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Jeff Skinner Signs With Sharks

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Free agent winger Jeff Skinner has signed a one-year deal worth $3MM with the Sharks, according to a team press release. He was one of the few of our top 50 unrestricted free agents who remained unsigned heading into the second week of the new league year.

Skinner, 33, has averaged 0.65 points per game for his career and is a skilled shooter, finishing at an 11.2% clip in 1,078 career regular-season games. His lengthy career has been plagued by peaks and valleys that ultimately resulted in the Sabres buying out the final three seasons of his eight-year, $72MM extension last summer.

He quickly landed with the Oilers on an identical contract to this one when the market opened last year, but the fit wasn’t great. He spent most of his time in a bottom-six role, not particularly conducive to his offensive skillset, and turned out just 16 goals and 29 points in 72 games as a result. Those were his lowest offensive totals in three years, accompanied by the lowest deployment of his career at 13 minutes per game.

He’ll hope for better results with the Sharks, who needed another veteran forward for multiple reasons. Not only did they need another body in case they decide fringe youngsters like Collin Graf or Cameron Lund would be better served with AHL time out of the gate, but they needed to add salary to ensure they stay above the cap floor while debating what to do with their logjam of depth defensemen.

Skinner accomplishes both those objectives while hopefully adding an infusion to the league’s worst offense in 2024-25 in expanded minutes. The Sharks averaged 2.54 goals per game last season but now add a six-time 30-goal threat on a virtually zero-risk deal, even if he’s coming off a disappointing campaign in Edmonton.

San Jose hasn’t made many offseason moves at forward, although they did pick up enforcer Ryan Reaves in a trade last night and signed depth pieces Adam Gaudette and Philipp Kurashev in free agency. The bulk of their talent-adding has come on the back end, where they’ve added veterans John Klingberg, Nick Leddy, and Dmitry Orlov via signings and waiver claims.

After their recent moves, the Sharks are now $4.36MM above the $70.6MM lower limit with $20.54MM in cap space, per PuckPedia. While they’ll still lean primarily on youngsters like Macklin Celebrini, William Eklund, and Will Smith for offense, they’ve done a better job this summer of insulating their next wave of players with added quality veteran talent.

Image courtesy of Perry Nelson-Imagn Images.

Jets Re-Sign Isaak Phillips To Two-Year Contract

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The Jets have re-signed restricted free agent defenseman Isaak Phillips to a two-year contract, according to a team announcement. It’s unclear if it’s a one-way or two-way deal.

While playing his junior hockey with the OHL’s Sudbury Wolves, Phillips was drafted in the fifth round in 2020 by the Blackhawks. He got an early taste of pro hockey the following season when the OHL suspended operations due to COVID, playing for AHL Rockford in his post-draft year, and was able to remain there the following season thanks to his late September birthday. He bounced between leagues for much of his time with Chicago and successfully cleared waivers for the first time at the beginning of 2024-25.

Phillips, 23, was again shuttled between leagues through the early going of the campaign but was sent to the minors permanently in November. With his spot in the organization uncertain, the Hawks traded him to Winnipeg in January. He didn’t receive a recall after the trade, finishing the season with the AHL’s Manitoba Moose. He made just three NHL appearances in 2024-25, posting an assist and three hits while averaging a paltry 11:54 per game.

While a defensive defenseman first and foremost, Phillips had shown a degree of offensive competency in Rockford in the past that led some to believe he could have the all-around play necessary to become an everyday third-pairing piece. That wasn’t the case last season. He made 67 appearances between Rockford and Manitoba, only managing four goals and 16 points with a cumulative minus-three rating.

The 6’3″, 205-lb lefty may be valuable organizational depth for the Jets with his 238 games of AHL experience, but that lackluster showing in the minors doesn’t inspire confidence that he’ll realistically compete for a roster spot in the fall. Winnipeg has eight defensemen under contract who played at least 39 NHL games last season.

If Phillips doesn’t manage 24 NHL appearances over the next two seasons, he’ll be able to test unrestricted free agency early thanks to Group VI status. If he plays more than that, he’ll remain under Winnipeg’s control as an RFA upon expiry.

Hurricanes Sign Gavin Bayreuther To Two-Way Deal

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The Hurricanes have signed free agent defenseman Gavin Bayreuther to a two-way deal, per a team release. They also confirmed a previous report that winger Noel Gunler had accepted his qualifying offer.

A 6’1″ lefty, Bayreuther has worked out a lengthy professional career for himself after going undrafted. He spent seven seasons bouncing between the AHL and NHL in the Stars and Blue Jackets organizations after ending his collegiate career with St. Lawrence University in 2017.

The 31-year-old spent last season in Switzerland’s National League with Lausanne HC, his first and only overseas season. In 52 games, he posted a 5-18–23 scoring line with 47 PIMs and a plus-five rating, finishing second on the team in scoring among defensemen.

Bayreuther will make the league minimum $775K salary if he’s on the NHL roster or $140K in the AHL with a $150K guarantee, the team said. With Carolina having six defensemen on one-way deals plus top prospect Alexander Nikishin expected to be with the club out of the gate, Bayreuther will likely land on waivers in training camp and head to the AHL’s Chicago Wolves, Carolina’s affiliate, if he clears.

In 122 career NHL games with Columbus and Dallas in parts of four seasons, Bayreuther has five goals and 28 points while averaging 15:14 per night with a -17 rating.

Collin Delia Signs With Sweden’s Brynas IF

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Collin Delia has officially signed with Sweden’s Brynas IF, according to a team press release. It’s a one-year contract for Delia with the reigning SHL regular season champions.

Delia, a California native, heads overseas for the first time in his career. The veteran goaltender was an unrestricted free agent after spending last season with the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors while on a two-way contract with the Oilers.

Delia, 31, played his youth hockey in his home state before heading to Texas for junior hockey ahead of a successful three-year run at Merrimack College. The undrafted 6’2″ netminder spent five seasons in the Blackhawks organization from 2017-22 and has spent the subsequent three years on one-year deals with Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Edmonton. The longtime No. 3 option enjoyed his best NHL season in Chicago in 2018-19, posting a .908 SV% and 3.61 GAA in 14 starts and two relief appearances with a 6-4-3 record.

Delia’s last NHL action came in 2022-23 for the Canucks, making a career-high 20 appearances while starter Thatcher Demko battled injuries, but he struggled heavily with a .882 SV% and -11.6 GSAA. He’s spent the last two seasons exclusively in the AHL with the Jets’ and Oilers’ affiliates in Manitoba and Bakersfield as a result. He played 28 games for the Condors last year, registering a .906 SV%, 2.76 GAA, two shutouts, and a 12-11-5 record as the No. 4 on Edmonton’s depth chart behind Stuart Skinner, Calvin Pickard, and Olivier Rodrigue.

Delia now heads to Sweden to serve in tandem with another NHL-experienced netminder in Brynas, Erik Kallgren. The duo will backstop a skater core with over 2,500 combined games of NHL experience, headlined by forwards Johan Larsson, Oskar Lindblom, and reigning SHL MVP Jakob Silfverberg.

Toronto Maple Leafs Acquire Henry Thrun

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In a late-night one-for-one swap, the Toronto Maple Leafs have acquired defenseman Henry Thrun from the San Jose Sharks for forward Ryan Reaves. Both teams have confirmed the trade.

The trade is a good bit of business for both teams. The Sharks were in a position to thin out their defensive core after adding Dmitry Orlov and Nick Leddy last week, and raise their salary cap situation above the upper limit. For Toronto, they were able to move out an overpriced and underused asset for a quality defensive addition.

Thrun has been a relatively consistent blue liner in San Jose for two years. Throughout that time, Thrun has scored five goals and 23 points in 111 games with a -45 rating, averaging 18:39 of ice time per game.

While Thrun’s output in San Jose may appear unsettling, he should find more success in Toronto based on improved teammates and less responsibility. However, there is more reason for concern.

Throughout his career, Thrun has averaged a 42.6% CorsiFor% at even strength and an 89.5% on-ice save percentage at even strength. According to MoneyPuck, for defensive units that played 150 or more minutes for the Sharks last season, Thrun was on both of the worst units in terms of xGoals% with 31.3% and 30.7% respectively.

Still, there’s a legitimate argument that he’s an improvement for the Maple Leafs, considering what they gave up. Even at the time of signing, Reaves’ three-year, $4.05MM contract seemed high, especially considering that Toronto had struggled with salary cap space for a few years.

As expected, Reaves added plenty of physicality to Toronto’s lineup, but not much else. Over his two years with the Maple Leafs, Reaves scored four goals and eight points in 84 games with 268 hits and 77 PIMs while averaging 7:59 of ice time per night. Things got so bad for Reaves in Toronto that the team waived him toward the end of the 2024-25 campaign.

He won’t be expected to show any sort of improvement in San Jose. The Sharks have a glut of prospects making their way to the NHL level, and Reaves will be tasked with protecting the youth movement as one of the last true enforcers in the game.

Photo courtesy of Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images.

Canucks Sign Aleksei Medvedev To Entry-Level Contract

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The Canucks have signed goaltender Aleksei Medvedev to an entry-level contract, according to a team press release. The three-year deal is slide-eligible for up to two seasons. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Medvedev, still 17 for another two months, foregoes NCAA eligibility and will presumably play out the remainder of his major junior eligibility as a result. The 6’3″, 181-lb netminder went to Vancouver in the middle of the second round (No. 47 overall) in last month’s draft.

The St. Petersburg, Russia native has been in North America since his early teenage years and jumped to premier junior play with the OHL’s London Knights in 2024-25. He did quite well in backup duties for the OHL and Memorial Cup champions, posting a 2.79 GAA, .912 SV%, three shutouts, and a 22-8-2 record in 34 appearances.

Medvedev did not see ice time in the OHL playoffs or the Memorial Cup tournament. However, he was still named to the OHL’s First All-Rookie Team and received the Dinty Moore Trophy for the best GAA from a rookie.

He will likely spend the next two seasons as London’s starter before making the jump to the pros in the Canucks organization in 2027-28, upon which his entry-level contract would go to effect (unless he plays 10 NHL games in 2025-26 or 2026-27, an unlikely outcome). The Canucks now have a league-high eight goalies under contract, although Medvedev won’t count against the 50-contract limit if he’s in the OHL this season.

Avalanche Sign Josh Manson To Two-Year Extension

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The Avalanche have signed defenseman Josh Manson to a two-year extension, the team announced in a press release. The contract carries a $3.95MM cap hit for a total value of $7.9MM, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports (via X).

The deal goes into effect next season and will keep him in Colorado through the 2027-28 campaign. He was entering 2025-26 on the final year of the four-year, $18MM extension he signed to remain with the Avs following their Stanley Cup win in 2022, so he still counts $4.5MM against their cap for this year before his impact reduces by $550K in 2026-27.

Manson has a lengthy but injury-plagued NHL resume. He began his career with Anaheim in the 2014-15 season and grew into a reliable top-four piece over eight seasons there before Colorado acquired him at the 2022 deadline in advance of their championship win. He’s seen his minutes reduced somewhat in Denver but has still spent much of his time there as the No. 2 righty on their depth chart behind superstar Cale Makar.

On multiple occasions, injuries have taken more than half of Manson’s regular-season availability. He only played 27 games in the first year of his extension due to a recurring lower-body injury, and varying issues limited him to 48 appearances last season. He has only played in 61% of the Avs’ regular-season games since his acquisition and has missed roughly one in four games due to injury in his career, a trend positively skewed by four straight seasons with 70-plus appearances early on.

That makes any multi-year extension a risky bet, particularly for a player who will be 34 in October and saw his possession impacts nosedive in 2024-25. The physical stay-at-home defender has largely held up his end of the bargain in helping his team boast the majority of shot attempts while he’s on the ice despite his defensively-minded usage at even strength, but that wasn’t the case last season. Colorado still controlled 51.4% of shot attempts with Manson on the ice, but clicked at 56.2% without him. That difference of -4.8% was the worst in his career outside of his injury-plagued 2020-21 season with the Ducks.

With one year left on his deal, some considered Manson to be trade bait as the Avs looked to create salary cap flexibility. They opted to subtract from their forward group instead, sending Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood to the Blue Jackets and augmenting their defensive depth by picking up veteran Brent Burns in free agency. The extension all but ensures he’ll remain in Colorado for the foreseeable future, perhaps for the remainder of his career, given his recent trajectory.

Image courtesy of Robert Edwards-Imagn Images.

Sharks Sign Jakub Skarek To One-Year Contract

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The Sharks have signed goaltender Jakub Skarek to a one-year contract, the team announced today in a press release. It’s unclear if it’s a one-way or a two-way deal, but it’s a league-minimum contract either way.

Skarek, 25, has been playing professionally for a decade, dating back to his time in the second tier of Czech hockey, years before the Islanders selected him in the third round of the 2018 draft. He has played almost exclusively for the Isles’ AHL affiliate in Bridgeport since his arrival in North America in 2019.

The Czech native didn’t make his NHL debut until injuries forced him into action for a stretch last season, posting a .872 SV% and 3.94 GAA in one start and one relief appearance in February. He’s long struggled to be a needle-mover at the minor league level, posting a 3.34 GAA, .890 SV%, five shutouts, and a 49-84-17 record in 161 career appearances for Bridgeport.

Skarek was a Group VI unrestricted free agent this summer and likely didn’t anticipate having much NHL interest as a result of his poor minor-league track record, so he signed a one-year deal in Finland with HIFK back in May. Instead, he’s back in North America with the Sharks, who needed depth netminders with Alexandar Georgiev and Georgi Romanov reaching free agency and top prospect Yaroslav Askarov expected to take over as their No. 1 this season.

San Jose now has four goaltenders under contract, with Skarek likely being the No. 3 on their depth chart behind Askarov and recent trade pickup Alex Nedeljkovic. He’ll presumably land on waivers in the fall and, if he clears, share the San Jose Barracuda’s crease with undrafted prospect Gabriel Carriere and the AHL-contracted Matt Davis.

Stars Trade Matt Dumba To Penguins

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The Stars are trading defenseman Matt Dumba and their 2028 second-round pick to the Penguins in exchange for defenseman Vladislav Kolyachonok, reports Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet. Both teams have since announced the trade, which doesn’t include any salary retention.

Completing the deal will make the Stars cap-compliant for the 2025-26 season. Even if Dallas has Kolyachonok on its opening night roster, he costs the league minimum $775K against the cap.

That’s $2.975MM less than Dumba’s $3.75MM cap hit, since Pittsburgh takes on the totality of his salary with no retention on Dallas’ part. That savings puts Dallas, which is currently $1.79MM above the upper limit, back under the cap.

The Stars signed Dumba to a two-year, $7.5MM contract in free agency last summer, viewed as a risky commitment at the time after the 6’1″ righty had just 12 points and a -18 rating in 76 games with the Coyotes and Lightning the year prior. The fears around the contract were quickly realized. Dumba, who turns 31 later this month, had negative possession impacts everywhere he was deployed and was out of the lineup entirely by the time the postseason rolled around.

Dumba played 63 games for the Stars last season, averaging just 15:18 per game with a 1-9–10 scoring line. He logged a minus-five rating in what amounted to his lowest usage since his rookie campaign and was a healthy scratch for all 18 playoff games.

The best years of Dumba’s NHL career came as a top-pairing piece for the Wild, who drafted him No. 7 overall in 2012. He remained there through the beginning of his steep decline in the early 2020s, leaving for Arizona in 2023 in free agency on a one-year contract. After failing to re-establish his value there, he was flipped to the Lightning at the trade deadline for two late-round picks and finished out the year as a bottom-pairing piece in Tampa before signing in Dallas in the offseason.

Dumba’s best season came back in 2017-18 as a 23-year-old, when he finished 19th in the league in scoring among defensemen with 50 points in 82 games and tied for 10th with 14 goals. He also had 12 goals and 22 points in just 32 games the following year before an upper-body injury ended his season. His offensive production never recovered, averaging just 22.4 points per 82 games since returning.

It’s unclear if Dumba will have much of a role in Pittsburgh’s lineup next season. They have three right-shot defenders ahead of him on the depth chart in Connor Clifton, Erik Karlsson, and Kris Letang, although Karlsson is well-known trade bait this summer. If he remains in the picture, though, Dumba could start the season in the press box – or even on waivers and buried in the minors – unless someone shifts to their offside.

Dumba’s price tag is exceedingly steep for the No. 6/7/8 defender he is at this stage of his career, one Dallas simply couldn’t afford to shoulder with their cap crunch after extending Mikko Rantanen and retaining UFAs Jamie Benn and Matt Duchene. They part with a second-round pick to wipe his deal off the books one year early – a steep price considering the market for cap dumps this summer, although they do well in acquiring a serviceable depth piece in Kolyachonok. They’re now without a pick before the third round in 2028.

The Penguins already had a bit of a crunch among depth defensemen after signing Alexander Alexeyev, Caleb Jones, and Parker Wotherspoon in free agency. It isn’t surprising to see them unwilling to take on a defenseman without moving one out.

They picked up Kolyachonok, a 24-year-old 6’2″ lefty with some untapped two-way potential, off waivers from Utah in February last season. He didn’t get into much game action, though, recording two assists and a minus-five rating in 12 appearances while averaging 14:20 per game. There wasn’t going to be much opportunity for him in Pittsburgh with their aforementioned additions and younger, higher-profile names like Owen Pickering pushing for more NHL ice time.

Kolyachonok, a second-rounder in 2019, has 14 points in 74 career NHL games with a minus-seven rating and 72 hits. He’ll presumably compete with veteran Alexander Petrovic to exit training camp as the extra defenseman on the NHL roster.

Sean Shapiro of DLLS Sports was first to report the Stars and Penguins were working on a trade centered around Dumba and Kolyachonok.

Image courtesy of Jerome Miron-Imagn Images.

Dylan Ferguson Signs With HK Nitra

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Depth goaltender Dylan Ferguson will continue his career in Europe. He’s signed with HK Nitra, the Slovak club announced on Facebook. It’s a one-year deal, leaving the door open for a return to North America in 2026-27.

Ferguson is only 26 years old but has already built up a well-traveled career, playing for 11 different clubs in the NHL, AHL, ECHL, and KHL since his professional career began in 2018. He spent last season on a two-way contract with the Wild after veteran AHL option Troy Grosenick went down with a season-ending injury before the campaign began, but didn’t see any NHL action. His last NHL appearances – just two of his three career showings – came with the Senators in March 2023.

The 2017 seventh-round pick by the Stars, who was immediately flipped to the Golden Knights for defenseman Marc Methot, has a .929 SV% and 2.81 GAA across the trio of games with a 1-1-0 record. He’s spent most of his time in the AHL, where he’s largely been serviceable but had a difficult 2024-25 season. He managed a 3.81 GAA, .878 SV%, and 3-8-0 record in 12 games for the Iowa Wild.

The British Columbia native now heads overseas for the second time in his career. He spent 2023-24 with Belarus’ Dinamo Minsk, posting a .904 SV% in 23 games. He’ll bring his services to a Nitra team headlined by 44-year-old Branislav Mezei, who’s still going in his home country after being selected No. 10 overall by the Islanders in the 1999 draft.

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