Flames Recall Matvei Gridin, Hunter Brzustewicz
March 12: Brzustewicz was initially recalled under emergency conditions, but his recall has now been converted to a standard one, Pat Steinberg of Sportsnet 960 reports. Calgary now has three regular recalls remaining until the end of the season.
March 8: Two top prospects will bolster the Calgary Flames roster after shaking up their lineup at the Trade Deadline. Winger Matvei Gridin and defenseman Hunter Brzustewicz have both been recalled per a team announcement. The duo will support the Flames as they embark on a five-game road trip beginning on Monday.
Gridin was returned to the minor leagues after a five-game stint in the NHL that stretched from late February to the NHL Trade Deadline. His assignment ensures that Gridin will be eligible for the Calder Cup Playoffs, though the Calgary Wranglers currently sit second-to-last in the AHL’s Pacific Division. Gridin has been a major part of their offense any time he is in the minor leagues. He has 29 points in 37 games this season, good for the sixth-highest points-per-game average on the Wranglers.
The dynamic scorer has has ups-and-downs in his trek to bring that scoring to the top flight. Gridin has a stout seven points in the first 18 games of his NHL career. More than half of those points – five – came during a nine-game stretch from mid-January to early-February, before he was returned to the AHL. It took four games for Gridin to get back onto an NHL scoresheet after he was called back up in late February. That has been the hot-and-cold streak that Calgary’s top wing prospect has ridden through his first pro season.
It was Brzustewicz who stepped up in the Wranglers’ latest action, netting an assist on Saturday night to snap a nine-game scoring drought. That streak began one game after Brzustewicz was reassigned to the minor leagues, after he recorded an assist in his first game back. He, too, has had an up-and-down year, with two points in 18 NHL games and 14 points in 34 AHL games. The puck-moving defenseman has honed his ability to make plays in either end of the ice, while spotlighting his ability to move pucks through the neutral zone – the bread-and-butter of Brzustewicz’s game.
Brzustewicz could have the easier path to a lineup role after Zach Whitecloud left Saturday’s win over the Carolina Hurricanes in the first period. That injury should bump Zayne Parekh and Brayden Pachal up a spot in the lineup, opening room for Brzustewicz to play in his first NHL game since January from the bottom pair. Gridin will have to compete with newcomers Ryan Strome and Victor Olofsson for minutes in Calgary’s bottom-six. The rookie could be the odd-man-out as the Flames look to shore up their center depth. If he sits, Gridin will offer a nice bit of offensive upside from the press box and could potentially replace bruisers Adam Klapka or Ryan Lomberg on the fourth line.
Penguins Recall Alexander Alexeyev
The Penguins announced today that defender Alexander Alexeyev has been recalled from AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Fellow rearguard Ryan Graves has been sent to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on a conditioning stint in a corresponding move, although he’ll continue to count on Pittsburgh’s active roster with his full cap impact while in the minors.
Alexeyev, 26, signed a league-minimum deal with the Pens last offseason. He cleared waivers to start the year and has been in and out of the lineup for WBS since then, only playing in 29 out of 57 games. He has three goals and four assists for seven points with a +4 rating.
Pittsburgh is trying to keep its depth defenders fresh amid a rash of injuries that’s seen Samuel Girard and Jack St. Ivany sidelined, although the latter’s been out for a while and is joined by Graves in WBS on a conditioning loan. They’ve dialed in their depth chart this late in the year, meaning Graves, who’s slotted in as a #7/8 option, has not gotten into a game in nearly two months after missing some time with a lower-body injury. They want to get him into some games in the minors, but don’t want to travel without an extra defender in case a last-minute injury comes up, so Alexeyev will arrive today to fill that role.
The 6’4″, 229-lb Alexeyev was brought in to provide some shutdown depth. He once had some real upside, evidenced by the Capitals selecting him 31st overall in the 2018 draft, but it was obvious he wasn’t on the path toward being a full-time NHLer when Washington non-tendered him last summer. Considering the minimal impact he’s had in an AHL role this year, too, he certainly won’t be looking at another one-way deal this summer if he does receive more NHL offers. The Russian could very well entertain offers to return home, where he last played for Salavat Yulaev Ufa in the Kontinental Hockey League on loan from the Caps in the 2020-21 season.
As for Graves, he’s wrapping up the third season of the six-year, $27MM deal he landed from Pittsburgh in free agency in 2023. He’s still not close to warranting his $4.5MM cap hit, but has posted significantly improved defensive results for the Pens in a more limited leverage role this year after a disastrous 2024-25 season. In 19 showings, he’s notched a goal and a -2 rating with 15 hits. The boxcar stats don’t jump off the page, but his under-the-hood numbers are the best they’ve been in quite some time – controlling 52.2% of shot attempts at 5-on-5 in defensive-minded deployment.
Predators Acquire Dalton Bancroft, Massimo Rizzo From Bruins
The Bruins have acquired left-winger Navrin Mutter from the Predators in exchange for right-winger Dalton Bancroft and center Massimo Rizzo, both teams announced. As the deal was completed after last Friday’s trade deadline, all three players are ineligible to be recalled for the remainder of this season. However, they’ll report to their new AHL affiliates ahead of tomorrow’s trade/loan deadline in that league.
All three players are in the last year of their deals. While Bancroft and Rizzo will remain under Nashville’s control this summer as pending restricted free agents, Mutter is a pending Group VI unrestricted free agent and can reach the open market. He’s three days away from his 25th birthday and was an undrafted free agent signing by Nashville back in 2022 out of OHL Kitchener.
Since then, Mutter has spent the last four seasons playing almost exclusively for AHL Milwaukee, aside from a half-year demotion to ECHL Atlanta in 2023-24. The 6’3″, 203-lb winger essentially amounts to minor-league enforcer depth. He was never a big offensive producer in juniors, and that hasn’t changed in Milwaukee, where he has just four goals and 20 points in 149 career games but owns a whopping 299 penalty minutes.
Nashville takes a similarly-cast player back in the deal in the 25-year-old Bancroft. He’s a few pounds heavier than Mutter but has the same frame and play style. He’s in just his first professional season, though, signing with Boston out of Cornell University last season, also as a UDFA. He clicked at over a point per game for the Big Red as a junior but has just two goals and an assist in 39 games for Providence since debuting last spring, along with 30 penalty minutes.
The most dynamic threat in the swap is Rizzo, who Boston had just acquired from the Flyers on deadline day last week. The 24-year-old pivot only played once for Providence before being sent on the move again. A standout over three years at the University of Denver, Rizzo only managed 16 points in 48 games for Philly’s AHL affiliate last season and had spent the entirety of this year in the ECHL before the trade, where he had a 6-16–22 scoring line in 29 games. He’s the only player in this swap who likely has a sniff at an NHL future, and even that’s a stretch, but the Preds are nonetheless hoping he can rediscover his offensive confidence in Milwaukee over the final few weeks of the season before determining whether to give him a qualifying offer.
Sharks Recall Igor Chernyshov
The Sharks announced today that they’ve recalled left winger Igor Chernyshov from AHL San Jose. With an ample number of healthy forwards on their roster, Chernyshov is already the third of the five post-deadline standard recalls San Jose can make, joining defensemen Nolan Allan and Nick Leddy.
Chernyshov, 20, was the 33rd overall pick by San Jose in the 2024 draft. He has been on an absolutely torrid trajectory ever since. A dynamic 6’2″ power forward, he spent all of his pre-draft development in his native Russia but opted to immediately sign with San Jose and come to North America. Instead of assigning him to the AHL right away last season, the Sharks loaned him to the OHL’s Saginaw Spirit to make a more comfortable adjustment in junior hockey.
While Chernyshov lost a good portion of the season to injury, he was, bar none, the league’s best player when in the lineup. He had 19 goals, 36 assists, and 55 points in just 23 appearances for Saginaw alongside now-Sharks teammate Michael Misa, leading the league with an incredible 2.39 points per game.
It’s no surprise, then, that Chernyshov’s first professional season has gone as swimmingly as it has. He’s fit in well amid a deep minor-league group in San Jose, posting 13 goals and 33 points in 41 games with 36 penalty minutes and a +11 rating. That got him a look on the NHL roster for about a month across December and January while Will Smith was on injured reserve. He got a long look in Smith’s spot on the top line with Macklin Celebrini and William Eklund and did not disappoint, posting a 3-8–11 scoring line and nine hits in 15 games. He also managed 3.27 shot attempts per game, good for eighth on the team.
He’s now getting another look on the active roster, although it doesn’t appear he’ll be getting into game action immediately. Eklund got banged up with a lower-body issue against the Sabres on Tuesday but took line rushes at this morning’s skate and is expected to play tonight against the Bruins, per Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now.
Flames Sign Tyson Gross To Entry-Level Deal
March 12: Gross has moved quickly and finalized an entry-level contract beginning this season with the Flames, per Eric Francis of Sportsnet. He will report to Calgary’s NHL roster and will see games down the stretch, Francis adds. It will be a two-year deal for Gross, making him a restricted free agent at the end of next season.
March 11: Calgary native Tyson Gross is one of the top undrafted free agents available coming out of college this season. His hometown Flames are on the shortlist of teams the center is considering signing with, and he will make his decision in the next few days, Eric Francis of Sportsnet reports.
Gross, 23, just wrapped up his junior season with St. Cloud State. Serving as the team’s captain, he doubled his previous career high in goals en route to an 18-23–41 scoring line in 36 games. The 6’3″, 194-lb pivot saw his season end last week, getting swept 2-0 by Minnesota-Duluth in the quarterfinals of the NCHC tournament. They won’t be getting an at-large berth to the national tournament, so Gross ends his career in St. Cloud with 34 goals, 52 assists, and 86 points across 106 games over the last three years.
There’s little reason to believe Gross will replicate those offensive totals at the NHL level, but there’s a chance he can carve out a role as a depth checking center in Calgary or be a higher-end minor-league piece. He was initially draft-eligible back in 2021. He’d played just nine junior ‘A’ games that year due to COVID and was understandably passed over. Even against tougher competition in the USHL in his post-draft year, though, he only managed eight points in 23 games with the Fargo Force. It wasn’t until moving to the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders for his DY+2 that he came out of his shell as a playmaker, and he was able to carry that momentum directly into a 20-point freshman season at St. Cloud.
The Flames are in need of some size down the middle in their prospect pool, so their interest in Gross makes sense. Their situation improved somewhat when they acquired the signing rights to 6’2″, 203-lb Jonathan Castagna from the Mammoth in the MacKenzie Weegar deal, and Francis reports the junior center is also open to turning pro with the Flames when his season at Cornell wraps up.
Blues Sign Calle Rosen To Two-Year, Two-Way Extension
The Blues announced today that left-shot defender Calle Rosen has signed a two-year, two-way contract extension. The deal pays him $850K in the NHL and $500K in the AHL next year before seeing an NHL pay bump to $900K in 2027-28.
Rosen is in his second stint with the Blues organization. He hasn’t seen an NHL game since his first go-around in St. Louis ended following the 2023-24 season, though. He signed with the Avalanche on a two-way deal the following summer and did the same with the Capitals last offseason before Washington traded him back to St. Louis for fellow minor-league depth defender Corey Schueneman last November.
Now 32, Rosen has never really been a full-time NHL piece and has had multiple opportunities to return home to Sweden since arriving in North America with the Maple Leafs as an undrafted free agent in 2018. Instead, the 6’1″ lefty has chosen to pursue an often thankless career as a minor-league mainstay who consistently churns out quality bottom-pairing hockey in his NHL call-ups. He’s been quite well-compensated for an AHLer – his new minors salary is actually a small pay cut from the $525K he landed on his deal with the Caps last summer – but still, it’s rare to see an import player opt for that lifestyle instead of a more stable pro career in Europe, especially considering he has previous Swedish Hockey League experience.
Rosen, now in his ninth season stateside, has long been one of the AHL’s better puck-movers. He had seven points in nine games with Hershey to start the year and has since been a valuable contributor on St. Louis’ struggling affiliate in Springfield, leading their blue line with a 7-19–26 scoring line in 47 games. He was an AHL All-Star back in 2019, won a Calder Cup in Toronto the year before, and now is up to 224 points in 407 career minor-league games.
It’s surprising he hasn’t gotten more NHL opportunities. The only time he got an extended run on a roster was with St. Louis in the 2022-23 campaign. While he served mostly as a #7 piece, he was absolutely excellent when deployed, putting up eight goals and 18 points with a +19 rating despite only averaging 15:36 of ice time per game across 49 outings. None of that production came on special teams, either. He’s fairly consistently had positive relative Corsi shares at 5-on-5 and, while he’s far from being a physical threat, has shown he can be an efficient driver of offense in limited minutes.
Maple Leafs Recall Michael Pezzetta
The Maple Leafs announced this morning that they’ve recalled winger Michael Pezzetta from AHL Toronto. With no pressing injuries, he counts as their second of five allotted post-deadline standard recalls, following the team’s recall of Benoit-Olivier Groulx on Tuesday.
Pezzetta, a day ahead of his 28th birthday, hasn’t played in the NHL since the end of last season. The Maple Leafs signed him to a two-year contract as an unrestricted free agent last July, but he was placed on waivers during training camp and didn’t make the opening night roster. He signed a one-way deal for the league-minimum salary each year, giving him a $812.5K cap hit and a full $775K paycheck this season despite not seeing any time on the NHL roster until March.
In 37 games for the Marlies this year, Pezzetta has put up four goals and 10 points with a -7 rating and 52 penalty minutes. His workload is limited by design, as he counts toward the AHL’s veteran maximum and is one of the purest enforcers/grinders in the game. In fact, his 0.27 points per game this season is a career high in both the NHL and the AHL, his six points in just eight AHL games back in 2021-22 notwithstanding.
Selected by the Canadiens in the sixth round back in 2016, Pezzetta will play in his fifth straight NHL season if he gets into a game (which it looks like he will tonight against the Ducks, per Terry Koshan of the Toronto Sun). He’s totaled 200 games, all with Montreal, with a 15-23–38 scoring line, a -9 rating, and an average of 8:03 of ice time per game.
Panthers Recall Mike Benning
The Panthers announced today that they’ve recalled defenseman Mike Benning from AHL Charlotte. They have ample cap space to make the recall and, with only six defensemen on the active roster and Uvis Balinskis listed as questionable with an undisclosed injury, Benning will likely be making his NHL debut tonight against the Blue Jackets, per George Richards of Florida Hockey Now.
Benning, a 2020 fourth-round pick, was once one of the top prospects in a weak Florida pool. While he was technically on the Cats’ roster to close out the 2022-23 campaign after turning pro out of the University of Denver, serving as a Black Ace on their first of three straight trips to the Stanley Cup Final, he never played. He was sent down to Charlotte in camp the following fall, and he’s remained there ever since.
Slowly but surely, the undersized righty has been improving his two-way game in the minors. Coming in at just 5’9″ and 176 lbs, the 2022 NCAA championship winner would need to simply be offensively dominant to warrant an extended look at the NHL level. That hasn’t happened, at least from the jump. After recording 72 points and a raucous +56 rating in 80 games across his sophomore and junior seasons at Denver, Benning had just nine goals and 26 points in a full 72 games as a first-year pro for Charlotte in 2023-24.
Over the past two years, his points per game have begun to spike. He bumped his production from 0.36 that first year in Charlotte to 0.59 last year, although it’s flattened out somewhat again at 0.55 here in 2025-26. He has made 56 AHL appearances this season, posting an 8-23–31 scoring line with 40 penalty minutes and a +10 rating. That’s still good for the team lead in scoring among defensemen – by a significant margin, too, with Trevor Carrick‘s 18 points in 45 games coming in second.
Now 24, Benning was always viewed as a power-play specialist if he made it to the highest level. With Seth Jones still out of the lineup, Balinskis had actually been quarterbacking Florida’s second unit, so there’s a strong chance Benning steps in there tonight while directly replacing Balinskis on Niko Mikkola‘s right side on their second pairing at even strength.
This is Benning’s last waiver-exempt season. At the end of the year, he will have accrued three professional seasons and will require waivers to be assigned to Charlotte during training camp in the fall if he doesn’t make the roster. Before that even becomes a consideration, he’ll need to sign a new contract. He’s on a two-way deal with a $150K guarantee, which he agreed to after being a restricted free agent for a month and a half last year following the expiration of his entry-level contract. This time around, he’s arbitration-eligible, so Florida has some incentive to get a new agreement done quicker – assuming they qualify him at all. The Cats control him for another three years.
Red Wings Recall Sheldon Dries, John Leonard, Eduards Tralmaks
The Detroit Red Wings have utilized emergency recalls to call-up three forwards from the AHL. Sheldon Dries, John Leonard, and Eduards Tralmaks will all join the Red Wings with two games left on their current road trip. These moves come after Detroit center Andrew Copp sustained a lower-body injury in Tuesday night’s loss to the Florida Panthers. He has been downgraded to doubtful for Thursday’s match against the Tampa Bay Lightning, at least, per Detroit Free Press’ Helene St. James.
Three more forwards will help Detroit balance lines at Wednesday’s practice without captain Dylan Larkin, in addition to Copp’s injury and a recent string of maintenance days for winger Lucas Raymond. Detroit also added winger David Perron to their injured reserve after acquiring him from the Ottawa Senators for a fourth-round pick at the Trade Deadline.
The Red Wings have split their two games since Larkin sustained a day-to-day, lower-body injury. Copp was promoted to the top line in Larkin’s spot and recorded two assists and six shots on net before going down with his own injury. That could force the Red Wings to lean on Marco Kasper as their top center, even if Copp is able to play. Kasper scored one goal on four shots in Tuesday’s loss, bringing him to 10 points in his last 17 games dating back to mid-January. A bump in minutes could be well-timed for Kasper, who has not recorded a game with more than 20 minutes of ice time this season. The former eighth-overall pick had three such games in his rookie season last year. He finished with 19 goals and 37 points in 77 games.
Both Dries and Leonard have played a handful of NHL games this season, with Leonard scoring four points in nine games and Dries scoring one goal in six games with Detroit. The two rank first and third on the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins in scoring with 41 and 37 points respectively. Sixth on the list is Tralmaks, who is receiving the first call-up of his NHL career with this move.
After a quiet three seasons in the Providence Bruins’ organization to begin his pro career, Tralmaks spent the last two seasons with the Kladno Knights in Czechia’s top pro league. He scored 21 goals and 32 points in 52 games of his first Czech season, then jumped to a league-leading 51 points in 48 games last season. He signed with the Red Wings on the heels of that season and has since found his confidence in the AHL. Tralmaks has 18 goals and 28 points in 49 games with Grand Rapids this season. This call-up could now give the six-foot-four, 225-pound Latvian a chance to make his NHL debut.
Detroit may not need to lean on any of their call-ups if Copp can play on Thursday. If not, it will be centerman Dries who gets tapped to fill-in, unless the Red Wings move a winger to the center spot to fit-in the hot-scoring Leonard, or rookie Tralmaks. Bottom-six winger Dominik Shine has filled both forward positions through his career but has only taken one faceoff in the NHL.
Blackhawks Reassign Drew Commesso
The Blackhawks are sending goaltender Drew Commesso back to AHL Rockford, per Tracey Myers of NHL.com. He had been recalled under emergency conditions over the weekend after Spencer Knight was sidelined with an illness, but he’s now cleared to return and will be available for tomorrow’s road outing against the Mammoth.
Now in his second season seeing NHL action, the 23-year-old has made three starts for the Hawks this year, posting a .918 SV%, 2.31 GAA, and a 2-1-0 record. That’s a significant step forward from what the 2020 second-rounder showed in his first NHL start last year, allowing four goals on 24 shots against the Devils in his lone appearance. After recording a win over Utah on Monday in his only showing on this call-up, he’s now saved 1.6 goals above expected and, in a small sample, has been Chicago’s analytically strongest goalie this year on a per-60 basis with a 0.528 GSAx/60, per MoneyPuck.
Nearly six years on from being drafted, Commesso remains Chicago’s top goalie prospect and is the #7-ranked player in their pool overall, writes Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times. His promising NHL starts this season do run in contrast to what’s been a career-worst season for Commesso in Rockford, though. After coming up with a .906 and .911 SV% in his first two pro seasons, respectively, he’s logging a .899 SV% and 3.07 GAA in 28 games this year with a 9-16-3 record. Those numbers aren’t all on Commesso, though – Rockford has been a tough defensive environment this season, and those are still far superior numbers to backup Stanislav Berezhnoy‘s.