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Tampa Bay Lightning Reassign Steven Santini, Scott Sabourin

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The Tampa Bay Lightning have made a pair of roster moves, reassigning forward Scott Sabourin and defenseman Steven Santini to their AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch. Both Santini and Sabourin were elevated to the NHL roster on Friday, though Santini did not dress in the team’s two games that he was on their roster.

Sabourin was not eligible to play in either of the Lightning’s games since his recall as he has yet to fully serve the four-game suspension he was assessed in the preseason for roughing committed against Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad. By recalling him, the Lightning have ensured Sabourin would get two games’ worth of credit towards the suspension.

Since Sabourin hasn’t played in four or more NHL games in a single season since 2021-22, recalls such as this, with the specific intent of allowing Sabourin to serve his suspension, will be essential to restoring the player’s ability to be eligible to play should he be recalled later in the season.

The 33-year-old grinder is a longtime AHL veteran, and scored 10 goals and 25 points alongside 111 penalty minutes in 68 games last season for the San Jose Barracuda.

Santini, unlike Sabourin, was eligible to play in the team’s two games over the course of his recall, but ultimately remained in the press box as the team’s spare blueliner. The recall was not without benefit for the 30-year-old defenseman, as he is playing on a two-way contract, so he will be paid the pro-rated portion of his NHL salary ($775K) rather than what he would have received in the AHL, where his salary is $250K. While he didn’t get into either game, the recall did increase the odds that after enough further recalls, Santini may be able to exceed the $350K annual guarantee on his contract.

As Santini’s recall was directly related to an injury suffered by defenseman Maxwell Crozier, this move could be seen as an indication that Crozier is ready to return to the ice after a two-game absence, though there have not yet been any reports or any official announcements as to whether that is the case.

East Notes: Michkov, Lyon, Marchand

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The Philadelphia Flyers completed a dramatic overtime victory over the Minnesota Wild yesterday, but not everything is going smoothly so far to start the season in Philadelphia. While the Flyers have compiled a decent 2-2-1 record to start the year, one of the more notable emerging storylines on the Flyers has been the usage of star second-year forward Matvei Michkov. According to The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz, the 2023 seventh-overall pick was once again benched by head coach Rick Tocchet late in last night’s game, with Kurz attributing the move to “too many ineffective shifts and careless plays with the puck.”

Michkov has struggled thus far under Tocchet, with just one goal and zero assists through five games. While he remains the Flyers’ top power play forward in terms of time-on-ice per game, his overall usage has declined from 16:41 per game last season to just 14:50 this year. While Tocchet’s usage of Michkov may ultimately help the young forward develop a more well-rounded all-around game, it’s also potentially fair to question whether taking this approach with Michkov, who is one of the Flyers’ most lethal offensive weapons, ultimately hurts the team’s chances to win more than it helps.

Other notes from the Eastern Conference:

  • The Buffalo Sabres have rebounded in a strong way since their 0-3-0 start, rattling off consecutive dominant victories against two of last year’s playoff teams: the Ottawa Senators and Florida Panthers. While Zach Benson’s return from injury has greatly helped matters, leading the charge for the Sabres has been netminder Alex Lyon, who was signed for $1.5MM AAV this past summer to be the backup to starter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen. Lyon has a .929 save percentage through five games this season, a mark that ranks third in the NHL among goalies with four starts or more. While Luukkonen is likely to remain the team’s go-to starter whenever he recovers from his injury, Lyon is putting together a strong case to receive an increased workload as a backup.
  • Florida Panthers forward Brad Marchand was fined $5K by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety today, for unsportsmanlike conduct committed in yesterday’s 3-0 loss to the Sabres. The unsportsmanlike conduct occurred midway through the second period when Marchand got into a scuffle with Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin. Dahlin had cross-checked Marchand, and Marchand went after Dahlin as a result, delivering a few punches. Marchand was ultimately taken to the penalty box, but he travelled there with Dahlin’s helmet in hand, and once in the penalty box, Marchand proceeded to rip several straps off of Dahlin’s helmet and toss it back onto the ice. This is not the first time Marchand has gotten into trouble for an unconventional kind of unsportsmanlike conduct: during the 2018 playoffs, Marchand was officially warned by the league after he licked the face of then-Tampa Bay Lightning forward Ryan Callahan.

Ottawa Senators Recall Mads Sogaard, Reassign Leevi Merilainen

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The Ottawa Senators have swapped which goalie will hold the backup’s role on their NHL roster. Per an official team announcement, netminder Leevi Merilainen has been reassigned to their AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators, while Mads Sogaard has been recalled.

Merilainen won the Senators’ backup goalie job coming out of training camp, a development that was a continuation of the Senators’ goaltending depth chart order from 2024-25. Merilainen, 23, got into 12 NHL games last season, compared to just two for Sogaard.

Sogaard and Merilainen were polar opposites in terms of form last season, as Sogaard struggled mightily in limited AHL action and couldn’t gain momentum to play in the NHL when he was healthy, while Merilainen excelled in his second full season of pro hockey in North America.

Last year, Merilainen posted a .913 save percentage across 37 AHL games and a .925 mark across 12 NHL games. Sogaard, on the other hand, posted an .858 save percentage in just eight AHL games.

Injuries didn’t help matters for Sogaard last season, but the reality is that the towering netminder, a 2019 second-rounder, looked to have been passed by on the team’s goaltending depth chart by Merilainen, a 2020 third-rounder.

Today’s roster move flips things. Outside of the two netminders’ competition in preseason and training camp (one that Merilainen won, as Sogaard was placed on waivers and sent to Belleville earlier this month) neither goalie has had the chance to make an extended impact in the crease.

Sogaard has played in two AHL games for Belleville this year, going 0-1-1 with an .864 save percentage and 2.94 goals-against average.

Merilainen, on the other hand, has played in just one game, and was unfortunate enough to be on the wrong end of what has been, to this point, the worst game of this young Senators campaign. Merilainen was tagged for seven goals against in an 8-4 loss to the Buffalo Sabres, and saving 19 of 26 shots against a team that had, to that point in the season, struggled mightily to score goals, is not a performance that is going to inspire a lot of confidence.

It would be unfair, of course, to lay the blame for that loss entirely on Merilainen’s shoulders. But that performance, combined with today’s move, does throw into question the Senators’ goaltending plans behind entrenched starter Linus Ullmark.

The Athletic’s Julian McKenzie wrote that with neither Merilainen nor Sogaard inspiring much confidence, and Ullmark struggling, “a goalie may be needed” from outside the organization in order to stabilize the position.

While it’s too early to say that the Senators’ decision not to retain veteran backup Anton Forsberg over the summer (he signed a two-year, $2.25MM AAV deal with the Los Angeles Kings) was a mistake, things appear highly unsettled in net for the Senators so far this year. In what is a crucially important season in Ottawa, one where the Senators simply cannot afford to take a step back after finally returning to the playoffs in 2024-25, goaltending appears to be emerging as an early problem area for the team.

External help in the crease could become available at some point. The Carolina Hurricanes and Buffalo Sabres are currently carrying an extra goalie they claimed on waivers due to injuries to their expected NHL goalies, and therefore it’s possible one or both of Colten Ellis and Brandon Bussi find their way back onto the waiver wire at some point.

That is also the case for Cayden Primeau in Toronto, though the fact that Joseph Woll has taken a leave of absence to deal with a family matter (which understandably does not have as concrete of a return timeline as an injury) does complicate things.

Photo courtesy of Matt Blewett-Imagn Images

Morning Notes: Robertson, Pinto, Varone

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In this early stretch of the 2025-26 NHL season, one of the better storylines on the New York Rangers has been the emergence of rookie defenseman Matthew Robertson, who scored his first NHL goal last night in the team’s much-needed comeback victory over the Montreal Canadiens. Robertson took on injured defenseman Carson Soucy’s role as the Rangers’ number-five defenseman, and while he hasn’t been perfect, he has generally impressed. This has led to questions as to what will happen when Soucy is ready to return to the lineup, and The Athletic’s Peter Baugh wrote yesterday that it “definitely feels like” Robertson will retain a spot in head coach Mike Sullivan’s regular lineup once Soucy returns.

Should Robertson end up retaining his regular lineup spot, that would likely mean veteran Urho Vaakanainen would become the team’s seventh defenseman, filling the role Robertson began the season in. Vaakanainen, 26, is averaging the fewest minutes per game of any Rangers blueliner (15:02) though he has played in all seven of the team’s games thus far this season. The stay-at-home defenseman has an additional year on his contract beyond this one at a $1.55MM AAV, and managed a healthy 15 points in 46 games for the Rangers last season. Vaakanainen’s play has drawn more criticism than Robertson’s this year, though, and being on the wrong end of a Trent Frederic game-winning goal on Tuesday didn’t help his case to stay in the lineup.

Other notes from around the hockey world:

  • Yesterday, we covered reports coming out of Ottawa that Senators center Shane Pinto and the team were set to re-engage in talks over a contract extension for the talented young center. Those reports indicated that there was a notable gap between the Senators’ expectations for a new contract and the expectations of Pinto’s representatives, led by Lewis Gross of Sports Professional Management. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman added to the reporting around Pinto last night, revealing that the Senators had offered Pinto an eight-year contract extension. It’s unclear at this time whether Pinto and the Senators will be able to reach an agreement on such a long-term contract (Pinto’s goal-scoring success so far this season should certainly embolden his camp’s pursuit of a major pay raise) but as of right now, it’s abundantly clear the Senators are hoping to keep Pinto in the fold for as long as possible.
  • Former AHL MVP Phil Varone has found a place to play the 2025-26 season, signing a contract with Slovakia’s HK Dukla Trencin. The 34-year-old, who was once one of the top players in the AHL and has 97 career NHL games to his name, has landed in Slovakia after a two-year stint in Germany’s DEL. Since leaving North America at the end of a 2019-20 season that saw him post 19 points in 33 AHL games, Varone has struggled to find consistency in Europe. He’s bounced between six different clubs over the last five years across three different leagues and four different countries, with his best year coming in 2023-24, when he scored 27 points in 34 games for the DEL’s Düsseldorfer EG. He now joins a Trencin team in desperate need of scoring reinforcement: the team currently sit in the No. 8 spot in the Slovak Extraliga standings (out of 12 teams) and have scored the third-fewest goals as a team (27 through 12 games played).

Injury Updates: Gostisbehere, Stone, Lundkvist

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Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere left last night’s victory over the Los Angeles Kings with a lower-body injury, according to a team announcement. After the game, head coach Rod Brind’Amour told the media, including team reporter Walt Ruff, that Gostisbehere “tweaked something,” and could add to the list of injured Hurricanes defensemen – one that already includes star blueliner Jaccob Slavin, who is out indefinitely with a lower-body injury of his own.

If Gostisbehere is to miss any games with this injury, beyond just the portion of the game he missed last night, it would be a serious blow to the Hurricanes defense. Despite playing in the fewest even-strength minutes per game of any Hurricanes blueliner so far this season, Gostisbehere quarterbacks Carolina’s top power play unit and is tied for the league lead in points by a defenseman with seven in five games. In Gostisbehere absence, offseason addition K’Andre Miller took over the team’s top power play unit, and in terms of who could draw into the lineup in the case that Gostisbehere misses game action moving forward, rookie Charles-Alexis Legault is in position as the team’s current spare blueliner.

Other injury notes from around the league:

  • Vegas Golden Knights captain Mark Stone left last night’s victory over the Calgary Flames with an apparent wrist injury, reports Mark Anderson of the Associated Press. According to Anderson, Stone left the ice midway through the third period, clearly dealing with something. After the game, head coach Bruce Cassidy didn’t have a further update on Stone’s status, but said they’d likely have more information to give on Monday. Stone, 33, ranks second in leaguewide scoring at the moment with 13 points in six games, and it’s worth noting that he has been injury prone for much of his NHL career. Stone hasn’t hit 70 games played in a season since 2018-19, and played in 66 games last season.
  • Dallas Stars defenseman Nils Lundkvist suffered a lower-body injury in the team’s Thursday contest against the Vancouver Canucks, an injury that limited him to a season-low 11:18 time-on-ice. Last night, Stars coach Glen Gulutzan provided an additional update on Lundkvist’s status, telling the media (including the Dallas News’ Lia Assimakopoulos) that Lundkvist would be out for “a little bit” with the injury. Lundkvist, 25, has scored three points through four games so far this season, and saw his spot on the team’s second pairing alongside Thomas Harley filled by veteran Ilya Lyubushkin.

Evening Notes: Dubois, Marchessault, Lowry

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Washington Capitals centerman Pierre-Luc Dubois donned a non-contact jersey for a second-straight practice on Friday. He won’t be ready for Washington’s Sunday matchup against the Vancouver Canucks, but could return on Tuesday, head coach Spencer Carbery told Washington Post’s Bailey Johnson. Dubois has been day-to-day with a lower-body injury for much of the last week.

Dubois appeared in three games before sustaining his injury. His only notable stat changes came in the form of five shots on net, two hits, and a plus-one. He continued to serve as a top-six center for the Capitals, centering Aliaksei Protas and Tom Wilson. Washington has turned towards Connor McMichael to fill that role in Dubois’ absence. McMichael has one point – his first of the year – and a plus-one in the relief role. That scoring surely won’t be enough to command Dubois’ spot once he’s back to full health. Dubois should be expected to return in the coming week, and continue his hunt for his first score of the year.

Other notes from around the NHL:

  • Winger Jonathan Marchessault sat out of the Nashville Predators’ Saturday matchup against the Winnipeg Jets. He is day-to-day with a lower-body injury, per a team announcement. Nashville opted to ice seven defensemen in the matchup – pulling defender Nick Blackenburg into the lineup. They went on to lose by a score of 1-4. Marchessault is tied for the Predators’ lead in scoring with four points through five games this season. He finished second on the team in scoring last season, with 56 points in 78 game placing him behind only Filip Forsberg, who scored 76 points in 82 games. That standing will make Marchessault’s absence quickly felt, even if he’s only out for the short term.
  • On the other side of that matchup, Winnipeg received a bit of positive injury news when captain Adam Lowry returned to practice in a no-contact jersey on Saturday, per NHL.com’s Mitchell Clinton. Lowry has been recovering from hip surgery he underwent in late May. He is still working back to full health this season, but did manage 13 appearances and scored four goals in the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs. He also scored 34 points in 73 regular season games. Lowry is a core piece of Winnipeg’s lineup when healthy, offering stout two-way play from a middle-six center role. He will be slotted back into a busy role as soon as he’s ready to make his season debut.

Injury Notes: Dickinson, Mikkola, Harkins

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Chicago Blackhawks centerman Jason Dickinson is day-to-day with an undisclosed injury and will be a game-time decision on Sunday, head coach Jeff Blashill told Charlie Roumeliotis of WGN Radio. Dickinson headed to the locker room partway through Friday’s game against Vancouver after receiving a heavy, awkward hit from Canucks winger Conor Garland. He returned, left again, then returned again throughout the remaining game – though it seems the injury is sticking around a day later.

Dickinson has been a core piece of one of Chicago’s best lines this season, centering fellow NHL veterans Ryan Donato and Ilya Mikheyev. The trio have outscored their opponents four-to-one in six games together, more than any other Hawks line. Dickinson sitting out of Sunday’s match against the Anaheim Ducks would force Chicago to break up their starting forward line against stingy competition. The Ducks sit with a 2-2-0 record and negative goal-differential (-3) but they’re led by legendary Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville and roster a long list of promising youngsters who can takeover games. Chicago has been thriving as of late – with a 2-1-1 record in their last four – but this injury news could bring that down.

Other injury news from across the NHL:

  • Speaking of Anaheim, bruising forward Jansen Harkins returned to the team’s practice in a no-contact jersey on Saturday, captured by Patrick Present of The Hockey News. Harkins is recovering from an upper-body injury sustained in a preseason match against the Los Angeles Kings on September 21. He was originally expected to miss about eight weeks, placing his return date still three weeks away. But already returning to practice could be enough to shorten that timeframe for Harkins. Then again, the Ducks may want to monitor their bottom-line bruiser a bit closer, after he ranked third on the team with 136 hits in 62 games last season.
  • Florida Panthers defenseman Niko Mikkola left Saturday’s match against the Buffalo Sabres with an upper-body injury. He sustained the injury after getting tangled up with Sabres winger Tyson Kozak and falling awkwardly into the boards. Mikkola only appeared in seven minutes of ice time prior to the injury. He remains without any scoring through seven games this season, though the physical impact Mikkola brings to each game will still be sorely missed should he have to sit out any more. He was a nightly feature in both of Florida’s Stanley Cup wins, and continues to play upwards of 24 minutes a night this season. That role will be tough to replace. Recent waiver claim Donovan Sebrango would be the next in line for ice time. He recorded 20 points and 79 penalty minutes in 50 games with the Belleville Senators last season, and has no scoring in four career appearances in the NHL.

Oliver Kylington Signs In Sweden

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A veteran blueliner has found a place to play this season.  Djurgarden of the SHL announced that they’ve signed defenseman Oliver Kylington to a one-year contract.

The 28-year-old was a second-round pick by Calgary back in 2015 and showed some flashes of upside over his six-year stint with the team.  It looked like he had turned a corner in 2021-22 when he collected nine goals and 22 assists in 73 games, putting him in a spot to be a potential top-four piece for them.  However, he was away from the team on a leave of absence for the next year and a half and played a limited role after that, resulting in the Flames going in a different direction last summer when he became a free agent.

Kylington wasn’t able to get the types of offers he was initially seeking in free agency, resulting in him waiting more than a month before he signed a one-year, $1.05MM contract with Colorado.  But playing time was hard to come by as he suited up in just 13 games with the Avs before being moved to the Islanders near the trade deadline; New York flipped him to Anaheim the next day.  Kylington played in just six games following the swap and then hit the open market this summer.

Kylington inked a PTO agreement with Carolina in late August with the hopes of landing a roster spot with them.  However, after three preseason games, he was cut fairly early, sending him back to free agency.  Clearly, no other NHL offers materialized so he has decided to head home where he’ll play a regular role in the hopes of boosting his stock next summer.

With 220 career NHL appearances under his belt, it’s quite possible that Kylington finds his way back to North America at some point, especially if he goes and plays an impactful role with Djurgarden.  But for now, his time at the top level has come to an end.

Jets Recall Brad Lambert

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The Jets announced that they’ve recalled center Brad Lambert from AHL Manitoba. The team has been operating with an open roster spot since sending defenseman Kale Clague down on Thursday, so no corresponding move is required.

Lambert initially made Winnipeg’s roster out of camp. He was reassigned to Manitoba last weekend to make way for Clague, whose insurance was needed while Haydn Fleury was nursing a minor knee injury. Clague was reassigned once it was clear Fleury was available again, but Lambert wasn’t immediately brought back up. The Jets likely wanted to get him in more game action with Manitoba, which played last night, before calling him back.

The 21-year-old Finn did not record a point in his first two AHL outings of the season while he was down on the farm. Last year was a tough one for the 2022 first-rounder. After splitting his post-draft year between the AHL and juniors, he caught on full-time with the Moose in 2023-24 and erupted for 21 goals and 55 points in 64 games, leading the team in scoring. He made his NHL debut that year as well and registered an assist. His momentum fell off last year, though, tickling the twine just seven times in 61 appearances with 35 total points and a -30 rating.

Winnipeg is looking for a bounce-back from its entire farm club this year, but especially from Lambert if he’s not going to log significant NHL time. He hasn’t looked entirely out of place in his six career big-league appearances, securing a pair of assists with a +1 rating while averaging 12 minutes of ice time per night. Winnipeg has been outshot significantly in Lambert’s even-strength minutes, though.

Lambert’s recall brings the Jets back to 23 healthy players on the active roster, 14 of whom are forwards. Eleven of them have played all four games this season. The 12th spot is looking to be a rotation between rookies Lambert, Nikita Chibrikov, and Parker Ford. Chibrikov played Winnipeg’s first three games before sitting as a healthy scratch on Thursday against the Flyers, with Ford taking his place. Neither has recorded a point.

Sabres Place Justin Danforth On Injured Reserve

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Oct. 18: Danforth landed on IR following today’s impressive 3-0 win over the Panthers, according to the NHL’s media site. Buffalo hasn’t yet made a corresponding recall, but they now have the flexibility to in case defenseman Jacob Bryson misses time. He’s now in concussion protocol after colliding with Florida’s Jonah Gadjovich early in the game, Ruff said (via Heather Engel of NHL.com).

Oct. 17: Sabres forward Justin Danforth will miss more than a month with the lower-body injury he sustained in Wednesday’s 8-4 drubbing of the Senators, head coach Lindy Ruff told reporters today (including Rachel Lenzi of The Buffalo News). It was never made clear what play actually caused the injury, but he left the game early in the second period and didn’t return.

It’s nothing Buffalo isn’t used to by now. Injuries have decimated their forward group early in the season. Jordan Greenway and Joshua Norris remain on injured reserve. New top-line winger Zach Benson only just made his season debut after a rather significant facial injury kept him out of the first three games, and he lit up the Sens for four assists to immediately assume the team lead in scoring.

Danforth, 32, inked a two-year, $3.6MM deal with the Sabres in free agency after spending the first four years of his NHL career with the Blue Jackets. He began the year on the fourth line but was quickly elevated into top-nine duties with Jiri Kulich and Jack Quinn when Norris got hurt in Buffalo’s first game. He’s without a point in any of his four appearances and hasn’t been particularly effective otherwise, aside from taking some faceoffs and going 54.8% on the dot, on pace for a career high. He’s managed four blocks and three hits with a -2 rating, only controlling 41.5% of shot attempts despite starting 55.6% of his shifts in the offensive zone at even strength.

The Sabres can place Danforth on injured reserve at any point if they need his roster spot, although they haven’t done so yet. They have enough cap space ($3.12MM) that long-term injured reserve shouldn’t be a consideration. For now, it appears recent call-up Joshua Dunne will maintain a spot in the lineup in Danforth’s place when Buffalo hosts the Panthers tomorrow afternoon.

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