Tanner Kero Signs With DEL’s Kolner Haie
The Kölner Haie of Germany’s DEL have signed forward Tanner Kero to a contract for the 2025-26 season, according to a team release.
Kero has played 134 career games over five NHL seasons, most recently as a fringe roster option for the Stars in the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons. He produced solid offense for his limited minutes, logging a 3-10–13 scoring line in 62 appearances across the two campaigns while averaging 10:13 per night. He was actually something of a full-time piece for Dallas in the COVID-shortened season, never heading down to the AHL and making 39 out of a possible 56 appearances that year.
Before his run in Dallas, his prior NHL experience came over a three-year run with the Blackhawks from 2015-18. The undrafted free agent out of Michigan Tech made a career-high 47 appearances for Chicago in 2016-17, seeing consistent time as a third and fourth-line center while recording a 6-10–16 scoring line.
While he’s always been a strong minor-league scoring option, that was never enough to land him any long-term NHL stability. Since his last NHL appearance, he spent an additional season in the Stars organization with AHL Texas, recording 50 points in 69 games during the 2022-23 season. He spent the following year on a minor-league contract with the AHL’s Colorado Eagles before heading overseas for the first time last summer, signing with HV71 in Sweden.
Kero only managed nine goals and 22 points in 52 games for the SHL club, which narrowly avoided relegation to the second-tier HockeyAllsvenskan. That was a sharp dropoff from his AHL production in the prior campaign, and he understandably wasn’t brought back after completing his one-year deal.
Instead of returning to more familiar waters in North America, Kero will now test the German circuit in hopes of gaining some new life offensively. The 33-year-old joins Brady Austin, Ryan MacInnis, Patrick Russell, and Dominik Uher as names on the Haie’s roster with NHL experience.
SHL’s HV71 Signs Tanner Kero
HV71 of the Swedish Hockey League has signed forward Tanner Kero, according to a team release. Kero wasn’t signed to an NHL contract in 2023-24 but did spend the season in the Avalanche organization on an AHL deal with the Colorado Eagles.
Kero is a veteran of five NHL seasons between 2015-16 and 2021-22, playing 134 games and scoring 11 goals and 24 assists for 35 points with a +9 rating. Most of that time came on the right wing, but he did log significant time at center in his first couple of campaigns in a depth role for the Blackhawks.
An undrafted free agent signing by Chicago out of Michigan Tech in 2015, Kero has long been a consistent AHL scoring presence but has only challenged for full-time NHL usage on a handful of occasions. After appearing in three straight campaigns with Chicago to begin his professional career, he spent the entire season in the minors after being traded to the Canucks in 2018 and again after signing with the Stars as a free agent in 2019.
But the pandemic yielded some opportunity for Kero, who avoided minor-league assignment entirely in 2020-21 and instead spent the campaign on the NHL roster or the taxi squad. He was extremely serviceable in a fourth-line role for Dallas that year, posting three goals and 10 points in 39 games, outmatched only by his 16-point, 47-game campaign with Chicago in 2016-17. But he struggled to have the same effect the following season, going without a goal and logging just three assists with a -5 rating in 23 games. That’s the last we’ve likely seen of Kero in the NHL.
Kero will now test international waters for the first time in his career with the Jönköping-based HV71, who narrowly avoided relegation to HockeyAllsvenskan last season after finishing 13th in the SHL with a 13-30-5-4 record. His 106 goals and 274 points in 402 career AHL games suggest he should have success in Sweden in a middle-six role. It’s a one-year deal, so an exceptionally strong showing for Kero, who turns 32 later this month, could lead to an NHL return.