Carter Yakemchuk Signs Entry-Level Deal With Senators
The Senators have signed top 2024 draft choice Carter Yakemchuk to his three-year entry-level contract, the team announced today. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Yakemchuk, 18, was the second defenseman taken in the class, going to Ottawa at No. 7 after the Blackhawks selected Artyom Levshunov second overall. Given his early birthday (Sep. 29), Yakemchuk has already accumulated three seasons of junior hockey with the Western Hockey League’s Calgary Hitmen. Last season, he was named to the WHL’s Central Division First All-Star Team and led all defensemen in goals with 30. He added 41 assists for 71 points in 66 games, adding a whopping 120 PIMs and a -6 rating.
Seventh overall was a tad earlier than most expected the 6’3″, 203-lb right-shot defender to go. He checked in at No. 13 in TSN’s Bob McKenzie’s season-end polling of NHL scouts and was the sixth defenseman in his composite rankings. He went ahead of Zeev Buium (Wild, No. 12), Sam Dickinson (Sharks, No. 11), Zayne Parekh (Flames, No. 9), and Anton Silayev (Devils, No. 10), all of whom were consensus top-10 picks heading into draft day.
Yakemchuk will be a name to watch in training camp, but it’s likely that the Sens return him to the Hitmen for his final season of junior hockey. Doing so would slide the beginning of his ELC to 2025-26. Since he’s a 2005-born player, Yakemchuk will be eligible for a full-time AHL assignment the season after, whereas most Canadian Hockey League players have to return to their junior team for two seasons following their draft-eligible campaign. Regardless, he’ll be an RFA upon expiry.
West Notes: Desharnais, Rossi, Rehkopf
The Canucks may slot in UFA signing Vincent Desharnais on their top defense pairing alongside Quinn Hughes in spot duty next season, opines Thomas Drance of The Athletic.
Doing so would allow Filip Hronek, who spent all of last season stapled to Hughes and is fresh off signing an eight-year, $58MM deal, to drive his own pairing against easier competition. That’s something head coach Rick Tocchet said he’d consider doing, telling Drance that Hronek can “tend to defer too much” at times when playing with Hughes and that he’d “like to see him be more forceful with his decisions.”
It would be a big jump for Desharnais, though. The 28-year-old only established himself as a full-time NHLer last year with the Oilers. He was a bottom-pairing presence for Edmonton, averaging 15:44 per game through 78 contests. He did post 11 points and a +3 rating with average possession metrics, but playing alongside Hughes with any consistency would be a tough task for a player who’s seen most of his professional career unfold in the AHL to date. Desharnais inked a two-year, $4MM contract with Vancouver when free agency opened on July 1.
There’s more out of the Western Conference:
- Austria will be without perhaps its best player in this summer’s qualifying tournament for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Wild forward Marco Rossi is skipping the event to begin training in Minnesota later this month, notes Michael Russo of The Athletic. Rossi, 22, is coming off a career-high 21 goals and 40 points last season while playing in all 82 games and could open the season as the Wild’s first-line center alongside Kirill Kaprizov. The 2020 ninth-overall pick had one assist in three games during the 2022 qualifiers with Austria failing to earn one of the three available spots. This year, they’ll be competing for one of the open spots in a round-robin tournament with Hungary, Kazakhstan and Slovakia.
- Kraken prospect Carson Rehkopf has been traded in the Ontario Hockey League, heading from the Kitchener Rangers to the Brampton Steelheads, sources tell Ryan Kennedy of The Hockey News. Rehkopf, 19, has spent the last three seasons in Kitchener, where the 6’2″ forward led the team in scoring last season with 95 points (52 goals, 43 assists) in 60 games. The 2023 second-round pick will be returned to Brampton out of training camp this fall, but a strong post-draft season puts him in line to compete for a roster spot in Seattle in next year’s training camp.
International Notes: Schneider, Richards, Melnick
An AHL fixture is heading a bit off the beaten path this season. After 13 minor-league seasons and six NHL games, forward Cole Schneider has signed a two-year deal with Norway’s Storhamar, the team announced yesterday.
Schneider, 33, is coming off a tough campaign. The Williamsville, New York native signed on with the independent Chicago Wolves last season and was expected to be one of their top scorers, but he faltered with only 24 points (13 goals, 11 assists) in 56 games. In the two seasons prior, Schneider had served as the captain of the Predators’ affiliate in Milwaukee and put up seasons of 60 and 51 points.
Since making his AHL debut all the way back in 2012, Schneider has totaled 247 goals, 327 assists and 574 points in 776 career games. That puts him inside the top 50 in league history in both goals and appearances. But his NHL call-ups were few and far between, only appearing in a half-dozen contests with the Sabres across the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons, recording one assist and a +2 rating.
Schneider heads to a Storhamar team that went 33-3-9 last season and won the Norwegian Eliteserien championship, putting them in the continent-wide Champions Hockey League for 2024-25. He’s a major reinforcement for Storhamar’s first appearance in the continental cup since 2018-19. He joins former Avalanche, Blackhawks and Canadiens winger Andreas Martinsen as Storhamar’s only players with NHL experience under their belt.
More recent international signings:
- Free agent center Justin Richards is heading overseas for the first time, signing a one-year deal with Germany’s Dusseldorfer EG. The 26-year-old Orlando native spent all of last season in the minors while on a two-way deal with the Sabres and became a Group VI UFA at the end of the year. The son of former Blue Jackets head coach Todd Richards took a step back with AHL Rochester after a career-best campaign with Cleveland the year prior, only contributing 16 points (seven goals, nine assists) in 58 games with a -13 rating. Richards has two assists in three career NHL games with the Blue Jackets and Rangers across the 2020-21 and 2022-23 campaigns.
- After six years of solid play in the AHL, center Josh Melnick signed a one-year deal with Karpat of the Finnish Liiga today, per a team release. Melnick, 29, had spent the last two seasons with the Chicago Wolves and four years before that in the Stars’ system with Texas. He was signed to an NHL contract by Dallas coming out of Miami Ohio in 2019 but never got a call-up. The 5’10”, 181-lb pivot has 129 points in 300 career AHL games.
Capitals Loan Leon Muggli To EV Zug
The Capitals have officially loaned 2024 second-round pick Leon Muggli back to Switzerland’s EV Zug for 2024-25, the team announced today. The National League club said last month that they were in discussions to take the 18-year-old defenseman back on loan for this season after he signed his entry-level contract with Washington.
It will be Muggli’s second season with the big club after spending his entire development process in the Zug system, suiting up for their U-15, U-17 and U-20 teams since 2019. Last year, his first professional season, he became a depth fixture on the Zug blue line with 12 points (3 G, 9 A) and a +13 rating in 42 games.
The smooth-skating two-way defender was Washington’s third choice of the 2024 draft class, following winger Terik Parascak at No. 17 and diminutive defenseman Cole Hutson at No. 43. Muggli came off the board at No. 52, a pick the Caps acquired from the Golden Knights in last season’s Anthony Mantha trade.
With the loan, Muggli’s entry-level contract will slide to next season as expected since he won’t see any NHL action. If he plays fewer than 10 NHL games in 2025-26, the deal could slide again to the 2026-27 campaign, meaning he won’t be an RFA for the first time until 2028-29. That likely scenario will result in his cap hit reducing from its initial $940.8K to $875.8K due to signing bonuses being paid out in the 2024-25 and 2025-26 campaigns (contract details via PuckPedia).
Muggli returns to a Zug squad that won back-to-back NL titles in 2021 and 2022 but has been eliminated in the semifinals in two straight years. Their roster is dotted with a few former NHLers, including Gabriel Carlsson, Gregory Hofmann, and Fredrik Olofsson.
Rockford IceHogs Hire Josh MacNevin As Assistant Coach
The Chicago Blackhawks organization is ready to put a solid developmental staff around their young prospects as their AHL affiliate, the Rockford IceHogs, announced the hire of Josh MacNevin as an assistant coach. It will be MacNevin’s coaching debut in professional hockey as he’s spent the last decade coaching in the Western Hockey League.
As a player, MacNevin had a halfway productive career with the Providence College Friars in the NCAA and was ultimately drafted by the New Jersey Devils in the fourth round of the 1996 NHL Draft. He would never play in the NHL as MacNevin put together most of his professional career overseas in Finland, Italy, and Sweden. He ended his pro career after the 2012-13 season and would wait only one year before joining the WHL’s Lethbridge Hurricanes as an assistant coach.
Primarily serving as a defensive coach with Lethbridge, the only notable NHL defenseman developed by MacNevin was Calen Addison who played for the Hurricanes from 2015-19. Addison’s playmaking ability from the blue line was certainly enhanced under MacNevin’s tutelage as he racked up 174 assists and 215 points in 252 games in Lethbridge. The team never made it farther than the Eastern Conference Final during MacNevin’s tenure and he left the team for the Kelowna Rockets in 2022.
Caden Price served as MacNevin’s primary resource on the blue line in Kelowna and was recently drafted 84th overall by the Seattle Kraken in the 2023 NHL Draft. Additionally, MacNevin briefly coached Colton Dach in his first year with the organization who was drafted by the Blackhawks in 2021 and should suit up for the IceHogs again next year.
Chicago has several notable defensive prospects that could appear in AHL Rockford this year including Artyom Levshunov, Ethan Del Mastro, and Wyatt Kaiser. As the IceHogs’ new primary defensive coach, MacNevin will have a hand in each player’s overall development and will be instrumental in the Blackhawks’ future success on the back end.
Colorado Avalanche Sign Oliver Kylington
Defenseman Oliver Kylington‘s first trip on the free agent market may have lasted longer than he would have liked — but it’s finally over. The Colorado Avalanche announced they have signed the free-agent defenseman to a one-year contract for next season. PuckPedia reports that Colorado will pay Kylington a salary of $1.05MM next year.
It’s difficult to say the Avalanche had a disappointing situation on defense with Cale Makar at the top of the hierarchy but the depth on the blue line was starting to become an issue. The team lost the trade deadline acquisition of Sean Walker to the free agent market while allowing Jack Johnson, Caleb Jones, and Brad Hunt to walk out the door. Arguably, and with very little cap space to work with, the signing of Kylington should put a cap on Colorado putting together better defensive depth than they had last year.
The organization brought Calvin de Haan and Erik Brannstrom to one-year deals earlier in the summer. Kylington should push for a spot next to Brannstrom on the third defensive pairing, which would move de Haan into the seventh defenseman role. Although Kylington is coming off a season in which he only suited up in 33 games for the Calgary Flames, he has shown flashes of being a top-four defenseman earlier in his career.
He was originally drafted 60th overall in the 2015 NHL Draft after a solid year with Färjestad BK J20 of the J20 SuperElit in Sweden. He spent another year in Sweden after being drafted before landing in North America with the Flames organization. It would take a few years for Kylinton to find his footing in professional hockey, after accumulating productive years with the then-Flames AHL affiliate, the Stockton Heat, Kylington became a full-time member of Calgary’s lineup.
His long journey to consistent NHL minutes culminated in his best season to date in the 2021-22 season when Kylington scored nine goals and 31 points in 73 games while averaging 18:10 of ice time per game. The Swedish defensemen benefitted greatly from playing on a staunchly defensive Flames team while finishing third on the blue line in scoring. Unfortunately, due to personal matters in Sweden, Kylington’s last game for quite some time came on May 26th, 2022.
After his matters were resolved Kylington returned to Calgary’s lineup on January 25th, 2024. He also returned to a completely different team. The Flames were in the middle of a major re-tooling when Kylington re-entered the roster as Calgary moved on from Nikita Zadorov, Elias Lindholm, Chris Tanev, and Noah Hanifin during the season with Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau leaving via trade and free agency, respectively.
Kylington finished the 2023-24 season with three goals and eight points in 33 games on a much weaker Flames team. Now, as he joins the second team of his career on a one-year pact with the Avalanche, Kylington immediately joins a Stanley Cup contender for the 2024-25 season. His responsibility will dramatically lessen in Colorado but it may be a perfect opportunity for Kylington to build upon his value in a better system to parlay his one-year deal into a multi-year offer next summer.
Pacific Notes: Chernyshov, Pettersson, Holtz, Barr
Sharks 2024 second-round pick Igor Chernyshov has officially found a place to play this season. As he said was likely the case last week, he’s inked a scholarship and development agreement with the Saginaw Spirit of the Ontario Hockey League, per the club.
The 33rd overall pick in June was originally supposed to remain in his native Russia next season. He had one year left on his contract with Dynamo Moscow of the Kontinental Hockey League, but he bought himself out of the deal last week and subsequently signed his entry-level contract with the Sharks.
Chernyshov, 18, will attend training camp for a brief period in San Jose before being returned to Saginaw, likely for the entire 2024-25 campaign. Doing so will slide the beginning of his entry-level contract to 2025-26.
The 6’3″, 203-lb winger had three goals and one assist for four points in 34 KHL games last season. He was much more productive in the junior ranks, posting 28 points (13 G, 15 A) in 22 games with MHK Dynamo Moscow.
More out of the Pacific Division:
- When Chernyshov’s move to Saginaw was announced this morning, there was a brief thought that Ducks 2024 second-rounder Lucas Pettersson might join him in Michigan. That won’t be the case, however. Sources told Max Miller of The Hockey News and Scott Wheeler of The Athletic that he’ll remain in his native Sweden after being selected by the Spirit in the CHL Import Draft. Pettersson, 18, was selected two picks after Chernyshov in June. He’ll likely get some action in the pros with MoDo Hockey of the Swedish Hockey League, but could still spend a solid chunk of 2024-25 with their junior team. The 5’11” center was one of the Swedish junior circuit’s leading scorers last season, posting 57 points (27 goals, 30 assists) in 44 games for MoDo’s U-20 club.
- The Golden Knights bought low on 2020 seventh-overall pick Alexander Holtz this summer, only parting ways with depth forward Paul Cotter and a 2025 third-rounder to acquire him and Akira Schmid from the Devils. Speaking to reporters, Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon said Holtz was “a player we had tremendous regard for as an amateur. We’re taking a swing at his upside and what a change can do sometimes for young players” (via James Nichols of New Jersey Hockey Now). McCrimmon thinks Holtz has “untapped potential that we feel we can unlock here to some degree with the opportunity,” he added. With Jonathan Marchessault and Chandler Stephenson among the key departures from Vegas’ forward group this summer, Holtz will be relied upon as a top-nine scoring option for the Knights in 2024-25 with the potential to challenge for top-six minutes. The 22-year-old had 28 points in 82 games in New Jersey last year.
- The Ducks have added to their minor-league coaching staff, hiring Dave Barr as an assistant for the AHL’s San Diego Gulls, per a team release. Barr, 63, spent last season as an assistant with the Chicago Wolves during their one year of operating independently of an NHL affiliation. He has 12 years of experience as an assistant at the game’s highest level, spending time on benches for the Avalanche, Wild, Devils, Sabres, Panthers and Sharks from 2008 to 2020. Before joining the Wolves last season, he spent two years as the head coach of the Vienna Capitals in Austria’s ICEHL.
International Notes: Konovalov, Zizka, Kampfer
Oilers goaltending prospect Ilya Konovalov is on the move in his native Russia. His Kontinental Hockey League player rights were traded from Dynamo Moscow to Admiral Vladivostok today, per a team release.
Konovalov, 26, is coming off a pair of spectacular seasons in the Russian capital. The 2019 third-round pick posted a .921 SV%, 2.05 GAA, three shutouts and 21-12-3 record in 42 games last season.
Konovalov spent the 2021-22 campaign in North America after signing his entry-level contract with the Oilers, but struggled amid high expectations. He only got into 17 games with AHL Bakersfield with an .893 SV%, 2.73 GAA and 5-7-5 record. He didn’t see any NHL ice, and was returned on loan to Dynamo for 2022-23.
The Oilers issued Konovalov a qualifying offer when his ELC expired, but he opted to remain with Dynamo in 2023-24. They still hold his NHL signing rights through July 13 of next year, meaning they could bring him back next offseason without competition. He doesn’t yet have a contract for 2024-25 with Vladivostok, but if he ends up signing a one-year deal, that’ll be something to watch.
In 196 career KHL games, the 2019 KHL Rookie of the Year has a 2.11 GAA, .922 SV%, 20 shutouts, and a 96-66-18 record.
Other updates from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean:
- One of the longest-tenured players in the professional ranks worldwide has called it a career. Former Kings defenseman Tomas Zizka, who last played in the NHL before the 2004-05 lockout, officially announced his retirement today, per Hokej.cz. Zizka, 44, was a sixth-round pick of the Kings in 1998 and played 25 games with them in the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons, scoring twice and adding six assists for eight points with a -8 rating. He spent the balance of his career in his native Czechia aside from a brief stint in Russia in 2004-05, playing in parts of 22 Czech Extraliga seasons with Brno, Prague and Zlin. He’d spent the last two seasons in the third-tier 2. liga with Hokej Vyskov, where he was named to this year’s All-Star Game while posting 25 points in 44 games.
- The KHL’s Traktor Chelyabinsk officially announced the signing of free agent defenseman Steven Kampfer today. The club said last month that they’d reached an agreement to bring Kampfer to Russia, but it wasn’t set in stone until now. The 35-year-old is a veteran of 231 NHL games but hasn’t suited up at the game’s highest level since 2020-21. He spent all of last season in the minors, where he captained the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners while under contract with the Coyotes. It’ll be his second KHL season after suiting up for Ak Bars Kazan in 2021-22, when he was one of the league’s best defensemen with 30 points and a +7 rating in 46 games.
Blackhawks Sign First-Rounder Marek Vanacker
The Blackhawks have signed left wing prospect Marek Vanacker to his three-year, entry-level contract, per a team release. It carries the maximum ELC cap hit of $975K.
Vanacker, 18, was the 27th overall pick in June’s draft. Chicago acquired the selection from the Hurricanes on draft day, sending the No. 34 (Dominik Badinka) and No. 50 (Nikita Artamonov) picks the other way. He spent his draft year with the Brantford Bulldogs of the Ontario Hockey League.
Vanacker broke out as a star in Brantford last season, leading the team in scoring by a wide margin with 36 goals, 46 assists and 82 points in 68 games. The teammate of Blackhawks 2023 third-round pick Nick Lardis had just four goals in 55 games for the Bulldogs the year prior.
The strong-skating playmaker is an unlikely candidate for an NHL roster spot in the fall, though. He’ll attend training camp with the Blackhawks but will be returned to Brantford to play out the 2024-25 season. That will slide the beginning of his entry-level contract to the 2025-26 season, making him an RFA upon expiry in 2028. Vanacker is young enough that he’s eligible for an entry-level slide twice, so if he plays fewer than 10 NHL games in 2025-26, the contract may not begin until 2026-27, thus expiring as late as 2029.
Vanacker was the last of three first-round picks that Chicago made this year, joining second-overall selection Artyom Levshunov and No. 18 pick Sacha Boisvert. The former will be turning pro in the fall, while Boisvert remains unsigned ahead of his freshman season at North Dakota.
Jared McIsaac Signs With Czech Team
Free agent defenseman Jared McIsaac has signed with Czech club HC Litvinov after spending the last six years in the Red Wings organization, according to an official release. It’s a one-year deal.
McIsaac, a 24-year-old native of Nova Scotia, was a second-round pick of the Wings back in 2018 but never got the chance to make his NHL debut. The high-end passing threat battled injuries for a good chunk of his time with Detroit and spent most of his four professional seasons to date playing for their AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids.
Last season was especially tumultuous for the offensive defender. He was in and out of the lineup with Grand Rapids to begin the season, and by the time February rolled around, he’d appeared in just 15 games with a goal, three assists, and a -3 rating. That led the Wings to execute a rare mid-season loan, sending him off to Switzerland to suit up with HC Ambri-Piotta of the National League.
McIsaac’s tenure in Switzerland was unremarkable. He appeared in just three regular-season games and one playoff game for the club, averaging bottom-pairing minutes and going without a point. When Ambri-Piotta’s season ended in March, McIsaac returned to North America, but not with Grand Rapids. Detroit loaned him out to the Providence Bruins, Boston’s affiliate, to finish the season. There, McIsaac again struggled with just two assists in 10 combined regular-season and playoff games.
Given that performance, it wasn’t surprising to see the Red Wings non-tender McIsaac when his contract expired this offseason, making him a UFA. It’s not that he hasn’t shown upside at the professional level. He did have two seasons of 20-plus points with Grand Rapids in 2021-22 and 2022-23 and looked like he may still have some sort of NHL future, but things just didn’t work out for the former QMJHL All-Star and Defensive Rookie of the Year.
“Jared is a defender with great potential for power plays as well,” Litvinov manager Tomas Vrabel said. “We believe that he will be comprehensive, that is, durable in all game situations.” McIsaac joins a Litvinov club that includes former NHLers Kevin Czuczman, David Kase, and Ondrej Kase.