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KHL’s Barys Astana Terminate Olivier Rodrigue’s Contract

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In a relatively vague announcement, the KHL’s Barys Astana announced that they’ve mutually agreed with netminder Olivier Rodrigue to terminate his contract. The club announced that Rodrigue sustained an unspecified injury during training, and a subsequent medical evaluation revealed that he required additional treatment.

There could be several reasons why Rodrigue and Barys Astana decided to terminate his contract altogether. Hesitating to speculate too much, it could be a season-ending injury, or an injury that Rodrigue prefers to have treated in Canada or the United States, negating any reason for him to remain in Kazakhstan.

Additionally, there’s credibility to an argument that Rodrigue has been dealing with an injury for some time, given how his performance collapsed last year with the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors. In the 2022-23 season, Rodrigue managed a 14-14-1 record in 29 games with a .912 SV% and 2.77 GAA. Earning more playing time the following season, Rodrigue put up a 19-12-5 record in 37 games with a .916 SV% and 2.73 GAA.

Given the uncertainty in net for the Edmonton Oilers for the past several years, Rodrigue appeared to be a safety net the Oilers could give an opportunity to should their goaltending completely collapse. Unfortunately, all hope for a future in Edmonton fell apart for Rodrigue this past season.

Playing primarily for the Condors, Rodrigue recorded an 18-16-8 record in 41 games with a .897 SV% and 3.12 GAA. In his two appearances with the Oilers, Rodrigue earned one loss with an .862 SV%, giving up three goals on 18 shots in an April 7th start against the Anaheim Ducks.

Edmonton decided not to issue Rodrigue a qualifying offer this summer, leaving to last month’s contract with the Barys Astana. Unfortunately, he won’t be able to play through that deal, and it’ll be interesting to see if he lands in a different AHL organization over the course of the season.

Snapshots: Denisenko, World Cup, Perreault, Robins

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Although he decided to return home and play in the KHL this season, winger Grigori Denisenko hasn’t given up on playing in North America just yet.  In an interview with Championat’s Lev Lukin, the 25-year-old indicated his dream is still to get back to the NHL.  He hasn’t spent much time there lately, however, getting into just seven NHL games over the past two seasons with Vegas.  He spent most of last season in the minors with Henderson and Milwaukee, collecting 17 goals and 21 assists in 65 games and rather than accepting a two-way deal as a Group Six unrestricted free agent and likely starting in the minors again, he’ll try to work his way back with a big season with Ak Bars Kazan.

Elsewhere around the hockey world:

  • Speaking to reporters including NHL.com’s Dan Rosen at the media tour earlier this week, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly provided an update on the 2028 World Cup of Hockey. They have whittled through expressions of interest from both North American and European cities and are about to begin the bidding process.  The belief is that there will be round-robin games on both continents before moving to North America only for the medal round.  Daly added that while they hope to have a qualifying round down the road, that won’t be in place for this particular event.
  • UFA winger Jacob Perreault has a team for the upcoming season as the Bruins’ AHL team in Providence announced that they’ve signed him to a one-year deal. The 23-year-old was a first-round pick by Anaheim in 2020, going 27th overall but he has struggled considerably in the pros.  Last season, he spent time with Montreal and Edmonton’s farm teams, collecting just three goals and 11 assists in 44 games, leading to a non-tender in late June.  Perreault has made one NHL appearance, that coming back in 2021-22.
  • After being non-tendered by Ottawa this summer, unrestricted free agent winger Tristen Robins has reportedly found a place to play. Inside AHL Hockey’s Tony Androckitis reports (Twitter link) that the 23-year-old is set to sign in Czechia with Kladno.  Robins was a 2020 second-round pick by San Jose and was moved to the Sens as part of the Fabian Zetterlund trade at the deadline.  Robins played in 56 AHL games last year, picking up eight goals and 16 assists.  He has three career NHL games under his belt back in the 2022-23 season.

Blues Sign Justin Carbonneau, Nikita Susuev

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The St. Louis Blues have signed 2025 first-round pick Justin Carbonneau to his entry-level contract. The team also announced they’ve signed 2023 seventh-round pick Nikita Susuev to his entry-level deal. Carbonneau was one of 33 forwards named to the Blues’ 2025 training camp roster on Wednesday. Reports suggest that he could even have a chance at making the NHL roster straight out of camp, per Marco D’Amico of RG Media.

PuckPedia reports that Carbonneau will have a cap hit of $975K before performance bonuses and an AAV of $1.392MM with those bonuses factored in.  They add that Susuev, who doesn’t have any performance bonuses in his deal, will have a cap charge of $855.

Word that Carbonneau could be headed for pro games sooner rather than later comes as no surprise. He was the main standout at the team’s 2025 rookie camp, held immediately following the NHL Draft. Fans were quickly tuned into the high-energy, hefty, and aggressively-physical style that Carbonneau brings to the ice. He was perhaps the best play-driver in the QMJHL last season, and finished the year with 46 goals – tied for the league-lead – and 89 points – second in the league – in 62 games played. Carbonneau was also the only player in the league to record more than 60 points and penalty minutes (61).

Draft pundits praised Carbonneau’s heft and strength throughout the season. He already stands at 6-foot-2, 205-pounds – plenty of size to cushion an early move to the NHL. If he doesn’t make the Blues, or if the team opts to return him after nine games, he will return to the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada for a fourth season. He has already amassed 168 points in 162 games with the team.

On the other side, Susuev – often spelled Susuyev – could finally make a push away from Russian hockey. He has bounced around the country’s major, minor, and junior leagues over the last three seasons. He’s also bounced around organizations, and ended up suiting up for five different clubs – helped along by three different loan-outs – last season alone. His stat line became a slog as a result – officially sat at 12 points in 21 MHL (junior) games, five points in 14 VHL (minor-pro) games, and one point in seven KHL (major-pro) games.

Susuev did spend the majority of the 2023-24 campaign, his age-19 season, on the KHL’s Spartak Moskva. He only racked up six points in 40 games from a depth forward role, but nonetheless gained invaluable experience on a team that finished fourth in their conference. He’s a high-skill winger, with the flash to beat defenders and the instinct to crash the net. His hockey IQ was praised by Russian scouts ahead of the draft, and he could quickly become an interesting player to follow if and when he joins the AHL ranks. For now, Susuev has officially missed the start of Spartak’s season due to injury, and it is unclear what his next step will be.

Sharks Sign No. 2 Overall Pick Michael Misa

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The Sharks have signed No. 2 overall draft pick Michael Misa to his entry-level contract, the team announced. Unsurprisingly, he receives close to the maximum allowable compensation. Per PuckPedia, he’ll receive the maximum base salary of $877.5K, signing bonus of $97.5K, and up to $1MM in Schedule “A” performance bonuses each year. His potential Schedule “B” bonuses are up to $2.25MM, $250K short of the max.

Misa was essentially a slam-dunk selection for San Jose after the Islanders took defenseman Matthew Schaefer with the first pick, although there was some smoke that the Sharks were also considering Swedish center Anton Frondell, who ended up going No. 3 to the Blackhawks. Misa, an OHL Saginaw product, was the early favorite for the top choice in the 2025 draft, gaining exceptional status and beginning his OHL career with the Spirit at the age of 15. However, a semi-conservative showing in his pre-draft year had tempered projections for Misa entering last season.

But in 2024-25, Misa looked more like the franchise-level phenom that his early hype awarded him. The left-shot center served as Saginaw’s captain and clicked at nearly a goal per game, totaling a 62-72–134 scoring line in 65 appearances to lead the entire CHL in points and, unsurprisingly, received CHL First All-Star and OHL MVP honors. He was also named the league’s Scholastic Player of the Year. That had him as the consensus No. 2 prospect in the class behind Schaefer, according to every major public ranking, by the time the season came to an end.

There will still be those out there who argue Misa deserved the top selection, especially considering Schaefer’s season ended after just 17 appearances due to a collarbone injury in December. He was the first OHLer to crack 130 points in nearly 20 years, and the last player to score more points in that league as a draft-eligible player was Patrick Kane’s 145 points in 58 games in 2006-07. Elite Prospects’ Lauren Kelly even labeled him the most complete forward in the class in June.

He thus enters his first professional season with a similar level of hype to San Jose’s No. 1 overall pick in last year’s draft, Macklin Celebrini, had 12 months ago. While the Sharks’ flurry of forward pickups in free agency indicates they aren’t necessarily banking on him being on their opening night roster, there’s plenty of flexibility for him to play meaningful minutes or, at the very least, earn a nine-game trial to start the season before burning the first year of his deal.

Stars Sign Adam Erne To PTO

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The Stars have signed Adam Erne to a professional tryout, according to the training camp roster they announced today. It will be his third consecutive season attending an NHL camp on a tryout basis.

Erne has skated in parts of eight NHL seasons as a checking winger. He spent his first three years with the Lightning, breaking out as a full-time piece with 20 points in 65 games in 2018-19. Luckily for Erne, that was a contract year. Tampa couldn’t afford to give him a seven-figure cap hit, so they traded his signing rights to the Red Wings the following summer. He spent four years in Detroit, including a career-best offensive performance that saw him produce 11 goals and 20 points in only 45 games in the shortened 2020-21 season, before tumbling down the depth chart in 2022-23 and ending up on waivers.

Initially, it was puzzling to see the lack of interest in Erne on the open market in 2023. His waiver clearance could have been chalked up to his previous $2.1MM cap hit, but he still looked like an effective NHLer with 18 points in 61 games for the lowly Wings while averaging 13:23 per game and laying 161 hits. Nonetheless, he had to settle for a tryout with the Oilers, and he was successful in converting that into a two-way deal with Edmonton for 2023-24. He only managed two points in 24 games for the Oilers, though, ending up back on waivers and spending most of the season in the AHL.

Erne landed another PTO last summer with the Rangers, although he only managed to squeeze an AHL tryout deal out of that. He only had one assist in 10 games before sustaining a lower-body injury and getting released from his tryout in November, so it’s been around 10 months since he last played. Dallas’ forward depth remains a strong suit, so he’s unlikely to be in consideration for an NHL roster spot. He’ll use this tryout opportunity to angle for a two-way contract or AHL deal to get his career back on track in the minors.

Among Dallas’ other PTOs announced today who weren’t already signed to minor-league contracts are forward Cross Hanas and goaltender Antoine Bibeau, both of whom will be looking for AHL deals. Hanas was a second-round pick by the Red Wings in 2020 and had 50 points in 146 AHL games over the three seasons of his entry-level contract before getting non-tendered this summer. Bibeau, 31, is a veteran depth option with four games of NHL experience who spent the last two seasons in Europe. He played for Finland’s KooKoo last season, recording a .905 SV% in 35 Liiga games with a 20-13-0 record.

Canadiens To Sign Kevin Mandolese To PTO

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The Canadiens are bringing goaltender Kevin Mandolese to training camp on a professional tryout, reports Frank Seravalli of Bleacher Report. He was scouring the KHL market for a guaranteed deal earlier in the summer but never landed one.

Mandolese, fresh off his 25th birthday, is a former Senators sixth-round draftee who’s since emerged as a steady minor-league presence. He’d spent his entire career in the Ottawa organization until last summer, when the Sens issued him a qualifying offer but ended up trading his signing rights to the Avalanche a couple of weeks later.

The Quebec native’s only NHL action came in 2022-23 amid a rash of injuries in Ottawa’s crease. He made three starts in February and March, performing above expectations with a .916 SV% and 3.29 GAA – only allowing 10 goals despite facing nearly 40 shots per game. For whatever reason, that strong initial showing never landed him another NHL opportunity.

Mandolese also didn’t play very much in the Colorado system last year. He made 19 appearances for the AHL’s Colorado Eagles, where he served as the primary backup to No. 3 option Trent Miner and had an 11-6-0 record in 19 showings with a .903 SV%, 2.87 GAA, and one shutout. The Avs did not issue him a qualifying offer at the end of last year, making him an unrestricted free agent.

Montreal is likely looking for a more experienced AHL option to have under contract. Starter Sam Montembeault is set in stone, but youngster Jakub Dobes will be battling with veteran free-agent pickup Kaapo Kähkönen for the No. 2 job in camp. If Kähkönen doesn’t make the team and is lost on waivers, that would leave Montreal with just three goalies under contract and top prospect Jacob Fowler without much help in AHL Laval as he kicks off his first professional season. As such, Mandolese will take a PTO with the Habs to start while they sort out whether they want to offer him a two-way NHL contract or only extend him a minor-league offer.

Panthers To Sign Tyler Motte, Ben Harpur To PTOs

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The Panthers are in agreement with forward Tyler Motte and defenseman Ben Harpur on professional tryouts, according to Frank Seravalli of Bleacher Report. They’ll get the chance to compete for NHL jobs or at least a minor-league safety net with AHL Charlotte.

Motte, 30, is entering the second decade of his professional career. A 2013 second-round pick of the Blackhawks, he debuted with them in his first full pro season in 2016-17 and has appeared in every NHL season since. He’s become a true journeyman in the process. Outside of spending parts of five seasons with the Canucks from 2018-22, he’s also logged time for the Blue Jackets, Rangers, Senators, Lightning, and Red Wings – never playing more than 70 total games for anyone other than Vancouver.

If signed, it could be Motte’s fourth straight one-year deal. He’s also no stranger to sitting on the open market for long periods, waiting until September to sign deals in 2022 and 2023. But he picked up a one-year, $800K commitment from Detroit early in free agency last summer, prefacing a campaign that saw him serve as a rather nondescript No. 13/14 forward. He averaged 11:19 per game over 55 appearances – his lowest total in a season since the shortened 2020-21 campaign – and scored four goals and five assists for nine points.

The Michigan native has never been a high-end offensive producer, only recording double-digit points three times in his nine-year career. He’s a pure energy winger with enough versatility to slot in down the middle, although his career 42.8% success rate on faceoffs isn’t terribly ideal.

He’ll join a Panthers training camp that will have stiff competition for depth forward roles. They’ve made Luke Kunin a late-summer signing while also extending a PTO to Noah Gregor just yesterday. Those names will compete alongside a group of returnees in Jesper Boqvist, Jonah Gadjovich, A.J. Greer, and Tomas Nosek for fourth-line and press box spots.

As for Harpur, he doesn’t have much chance of landing an NHL roster spot. That’s likely not the intent of having him in camp, though. The 30-year-old would bring nearly 200 games of NHL experience and over a decade of pro time in general to Florida’s depth contingent on a two-way deal. That’s an archetype the Cats are missing on their depth chart. Of their six projected non-roster defenders, according to PuckPedia, none are over the age of 25. He’d be a veteran body for AHL Charlotte, should clear waivers without issue if signed, and would be a safer, more experienced recall option in case of an injury to the NHL group.

That would make him essentially a direct replacement for Jaycob Megna, who made eight appearances down the stretch for Florida last season but signed with the Golden Knights in free agency. Harpur hasn’t played in the NHL since the 2022-23 season, when he had six points in 42 appearances for the Rangers in a bottom-pairing role. He’s remained in the New York organization since then, but injuries have limited him to just 36 games over the last two seasons with AHL Hartford.

Ducks, Rodwin Dionicio To Terminate Contract

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Sep. 9: Unsurprisingly, Dionicio has returned home. He essentially resumed his previous contract with EHC Biel-Bienne, which runs through the 2026-27 campaign, the team announced.

Sep. 3: Dionicio has cleared waivers, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. He will now have his contract terminated.

Sep. 2: The Ducks placed defense prospect Rodwin Dionicio on unconditional waivers Tuesday, per PuckPedia. It’s for the purpose of a mutual contract termination, which can occur tomorrow if he clears.

Dionicio, 21, only has one season of professional experience and still had two years left on his entry-level deal, which he signed with Anaheim in May 2024. The Swiss rearguard was a fifth-round pick in 2023 from the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires and had a spectacular final junior season in 2023-24, erupting for 73 points (and 108 PIMs) in just 60 games split between Windsor and Saginaw en route to a Memorial Cup championship.

Things quickly turned sour for Dionicio upon beginning his professional career, though. He struggled to land a regular role for Anaheim’s AHL affiliate in San Diego and managed nine points in 24 games for the Gulls. By the time January rolled around, the Ducks and Dionicio agreed that a return to Europe was in his best interests, and they loaned him to EHC Biel-Bienne of the Swiss National League. He only got into nine regular-season games with the club, recording six assists and a +2 rating.

Given the offensive ceiling he displayed just one year ago, it’s surprising to see him now headed for unrestricted free agency. The Ducks only have 13 other defenders in the organization under contract, so it’s not like there was a huge logjam for him to work through again to win a roster spot in San Diego.

Usually, a mutual termination precipitates a move to Europe. In Dionicio’s case, though, there’s a higher likelihood than normal of someone making a claim and picking up the remainder of his entry-level deal, considering his offensive upside.

Panthers To Sign Noah Gregor To PTO

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Free agent left-winger Noah Gregor will attend Panthers camp on a professional tryout, according to his dad, Jason Gregor of Edmonton’s Sports 1440.

The 27-year-old Gregor adds another name to the competition for bottom-six jobs in Florida, a group that will be stretched a tad thinner to start the season thanks to the domino effect of Matthew Tkachuk’s recovery from adductor surgery. They’ve been active in shoring up that depth after getting their trio of big-name extensions done for Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad, and Brad Marchand in the days before free agency began. Center Tomas Nosek was also given a one-year extension hours before the market opened, while they picked up right-winger Luke Kunin on a league-minimum contract last month.

Gregor split the 2024-25 season between the Senators and Sharks, working primarily in a fourth-line role and making 52 appearances. He totaled a 4-3–7 scoring line with a -21 rating, the worst offensive production of his career on a per-game basis since entering the league with San Jose six years ago.

Gregor’s calling card has always been his speed, but that took a hit last year. NHL EDGE data shows Gregor averaged 2.0 speed bursts over 20 mph per game, down significantly from 2.75 the year before. He also had 0.52 fewer hits per game and took 0.6 fewer shots on goal per game than he did in 2023-24, when he turned a PTO with the Maple Leafs into a one-year contract and had 12 points in 63 showings. Possession metrics also weren’t kind to Gregor, who controlled only 43.6% of shot attempts at even strength, despite receiving a significantly more sheltered workload defensively compared to his deployment with Toronto.

For his career, Gregor has 70 points in 293 NHL games. He had semi-productive stretches in San Jose’s top nine earlier in his career, averaging nearly 15 minutes per game for them in 2021-22 while recording a career-high 23 points in 63 games, but has now produced 0.20 points per game or fewer in four of his six NHL campaigns.

Gregor faces an uphill battle to earn a roster spot ahead of a known commodity internally like Nosek or a higher-ceiling offensive option in Kunin, especially with a larger group including Jesper Boqvist, Jonah Gadjovich, A.J. Greer, and Mackie Samoskevich also jockeying for position on Florida’s depth chart. There’s still no harm in seeing if he’s rediscovered his skating, an element that would fit well into the Cats’ heavy-checking system, where he’d be a speedier option than Kunin and Nosek.

If Gregor makes the club, it’ll likely be in a press-box role to start. He could also sign a deal and land on waivers, with the hope that he can either rebuild his stock with AHL Charlotte or be claimed by a team in need of experienced forward depth. After being non-tendered for three years in a row, he’s now old enough to be eligible for unrestricted free agency outright next summer.

Flames Sign Dustin Wolf To Seven-Year Extension

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The Calgary Flames have signed reigning Calder Trophy finalist Dustin Wolf to a seven-year, $52.5MM extension, per a team release. The deal will carry a yearly cap hit of $7.5MM. That price tag will pull Wolf into the upper echelon of goalie contracts, making him the eighth-highest-paid goalie in the NHL.

Calgary is clearly confident after Wolf’s unprecedented play on his entry-level contract. He was once an overlooked goaltender, falling to the seventh round of the 2019 NHL Draft largely thanks to his slight 6-foot, 160-pound frame. Wolf was playing with the WHL’s Everett Silvertips at the time of his draft. He returned for a fourth season in Everett in the following year, and wrapped up his  WHL career with a staggering .935 save percentage in 149 games – the highest save percentage ever recorded across multiple WHL seasons.

Wolf moved to the AHL’s Stockton Heat in 2021-22 and earned the starter’s crease within just a few months. He was flashy and energetic, even as a first-year pro, and worked his way to a phenomenal 33-9-4 record and .924 Sv% in 47 games. That mark was enough to earn Wolf the AHL’s Baz Bastien award, handed out annually to the league’s top goalie. Not to be outdone, Wolf managed an even better record (42-10-2) and better save percentage (.932) in more games (55) in his second pro year, again taking home the Baz Bastien Award. With that, he became just the third goalie to ever win the award twice, and just the second to win it in back-to-back years.

That gave Wolf an incredible amount of momentum headed into last season. He played 18 games in the NHL between 2022 and 2024 – and managed a stout 8-7-1 record and .923 save percentage. But fans knew more was to come when Wolf finally broke into the Flames’ roster full-time. New Flames general manager Craig Conroy cleared the path for that to happen when he traded Jacob Markstrom to the New Jersey Devils in 2024. The lights were shining bright and trained solely on Wolf, headed into last season.

Wolf wasted no time proving he belonged in an NHL role. He won his first three games of the season with a .936 save percentage and managed his first shutout in his ninth game of the year. By the end of December, Wolf was touting an impressive 12-5-2 record and a .914 save percentage. Those numbers slipped slightly as Wolf worked his way up to 53 starts on the season – the 17th-most in the league. He finished his rookie season with a 29-16-8 record and .910 Sv% – tying Stuart Skinner, Pekka Rinne, and Andrew Raycroft for the eighth-most wins by a first-year starter.

It was a truly electric performance. Calgary’s chances to win rose significantly when Wolf took the net, and his athleticism and confidence were both unwavering. Advanced stat site Evolving Hockey estimates that Calgary received five wins-above-replacement (WAR) from Wolf – the fifth-most in the NHL, just narrowly behind Vezina Trophy finalist Darcy Kuemper and above Ilya Sorokin. That’s an incredible mark, and one that Calgary will quickly reward with a long-term extension. Teams have been duped in the past by strong rookie seasons. Hockey fans will surely remember the short-lived peak of Steve Mason. But Wolf seems well set to earn the starting role in every season of his new deal. He boasts all of the skill, speed, and sharp thinking to play at the top level, and will look to vindicate a great rookie year and hefty extension with a growing performance this season.

Photo courtesy of Brett Holmes-Imagn Images.

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