Predators Reassign Andreas Englund
Feb. 3rd: According to the AHL transactions log, the Predators have returned Englund to AHL Milwaukee. The news indicates that blueliner Nick Blankenburg has recovered from his illness and will return to the lineup tomorrow.
Jan. 27th: The Predators announced today that they’ve recalled defender Andreas Englund from AHL Milwaukee. They’ve been carrying an open roster spot for quite some time, so no corresponding transaction is required.
Englund has spent virtually the entire year in the minors after clearing waivers during training camp, aside from a one-day recall earlier this month that saw him serve as a healthy scratch for a Jan. 16 game against the Avalanche. The veteran of 197 NHL games landed in Nashville midway through last season as a waiver claim and played 24 games down the stretch for the Preds, even earning a one-way extension to stick around. The subsequent offseason additions of Nicolas Hague and Nicklaus Perbix, though, left him without an NHL job.
An enforcing shutdown defender who checks in at 6’3″ and 201 lbs, Englund now comes up after Hague landed a week-to-week designation with his lower-body injury. He’ll be serving as the Preds’ press box extra for the foreseeable future. In 34 games with Milwaukee this season, he’s posted six points and a +1 rating with 44 penalty minutes.
Nashville is Englund’s fifth NHL club. The 30-year-old was a second-round pick by the Senators in 2014 and stuck around in a depth role there until becoming an unrestricted free agent for the first time in 2022. He’s since made stops with the Avalanche, Blackhawks, Kings, and now Predators. He’s mostly been an AHL option throughout his professional career but briefly surfaced as a full-time option for L.A. in 2023-24, playing in all 82 regular-season games.
Predators Reassign Andreas Englund To AHL
Saturday: It was a one-and-done promotion for Englund as Nashville has assigned him back to the Admirals, per the AHL’s transactions log. As expected, he was the reserve defender for their game last night against Colorado.
Friday: The Nashville Predators announced they’ve recalled defenseman Andreas Englund from the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals. He’s expected to serve as the team’s seventh defenseman tonight as Adam Wilsby works his way back from a minor injury.
Englund, 29, joined the Predators last season after being claimed off waivers by the Los Angeles Kings. He enjoyed a consistent role in Nashville for the remainder of the season, registering two assists in 24 games with the club, averaging 14:36 of ice time per night.
After two months with the team, the Predators signed Englund to a one-year, $775K extension for the 2025-26 campaign. Unfortunately, he wasn’t guaranteed a spot on the roster this year, and Nashville sent Englund through waivers shortly before the start of the regular season.
Being his first recall of the year, the 6’3″, 201lbs blue liner has spent the entire campaign with AHL Milwaukee up to this point. He has been relatively productive, scoring two goals and six points in 30 games with a +2 rating. He’s third on the team with 44 PIMs.
Regardless, Englund should expect his current recall to be short-lived. At the time of writing, Wilsby has a day-to-day recovery timeline, meaning he could return by the end of the weekend. Nashville now has 22 players on their active roster.
Waivers: 10/1/25
With less than a week to go until the regular season, waiver season is in full swing. According to PuckPedia, the largest waiver placement of the preseason has taken place:
Boston Bruins
Colorado Avalanche
D Wyatt Aamodt
F Daniil Gushchin
Detroit Red Wings
F Sheldon Dries
D William Lagesson
F John Leonard
D Ian Mitchell
F Dominik Shine
F Austin Watson
Florida Panthers
F MacKenzie Entwistle
F Nolan Foote
F Wilmer Skoog
Los Angeles Kings
D Samuel Bolduc
F Logan Brown
F Martin Chromiak
G Pheonix Copley
F Glenn Gawdin
F Cole Guttman
D Joe Hicketts
F Andre Lee
F Akil Thomas
F Taylor Ward
Nashville Predators
Philadelphia Flyers
San Jose Sharks
Tampa Bay Lightning
F Nicholas Abruzzese
F Boris Katchouk
F Jakob Pelletier
Utah Mammoth
Washington Capitals
D Louis Belpedio
F Graeme Clarke
F Henrik Rybinski
F Bogdan Trineyev
Winnipeg Jets
Predators Re-Sign Andreas Englund
The Predators announced today they’ve re-signed defenseman Andreas Englund to a league-minimum contract for the 2025-26 season. It is unclear whether it is a one-way or two-way deal.
Englund, 29, was set to be an unrestricted free agent this summer. He split the 2024-25 campaign between Los Angeles and Nashville after the Preds claimed him off waivers from the Kings in February.
Nashville claimed Englund, who was in the final season of the two-year, $2MM deal he signed with L.A. in free agency in 2023, to serve as depth support after hard-hitting defender Jeremy Lauzon sustained a season-ending lower-body injury. He played all 82 games for the Kings last year but tumbled down the depth chart in 2024-25 after L.A. signed Joel Edmundson in free agency and promoted Brandt Clarke to a full-time role.
Englund was a healthy scratch for weeks at a time in Hollywood as a result, only playing 11 games for the Kings until they waived him well past the halfway point of the season. He finished the year in far more regular usage for Nashville, recording two assists and a minus-eight rating in 24 games while averaging 14:36 per contest. To little surprise, the 6’4″, 200-lb lefty led the Preds in blocks per 60 minutes this year with 5.65 and also racked up 36 PIMs over the last two months of the campaign.
Now, he’ll return to Tennessee to serve as a No. 7/8 defender for the Preds in 2025-26. Nashville already has six defensemen signed to one-way deals for next year, not including Adam Wilsby, who emerged as a legitimate NHL option before sustaining a season-ending upper-body injury in February. They’re also likely to weaponize a good chunk of their $18MM in cap space to add a right-shot defenseman this summer to complement Roman Josi or Brady Skjei in the top four, addressing easily the biggest hole in their lineup as they attempt to retool on the fly with a veteran-heavy roster following 2024’s free agent spending spree.
Penguins And Predators To Face-Off In 2025 Global Series
The Pittsburgh Penguins will return to Stockholm next season to face-off against the Nashville Predators in the 2025 NHL Global Series in Sweden, per an NHL announcement.
The games are slated for Nov. 14 and Nov. 16 and will be played at Avicii Arena. The Penguins are returning to Sweden after taking part in the 2008 NHL Premiere Series. It will represent the second time leaders Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang will take part in games overseas.
The series will represent a homecoming for players on both sides. For the Penguins, Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson, as well as 30-goal winger Rickard Rakell will participate (barring injury of course), while the Peds will be represented by forward Filip Forsberg and defenders Adam Wilsby and Andreas Englund.
The NHL Global Series, started in 2017 in games between the Ottawa Senators and Colorado Avalanche in Stockholm, continues a long history of international competition for NHLers. This includes the 1938 European Tour between Red Wings and Canadians (a seven-game series that the Canadians won 4-3), the 1979–80 Super Series between Russian teams and NHL squads, and most recently the NHL Premiere Series, which ran from 2007 to 2011.
Rakell and Karlsson both expressed their excitement in playing in the series. Karlsson said the series will be a “great experience” and noted how fun it will be to play before family and friends in his home country. There is speculation surrounding Karlsson’s long-term future in Pittsburgh, so it’s not exactly a certainty he’ll be a Penguin next November.
Swedish-born Predators also expressed their excitement surrounding the series, including Forsberg who noted, “It’s obviously going to be a great time, a great opportunity for me.”
While it’s the first time Nashville will play in Sweden, it’s the organization’s third international trip. They played the Sharks in the 2022 Global Series in Prague, as well as a series against Pittsburgh at the GAME One Japan series in 2000.
In the 2008 Global Series, the Penguins split two games with the Senators. In those games, Crosby registered two assists, Malkin had a goal and an assist, and Letang registered nearly 50 minutes of total ice time between the two contests.
Predators Claim Andreas Englund
The Predators have claimed defenseman Andreas Englund off waivers from the Kings, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. No corresponding transaction is necessary after Nashville opened multiple roster spots yesterday with reassignments ahead of the 4 Nations Face-Off.
Englund, 29, was a second-round pick by the Senators back in 2014 and has skated in parts of seven NHL seasons since making his debut in Seattle in 2016-17. He’s only recently emerged as a roster fixture, though, factoring in solely as a bottom-pair enforcer. He played in all 82 games for Los Angeles last year after signing a two-year, $2MM contract, leading the club with 81 PIMs and 189 hits while averaging 13:13 per game. His career 2-16–18 scoring line with a -17 rating in 173 NHL games doesn’t inspire confidence that he’ll ever be anything else, and as such, he lost his regular spot with the Kings in 2024-25 and has only factored into 11 games, including an active run of 13 consecutive scratches leading into the break.
The move marks Englund’s third stint in the Central Division. He skated in 47 games split between the Avalanche and Blackhawks in 2022-23, his first year back in the NHL after spending two years buried in the minors.
His claim doesn’t spell good news for injured defender Jeremy Lauzon, who Alex Daugherty of the Tennessean now suspects could sit out the remainder of the season with the lower-body injury that’s kept him out of the lineup since New Year’s Eve. The 6’4″ Englund is an apt replacement for the heavy hitter, who led the league with 386 last season. A pending UFA, Englund will likely serve in a support role down the stretch while names like Nick Blankenburg and Adam Wilsby, the latter of which just signed a two-year extension, see routine deployment.
Kings Place Andreas Englund On Waivers, Reassign Pheonix Copley
The Los Angeles Kings have made a pair of roster moves ahead of the 4-Nations Face-Off break, placing defenseman Andreas Englund on waivers for purpose of reassignment and sending goaltender Pheonix Copley back to the minor leagues per John Hoven of Mayor’s Manor. Both players have served as extras in the Kings lineup for much of the season. Englund played in spurts through October, November, and January – but it’s been nearly a month since he’s stepped into the lineup. He has just one goal in the 11 appearances he has made and averaged just 6:30 in ice time in the three games he played in January.
Originally an Ottawa Senators draft pick in 2014, Englund has fallen into the role of journeyman depth defender since leaving the Senators for a minor-league deal in Colorado in 2021. He’s a bruting six-foot-four, 200-pound defenseman who racked up over 100 penalty minutes in 57 games of the 2021-22 AHL season. That physical presence was enough to earn him an NHL deal and routine role with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022-23. He played 36 games with the NHL Colorado, and 15 games in the AHL, and scored three points in both leagues. He was traded late in the year to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for veteran defender Jack Johnson. Englund finished his year with 11 games and one point in the Chicago lineup.
The Blackhawks let Englund walk to free agency in the following summer, where he’d ultimately land a two-year, $2MM contract with the Kings. He’d go on to play in all 82 games of Los Angeles’ 2023-24 campaign. That consistency allowed him to set 10 points and 81 penalty minutes, both career-highs at the NHL level. He hasn’t had the same bid for the lineup this year, and now seems poised to spend the Kings’ two-weeks break on a return trip to the minor leagues.
Meanwhile, Copley has been the forgotten third in Los Angeles’ goalie room. He’s played in just one NHL game this season – a 2-1 loss against the Toronto Maple Leafs in October. Copley has been far more active in the minor leagues this year. In 20 games with the Ontario Reign, he’s set a 13-7-0 record and .906 save percentage. His save percentage leads the trio of Reign goaltenders, but his 13 wins are tied with Erik Portillo‘s mark through 22 games. Portillo and Copley should rotate starts over the next two weeks, and the latter’s stay in the minors could stick now that Los Angeles has starter Darcy Kuemper back to full health.
Pacific Notes: Englund, Clarke, Oilers, Kostin
Since Drew Doughty’s return, the Kings have been carrying nine defensemen which is a rarity. But it doesn’t appear as if that will be the case for much longer. Mayor’s Manor suggests that Los Angeles will likely place blueliner Andreas Englund on waivers on Sunday for the purpose of assigning him to AHL Ontario. Englund has been limited to just 11 games this season and hasn’t reached the ten-minute mark in playing time in a game since late October. Still, with 173 games of NHL experience and a relatively low cap charge at $1MM, there’s a chance that someone could put a claim in to add some cheap depth if Englund ultimately does hit the wire this weekend.
One thing the Kings could do in the short term is to send Brandt Clarke to Ontario at the 4 Nations break. Doing so would allow them to bank some extra cap room with the trade deadline fast approaching. However, according to that same report from Mayor’s Manor, that won’t be the case and Clarke will remain up with Los Angeles through the break.
More from the Pacific Division:
- In his latest piece for The Athletic (subscription link), Pierre LeBrun interviewed Oilers GM Stan Bowman who indicated some of the items on his checklist for the upcoming trade deadline. After adding John Klingberg in free agency, Bowman suggested that if Edmonton looks to add another blueliner, it’s likely to be a left-shot player. Beyond their three lefties on the NHL roster, they only have one left-shot rearguard in the minors in Cam Dineen so some extra depth there would make sense. Meanwhile, what they might look to do up front will be dictated by their plans for Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. If they want to deploy him on the wing, Bowman figures he’d look to add a depth center. But if the veteran stays down the middle, then adding winger depth would become the focus.
- Sharks winger Klim Kostin skated with a no-contact jersey at practice today but could still return to the lineup tomorrow versus Dallas, relays Max Miller of The Hockey News. The 25-year-old has missed the last four weeks with a lower-body injury and was originally expected to return sometime after the break so he appears to be ahead of schedule. Kostin has a goal and three assists in 26 games this season but also has 82 hits. After putting up 19 goals in the past two seasons combined, he could be a trade candidate for a team looking to add some grit on their fourth line.
Andreas Englund Signing With Los Angeles Kings
The Los Angeles Kings have signed imposing defender Andreas Englund to a two-year, $2MM contract worth $1MM per season, says TSN’s Darren Dreger.
Being a minor-league player for the Ottawa Senators for much of his career, Englund really got his first consistent taste of NHL action last season with the defending Stanley Cup Champions, the Colorado Avalanche. In 36 games played for Colorado, Englund garnered only four assists but laid down a whopping 106 hits, also throwing in a few fights.
A midseason trade with the Chicago Blackhawks that landed defenseman Jack Johnson back with the Avalanche, Englund saw his ice time dramatically increase by almost four minutes on average. However, he only suited up in 11 games for Chicago, tallying one assist and 29 hits.
A defensive defenseman through and through, the addition of Englund will make the Kings harder to play against when he is in their lineup. Standing at 6 feet-3 inches and almost 190 pounds, Englund is one of the heaviest hitters in the game today. Much like he was on the Avalanche, Englund will once again join a contender as an extremely intimidating force on the back end.
West Injury Notes: Dubois, Blackhawks, Simek
Winnipeg Jets center Pierre-Luc Dubois missed practice today, but is expected to play tomorrow. John Lu of TSN reported that his absence from practice was just a maintenance day and he will suit up against the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday. Dubois is having a strong season, scoring 24 goals and 55 points in 61 games for the Jets this season. He missed three games before returning to face the San Jose Sharks on Monday night. When he missed practice, it was initially feared he would be out of the lineup yet again, but that is not the case.
The Jets need his presence in their lineup. The team has been struggling lately and has dropped to third in the Central Division standings with the Colorado Avalanche right on their heels. They are 2-6-2 in their past ten games, and will look to get back on track against a divisional rival tomorrow night. Fortunately, it will be with Dubois in the lineup.
- According to Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Blackhawks will be without a couple of depth players for the foreseeable future. Andreas Englund has a pulled hamstring and will not travel with the team on their upcoming road trip. The team’s next home game is March 14th. Austin Wagner was acquired by the Blackhawks on trade deadline day and the team was aware he had an injury that had become infected. He is meeting with doctors to try and determine a clearer timeline on when he can make his debut with the Blackhawks.
- Radim Simek is listed as week-to-week with a concussion, per Corey Masisak of The Athletic. The 30-year-old defenseman missed nearly two months earlier this season before returning to the San Jose Sharks lineup on February 28th. He has played three games since then, but will be out long term due to the concussion that sidelined him earlier this season.