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Luke Toporowski

AHL Notes: Toporowski, Perets, Hookey

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The AHL’s Hershey Bears, the Capitals’ primary development affiliate, announced Tuesday they’ve signed forward Luke Toporowski to a one-year deal.

The minor-league pact comes after completing his entry-level contract with the Bruins, which he signed in 2023 after beginning his professional career on an AHL deal with their affiliate in Providence. He was traded to the Wild at the 2024 deadline in the deal that sent winger Pat Maroon to Boston, but Minnesota chose not to give him a qualifying offer last month when his ELC expired.

Toporowski, 24, finished eighth on the Iowa Wild in scoring last season with a 13-15–28 line in 53 games. He was the first Iowa-born player to skate for the Wild’s top affiliate and now joins the Washington organization with 85 points in 166 career AHL games over the last three seasons.

The 5’11” winger doesn’t have any NHL experience to his name, but he’s been a generally productive middle-six winger at all levels thus far and likely has a lengthy minor-league career still ahead of him. He also had 199 points and 224 PIMs in 245 career junior games with the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs and Kamloops Blazers.

Here are more moves out of the AHL:

  • After being non-tendered by the Hurricanes, goaltender Yaniv Perets found a new home last week when he signed an AHL deal with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. The 25-year-old backstopped Quinnipiac to a national championship in 2023 and immediately landed with Carolina in free agency, although he’s spent most of the last two seasons in the ECHL. He’s nonetheless made one relief appearance for the Canes in each of his two professional seasons, allowing one goal on just eight career shots faced. The Quebec native put up a sparkling .921 SV% in 27 games for the ECHL’s Bloomington Bison last season and will now look to turn that into an everyday role with the Phantoms. However, he faces an uphill battle with the more established Aleksei Kolosov and Philadelphia’s top goaltending prospect Carson Bjarnason set to form the usual tandem in Lehigh Valley this year.
  • The Belleville Senators announced the signing of 21-year-old winger Landon Hookey to a two-year deal. While his 6’5″, 223-lb frame wasn’t enough to earn him an NHL contract after going undrafted, he’ll still stick the landing and begin his pro career after a breakout overage season with the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack. He served as an alternate captain last year and led the team in scoring (34-36–70) with 77 PIMs in 68 games.

Wild Assign Liam Öhgren, Luke Toporowski To AHL

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The Wild have assigned 2022 first-round pick Liam Öhgren to AHL Iowa, the team announced Thursday. They also activated depth winger Luke Toporowski from season-opening injured reserve and sent him to Iowa along with Öhgren.

Öhgren’s reassignment prefaces the likely return of forward Ryan Hartman tomorrow from the upper-body injury that’s sidelined him for the past five games, as relayed by Michael Russo of The Athletic. But Hartman was never on IR, and they had an open roster spot anyway, so it’s not a forced transaction to create roster space. Instead, it’s a legitimate demotion for a talented but unpolished youngster who’s struggled to make an NHL impact this season.

The 20-year-old Öhgren is still new to the North American scene. The Wild signed him to his entry-level contract shortly after drafting him in the summer of 2022 but loaned him to Sweden’s Djurgårdens IF and Färjestad BK in back-to-back seasons, sliding the deal twice before finally recalling him from his overseas loan at the end of last season. The 6’1″ left-winger had a goal and assist in four games for the Wild down the stretch, averaging 14:31 per game and registering eight shots on goal.

Öhgren has shown his goal-scoring ability in the professional ranks, lighting the lamp 12 times in 26 games for Färjestad last season in the Swedish Hockey League. While he may have an NHL-ready shot, his early-season audition after making the opening night roster shows he’s got more work to do, going pointless with a -2 rating in seven appearances. He was plopped in fourth-line minutes alongside Jakub Lauko and either Frédérick Gaudreau or Marat Khusnutdinov at center, so he didn’t have the highest-skill linemates to work with. Still, he struggled to control possession, posting a 45.6 CF% and 42.5 xGF% at even strength, which are both well below team averages. He was limited to eight shots on net on 15 attempts, and he averaged just 9:33 per game.

He’ll now get the chance to work on his game in Iowa, where he went without a point and posted a -4 rating in three appearances to end last season. He’ll likely play a starring role on an understaffed team that’s 1-6-1 through their first eight games, although they did just get 2024 AHL All-Star Graeme Clarke added from the Wild’s SOIR.

They’re also adding Toporowski, whose presence on SOIR evaded us at PHR at the beginning of the season and had been absent from our roster tracker. The 23-year-old Iowa native was acquired by Minnesota from the Bruins in last year’s Pat Maroon swap and is in the second season of the two-year entry-level contract he signed with Boston in the summer of 2023. He suited up in 66 AHL contests between Providence and Iowa last season, scoring 12 goals and adding 16 assists for 28 points. The 5’11” left-winger will be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights next summer.

Bruins Acquire Pat Maroon, Reassign Marc McLaughlin

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12:31 p.m.: The deal is now official, per the Wild. They’re also receiving minor-league forward Luke Toporowski from the Bruins in the swap. The 2026 sixth-rounder will transfer to Minnesota if Maroon plays in at least one playoff game for the Bruins in 2024, per CapFriendly.

11:32 a.m.: McLaughlin has been assigned to Providence, per PuckPedia. The move clears his $775K cap hit and makes the Bruins cap-compliant ahead of the Maroon trade call.

10:40 a.m.: The Bruins are acquiring veteran winger Pat Maroon from the Wild for a conditional late-round pick, according to The Athletic’s Michael Russo. The conditional pick is a sixth-rounder in 2026, per Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff.

Maroon was on injured reserve after undergoing back surgery early last month. He’s just entered his four-to-six-week return timeframe, so while he won’t debut for Boston immediately, he won’t be out of the lineup for too much longer. Russo reported this morning that Maroon and Connor Dewar were both drawing trade interest.

The 35-year-old has settled into a comfortable fourth-line role in the later stages of his career, recording four goals and 16 points in 48 games with the Wild before landing on IR. The bruising power winger led all NHLers in PIMs last season with 150 and made four consecutive Stanley Cup Finals over a four-year run from 2019 to 2022 with the Blues and Lightning. He wrapped up his four-year stint in Tampa last summer as the second year of his $1MM cap-hit deal was traded to Minnesota for a seventh-round pick with 20% retention.

As such, Maroon will carry a slightly reduced cap hit of $800K for the Bruins. Minnesota is not expected to retain salary in this transaction.

With three Stanley Cup rings and nearly 800 games of NHL experience, Maroon provides Boston with a veteran fourth-line presence that they were sorely lacking. Jesper Boqvist, Justin Brazeau, and Jakub Lauko were staffing the Bruins’ bottom forward unit, all averaging less than 11 minutes per game. Maroon can shoulder a bit more ice time – he averaged nearly 13 per game with the Wild – and carries any intangible that a playoff contender could want.

The Bruins must assign one player to the minors to remain cap-compliant after this trade. They had only $57.5K in cap space, so one of Brazeau or Marc McLaughlin, neither of whom requires waivers, will likely be assigned to AHL Providence.

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