Maple Leafs Assign Connor Dewar, Jani Hakanpää On LTIR Conditioning Loans
The Maple Leafs announced today that forward Connor Dewar and defenseman Jani Hakanpää will get some AHL action under their belt after being assigned to the Toronto Marlies on conditioning stints. They’ll remain on long-term injured reserve and won’t count against the NHL roster until they’re ready to return.
Unlike regular conditioning loans in which a player remains on the active roster but can play as many AHL games as are scheduled for their affiliate club over two weeks, LTIR conditioning loans can only last for up to six days or three games, whichever comes first. After the conditioning loan ends, the team must activate the player from LTIR if they’re deemed ready to return to play and haven’t sustained any setbacks in their recovery.
That means some significant roster moves will be coming for the Leafs next week, assuming Dewar’s and Hakanpää’s loans are successful. They have the necessary cap space to activate them, especially after freeing up a decent chunk of money by swapping Timothy Liljegren ($3MM cap hit) for Matt Benning ($1.25MM cap hit) in their trade with the Sharks earlier this week. But they lack actual roster space, and they’ll need to remove two players from the 23-man roster to activate them.
One of those two moves will undoubtedly be waiving depth defenseman Philippe Myers. He unexpectedly made Toronto’s opening night roster after spending most of the last two seasons in the AHL. However, he’s made no impact since doing so. Rostered as a second extra defenseman, he’s only made one appearance so far this season, posting a -1 rating in 12:11 of ice time against the Bruins on Oct. 26. The other move will be more complex. With no other obvious waiver candidates aside from Myers, general manager Brad Treliving could make his second trade in as many weeks to open up the other space.
Outside the roster shenanigans, the Leafs are close to gaining two legitimately valuable depth pieces. Dewar, 25, has donned the Maple Leaf logo before, appearing in 17 regular-season and six playoff games last season after being acquired from the Wild on trade deadline day. He was serviceable in a fourth-line role, posting a goal and four assists with a -2 rating, averaging nearly 13 minutes per game. He can easily switch between center and wing, has recorded over 120 hits in his two full NHL seasons, and averaged 2:24 per game on the penalty kill for Toronto last season after the trade, second among Leafs forwards behind David Kämpf (2:27).
Dewar filed for salary arbitration last summer after reaching restricted free agency but settled before his hearing, agreeing to a one-year, $1.18MM contract to return to the Leafs. He did so two months after receiving shoulder surgery in May. He’s been skating away from and with his teammates for almost a month now as he works his way back, and it now appears he’s not too long away from making his season debut. The 2018 third-round pick scored a career-high 11 goals in 74 appearances last season, split between Minnesota and Toronto.
When Hakanpää comes off LTIR, though, it’ll be the 32-year-old’s Leafs debut. After sitting out the last few months of the Stars’ season with a knee injury, he inked a reported two-year, $3MM deal with Toronto immediately after becoming an unrestricted free agent on July 1. But that contract was never registered with the league, a story that began gaining traction later that month. Hakanpää underwent arthroscopic surgery to address the knee injury while with Dallas but was still dealing with lingering effects, which he and the Leafs’ medical staff initially disagreed on how to move forward from. After a few months of back-and-forth, the two sides came to terms on a revised one-year, $1.47MM contract in mid-September.
A fourth-round pick of the Blues back in 2010, Hakanpää didn’t make his NHL debut until signing with the Ducks as a free agent in 2019. After brief stops in Anaheim and Carolina, the 6’6″ Hakanpää emerged as a legitimate shutdown threat in Dallas. Over the past three seasons, the right-shot defender posted 40 points (12 G, 28 A) and a +29 rating in 226 appearances for the Stars, averaging 18:02 per game with a whopping 363 blocks and 668 hits. With Hakanpää on the ice at even strength, the Stars controlled 46.6% of shot attempts and 47.7% of expected goals, with sub-50 numbers to be expected given his lack of offensive deployment.
Upon their returns, Dewar will look to unseat Kämpf, Pontus Holmberg or Steven Lorentz for a spot in Toronto’s bottom six, while Hakanpää will likely look to usurp Simon Benoit or Conor Timmins for a bottom-pairing role.
Flames Recall Matt Coronato, Reassign Samuel Honzek
Forward Samuel Honzek‘s return to the NHL will be shortlived despite playing in the Calgary Flames’ loss to the Utah Hockey Club last night. The organization announced Honzek has been reassigned to their AHL affiliate, the Calgary Wranglers, while forward Matthew Coronato has been recalled in his stead.
Honzek skated in 10:52 of yesterday’s action registering one block, two hits, one giveaway, and one takeaway. It was his first game back from an upper-body injury since October 15th after cracking Calgary’s roster out of training camp. It will be Honzek’s first time with the AHL Wranglers since registering two games last season after concluding his time with the WHL’s Vancouver Giants.
The former 16th overall pick of the 2023 NHL Draft could likely use an extended look in the AHL especially with the Flames regressing toward the mean. He was productive during his tenure in the WHL with 33 goals and 87 points in 76 games. Still, he only has seven professional games under his belt.
Calgary drafted Coronato 13th overall two years before Honzek and he’s a more established talent at the AHL level. He spent much of last year in AHL Calgary maintaining a point-per-game output with 15 goals and 42 points in 41 contests. His season was not as positive in the NHL with three goals and nine points in 34 games with a -15 rating.
He got off to a solid start this season scoring two goals in five games but was reassigned on October 25th in response to the activation of Yegor Sharangovich. As one of the top blossoming offensive talents in the Flames organization, it’ll be imperative for the coaching staff to find Coronato middle-six minutes throughout his time on the NHL roster.
Colorado’s Matthew Stienburg Suspended Two Games, Reassigned
The Colorado Avalanche are losing another player up front, although this time it won’t be for an injury. The NHL’s Department of Player Safety announced they have suspended Avalanche rookie forward Matthew Stienburg for two games for charging Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Erik Černák in last night’s contest. Shortly after the suspension was issued, the Avalanche announced they had reassigned Stienburg to their AHL affiliate, the Colorado Eagles.
The news came roughly seven hours after the Department of Player Safety shared that Stienburg was scheduled for a hearing regarding the incident. The discipline served by the Department of Player Safety is in addition to the on-ice referees giving Stienburg a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct.
In the video shared by the Department of Player Safety, the contributing factor to the suspension was that Stienburg turned his back on the hit and lifted himself off the ice causing the focal point of the hit to be Černák’s head. They also noted that Stienburg’s NHL experience of eight games played a part in the length of the suspension.
He’s been one of Colorado’s most physical players since being recalled from AHL Colorado on October 16th. He’s seventh on the team in hits with 16 despite only being 16th in games played with eight. Consequently, thanks to the illegal hit on Černák yesterday evening, he now sits first on the team in PIMs with 22. According to Evan Rawal of The Denver Gazette, Stienburg must wait to serve his suspension until he’s recalled back to the NHL.
The biggest implication of this suspension and subsequent demotion is that the Avalanche only have 10 healthy forwards and an upcoming game on Saturday against the Nashville Predators. Gabriel Landeskog, Artturi Lehkonen, Valeri Nichushkin, Ross Colton, and Jonathan Drouin are all on the shelf for one reason or another, and Colorado will now have to pull from their organizational depth even further with Stienburg being sent down.
Wild Assign Liam Öhgren, Luke Toporowski To AHL
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.
Pierre-Édouard Bellemare Signs In Switzerland
Veteran center Pierre-Édouard Bellemare isn’t yet ready to call it quits. After being somewhat surprisingly released from a professional tryout agreement with the Avalanche during training camp, HC Ajoie of the Swiss National League announced they’d signed him for the remainder of the season.
It’s the first trip overseas in over 10 years for the 39-year-old Frenchman. Bellemare spent most of his professional career in France’s Ligue Magnus and Sweden’s HockeyAllsvenskan and Elitserien (now SHL) before landing his first NHL contract with the Flyers at age 29 after a standout showing for France at the 2014 World Championship. He immediately stuck in the NHL full-time, posting 12 points in 81 games for the Flyers in 2014-15 in a fourth-line role.
Since then, Bellemare has been a dependable and versatile fourth-line piece for the Golden Knights, Avalanche, Lightning, and Kraken. He reached the Stanley Cup Final twice – once with Vegas in their inaugural season and again with Tampa Bay in 2022, but was on the losing end both times. A free agent in the summer of 2023, he inked a cheap one-year deal with Seattle that saw him fall out of a regular lineup spot for the first time since arriving in North America. He was limited to seven points in 40 games with the Kraken, averaging a career-low 9:50 per game and failing to replicate the hard-nosed style that helped him succeed in 700 games at the sport’s highest level.
But even still, Bellemare’s possession results were good. The Kraken controlled 54.9% of shot attempts and 57.4% of expected goals, with Bellemare on the ice at even strength despite deploying him mainly in defensive situations. That could have benefitted a team looking to acquire a reliable extra forward, namely Colorado, who was already familiar with his skill set. He recorded 33 points in 122 games in an Avs uniform from 2019 to 2021. But they passed him up, a decision they’re likely regretting after another rash of injuries to their forward core on top of the trio of Gabriel Landeskog, Artturi Lehkonen and Valeri Nichushkin that they were already missing to start the season.
He’ll now head close to home with an Ajoie team that’s 2-13-1-1 through its first 17 games of the NL regular season with a -36 goal differential. Bellemare is now 700 of the 753 career NHL games on Ajoie’s roster – the other 53 belong to defenseman T.J. Brennan. It’s almost surely the end of the road for him in the NHL, but he’ll still have his chance to make his mark internationally. If Russia is still barred from participating, France will be in the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Penguins Activate Blake Lizotte From Injured Reserve
4:09 PM: According to a team announcement, the Penguins organization has confirmed the activation of Lizotte from the injured reserve.
1:28 PM: Penguins center Blake Lizotte will be a game-time decision tonight against the Ducks, head coach Mike Sullivan told reporters, including Wes Crosby of NHL.com. If he plays, he’ll need to come off injured reserve. The Penguins have an open roster spot, so they won’t need to make a corresponding transaction.
Lizotte, 26, signed a two-year, $3.7MM contract in Pittsburgh over the offseason after spending the first six seasons of his NHL career with the Kings. Most had him penciled in as the team’s fourth-line center to start the campaign, but a concussion sustained during a preseason game against the Senators on Sep. 29 has kept him out of the lineup ever since. He was placed on IR to begin the season but has slowly worked his way back over the past few weeks.
With Bryan Rust out week-to-week with a lower-body injury, that’s created an opportunity for some players to move up in the lineup. If he plays, Lizotte will benefit from that. He’s projected to skate as Pittsburgh’s third-line center between Kevin Hayes and Anthony Beauvillier, relays Josh Getzoff of SportsNet Pittsburgh. It’s a marginal increase from his usual role with the Kings over the past few seasons, especially last year when he had to contend with Anže Kopitar, Phillip Danault, and Pierre-Luc Dubois ahead of him on L.A.’s center depth chart.
An undrafted free agent signing by the Kings out of St. Cloud State in 2019, Lizotte has 37 goals, 69 assists, and 106 points in 320 career regular-season games with a +34 rating. He’s one year removed from a career-high 11 goals and 34 points in 81 games in 2022-23 when he averaged nearly 13 minutes per night. He’s just above 50% on draws throughout his career and has historically solid possession numbers, controlling 54% of shot attempts and 52.9% of expected goals when deployed at even strength.
Possession quality hasn’t been an issue for the Penguins’ bottom six this season. Far from it, actually – their “usual” non-Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin of Hayes, Noel Acciari and Cody Glass have controlled 70.2% of expected goals when deployed together, per MoneyPuck. Still, Lizotte has good foot speed and is far more involved physically than his 5’9″, 170-lb frame indicates.
If Lizotte doesn’t play tonight and remains on IR, it’s fair to assume he’ll be activated ahead of their next game at home against the Canadiens on Saturday.
Red Wings Reassign Austin Watson
Oct. 31: Watson was demoted back to Grand Rapids on Thursday morning, the team announced. He logged a -1 rating, one shot on goal and four hits in 9:06 of ice time in last night’s loss to the Jets in place of Tarasenko, who wasn’t able to play due to his illness.
Oct. 30: The Red Wings announced today they’ve recalled winger Austin Watson from AHL Grand Rapids under emergency conditions. Detroit has an open roster spot, so no corresponding transaction is needed.
Watson comes up to give the Red Wings 12 available forwards in case Vladimir Tarasenko, who head coach Derek Lalonde told reporters is a game-time decision tonight against the Jets with an illness, can’t play (via Sean Shapiro of EP Rinkside). If he plays, it would be just his second appearance of the season. Signed to a PTO by Detroit in late August, Watson earned a two-way deal after a successful training camp and subsequently cleared waivers. He’s spent the entire 2024-25 campaign in the minors aside from a one-day recall on Oct. 14, which resulted in him entering the lineup against the Rangers. He played under five minutes and posted a -1 rating with a minor penalty.
The 32-year-old has done well in his first taste of minor league action since a conditioning stint in the 2018-19 campaign. Watson is tied for the team lead in scoring with six assists through seven games, leading them in both PIMs (19) and rating (+6). While he’s never shown the offensive upside at the NHL level to be much more than a fourth-line piece, he’s suiting up as one of the best power forwards in the AHL this season.
Watson can remain on the NHL roster for 28 days or play nine more NHL games before he needs waivers again to return to the minors. He spent last year with the Lightning, scoring twice and adding a pair of assists in 33 appearances. The 2010 first-round pick of the Predators has made 519 NHL appearances for Detroit, Nashville, Ottawa, and Tampa Bay dating back to the 2012-13 campaign.
Canadiens Activate Kaiden Guhle From Injured Reserve
The Canadiens announced that Kaiden Guhle will be back in the lineup tonight against the Capitals. The defenseman will be activated from injured reserve, but with two open roster spots, no corresponding transaction is necessary. Justin Barron will also return after missing the last three games with an upper-body injury.
Guhle’s activation was prefaced yesterday by Logan Mailloux‘s return to the minors. It wasn’t necessary to open up a roster spot, but Mailloux was going to be sitting in the press box once Guhle was ready to come back. That’s not the right move for the 21-year-old’s development away from the puck, so he’ll return to the AHL to improve his defensive game.
Guhle, 22, had missed the last five games with an upper-body injury. He was off to a hot start on the scoresheet before exiting the lineup, scoring once and adding three assists with a +4 rating in five appearances. His 20 blocked shots still rank third on the team, but as possession metrics indicate, that’s more indicative of how much time he spent in his own end than anything else. Guhle had been given challenging even-strength deployment, but the Canadiens still only controlled 34.5% of shot attempts and 49.9% of expected goals with him on the ice at even strength in the early going.
A left-shot, Guhle will return to his usual top-pairing role on his off side next to Mike Matheson. Barron, a 22-year-old righty with one goal in seven games this season, will comprise Montreal’s third pairing with Jayden Struble. Arber Xhekaj, a healthy scratch twice earlier this month, will sit in the press box to make way for Barron.
Guhle is in the final season of his entry-level contract. Over the offseason, he signed a six-year, $33.3MM extension that will pay him an average of $5.55MM per season starting in 2025-26.
Penguins Activate, Reassign Vasiliy Ponomarev
Center Vasiliy Ponomarev has been activated from season-opening injured reserve and assigned by the Penguins to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, per a team announcement. The Penguins had placed Ponomarev on SOIR with an upper-body injury earlier this month after he sustained an apparent left shoulder issue in a preseason game.
Ponomarev, 22, headed from the Hurricanes to the Penguins in last season’s Jake Guentzel trade. He didn’t get an NHL call-up and was limited by injuries in the minors to end the season, scoring once in four games with the Baby Pens. Before the trade, he’d had eight goals and 31 points in 41 AHL games split between Tucson and Chicago, logging a -17 rating. He also had a goal in three preseason appearances last month.
Though he didn’t get into an NHL game with the Penguins, he did appear in a pair of contests with the Hurricanes earlier in 2023-24. The Carolina 2020 second-round pick out of the QMJHL’s Shawinigan Cataractes posted a goal and an assist to average a point per game through his brief NHL career, averaging 9:41 of ice time. He’s also been an influential minor-league point producer since turning pro in 2021. In parts of three AHL seasons, he’s played 120 games, scoring 36 goals and 86 points with a -26 rating.
Ponomarev is in the third and final season of the entry-level contract he signed with Carolina and will be a restricted free agent next summer. He’ll require waivers beginning next season. The Penguins gain $8,281 in cap space by activating him off SOIR, per PuckPedia.
Avalanche Reassign T.J. Tynan
Oct. 31: The Avs papered Tynan back down to the AHL after he posted a -1 rating in 8:36 of ice time in yesterday’s 5-2 loss to the Lightning, per a team announcement. He’ll likely come back up to the roster ahead of Saturday’s game against the Predators.
Oct. 30: The Avalanche announced Wednesday that they’ve recalled center T.J. Tynan from AHL Colorado. It’s the corresponding transaction for Ross Colton, who landed on injured reserve yesterday.
It’ll be the first NHL action since 2021-22 for the 32-year-old Tynan, who will almost certainly enter the lineup tonight against the Lightning with no other healthy forwards available to take Colton’s spot. He’s a former third-round pick of the Blue Jackets who’s had an extremely lengthy professional career but managed only 21 NHL appearances, coming in parts of three separate campaigns with Columbus, Colorado and Los Angeles. He has just one assist and a -2 rating and is still looking for his first NHL goal.
That doesn’t take away too much from Tynan’s illustrious AHL career. The undersized pivot (5’8″, 161 lbs) has long since established himself as arguably the minor league’s top playmaker of the last decade. A two-time All-Star and two-time MVP, Tynan’s 495 assists in 647 games are tied for 12th in league history and are second among active players behind Cal O’Reilly (573 assists in 961 games). He’s led the league in assists outright on four occasions, including the last three seasons while in the Kings organization with AHL Ontario. In 2023-24, he scored just nine goals in 71 games but added 57 assists for 66 points.
Tynan previously played for the Avs organization from 2019 to 2021, playing a career-high 16 NHL games for Colorado in 2019-20. During those two years, he posted 13 goals and 69 assists for 82 points in 69 games with their AHL club. Through six games this season in his return to the Eagles, he has four assists and a -2 rating.