent the three years prior as a top forward with the University of Alberta in Canada’s USports leagues, scoring 93 points across 78 total appearances. Philp kept up  his slick offense in his move to the pro flight, netting 19 goals and 31 points in 52 games of his rookie AHL season. He continued to score through a rising role Stockton’s lineup over the next two seasons – 61 points in 96 games – which set Philp up for a opportunistic move when he entered free agency in 2022.

Philp chose to leave Stockton for an improved lineup role in Rockford for the 2022-23 season, marking the Canmore-native’s first time playing for a team south of the border. It proved to be a wise bet – as he blazed his way to 29 goals and 53 points over the course of 60 games. He even earned the first three games of his NHL career – suiting up for two games in January and one in March as an injury fill-in, and recording his first assist.

The momentum seemed to set Philp up for a dominate 2023-24 season – but tragedy struck when he tore his Achilles tendon just a few games into the season. He’d return for a handful of playoff games, but ultimately scored just eight points across 19 total appearances. That halted momentum prompted a move to Hershey for this season. He again fought through injury, even sustaining an injury in the first period of Hershey’s first game of the season. Perhaps it’s that sense of bad luck that will now push Philp to one of Sweden’s top lineups. He’ll join Joakim Nygard, Oskar Steen, and Radim Zohorna as a few of many teammates with NHL and AHL experience.

Pacific Notes: Miromanov, Phillips, Cholach

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The Flames haven’t done much this summer on the back end.  Joel Hanley was re-signed after he became an unrestricted free agent, Kevin Bahl received a long-term deal, and Rasmus Andersson has not been moved despite plenty of trade speculation.  The expectation is that 2024 first-rounder Zayne Parekh will be on the roster as well; he remains ineligible to be sent to the AHL.  As a result, Postmedia’s Daniel Austin suggests that Daniil Miromanov could be the odd man out on the back end barring any further movement.  The 28-year-old played in a career-high 44 games last season, notching nine points and 55 blocked shots while averaging 17:41 per contest.  A right-shot defender signed for one more year at $1.25MM, there’s a good chance Calgary would be able to generate some trade interest in him in training camp if he does wind up being on the outside looking in at a roster spot.

More from the Pacific:

  • Still with the Flames, prospect Mace’o Phillips has decided where he will be playing this season. Green Bay of the USHL announced on its Instagram page that the blueliner has committed to playing for them in 2025-26.  Phillips was a third-round pick last month by Calgary, going 80th overall after spending last season with the U.S. National Team Development Program.  It should be one-and-done with the Gamblers as Phillips is expected to suit up for the University of Minnesota in 2026-27.  By delaying going to college, the Flames could have up to five years to sign him to his entry-level contract.
  • While now-former Golden Knights prospect Artur Cholach didn’t sign by the June 1st deadline leading to his rights being relinquished, he will remain with the organization as their AHL affiliate in Henderson recently announced that the blueliner had signed a one-year contract for the upcoming season. The 22-year-old was a sixth-round pick back in 2021 and played his first professional campaign last season, getting into five games with Henderson and 54 with ECHL Tahoe where he had seven goals and 16 assists.

Avalanche Sign Daniil Gushchin

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It didn’t take long for the Avalanche to come to terms with their newest acquisition as PuckPedia reports that Colorado has signed winger Daniil Gushchin to a one-year, two-way deal.  The agreement will pay $775K in the NHL, $150K in the minors, and has an overall guarantee of $200K.

The 23-year-old is coming off a strong year in the minors with AHL San Jose, one that saw him post 28 goals and 23 assists in 56 games, surpassing the 50-point mark for the second straight year.  However, that level of success didn’t yield much in the way of an NHL opportunity as Gushchin played in just a dozen games with the Sharks in 2024-25, bringing his career total to 18.

Accordingly, Gushchin acknowledged earlier this month that he was undecided about re-signing with San Jose or if he’d be open to accepting one of the offers he was receiving from back home in Russia.  It appears the two sides found a solution that worked for both sides as Gushchin wasted little time signing with his new team while the Sharks added Oskar Olausson from the Avs to likely take the spot earmarked for Gushchin with the Barracuda, pending waiver clearance.

Colorado has had a lengthy rotation of fourth liners in recent years with Jared Bednar struggling to find a few players that he’s comfortable with in that role.  That played a big role in the Avalanche dressing no fewer than 30 forwards for at least two games, 11 of those logging an ATOI of under 10 minutes per game, or fourth-line minutes.  They haven’t done much in the way of adding extra low-cost depth this summer so Gushchin – now waiver-eligible for the first time – should get a legitimate chance to land a spot on the fourth line at some point next season.

East Notes: Blake, Red Wings, Prokhorov

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Late Thursday, the Hurricanes raised some eyebrows when they signed winger Jackson Blake to an eight-year, $45MM contract extension after just one professional season.  It was reported at the time that the deal carries some salary deferrals; PuckPedia relays (Twitter link) that a total of $15.9MM in signing bonus money over five seasons in the agreement is deferred to July 1st, 2034, the day after the deal expires.  In doing so, the cap hit goes from $5.625MM per season to $5.117MM.  As part of the contract, Blake also gets a 10-team no-trade clause starting in July 2031 that will remain in place until 15 days before the 2034 trade deadline.  Given that the other years of the deal cover RFA-eligible seasons, he wasn’t eligible for trade protection in those campaigns.

Elsewhere in the Eastern Conference:

  • Bob Duff of Detroit Hockey Now speculates that the Red Wings might not be done with moves on the back end this summer. They added Jacob Bernard-Docker and re-signed William Lagesson but with the tendency to carry eight defensemen under GM Steve Yzerman, a bit more depth would be useful so that they don’t necessarily have to bring up a youngster from AHL Grand Rapids at the first sign of injury.  Alternatively, they could stand to benefit from trying to upgrade their current top six, a group that largely struggled last season and has pretty much been untouched over the offseason.
  • Islanders prospect Daniil Prokhorov has signed a tryout deal with Dynamo Moscow, the KHL team announced. The winger was a second-round pick last month, going 42nd overall after putting up 20 goals in 43 games at the MHL level.  A big winger standing six-foot-six, Prokhorov is certainly a project player for New York and will need a few more years back home whether he’s able to crack the KHL roster this season or not.

Oilers Looking To Add Top-Six Help

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It has been an eventful summer for the Oilers as they’ve lost some of their forward depth with Connor Brown, Jeff Skinner, Viktor Arvidsson, and Corey Perry all leaving the organization.  While they added Andrew Mangiapane in free agency, he’s the only acquisition they’ve had with some level of offensive success in the NHL.

As a result, David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period relayed in a recent appearance on Edmonton Sports Talk (video link) that Edmonton is still looking to add some top-six help although he also acknowledged that doing so will be quite difficult.

As a result of their offseason activity (which included a four-year, $42MM contract for defenseman Evan Bouchard), the Oilers only have around $225K of cap space, per PuckPedia.  Considering the league minimum salary is $775K, that’s not even enough to add a depth player, let alone an impactful one.

Speculatively, Edmonton’s best bet to add some offensive help might be a one-year, bonus-laden deal which means a player aged 35 or older.  Postmedia’s David Staples speculated that winger Max Pacioretty could fit that bill after coming off a similar contract last season with Toronto.  While that means a big chunk of the bonuses would likely roll over to 2026-27, it might allow them to add an extra piece for this season to at least give them some extra offensive depth, though not the top-six addition it appears they’re coveting.

Edmonton does have a pathway to open up a bit more flexibility on the cap.  With the Oilers adding Curtis Lazar in free agency, there might not be a top-12 spot for spring signee David Tomasek, who inked a one-year, $1.2MM contract back in April.  He’s waiver-exempt and $1.15MM of his deal can be cleared with an assignment to the minors.  Prospects Matthew Savoie and Isaac Howard are also waiver-exempt and while they’re projected to be regulars next season, they can be papered down on off-days to bank a bit of extra room; restrictions on paper transactions from the CBA extension don’t kick in until the 2026-27 campaign.

Moves like that could give the Oilers enough wiggle room to try to make a later-season pickup of a top-six player, providing them a boost for the stretch run.  However, that won’t do much of anything to help them at this point of the offseason, making that top-six desire particularly unlikely as things stand.  But Edmonton has gotten creative on that front before so it wouldn’t be surprising to see them try to make at least some sort of depth addition in the coming weeks to help replace some of the secondary scoring that they’ve lost this month.

Blues Re-Sign Nikita Alexandrov

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The Blues have taken care of their final remaining restricted free agent.  The team announced that they’ve re-signed winger Nikita Alexandrov to a one-year, two-way contract.  The deal will pay $775K in the NHL, $300K in the AHL, and has a guaranteed salary of $350K.

The 24-year-old was a second-round pick by St. Louis back in 2019, going 62nd overall after a solid showing with QMJHL Charlottetown that had him hovering at just under a point per game.  Alexandrov was able to eclipse that mark the following year with 23 goals and 31 assists in 42 games before turning pro in the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season that saw him spend most of the year in Finland plus a handful of games with AHL Utica.

After one full season with AHL Springfield, the Blues thought Alexandrov was ready for an NHL look in 2022-23, giving him 28 appearances in primarily a fourth-line role where he had seven points.  The following year, he received 23 contests in St. Louis where he notched a pair of assists, seemingly putting him in the mix for a longer-term NHL chance heading into last season.

However, that wasn’t the case.  Instead, Alexandrov was cut with around a week left in training camp and aside from being a Black Ace recall late in the playoffs, he played exclusively with Springfield.  He had his best showing in the minors, notching 21 goals and 28 assists in 48 games while also missing nearly two months with a lower-body injury along the way.  Over his career in the AHL, Alexandrov has 58 goals and 71 assists in 170 contests.

A return to the minors may be a little more difficult for Alexandrov as he’s waiver-eligible.  That means he’ll have to get through waivers unclaimed in order to return to the Thunderbirds.  If that happens, he’ll be in line to play a big role in Springfield once again in the hopes of getting recalled while getting more than double his AHL salary from 2024-25.  However, a strong training camp performance could also be enough to land him a spot with St. Louis, especially if they’re concerned about him getting claimed off the waiver wire given his offensive success from last season in the minors.  Suffice it to say, Alexandrov’s performance in training camp a couple of months from now will go a long way toward dictating what happens to him next season.

Blackhawks, Arvid Söderblom Avoid Arbitration With Two-Year Deal

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The Blackhawks and goaltender Arvid Söderblom won’t need the arbitration hearing they had scheduled for Monday. They’ve settled on a two-year deal paying the restricted free agent an average annual value of $2.75MM, the team announced.

Söderblom, who turns 26 in August, had set himself up well in contract talks this summer after something of a breakout season in 2024-25. An undrafted free agent signed by Chicago out of the SHL’s Skellefteå AIK in 2021, the Gothenburg native started a career-high 33 games with a 10-18-7 record, .898 SV%, 3.18 GAA, and 16 quality starts.

While those numbers don’t jump off the page, it’s important to put them in context with the Hawks’ poor defense last season. Söderblom had the seventh-highest expected goals against average (3.20) of any NHL netminder to play at least 30 games last season, so his performance still came in better than expected with 1.0 GSAx and 0.16 wins above replacement on the year, according to MoneyPuck.

Assuming he can keep that up, Söderblom has cemented himself as a fine 1B/backup option in Chicago who may still have some room to grow. His performance was leaps and bounds better after a 2023-24 campaign that saw him struggle in his first chance as a full-time NHLer, posting a 5-22-2 record with a .879 SV% and 3.92 GAA in 32 appearances.

Even if veteran backup Laurent Brossoit is ready to play this season after missing all of 2024-45 with a knee injury, Söderblom should still be penciled in as the primary backup to emerging starter Spencer Knight on Chicago’s opening night roster. If there was any doubt beforehand, the Blackhawks’ willingness to pay him an AAV in the high $2MM range on a pre-hearing settlement indicates that’s the role they envision him playing.

The new deal barely puts a dent in Chicago’s practically infinite cap space at this stage of the offseason, still leaving them with $18.6MM in space with an open roster spot, per PuckPedia. The Blackhawks’ lone remaining unsigned RFA is defenseman Wyatt Kaiser, who was neither arbitration nor offer sheet-eligible this summer.

Söderblom’s settlement walks him to unrestricted free agency in 2027. The first three of seven arbitration hearings have now been settled; the next unsettled one on the docket is Jets defenseman Dylan Samberg on July 30.

Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet was the first to report the deal.

Image courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images.

Ducks Loan Damian Clara, Lucas Pettersson To Brynäs IF

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The Ducks have loaned goalie Damian Clara and forward Lucas Pettersson to the SHL’s Brynäs IF for 2025-26 as they continue their development, the Swedish club announced yesterday.

While Pettersson’s was previously assumed, Clara’s is noteworthy. The Italian netminder signed his entry-level contract last summer, and while the Ducks first loaned him to the SHL’s Färjestäd BK and then the Liiga’s Kärpät for 2024-25, he was a candidate to jump stateside and join the AHL’s San Diego Gulls this season after he played two games there down the stretch.

There’s a bit of a logjam in Anaheim’s goalie pipeline, though. They’re one of the few teams projected to carry three netminders on their NHL roster (Lukáš Dostál, Ville Husso, Petr Mrázek). They also have three goalie prospects under contract who will play for either the Gulls or the ECHL’s Tulsa Oilers this year: Vyacheslav Buteyets, Calle Clang, and Tomas Suchanek. That meant there wasn’t a clear path for the promising Clara to get playing time statside next season, so they’ll instead get their youngest signed goaltender more reps overseas.

The 20-year-old Clara has played for Brynäs before, just not in Sweden’s top league. He spent the 2023-24 season there after Anaheim drafted him in the second round, playing a crucial role in helping Brynäs earn promotion from the HockeyAllsvenskan back to the SHL. The 6’6″ goalie posted a .913 SV% in 34 regular-season games before logging a stellar .931 SV% and 1.68 GAA in 11 qualification games to send them back to the top flight.

Brynäs had an exceptionally successful first campaign back in the SHL, winning the regular-season title and finishing as runners-up in the playoffs. Clara now hopes to bolster their encore performance. He’ll share the crease with former NHL netminder Collin Delia, and another former NHLer, Erik Källgren, is on their roster but is expected to be out until January after undergoing hip surgery.

He and Pettersson, who the Ducks nabbed in the second round of the 2024 draft, will get to play with former Anaheim winger Jakob Silfverberg. This will be Pettersson’s first season in Brynäs after the 19-year-old posted a 9-10–19 scoring line in 26 games for Östersunds IK of the HockeyAllsvenskan last season.

Free Agent Profile: Joel Kiviranta

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Perhaps no remaining free agent is harder to gauge than forward Joel Kiviranta, who flashed unexpected scoring touch last season with the Colorado Avalanche that vastly deviated from his career norm. In 79 games last season, Kiviranta produced 16 goals, doubling his previous career high of eight goals during the 2022-23 season with the Dallas Stars. The 29-year-old native of Finland was aided by a 19 percent shooting percentage, nearly doubling his career average of 10.9 percent.

With that said, he made the most of his career-high 12:31 average ice time, which included setting career highs in goals, assists, points, plus/minus rating, faceoff percentage, and blocked shots. He also recorded 114 hits—the second-highest total of his career—and contributed on the penalty kill, notching his second career shorthanded goal last season. Although he achieved career-high marks in the regular season, things came to a halt in the postseason, as Kiviranta posted zero points across seven games while averaging 10:05 of ice time per game.

While his shooting success from last season is nearly impossible to sustain, he could still appeal to a team looking for a veteran presence in its bottom six who can contribute offensively. Remarkably, his 16 goals last season rank second among all remaining free agents, trailing only Jack Roslovic.

Stats

2024-25: 79 GP, 16 G, 7 A, 23 PTS, +15, 20 PIMS, 84 shots, 12:31 ATOI, 46.7 CF%
Career: 298 GP, 35 G, 25 A, 60 PTS, +1, 92 PIMS, 320 shots, 11:16 ATOI, 47.7 CF%

Potential Suitors

As previously discussed, Kiviranta’s 16 goals last season are likely more of an aberration than an expectation moving forward. This likely leaves him seeking a fourth-line role, with the potential to move up the lineup if needed. To that end, a wide range of teams could kick the tires on adding the veteran, at a minimum to compete for a roster spot.

While this time of year is ideal for rebuilding teams to pick up veterans with hopes of flipping them at the deadline for assets, Kiviranta likely doesn’t fit into that strategy. His best path to a new contract may lie with a contending team in need of a veteran depth piece—like his most recent employer, the Avalanche. A reunion isn’t out of the question.

Projected Contract

It’s hard to believe, after a 16-goal season, that Kiviranta’s contract may be similar to last year’s $775,000 deal he signed with Colorado, but here we are. This late into free agency, his best opportunity may come without a guaranteed roster spot on opening night. Even so, given his experience, physicality, and ability to contribute on the penalty kill, he could still earn a one-year, one-way deal.

Photo credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

Sharks, Avalanche Swap Daniil Gushchin, Oskar Olausson

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According to a team announcement from the San Jose Sharks, the Sharks have traded forward Daniil Gushchin to the Colorado Avalanche for forward Oskar Olausson. The former is still a restricted free agent while Olausson has one year remaining on his entry-level contract.

It’s a change-of-scenery trade for both forwards, with the beneficiaries being the two teams’ respective AHL affiliates. The only noticeable difference between the two is that Gushchin is considered more NHL-ready, but isn’t quite good enough to be an NHL regular.

The Yekaterinburg, Russia native was drafted by San Jose with the 76th overall pick of the 2020 NHL Draft. He was coming off a relatively impressive season with the USHL’s Muskegon Lumberjacks, scoring 22 goals and 47 points in 42 games with a +21 rating. After another season in Muskegon and one with the OHL’s Niagara IceDogs, Gushchin became a full-time player for the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda beginning in the 2022-23 campaign.

He has enjoyed plenty of offensive success throughout his time with the AHL’s San Jose, scoring 70 goals and 150 points in 182 games, with one goal in four postseason contests. Unfortunately, Gushchin has left much to be desired on the defensive side of the puck, owning a -48 career rating. Still, Gushchin’s ability to score will make the AHL’s Colorado Eagles that much harder to play against, given that they led the AHL in scoring last season with 250.

Unlike Gushchin, the Avalanche used a first-round selection to draft Olausson, who went 28th overall in the 2021 NHL Draft. He was a top-level talent for HV71’s U20 team, scoring 14 goals and 27 points in 16 games. Olausson transitioned to North American hockey a year later, scoring 26 goals and 49 points in 55 games split between the OHL’s Barrie Colts and Oshawa Generals. Given his success in one of the top Canadian major junior leagues, the Avalanche hoped Olausson could be a key contributor in a few years.

Unfortunately, his play with AHL Colorado has zapped much of that hope. Since joining the Eagles ahead of the 2022-23 campaign, the same year Gushchin became a full-time AHL player, Olausson has scored 33 goals and 66 points in 163 contests, with one goal and eight points in 17 playoff games.

Both players have spent limited time in the NHL since making their professional debuts. Gushchin has the edge, featuring in 18 games compared to Olausson’s four. Still, neither player should be expected to drastically improve those totals in 2025-26, unless their NHL club sustains multiple injuries to their forward core.

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