Islanders Sign Kyle MacLean To Three-Year Extension
4:39 PM: According to CapFriendly, MacLean is expected to make $775K at the NHL level for all three years of the deal. The Islanders will have approximately $5.8MM in cap space heading into the summer months.
10:16 AM: The Islanders have agreed to a three-year extension with pending RFA forward Kyle MacLean, per a team announcement. Financial terms were not disclosed.
After spending the first three seasons of his professional career on minor-league contracts with the Isles’ AHL affiliate in Bridgeport, the 25-year-old inked his first NHL contract last offseason. An undrafted free agent signing by Bridgeport out of the OHL’s Oshawa Generals in 2020, MacLean earned his first NHL recall on Jan. 17 and remained on the roster for most of the rest of the campaign.
The son of Isles assistant coach John MacLean was serviceable in fourth-line minutes, posting four goals, nine points and a +5 rating in 32 regular-season games while averaging 10:05 per contest. By the time the playoffs rolled around, MacLean had worked his way into an everyday spot in the lineup, skating in all five postseason games in their first-round loss to the Hurricanes while playing nearly 12 minutes per night.
However, some advanced metrics yield cause for concern about his future effectiveness as an NHLer. MacLean struggled in the faceoff dot (42.5 FOW%), had an unsustainably high shooting percentage for a player without much of a goal-scoring history (15.4%), and controlled only 42.4% of shot attempts when on the ice at even strength despite seeing rather even defensive and offensive zone usage. He wasn’t tested on the penalty kill, either.
MacLean wasn’t afraid to lay the body, though, recording 60 hits, and was responsible with the puck when it was on his stick. He’s surely earned himself a spot on the opening night roster, as evidenced by today’s three-year commitment, but he’s likely better used as a 13th forward long-term than an everyday fourth-line center.
Head coach Patrick Roy will certainly have him in the mix for the spot entering training camp, though. A three-year deal puts him at 28 years old upon expiry in 2027, walking him to unrestricted free agency.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Lias Andersson Signs With NL’s Biel-Bienne
June 19: Andersson will indeed be heading to Switzerland, inking a two-year deal with Biel-Bienne that was made official Wednesday. Notably, a two-year deal means he’ll be an unrestricted free agent if he attempts to return to the NHL in 2026, so the Habs issuing him a qualifying offer means nothing unless he opts out of his contract with Biel-Bienne after one season.
June 1: Forward Lias Andersson was once a highly touted prospect after being the seventh overall pick back in 2017. However, his stock has fallen considerably since then to the point where he didn’t see any NHL action this season. Now, it appears that he’s opting for a new opportunity as Blick’s Gregory Beaud relays that Andersson is linked to Biel-Bienne in Switzerland for next season.
Beaud adds that some have suggested a deal with the 25-year-old is already in place although GM Martin Steinegger indicated that’s not the case but revealed that he is interested in bringing Andersson to his club for next season.
After spending all but one game in the minors in 2022-23, the Kings elected not to tender Andersson a qualifying offer, resulting in him becoming an unrestricted free agent. He quickly landed with the Canadiens, inking a one-year, two-way deal with the hope that he’d push for a roster spot with Montreal in training camp.
That didn’t happen. Instead, he cleared waivers in training camp and was sent down to AHL Laval where he stayed for the entire season. Andersson had a productive showing for the Rocket, collecting 21 goals and 24 assists in 53 games while missing considerable time due to a lower-body injury. Despite being one of Laval’s top forwards, Montreal elected not to bring him up at any point of the season.
If a deal with Biel-Bienne ultimately gets done, the Canadiens will still have the option to tender Andersson a qualifying offer which would keep him under club control. Meanwhile, if Andersson has determined that a regular spot in the NHL isn’t coming his way based on how things have gone in the NHL, perhaps a strong showing overseas could ultimately boost his stock down the road.
Penguins Hire Kirk MacDonald As AHL Head Coach
The Penguins have added Kirk MacDonald to the organization as the head coach of AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, the team announced. He replaces J.D. Forrest, who had been behind the WBS bench for the last four seasons but isn’t returning.
MacDonald joins an AHL staff for the first time as he moves up the coaching ladder. The 40-year-old previously spent five seasons with the ECHL’s Reading Royals as their head coach and director of hockey operations and had spent the last two years as the head coach of the USHL’s Dubuque Fighting Saints, whom he guided to a first-place 41-13-8 record this season before losing to the Fargo Force in the league final. It was the Fighting Saints’ first final appearance in eight years.
He was never drafted by an NHL team or signed to an NHL contract, but minor-league fans will remember MacDonald’s name from an AHL career that spanned from 2007 to 2013 with Albany, Houston, Iowa and Providence. A heavy-hitting winger during his playing days, MacDonald had 45 goals and 106 points in 272 games at the top minor-league level.
MacDonald takes over a Baby Pens roster that will likely include 2022 first-round pick Owen Pickering on its blue line next season. 23-year-old Samuel Poulin, a 2019 first-rounder, is also a candidate to spend time in the minors again, but he’s a more likely name to make the NHL roster in the fall as he’s lost his waiver exemption.
Kraken Linked To Patrik Laine
With Patrik Laine now officially on the trade block, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet says that the Kraken are a team to watch in talks for the scoring winger (audio link to “32 Thoughts”). It’s not clear how much Seattle general manager Ron Francis has explored a move, but Friedman believes there’s a “real push in that organization to be more aggressive” this summer as the team enters its fourth season of existence.
Few expected scoring to be a major issue for the Kraken this season after their capable death-by-depth offense erupted for 289 goals last year, but their shooting percentage cratered this season en route to finishing 29th in the league in goals. A major hiccup has been the health of top-six winger André Burakovsky, who’s missed nearly half the campaign with injuries in back-to-back years. While he was effective last season when healthy, the same couldn’t be said in 2023-24. His 16 points in 49 games worked out to 0.33 points per game, tied for the lowest of his 10-year NHL career.
Acquiring Laine would add a player with even more exaggerated issues staying healthy over the past couple of years, but he’d immediately become the highest-ceiling scoring option on the roster. The Kraken have been largely comfortable with Jared McCann as their top sniper, averaging 32 goals per season in a Kraken uniform, but Laine’s sparkling career 14.7 shooting percentage is hard to pass up.
It is impossible to ignore Laine’s availability issues over the past three seasons. Injuries limited him to 129 out of 246 games, missing 47.6% of regular-season action during that time. He played just 18 games this season, although he also spent much of the year in the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program after dealing with an upper-body injury in the first few months of the campaign.
However, during the two campaigns that he logged 50+ games in Columbus, he was worth his $8.7MM cap hit when in the lineup. The 2016 second-overall pick arguably had the best offensive showings of his career, pacing out for 38 goals and 82 points in 2021-22 and 33 goals and 78 points in 2022-23. Neither would have eclipsed his career high of 44 goals set with the Jets in 2017-18, but they would have both marked a career-best single-season point total.
There’s also breakout potential for Laine if he can stay healthy in a Kraken system that encourages puck possession. While they will have some different schemes next season under head coach Dan Bylsma, Seattle has consistently been a better even-strength puck possession team than Columbus over the past few years, and there’s little reason to see that not continuing without much roster turnover expected this summer. That means more opportunities for Laine to shoot and gives him a half-decent chance of sniffing the 40-goal plateau once again, especially if reunited with a skilled playmaker like former Blue Jackets teammate Oliver Bjorkstrand.
His power-play impact would also be beneficial. Laine led the league in power-play goals with 20 during his breakout sophomore campaign, and he’d help charge up a Kraken man-advantage unit that’s clicked at 18.4% over the past three seasons, 28th in the league during that time.
The Kraken aren’t a team that loves big cap hits, though. Defenseman Vince Dunn is their most expensive player annually at $7.35MM. Laine’s $8.7MM cap hit is worth it for his goal-scoring ability, but it’s hard for a lot of teams to justify absorbing it for a player who hasn’t played 60-plus games since before the pandemic.
But they do need scoring, and as Friedman articulates, their coaching change is indicative of a clear desire to return to postseason play in 2025. They have the financial flexibility to pull off a move with $23.424MM in projected cap space, although they do still need new deals for notable RFA forwards Matthew Beniers and Eeli Tolvanen.
Snapshots: Pinto, Gomez, Demidov
The Ottawa Senators and forward Shane Pinto are discussing the possibilities of a two-year bridge contract, shares Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Citizen. Garrioch adds that Ottawa still prefers to sign Pinto to a deal closer to five or six years in length, though they’re off-put by Pinto’s request for $5MM-a-year on a long-term deal. Pinto is coming off the end of a year he’ll want to forget quickly, having been suspended for half the season for violating the league’s gambling policy and only scoring 27 points in the games he did play in.
Pinto scored 20 goals and 35 points as a rookie last season, appearing in all 82 games. The performance stamped him as one of Ottawa’s most promising young players, though his extended absence this year kept him from truly breaking out. The Senators will be hoping for that breakout on the first year of his new deal – and get the dreaded task of putting a number to their faith this summer.
Other notes from around the league:
- Legendary New Jersey Devils forward Scott Gomez has taken to hockey management, assuming the general manager role and head coach for the BCHL’s Surrey Eagles (Twitter link). Gomez played in one season with the Eagles in 1996-97, posting 124 in 56 games as part of a championship-winning Eagles offense. He spent his next two seasons with the WHL’s Tri-City Americans, before beginning an iconic NHL career, including two years as the assistant coach of the New York Islanders from 2017 to 2019. Gomez took a break from the game after that tenure, returning with an assistant coaching role with Surry this season. He’ll now kick off his managerial career in the same place he started his playing career, certainly looking to achieve the same results.
- Top 2024 NHL Draft prospect Ivan Demidov was dismissive when asked when he expects to move to North America in an interview with Scott Powers of The Athletic, saying only, “We’ll see what happens.” Demidov has been entrenched in rumors early in his hockey career, with many speculating that he and defenseman Artyom Levshunov are the top options for second overall. One of the few knocks against Demidov’s game has been his limited exposure to the KHL – instead playing nearly all of his hockey in the MHL, Russia’s U21 league. He similarly played off the question of whether he expects more KHL ice time next season, saying he wasn’t sure and likely wouldn’t know until after the draft. While neither answer was an outright no, Demidov’s uncertainty certainly doesn’t elicit excitement. He’ll remain an incredibly skilled player, surrounded by a litany of questions, as June 28th’s First Round draws closer.
West Notes: Markstrom, Jets, Oilers
The Calgary Flames aren’t facing much pressure to move top goaltender Jacob Markstrom, with general manager Craig Conroy sharing with Sportsnet’s Eric Francis that the player hasn’t formally requested a trade. Markstrom was wrapped up in trade rumors throughout the season, even continuing into this summer as one of the top options on the New Jersey Devils’ trade radar. Markstrom expressed frustrations with the rumors around the Trade Deadline, bluntly stating that he thought the situation could have been handled differently.
Markstrom’s value as a top goaltender is readily apparent, even through his highs and lows. He posted a stout 23 wins and .905 save percentage in 48 games this year, both improvements from his tallies last year despite playing in 11 fewer games. Last year’s .892 save percentage marked Markstrom’s first time recording a save percentage under .900 across his seven years as an NHL starter. He rebounded admirably this season, bringing his career totals up to 196 wins and a .909 save percentage across 483 games. Markstrom has two years remaining on a six-year, $36MM contract signed with the Flames in 2020 – pricing him in the middle of the goalie trade market, costlier than Linus Ullmark’s $5MM cap hit but cheaper than John Gibson’s $6.4MM cap hit.
Other notes from around the league:
- The Winnipeg Jets have extended their ECHL affiliation with the Norfolk Admirals. The Admirals are coming off their first year partnered with the Jets, seeing historic success as they made the league’s postseason for the first time in their eight-year history. The Admirals were bounced in the second round but still enjoyed a year built around strong goaltending, featuring Carolina Hurricanes prospect Yaniv Perets, on loan, and Jets prospect Thomas Milic.
- The Edmonton Oilers will, unsurprisingly, be sticking with the same lineup that dominated in Game 4, shares Daniel Nugent-Bowman of The Athletic (Twitter link). Edmonton came back from the brink of elimination with a resounding 8-1 win over the Florida Panthers. The team’s depth bolstered the performance, with Mattias Janmark, Adam Henrique, Dylan Holloway, and Ryan McLeod each contributing to the record-rivaling win. The Oilers will hope they can catch lightning twice, and avoid gifting the Panthers a Stanley Cup on home ice.
Canucks Sign Filip Hronek To Eight-Year Extension
The Vancouver Canucks have signed defenseman Filip Hronek to a maximum eight-year contract extension, shares the team (Twitter link). The deal will carry an annual cap hit of $7.25MM, for a total value of $58MM. This deal will carry Hronek, 26, through his age-34 season in 2031-32. The deal featured signing bonuses in all but one year, costing the Canucks as much as $4MM annually, per Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff (Twitter link). Seravalli also shares that Hronek will carry a full no-move clause from 2025 to 2028 – suggesting the first year of the deal will be clause-free – and a partial no-move clause from 2028 to 2032.
The Canucks take care of a major piece of business with this extension, locking up the first defenseman capable of keeping up with Quinn Hughes. The pair spent nearly every second of their even-strength ice time together – and to good effect, with Hronek posting 48 points in 81 games, both career-highs. It was an incredibly successful start to Hronek’s career in Vancouver, building nicely on his pair of 38-point seasons to end his time with the Detroit Red Wings.
Hronek’s strong scoring slowed down substantially in the postseason – the first appearance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs of his six-year career. He totaled just two points across 13 games, though he did his best to curb the low-scoring with a lofty 25 hits and 15 blocks, respectively ranking second and fourth among Vancouver’s blue-line. The Canucks don’t seem bothered by Hronek’s meager postseason, now solidifying his spot next to Hughes for the foreseeable future.
With this extension, the Canucks are down to $16.83MM in projected cap space with 10 pending free agents. Headlining the list is now forward Elias Lindholm, who Vancouver acquired in exchange for top prospect Hunter Brzustewicz, depth forward Joni Jurmo, and two draft picks earlier this season. Lindholm posted just 12 points in 26 games with the Canucks, never finding a perfect fit in the team’s lineup. He’s been rumored to be asking for a hefty extension for quite some time – something that may be difficult for Vancouver to stomach with less than $17MM to spend.
Lindholm is joined atop Vancouver’s list of pending free agents by defenseman Nikita Zadorov – Vancouver’s other trade acquisition from the Flames this year. Zadorov came into his own with the Canucks, recording 14 points and 102 penalty minutes across 54 games with the team – matching his scoring pace from his 21-point season last year. Zadorov has expressed a very strong interest in returning to Vancouver, though limited cap space could make that a challenge. Of course, Vancouver will be helped along by the ceiling Hronek’s deal sets, giving them a better gauge of what price they could hand out to Zadorov.
Still, the Canucks will likely focus their spending much more on solidifying depth pieces, with late-season breakouts Dakota Joshua and Arturs Silovs both up for new deals as well. Joshua became a core piece of Vancouver’s lineup late into the year, totaling eight points and a team-leading 75 hits in 13 postseason games. His claim as Vancouver’s playoff workhorse is only challenged by Silovs, who recorded five wins and a .898 save percentage in 10 playoff appearances – filling in for Thatcher Demko following an untimely injury.
After weeks of speculation, the Canucks have now made their first big step of the off-season – placing their priority on rounding out their defense rather than their top-six forwards or goaltending duo. With a stake now planted, the Canucks can begin to turn their free agent attention towards the open market, where they’ve already been connected to star winger Jake Guentzel. Guentzel posted 77 points across 67 games this season, adding nine points in 11 postseason games. He could be a fantastic replacement for Lindholm should the Canucks get priced out of the latter’s negotiations.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
Blues Sign Scott Perunovich To One-Year Extension
The Blues have gotten defenseman Scott Perunovich under contract for the 2024-25 season, per a team announcement. His one-year extension carries a cap hit of $1.15MM.
Perunovich, 25, managed to stay mostly healthy this season for the first time in a while. He stayed on the NHL roster all season and made 54 appearances, his most since his junior days while recording 17 assists and a +1 rating. It was his second NHL season after logging 19 games of action in 2021-22 and spending all of his injury-plagued 2022-23 in the minors.
While the fact that Perunovich has no goals through 73 career NHL games may be eye-opening, he was once the top offensive defense prospect in the organization. And while 25 is a bit old to still bear the “prospect” title, that might still be the case. Perunovich has been electric during his assignments to the minors, putting up 42 points in only 39 games with AHL Springfield over the past three seasons.
Injuries have had just a catastrophic effect on his development. After winning the Hobey Baker Award during his final season with the University of Minnesota-Duluth in 2019-20, a left shoulder injury cost him all of 2020-21. He started 2021-22 off healthy, but left wrist surgery ended his season halfway through. Yet another shoulder injury sustained in training camp in 2022 delayed his debut last season to late February.
That said, a $1.15MM cap hit quite literally carries zero risk for the Blues if he can’t hold onto an NHL spot next season for whatever reason. It’s the richest allowable cap hit that can be buried in the minors without penalty. But the diminutive yet dynamic left-shot defender should be in line for an everyday spot in the lineup next season after putting up solid playmaking numbers in his limited minutes.
The Hibbing, Minnesota native was set to become a restricted free agent with arbitration rights this summer. He’ll carry that same designation again in 2025 when his new deal expires.
Canucks Interested In Jake Guentzel
Jake Guentzel‘s pending free agency could lead him to the West Coast. The Hurricanes left winger has yielded strong interest from the Canucks, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reports. They’re expected to make a “strong play” for his services amid likely interest from the Capitals, Panthers, Maple Leafs and Rangers, said Seravalli.
An extension in Carolina doesn’t appear to be in the cards for Guentzel, and his signing rights have been made available for trade for teams to get an inside track on a deal before July 1. He’ll have plenty of suitors after drawing a similar level of attention at the trade deadline a few months ago.
Guentzel is nearing the end of a five-year, $30MM extension he signed with the Penguins in December 2018, midway through a breakout campaign that saw him hit the 40-goal and 75-point marks for the first time. His $6MM cap hit since served as a bargain for Pittsburgh as he continued flourishing on Sidney Crosby‘s wing, averaging just north of a point per game over the life of his extension. With the Penguins struggling to stay in the playoff race this season, though, they dealt him to Carolina at the deadline to avoid losing him for nothing this summer – a fate the Hurricanes are also trying to avoid by recouping at least some value for his signing rights.
An upper-body injury limited him to 67 games this season, but it didn’t stop him from having the best offensive campaign of his career on a per-game basis. He finished the season with a sparkling eight goals and 25 points in 17 games for the Canes, bringing his season average up to 1.15 points per game. Only 14 players in the league had more.
In all likelihood, he’ll land a max-term contract this summer, whether it’s a seven-year deal on the open market or an eight-year extension with a team that acquires his signing rights. At age 29, he likely won’t get the chance for another big payday. Seravalli believes his cap hit should come in around $9.5MM per season, close to what we’ll predict on our Top 50 Unrestricted Free Agents list dropping next week.
That’s something the Canucks can stomach at first glance with $24.078MM in projected cap space next season, which jumps to $26.578MM if you account for defenseman Tucker Poolman‘s likely long-term injured reserve placement, per CapFriendly. But like the team he’s parting ways with in Raleigh, Vancouver has a large slate of pending free agents to re-sign or part ways with. As Seravalli points out, signing Guentzel almost surely means letting Dakota Joshua and Elias Lindholm hit the open market, pawning off most or all of Ilya Mikheyev‘s $4.75MM cap hit in a trade, and making other tough decisions with a defense group that includes Filip Hronek, Tyler Myers and Nikita Zadorov.
Guentzel does seem to fit like a glove in Vancouver’s lineup, though. Arguably their biggest weakness in their breakout 2023-24 campaign was a lack of support for budding superstar center Elias Pettersson, who spent most of the season with depth wingers Nils Höglander, Sam Lafferty and Mikheyev as his linemates. Getting a player with a lengthy history of meshing well with star centers could do wonders for the 25-year-old Swede as he kicks off his massive eight-year, $92.8MM extension.
It’s not as if there’s no history between Guentzel and Vancouver, either. Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford was the one who signed Guentzel’s current deal as GM of the Penguins, and the club was one of the finalists for his services at the deadline in March.
Sabres Considering Buying Out Jeff Skinner
The Sabres are considering exercising a buyout on the final three seasons of Jeff Skinner‘s contract, reports Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. Skinner has a full no-move clause and is signed through 2026-27 at a $9MM cap hit.
Skinner’s tenure in Buffalo has been inconsistent, to say the least, but the timing of a potential buyout is puzzling. Now 32, he’s just one year removed from a career-high 47 assists and 82 points that nearly helped propel the Sabres to their first playoff appearance in over a decade. His line with Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch was one of the most productive in the league, with promising defensive results as well.
But that changed this year. Early-season injuries to Thompson seemed to derail everything for Buffalo, and Skinner was no exception. He didn’t have an awful season by any stretch of the imagination, but he did regress to 24 goals and 46 points in 74 games. He averaged 16 minutes per game, slipping into middle-six usage as the trio with Thompson and Tuch was routinely broken up, and his 0.62 points per game were his lowest in three years.
It’s still far and away an improvement from when most considered Skinner’s deal the worst contract in the league. In the 2019-20 and 2020-21 campaigns, Skinner had just 21 goals and 37 points in 112 games with a -33 rating, bumping him down to fourth-line minutes. His rebound in the later years of his deal has helped repair its value, but he’s still rarely been worth his $9MM cap hit over the life of the deal.
That said, the Sabres are still in a transitional phase between rebuilding and contention. They’re not in a cap crunch – yet – and while improving the roster is a necessary undertaking for general manager Kevyn Adams this summer, it doesn’t require dumping Skinner’s cap hit to do so.
A buyout would be a particularly expensive undertaking in the 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons, just as the Sabres are ideally handing out serious cash and spending to the cap. It would cost $1.44MM next season, $4.44MM in 2025-26 and $6.44MM in 2026-27 before a $2.44MM annual cap penalty through 2029-30, per CapFriendly.