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.
Mammoth Sign Nick Schmaltz To Eight-Year Extension
The Mammoth announced that they’ve signed forward Nick Schmaltz to an eight-year extension worth $8MM per season, a total value of $64MM. Set to hit unrestricted free agency this summer, he’s now staying in Utah through the 2033-34 campaign. There are no signing bonuses in the deal, per PuckPedia. He’ll be paid entirely in base salary, earning $10MM from 2026-27 through 2028-29, $8MM from 2029-30 through 2030-31, and $6MM from 2031-32 through 2033-34. The deal also comes with a no-movement clause for the first two years. Starting in 2028-29, it downgrades to a full no-trade clause, then again to a 16-team no-trade list in 2030-31 and an eight-team no-trade list in 2032-33.
Amid what could now be a historically thin UFA class this summer, Schmaltz was going to be the leading target if he made it there. One could make the argument that he was just one of two forwards, along with Alex Tuch, available who could comfortably slot into a first-line role, Evgeni Malkin and Alex Ovechkin notwithstanding.
Still, it’s no surprise to see Schmaltz commit for what could be the rest of his career to the team he’s been with for nearly seven seasons and 500 games, dating back to when the Mammoth’s predecessor, the Coyotes, acquired him from the Blackhawks for Dylan Strome in 2019. He already committed long-term to the organization once, quickly moving to sign a seven-year deal after his acquisition that saw him get paid $5.85MM per season. He now re-ups on a contract that only carries an extremely modest increase in cap hit percentage at the start of the deal from 7.2% to 7.7%. While it’s a significant raise in actual cash, it’s not a huge bump in market value.
Schmaltz has never hit 70 points in a single season, but he’ll lock in his third consecutive 60-point campaign with his next point and will end up at 75 points by the end of the regular season if he keeps up his current pace. He’d previously topped the 0.90 points per game mark twice in back-to-back years with Arizona in 2021-22 and 2022-23, although injuries limited him to about 75% of the schedule each time.
The 30-year-old’s resurgence comes after a couple of relatively down seasons. He’s had no trouble staying healthy now, but did see his points per game average drop to 0.77 across Arizona’s last season in 2023-24 and Utah’s first in 2024-25. That also came with -16 and -15 ratings, the worst two figures of his career.
The under-the-hood numbers never dipped too much, though. Quietly, Schmaltz has been one of the better play-driving forwards in the league over the past several seasons. He hasn’t had a net negative Corsi impact at 5-on-5 in a full season as a Coyote/Clubber/Mammoth and has taken things to new heights this season, controlling 55.0% of shot attempts, 55.2% of expected goals, and 55.2% of scoring chances at 5-on-5 this year. A natural center, he’s spent most of his career on the wing but has shifted back to the pivot position this year amid Barrett Hayton‘s struggles and subsequent demotion down the depth chart. He’s now Utah’s top-line pivot between lefty Clayton Keller and a rotation of Lawson Crouse, Dylan Guenther, and JJ Peterka on his right flank.
Schmaltz’s value comes from his reliable output and playmaking skills. He’s not particularly flashy, doesn’t have a “star-level” gear to unlock at this stage, and only lays a hit about once every five games. But he’s been a consistent top-six producer ever since first stepping into Arizona’s lineup seven years ago, and his versatility down the middle and on the wing is attractive to a Utah club that has a bevy of forward prospects still coming up the ranks.
After registering his extension, Utah still has $17.9MM in projected cap space available for next season, but that’s with eight open roster spots (an average of $2.24MM per player). Luckily, they don’t have anyone to sign who will cost significantly more than that.
Image courtesy of Brad Penner-Imagn Images.
Flyers Sign Noah Powell To Entry-Level Contract
The Flyers have signed right-winger Noah Powell to his entry-level contract, the team announced. The deal runs for three years and doesn’t begin until next season, taking him from 2026-27 through 2028-29. However, he’ll be able to suit up with AHL Lehigh Valley down the stretch this season.
Powell, 21, was the Flyers’ fifth-round pick in 2024. The 6’2″ sniper was selected from Dubuque in the United States Hockey League as an overager, leading the league in goals with 43 in 61 contests after going undrafted in 2023.
Since then, his development has taken a couple of twists and turns in a short amount of time. He was an Ohio State commit and joined the Buckeyes’ roster for 2024-25 as a 20-year-old freshman. He didn’t make a great first impression on the college circuit, though. After recording two goals and five points and 17 games, he left the team midseason to return to junior hockey – this time north of the border with Oshawa in the OHL. He was more impactful with the Generals, posting a 9-13–22 scoring line in 28 games to close out the year, but that’s still a moderately underwhelming stat line for a player two seasons removed from his draft-eligible year.
Powell has returned to NCAA play for 2025-26, transferring to Arizona State. The sophomore’s season ended in February, with the Sun Devils failing to qualify for the national tournament or the NCHC playoffs. His seven goals in 34 games finished tied with five other players for fourth on the team, while his 12 points were tied for ninth.
It is jarring to see a forward whose main talent in junior play was goal-scoring opt to turn pro after just two collegiate seasons with a rather limited offensive track record to show for it. Perhaps the Flyers are more interested in developing the 201-lb winger as a bottom-six checking piece and feel his development is better served by making an earlier transition to pro hockey in Lehigh Valley rather than staying in college.
Candiens Recall Jacob Fowler
The Canadiens announced that they’ve recalled goaltender Jacob Fowler from AHL Laval. With no corresponding moves or injuries, arguably the top goalie prospect in the world returns to Montreal’s NHL roster to potentially form a three-goalie rotation down the stretch with Jakub Dobes and Sam Montembeault.
Fowler, 21, was a third-round pick in 2023. Five other goalies were taken before him in that class, including another top-five goalie prospect in Detroit’s Trey Augustine, but he’s the first one from the group to have made his NHL debut.
It remains to be seen whether Fowler’s recall is simply to get him a spot start tonight against the Senators or if it’ll lead to a heftier handful of NHL starts down the stretch. The Habs, who’ve gotten inconsistent play from Dobes and Montembeault all year long, first recalled Fowler in early December. After starting him in back-to-back games to open his NHL career, head coach Martin St. Louis committed quite strictly to a nightly three-goalie rotation.
Fowler made 10 starts before being returned to Laval in mid-January, posting a 4-4-2 record with a .902 SV% and 2.62 GAA with one shutout. He ended on a bit of a sour note, allowing four goals on 26 shots against the Sabres, and he only had a .900 mark once in his last five starts. Nonetheless, his 1.8 goals saved above expected over the sample still exceed what Dobes and Montembeault have produced over the entire season, per MoneyPuck, and his raw numbers are preferable as well.
Coming out of the Olympic break, Montreal has moved to essentially anoint Dobes as the starter and Montembeault as the backup, deviating from a rotation. Montembeault has only started two of six since the Olympic break, one coming in the first half of a back-to-back, and has recorded extra-time losses in both with sub-.850 save percentages. Dobes, on the other hand, has won three of four and has been exceptional in those wins, although the loss – allowing six goals on 27 shots (.778 SV%) against the Sharks last week – was a real stinker.
Meanwhile, Fowler has only consistently improved in the minors in his first pro season. The 6’2″ netminder has started seven out of Laval’s last 10 and has a .923 SV% in that span, moving his numbers on the year up to a .916, 2.23 GAA, three shutouts, and a 19-7-2 record in 27 appearances.
Fowler’s immediate transition to being a top-level AHL starter comes after two dominant seasons at Boston College. He compiled a .932 SV% and 1.90 GAA in 74 games as the Eagles’ starter, being named a Hockey East First Team All-Star on both occasions and winning the Mike Richter Award for the NCAA’s top collegiate goalie as a sophomore.
Rangers Reassign Brett Berard
9:30 PM: Berard’s time with the big club was brief, as he is headed back to AHL Hartford, according to a team announcement. New York shut out Calgary tonight, with the 23-year-old a healthy scratch. The club now has no extra forwards, so another domino is expected to fall before Thursday’s game at Winnipeg. J.T. Miller could be due to return from injured reserve.
12:40 PM: The Rangers swapped out Brendan Brisson for Brett Berard on their active roster, the team announced. Brisson heads back to AHL Hartford after being recalled twice in the last month, while Berard, a fellow left-winger, returns to the roster after being sent down from his last recall in late February.
Brisson, 24, had appeared in 24 games with the Golden Knights over the past two seasons before New York acquired him for Reilly Smith at last year’s deadline. He’s made just three NHL appearances since the deal, all coming in the last two weeks. He’s managed an assist, a -1 rating, and three shot attempts while averaging 10:35 of ice time per game.
The 29th overall pick in the first round by Vegas back in 2020, Brisson was a flat-out star at the University of Michigan and showed real potential in his first couple of AHL seasons, including eight points in a 15-game call-up to the Knights in 2023-24. His game has gone completely off the rails ever since. In 110 AHL games since the beginning of last year, he’s put up a more pedestrian 22-30–52 scoring line with a disastrous -48 rating.
Despite his team-worst -15 mark this year, Brisson is still Hartford’s fourth-leading scorer. He’s an extremely cerebral winger but no longer appears to have the speed or physical drive to make a long-term NHL impact. The Blueshirts could continue to give him chances until they lose team control over him in 2029, but he’s looking more like a higher-end minor-league piece than a depth NHL scorer.
Berard, 23, never had lofty expectations like Brisson, but has taken a similar step back in his development as of late. A fifth-rounder in 2020, he had 25 goals for Hartford as a first-year pro in 2023-24 and worked his way into fringe top-nine minutes for the Rangers the following year, notching six goals and 10 points through his first 35 NHL games.
He’s gone pointless in 13 big-league contests across a few call-ups this year, though, and his AHL production has been lacking as well. The 5’9″ lefty has only six goals and 22 points in 39 games for Hartford with a -14 mark.
Lightning Recall Steven Santini
The Lightning announced today that they’ve recalled right-shot defender Steven Santini from AHL Syracuse. He will step into the lineup tonight against the Blue Jackets after Erik Černák left Sunday’s wild 8-7 loss to the Sabres, falling awkwardly on his leg in a fight at the beginning of the second period, per Eduardo A. Encina of the Tampa Bay Times. Head coach Jon Cooper called Černák day-to-day, per Erik Erlendsson of Lightning Insider, so he isn’t in for an extended absence.
Santini, 31, has been a frequent flyer between Tampa and Syracuse this season. Today marks his fifth recall of the year, but his first since December. A veteran of nine NHL seasons, he joined the Bolts on a two-way deal in free agency in 2024 and signed a two-year extension last June, so he’s still signed through next season. A veteran all-around defender at the AHL level, his nine NHL games this season are already the most he’s played since suiting up a career-high 39 times for the Devils in 2018-19.
The 6’3″ rearguard has been adequate in a short-term support role. He’s only averaging 11:34 of ice time per game, posting an assist and a +1 rating. A physical shutdown defender during his time as a semi-frequent NHL option in New Jersey, he’s not displaying that same penchant for hitting later in his career. His possession numbers at 5-on-5 are also underwater with a 48.1% Corsi share, but he’s riding a 103.6 PDO and has gotten favorable offensive zone usage en route.
Down in Syracuse, he’s the club’s captain and has six assists and a +10 rating in 32 games. Still a high-end defensive threat in the minors, his offense is definitely trailing off. He’s had double-digit points in four straight minor-league seasons, but that streak could come to a close this year.
He was deployed in the lineup earlier this season because there were multiple occassions were the Bolts were missing three or more defenders at a time. They find themselves in a similar pinch now with Černák exiting, Emil Martinsen Lilleberg dealing with a facial fracture, and Darren Raddysh unavailable on bereavement leave following his father’s passing.
Leafs Recall Bo Groulx
The Maple Leafs announced Tuesday that they’ve recalled center Benoit-Olivier Groulx from AHL Toronto. He’ll give the Leafs a 13th forward for the stretch run after they iced a bare-minimum roster on offense for the last few days following the departures of Scott Laughton and Bobby McMann on deadline day.
It’s the second NHL stint of the season for Groulx, but the first that could result in any playing time. He was summoned for one day last month to practice with the Leafs as they still had players over at the Winter Olympics. It’s his first “real” recall since signing a two-year deal with Toronto in free agency last summer and will likely lead to his first NHL appearance since April 2024 with the Ducks.
Groulx, 26, has played 54 games in the AHL this season and has been the Marlies’ top producer with 27 goals and 50 points. With a +13 rating in tow, it’s easily the best pro season of his career on both sides of the puck. A second-round pick by Anaheim back in 2018, he stands at 6’2″ and 205 lbs and has always carried some intrigue with his bang-and-crash two-way play.
Groulx did get some runway in Anaheim’s NHL lineup, skating in 65 games in parts of three seasons from 2021-24. He averaged 12 minutes of ice time per game but was never able to make any sort of offensive impact, limited to one goal and four assists. After making a career-high 45 appearances in 2023-24, he was non-tendered and signed a two-way deal with the Rangers in the offseason. He cleared waivers and spent all of last season in the minors before landing with Toronto.
Blues Recall Theo Lindstein, Otto Stenberg
The Blues’ sell-off at the deadline wasn’t as wide-spanning as it could have been, but they still moved out a pair of key veterans in Justin Faulk and Brayden Schenn. Those roster spots will be going directly toward some of the organization’s brightest prospects, as they announced today that they’ve recalled defenseman Theo Lindstein and center Otto Stenberg from AHL Springfield.
St. Louis held three first-round picks in the 2023 draft, holding their own at 10th overall. That turned into center Dalibor Dvorsky, who’s been a top-nine contributor for most of this year. The others, 25th and 29th, were acquired in a deadline sell-off that year for Ryan O’Reilly and Vladimir Tarasenko in separate deals. Those turned into Stenberg and Lindstein, respectively, with today’s moves bringing all three into the NHL for the first time.
The Blues now have eight defenders on their active roster, but they’ll presumably rotate in Lindstein multiple times down the stretch. It will be his NHL debut when he gets into the lineup. He was the #5-ranked prospect in St. Louis’ system entering the year by Elite Prospects, but hasn’t really answered the bell so far in his first season in North America.
Lindstein operated in a consistent yet limited role for Brynäs IF in the Swedish Hockey League last year, helping the club to a league-best record in their first year after gaining promotion back up from the country’s second division. St. Louis was hoping that momentum could translate into Lindstein playing a bigger role in the AHL, but that simply hasn’t been the case. In 56 games, the two-way lefty has been limited to a 6-8–14 scoring line with a team-worst -24 rating.
Granted, Springfield hasn’t been a great environment this season. They’ve received subpar goaltending, never recovering from the loss of Colten Ellis on waivers to the Sabres at the beginning of the season, and are seventh in their division with a 22-27-7 record and a -45 goal differential. That said, it’s undeniably been a difficult adjustment so far after Lindstein “increased his defensive efficacy, too, shining as a calming presence on the backend” over the past couple of seasons in Sweden, Elite Prospects’ Lassi Alanen wrote.
It’s been the opposite story for Stenberg, who started the year down at #8 in the Blues’ pool rankings but may have surpassed Lindstein in prestige at this point. The all-three-positions forward already got a lengthy look on the NHL roster earlier this year, skating 18 games for the club in December and January, and didn’t look out of place in the slightest with a goal and seven assists while averaging 14 minutes per game. He slotted in mostly on the wing in a defense-oriented role, making that production all the more impressive, while recording a +4 rating and 1.83 hits per game.
Down in Springfield, Stenberg has also been the club’s best two-way forward. His four goals and 15 points in 33 games don’t jump off the page, but a team-high +4 rating does. In fact, he’s the only Springfield regular whose rating is in the black.
He will be an NHL player if he’s not already. The question becomes how much upward mobility in the lineup he’ll offer based on how much he develops offensively. He averaged under a shot on goal per game in his earlier recall. He’ll need to start generating more if he wants to slot in as the true middle-six playdriver he was drafted to be.