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Rangers Sign Conor Sheary To One-Year Contract

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Oct. 6th: As expected, the Rangers announced that they’ve signed Sheary to a one-year, league minimum contract for the 2025-26 campaign. He scored one goal and three points in four preseason contests, averaging 16:05 of ice time per game.

Jul. 25th: In an effort to extend his NHL career, veteran winger Conor Sheary has agreed to a professional tryout (PTO) with the New York Rangers, per the NY Post’s Mollie Walker.

Sheary has played in 593 games throughout his 10-year career, posting 124 goals and 267 points. He has also shown an ability to elevate his game in big moments during the playoffs, as evidenced by his contributions to the Pittsburgh Penguins’ back-to-back Stanley Cup wins early in his career, when he often played a key role alongside Sidney Crosby. Notably, some of his best professional seasons came in Pittsburgh under head coach Mike Sullivan. After signing a five-year deal in May to lead the Rangers, Sullivan is bringing in a familiar face as he looks to implement a new game plan in New York.

However, Sheary has struggled in recent years. After producing just 15 points in 57 games with the Tampa Bay Lightning during the 2023-24 season—his lowest output since his rookie year—he dressed in only five games last season with the team. He spent the majority of his year with Tampa’s AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch, where he produced 20 goals and 61 points in 59 games.

Sheary, 33, will now look to rejuvenate his career with the Rangers, a team in the midst of transition. Beyond the obvious changes that come with a new head coach, the team has also seen longtime staples Chris Kreider and K’Andre Miller depart, while adding forward Taylor Raddysh and prospect Carey Terrance. While PTOs are anything but guaranteed, Sheary’s history of producing quality offense, combined with his relationship with Sullivan, should give him a strong chance to make the opening night roster.

Blackhawks Recall Ryan Greene, Place Two On IR

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The Chicago Blackhawks appear to have their opening night roster in place ahead of tonight’s action against the Florida Panthers. Earlier today, the Blackhawks announced that they’ve recalled Ryan Greene from their AHL affiliate, the Rockford IceHogs. In a separate transaction, the team has placed forwards Landon Slaggert and Joey Anderson on the injured reserve.

Greene, 21, is coming off an impressive three-year run with the NCAA’s Boston University Terriers. Drafted by the Blackhawks with the 57th overall selection of the 2022 NHL Draft, he’s become one of the several up-and-coming forward prospects that the organization boasts.

During his time with the Terriers, Greene scored 34 goals and recorded 105 points in 118 games, achieving a +24 rating. He earned the program’s captaincy in his final season. After losing the National Championship to the Western Michigan University Broncos last season, Greene signed his entry-level deal with the Blackhawks and made his NHL debut one day later.

Unfortunately, Greene’s inclusion on Chicago’s opening night roster comes with less positive news. Slaggert, 23, who’s another forward prospect coming from the NCAA ranks, will begin the year on the injured reserve due to a lower-body injury.

In late September, there was an expectation that Slaggert might start the year on time with the Blackhawks. However, as he became more involved in the team’s practices and scrimmages, he may have re-aggravated something. He scored 10 goals and 25 points in 39 games for the IceHogs last year, with another two goals and six points in 33 appearances with Chicago.

Meanwhile, Anderson will join Slaggert on the Blackhawks’ IR. Although Anderson lacks significant prospect value and mainly serves as a depth player, he has spent the last four years with Chicago after being acquired from the Toronto Maple Leafs during the 2022-23 season.

Signed to a modest $800K salary for this season before being eligible for unrestricted free agency next summer, Anderson wasn’t a lock to make the Blackhawks’ opening night roster regardless of his lower-body injury. This is likely why Chicago has designated him as an injured non-roster player to start the campaign. He spent much of last season with Rockford, tallying 17 goals and 27 points in 33 games.

Tampa Bay Lightning Claim Curtis Douglas

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The Tampa Bay Lightning have claimed a towering forward off the waiver wire. According to an announcement from his now-former team, the Utah Mammoth, Curtis Douglas is headed to Florida.

It’s readily apparent that the Lightning had one thing in mind by claiming Douglas. The former 106th overall pick of the 2018 NHL Draft stands at 6’9″, 243lbs, being one of the biggest forwards in the AHL.

Despite being drafted by the Dallas Stars, Douglas’ professional career began with the Ottawa Senators’ AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators, on an amateur tryout agreement to end the 2020-21 campaign. After scoring one goal and four points in 11 games, he signed a two-year, $1.675MM entry-level deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs the following offseason.

Since then, the only other time he’s been mentioned in the news before today is when the Maple Leafs traded him to the now-defunct Arizona Coyotes toward the beginning of the 2022-23 season for defenseman Conor Timmins.

Including his brief stint with the baby Senators, Douglas has played in parts of five AHL seasons with the Toronto Marlies and Tucson Roadrunners, scoring 37 goals and 97 points in 261 games. In an oddly impressive statistic, Douglas has accrued 508 PIMs over that stretch, averaging out to two minor penalties a game, or one major penalty every three games.

Buffalo Sabres Claim Colten Ellis

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The Buffalo Sabres have added one of the top netminders from the AHL last season off the waiver wire. According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the Sabres have claimed netminder Colten Ellis from the St. Louis Blues.

All of a sudden, the Sabres have accumulated a relatively solid crop of goaltending depth. The team is expected to be without regular starter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen through the first couple of weeks of the regular season. Still, they’ll have three NHL-caliber netminders, all acquired this offseason, to hold down the fort. And that’s without factoring in Devon Levi.

Unfortunately, unlike Alex Lyon and Alexandar Georgiev, along with Levi, Ellis has no NHL experience to rely on. Should he appear for the Sabres over the next few weeks, it would become his NHL debut after spending the last four years within the Blues organization.

Ellis came to the Blues as the 93rd overall selection of the 2019 NHL Draft, coming from the QMJHL’s Rimouski Océanic. After one more year with the Océanic and another with the Charlottetown Islanders, he made his professional debut in the 2021-22 campaign.

His AHL tenure didn’t get off to a positive start, leading him to spend much of his first two years in the ECHL. Still, he came into his own last year, managing a 22-14-5 record in 42 games with a .922 SV% and 2.63 GAA, including three shutouts.

It’s difficult to argue that Ellis is better than Lyon or Georgiev at this stage. Though the latter’s shaky performance last season could open up an opportunity for Ellis should he falter out of the gates. Still, by adding Ellis today, Buffalo now has seven netminders signed to NHL contracts for the 2025-26 campaign, meaning their goaltending carousel could be far from over for this season.

Maple Leafs Claim Cayden Primeau, Sammy Blais Off Waivers

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The Toronto Maple Leafs have added a pair of depth options off the waiver wire. According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the Maple Leafs have claimed netminder Cayden Primeau from the Carolina Hurricanes and forward Sammy Blais from the Montreal Canadiens.

Primeau’s tenure with the Hurricanes will end after having never appeared in a regular-season contest. Carolina acquired Primeau from the Canadiens this summer for a 2026 seventh-round pick. Despite signing him to a one-year, $775K contract a few days later, he’ll now play out that contract with Toronto.

After a promising 2023-24 campaign in which Primeau managed an 8-9-4 record in 24 games with a .910 SV%, he took a nosedive last year. Despite holding a 2-3-1 record in 11 games, he produced a disastrous .836 SV% and lost his job as the Canadiens’ backup to Jakub Dobes. Fortunately, Primeau revived some of his value with the AHL’s Laval Rocket, earning a 21-2-3 record in 26 games with a .927 SV%.

The Maple Leafs’ desire to add Primeau is fairly straightforward. The team will use Anthony Stolarz as the primary starter to begin the year, but has a question mark behind him with Joseph Woll taking an indefinite leave of absence. Dennis Hildeby has likely earned the role given his impressive preseason performance, and Primeau may start the year as their third-string option behind him, unless the team converts James Reimer’s PTO to a contract.

Meanwhile, Blais rejoins head coach Craig Berube in Toronto after winning a Stanley Cup ring with him in the 2019 playoffs. He’s a high-intensity forward and is coming off an impressive year with the AHL’s Abbotsford Canucks, scoring 14 goals and 40 points in 51 games, with another six goals and 19 points in 23 games in the Calder Cup playoffs en route to another championship run.

Islanders Reassign Isaiah George, Matthew Schaefer Will Make Team

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The Islanders have reassigned defenseman Isaiah George to AHL Bridgeport, Stefen Rosner of NHL.com reports. As a result, their active roster now stands at 23 players and is cap-compliant for opening night.

Since the club didn’t place anyone on waivers yesterday, their options to get down to the 23-player limit for their active roster by this evening’s deadline were limited. Only three waiver-exempt players remained on their roster: George and a pair of rookies in winger Maxim Shabanov and defenseman Matthew Schaefer, the first overall pick in this year’s draft. Shabanov, an international free agent signing out of Russia’s Traktor Chelyabinsk in July, has been a virtual opening-night lock since the beginning of camp, meaning today’s decision essentially came down to George and Schaefer.

Schaefer was the widely expected winner on the heels of a spectacular preseason showing for the mobile lefty, who’s only one month removed from his 18th birthday. He made four exhibition appearances and averaged north of 22 minutes per game, recording two assists, eight shots on goal, and four hits. While the Isles were outscored 3-1 with Schaefer on the ice at 5-on-5, his possession metrics were strong – controlling 59.1% of shot attempts, 60.5% of expected goals, and 56.3% of high-danger chances, according to Natural Stat Trick.

George, a 2022 fourth-rounder, unexpectedly made his way into 33 NHL games for the Isles last season, his first taste of NHL action in his first professional campaign. The 21-year-old lefty only averaged 15:39 per game and had five points with a -3 rating, but the club liked what he brought to the table and was expected to give him a long look for an opening-night job this year.

He didn’t show out nearly as well as Schaefer did in training camp, though. His possession impacts were middle-of-the-pack; he only got into two games and was held off the scoresheet.

It’s rare that a No. 1 pick doesn’t break camp with his club, but when it does happen, it’s almost always a defenseman. It last happened with the Sabres’ Owen Power, who opted for another year of college in the 2021-22 campaign before turning pro. Schaefer was ineligible to go the NCAA route after signing his entry-level contract, but there was an argument to be made that he could have used additional conditioning in a more familiar junior environment. His preseason action was his first gameplay in nine months after sustaining a season-ending collarbone injury in December that limited him to 22 points in just 17 appearances with the OHL’s Erie Otters. After proving he’s back up to speed, though, the spot was his to lose.

Schaefer is expected to make his NHL debut in the Isles’ first game of the year against the Penguins on Oct. 9, likely in third-pairing duties with veteran Scott Mayfield. Those two have been partners for the vast majority of camp.

Golden Knights Sign Jeremy Davies To Two-Year Deal

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The Vegas Golden Knights have signed defenseman Jeremy Davies to a two-year, $2.3MM contract per PuckPedia. The deal is a rare two-way contract that pays north of $1MM at the NHL level. To be exact, Davies will receive $1.15MM in salary at the NHL level and $425K at the AHL level.

PuckPedia explained that Davies’ contract will put Vegas within $24K of the maximum cap relief they could receive by putting Alex Pietrangelo on season-opening injured reserve. Pietrangelo will miss the bulk of the regular season, but hasn’t yet ruled out a late-season return. With recent changes to LTIR usage, Vegas would need to be cap compliant to ice Pietrangelo in a regular or post season game.

With near maximum LTIR relief in place, the Golden Knights are expected to waive Davies when the season kicks off. He would head back to the minors for a fourth-straight season should he clear. Davies has proved productive at an AHL level in terms of scoring and penalties. He led the Belleville Senators’ blue-line in scoring with 11 goals and 48 points in 72 games last season. He also recorded 44 penalty minutes. It was a relatively tame year compared to the 23 points and 90 penalty minutes he recorded in 66 games with the Rochester Americans in 2022-23. He split the two seasons with 35 points and 79 penalty minutes in 66 games with Rochester in 2023-24.

Davies will be a bruising depth piece for the Golden Knights. A seventh-round draft pick in 2016, he has found his way to three points and 12 penalty minutes in 23 NHL games across his career. His last came with the Buffalo Sabres in 2022-23.

Notably, Vegas will leave winger Alexander Holtz unsigned with this move. Holtz scored 13 points in 16 AHL games, and 12 points in 53 NHL games, in the Golden Knights organization last season. Going a full summer without an NHL deal – capped off by Vegas awarding Davies with the contract many expected to be reserved for Holtz – will likely resign the Swedish scorer to a minor-league contract for this season.

Evening Notes: Markstrom, Willander, Mancini, NHL Top 10

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The New Jersey Devils could be the next team to extend their starting goaltender. On the heels of a five-year, $34MM contract extension for Minnesota Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson, the Devils are now working out a new deal for Jacob Markstrom, per The Fourth Period. Markstrom is entering the final year of a six-year, $36MM contract originally signed with the Calgary Flames in 2020.

Markstrom earned a second-place finish in Vezina Trophy voting on the second year of his last contract, after posting 37 wins and a .922 save percentage in 63 games of the Flames’ 2021-22 season. He fell drastically in 2022, landing at a .895 save percentage in 59 games with Calgary, and only rebounded to a .905 in 48 games of 2023-24. That prompted a summer trade to greener pastures, landing Markstrom with a playoff contender in the New Jersey Devils. He posted a middling .900 save percentage in 49 games of his first season with the Devils. That’s far from the .910 mark that Markstrom routinely challenged at his peak, but on a well-rounded Devils squad, average numbers from the aging veteran have proven supportive enough. He is sure to take a big hit on both term and salary in his next contract, which could take him through the rest of his career.

Other notes from across the league:

  • The Vancouver Canucks made a pair of important decisions earlier today. They have assigned top defense prospects Tom Willander and Victor Mancini to the minor-leagues, after both clung to the camp roster to nearly the final day. Mancini played his first full season in the pros last year. It was certainly eventful, spread between NHL and AHL ice time with the New York Rangers and Canucks, and ending with a Calder Cup win with the Abbotsford Canucks. In total, he recorded eight points in 31 NHL games and 21 points in 54 AHL games on the season. Meanwhile, Tom Willander was a core piece of the National Championship runner-up, the Boston University Terriers. He posted 24 points in 39 games with the club – one point fewer, in one game more, than he managed in his freshman season. Willander is nonetheless a pillar of consistency on both ends of the ice, and will look to prove that soon with his pro debut in Abbotsford.
  • The NHL has announced their top-10 players, wrapping up their Top 50 Players series just two days before Opening Night. The list is, of course, headlined by Edmonton Oilers superstar Connor McDavid. His teammate, Leon Draisaitl, holds the third spot, while Colorado Avalanche superstars Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar hold #2 and #4 respectively. The rest of the list includes, in turn: Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov, Panthers center Aleksander Barkov, Penguins center Sidney Crosby, Jets goalie and reigning MVP Connor Hellebuyck, Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Canucks defender Quinn Hughes. It’s hard to argue any other names should be featured on the list, though Panthers fans may feel salt in the wound seeing their captain, and perennial Selke Trophy candidate, landing in the top-10 on the heels of a season-ending injury.

Sharks Expected To Place Egor Afanasyev On IR

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The San Jose Sharks are set to place winger Egor Afanasyev on injured reserve, per Bay Area News Group’s Curtis Pashelka. Pashelka clarified that Afanasyev’s injury is expected to be short-term. The report was seconded by Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now.

Despite reports of an IR move, the exact nature of Afanasyev’s injury hasn’t been clarified. He sat out of the Sharks’ Saturday loss to the Utah Mammoth, but had a standout performance in the team’s Friday win over the Vegas Golden Knights. Afanasyev scored his first goal, and point, of the preseason in that Friday matchup – his third preseason appearance. He hasn’t skated since. A move to IR would force him out of the lineup for the first two weeks of the NHL season. San Jose could face a decision on the other side of that, with Afanasyev one of many bubble players on the team’s training camp roster.

The 24-year-old winger was set to return to the KHL’s CSKA Moscow for a second year this season, but decided to return to North America when an opportunity to sign with the San Jose Sharks opened up. He played a full season in the KHL last year, marked by nine goals and 25 points in 59 games. That was a surprising dip in scoring after Afanasyev posted an impressive 63 points, split as 32 goals and 31 assists, in 71 games of the 2023-24 AHL season. He hasn’t yet found a way to stick in the NHL despite that hot stick. He scored just one point – a goal – in 19 career appearances with the Nashville Predators, and will get his first chance to play NHL minutes outside of the organization should he stick in the Sharks lineup.

Kings Place Kyle Burroughs On IR

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The Los Angeles Kings have placed defenseman Kyle Burroughs on injured reserve with an upper-body injury. He sustained the injury after blocking a shot in Los Angeles’ October 1st preseason win over the Utah Mammoth. Despite being forced to miss the first two weeks of the season to an IR placement, Burroughs has already returned to skating per Kings’ content manager Zach Dooley. That’s positive news as the 30-year-old, Vancouver-native looks to push into his sixth NHL season.

Burroughs began his pro career in the New York Islanders system. He was originally drafted in the seventh-round of the 2013 NHL Draft, but didn’t turn pro full-time until the 2015-16 season. After a brief start in the minors, Burroughs climbed to an everyday role with the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. He held onto the team’s enforcer role through the next five seasons, ultimately recording 82 points and 419 penalty minutes in 313 games with the club. Despite that, Burroughs didn’t make his NHL debut until he was traded to the Colorado Avalanche in 2020. He debuted with the team – playing five games – in the same season, then played through his full rookie season with the Vancouver Canucks in 2021.

Burroughs has clung to a seventh-defender role in the three seasons since his rookie year. He played roughly half of Vancouver’s 2021 and 2022 seasons, as well as 33 games of L.A.’s 2024-25 season. The only full year of Burroughs career came with the San Jose Sharks in 2023-24, when he posted eight points and 71 penalty minutes in 73 games. He’s a depth-chart bruiser, who could find a better rut with the Kings this year after the team lost Andreas Englund to the Nashville Predators in February. Englund had 11 points and 93 penalty minutes in 93 games with the Kings between 2023 and 2025.

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