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Andrew Mangiapane Switches Agents, Not Expected To Re-Sign With Capitals

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The Capitals don’t have many notable pending free agents. The ones with the most name value among them, Nicklas Bäckström and T.J. Oshie, spent the entire season on injured reserve and, in the latter’s case, have since retired. As such, it’s widely believed Washington will let most of them test the open market without much pushback while using the open cap space to pursue bigger fish in free agency.

That will be the case with one of their higher-priced ones. Winger Andrew Mangiapane will test free agency and isn’t expected to re-sign with the Caps, David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reports Monday. He’s also switched his representation from Raze Sports’ Ritchie Winter to RSG Hockey’s Allain Roy, Pagnotta adds. Winter is only the agent for two other regular NHLers, Oilers goaltender Calvin Pickard and pending Jets UFA Mason Appleton. On the other hand, Roy is responsible for 44 active contracts with another 28 pending free agents he manages – 29 now with Mangiapane.

The 29-year-old winger will hit the open market with his stock arguably at its lowest point since he entered the league. Things in Washington didn’t go anywhere the way he wanted them to after the Caps acquired the Flames fixture from Calgary for a second-round pick last June. While nearly every other Capital had some form of a breakout or resurgence en route to their 111-point regular season, Mangiapane’s 28 points in 81 games were his lowest output since his 44-game rookie season in Calgary in 2018-19.

A sixth-round pick back in 2015, Mangiapane has settled in as more of a consistent 10-to-20-goal producer. He’s only topped the latter mark once, erupting for 35 goals in the 2021-22 season. Even with that outlier skewing the sample, he still averages 20 goals and 40 points per 82 games for his career. That’s naturally where Washington expected his production to fall, but he was passed over for top-six/nine minutes early in the season by names like Connor McMichael, Aliaksei Protas, and even Brandon Duhaime to some extent. He averaged only 13:02 per game with his production suffering as a result, limited to 14 goals and 14 assists despite shooting slightly above his 14.4% career average. Mangiapane’s 1.17 shots on goal per game were the lowest of any qualified season in his career.

A repeat of his usual 40-to-50-point production might have positioned him to recoup most of his previous $5.8MM AAV on the open market this summer. Now, his open-market projection is at $3.8MM per season on a two-year deal, according to AFP Analytics. Even that may be unrealistically high with a bevy of middle-six wingers available this offseason coming off better platform years.

The Caps, despite looking to add, still have some quality young internal replacement options for Mangiapane in a worst-case scenario. Recent first-rounders Ryan Leonard and Ivan Miroshnichenko are both legitimate candidates to be on their opening night roster next fall, even if the latter has less of a case.

Offseason Checklist: Washington Capitals

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The offseason has arrived for all but two teams now with the playoffs nearing an end.  Accordingly, it’s time to examine what they will need to accomplish over the coming weeks with free agency fast approaching.  Next up is a look at Washington.

Last summer was an eventful one for the Capitals.  After a quick playoff exit, GM Chris Patrick made several moves to add to his core group.  They turned out to be some strong trades as Washington went from barely making the playoffs the year before to having the best record in the Eastern Conference before falling to Carolina in the second round.  It’s expected that this offseason will be much quieter for the Caps with their checklist primarily looking at tweaks to their group over another overhaul.

Add High-Skill Player

This was one of the goals that Patrick identified last month in his end-of-season press conference.  On the surface, that might seem a little strange for a team that finished second in the league in scoring but when you dig a little deeper, it does make sense.

Of their top six scorers from this season, five of them set new career highs in points: Dylan Strome (82), Aliaksei Protas (66), Pierre-Luc Dubois (66), Tom Wilson (65), and Connor McMichael (57).  That’s a great spot to be in but it would also be unrealistic to expect that to happen again in 2025-26.  Their team shooting percentage was also tops in the league at 12.6%, well above the league average of 10.7%. That number could very well come down as well after being just 9.9% in 2023-24.

There’s also the matter of Alex Ovechkin being in the final year of his contract.  He had a big season to get the all-time NHL goal record but he’ll turn 40 in training camp; his best days are behind him.  That’s going to be a big opening to try to fill next summer.

So, why not try to fill it now and get the best of both worlds next season?  Washington has a little under $9.4MM in cap space for next season, per PuckPedia, with only a couple of spots to try to fill.  With a bit of roster tinkering (more on that shortly), they could have enough to take aim at one of the better forwards in this year’s free agent class.  Patrick wouldn’t rule out a “big hack” this summer and it’s more plausible than it might have initially seemed.

Clear A Contract

Let’s take a look at that roster tinkering as there are two players that stand out as superfluous when it comes to their roster composition.  Moving out one or both of those would certainly allow Patrick more wiggle room to either take that big hack to add up front or make multiple secondary core additions this summer.

The first is defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk.  More of a depth defender earlier in his career, he has found a home with the Capitals on their third pairing and at $3MM, his price tag isn’t particularly onerous.  However, he’s number three on the right side of the back end and was sixth in ATOI among Capitals defenders this season at 17:40.  It’s a nice luxury to have but is $3MM too much for a sixth defender when you’re already spending nearly $34MM on the back end?  (That number may yet go up with Alexander Alexeyev being a pending restricted free agent.)  Would they be better off spending less on that position and reallocating some money up front?  Plus, Ryan Chesley, one of their better prospects, is now signed and could very well play his way into the mix on the right side of the back end as well.  Since it’s an expiring contract, Washington has a chance to get good value for van Riemdsyk if they were to move him.

The other contract is one that will be trickier to move, winger Sonny Milano.  He was a frequent healthy scratch early on and then suffered an upper-body injury that kept him out for the rest of the season after suffering a setback in his recovery closer to the trade deadline.  His availability to start 2025-26 remains uncertain.  At a $1.9MM price tag, Washington could simply elevate Ethen Frank to a full-time role and use some of the savings on a more prominent player and the rest on a cheaper depth piece.  If he’s out to start the season, he could be an LTIR candidate but that would only be a short-term solution while waiving him when he’s healthy would shave $1.15MM off the books but not the full amount.  This isn’t overly pressing but getting Milano off the books altogether would help them.

Add Third-Line Help

This was the other item that Patrick mentioned at the end of the season about trying to find.  In the final game of their playoff run, that trio consisted of McMichael, Ryan Leonard, and Andrew Mangiapane.  McMichael and Leonard are both signed for next season already while Mangiapane is set to become an unrestricted free agent so it’s clear which spot he’s looking to fill.

There are a few different ways to fill the spot and it depends on what their plan is for McMichael.  A natural center, he spent most of the year on the wing.  What their plan is for him will dictate the position they try to fill, presumably on the open market.  While Nic Dowd is capable of moving up and anchoring that trio with McMichael on the wing, it’s fair to suggest that Washington’s preference would be to keep him on the fourth line where he has had plenty of success in that role.

While the UFA market will have high demand for the top centers, there are enough middlemen available to play a bottom-six role that should keep the costs relatively reasonable.  At that spot, players like Christian Dvorak, Luke Kunin, Sean Kuraly, and Trent Frederic would make sense.  Meanwhile, wingers like Brandon Saad, Brandon Tanev, Eric Robinson, and Joel Armia could all fit.  Anthony Beauvillier, their trade deadline acquisition, could also fit.  The upper end of the price range for this group should be somewhere around $3MM while others might check in closer to $2MM.  Depending on how much they want to spend on the top-six addition, Patrick should have plenty of options to fill this one if he wants to go that route to do so.

Get Younger

In recent years, the Capitals have been one of the older teams in the NHL.  With a veteran core that included Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and T.J. Oshie up front with John Carlson on the back end, that’s not much of a surprise.  They were the second-oldest team in the league in terms of average age in 2023-24 but that dropped to 11th this season.  There’s room for that to go down a little more next season.

Leonard should be around for the full season after turning pro in April.  Hendrix Lapierre, a pending restricted free agent, is waiver-eligible now and given his first-round draft pedigree and a point-per-game showing in 32 games with Hershey this year, it’s safe to say he won’t get through waivers so he’ll either make the team or be traded.  The former is much more likely than the latter.

Meanwhile, Ivan Miroshnichenko has seen NHL action in each of his first two seasons in North America and probably isn’t too far away from being ready for a longer-term look.  Andrew Cristall has lit up the WHL in scoring the last two years and made a real run at a roster spot back in training camp.  And, as noted earlier, Chesley probably isn’t going to need much time in Hershey before he’s pushing for a spot on the back end.

Patrick noted a desire to try to get his team a little younger and he’ll have a chance to do so.  If he keeps a couple of spots available for youngsters or even that opening on the third line (with McMichael moving back to center), it’s quite possible that the Caps could get themselves around the middle of the pack in average age.  Considering where they were just a couple of years ago, that would be an impressive turnaround while still keeping the core of a division-winning group intact.

Photo courtesy of Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports.

Capitals’ T.J. Oshie Announces Retirement From NHL

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Washington Capitals forward T.J. Oshie announced his retirement from the NHL during a fan-event on Monday. Oshie will close his career after 16 seasons and 1,010 games in the league. He spent seven of those seasons with the St. Louis Blues and nine with the Washington Capitals. That includes serving a prominent role with the Capitals on their run to the 2018 Stanley Cup championship.

News of Oshie’s retirement will be bittersweet for the Capitals fandom. The veteran forward has been a pivotal piece of the Capitals’ top-six through much of the last decade, but looked notably worn through the final few years of his career. His battle scars culminated in missing the entirety of the 2024-25 season due to a chronic back injury. The story of the injury was covered extensively – revealed to be the result of playing through a broken foot for 44 games of the 2021-22 campaign. He broke his foot in October of that season, and spent much of the remaining year in a walking boot or on crutches as he tried to push through the pain.

Straining through a broken foot took a toll on Oshie’s core and back. He underwent surgery to address those concerns in the summer of 2023. Originally intended to prolong his career a few more years, Oshie was only able to tack on one more season before he had to exit the lineup again last summer. The battle with injuries forced Oshie out of 92 games between 2021 and 2024.

Oshie still found ways to benefit the Capitals’ lineup through reoccurring injuries. He scored 12 goals and 25 points in 52 games of the 2023-24 season – or an 82-game pace of 39 points. Before that, he managed an impressive 19 goals and 35 points in 58 games of 2022-23, on pace for 27 goals and 49 points across a full year. He continued to fill a sturdy role on the team’s second line and powerplay units through those campaigns. Washington struggled immensely to fill his right-wing role through his routine absences. It was Oshie’s absence that forced the Capitals to lean on  Anthony Mantha from 2022 to 2024, then swap to Anthony Beauvillier at this year’s Trade Deadline. The pair provided mixed results that looked hot and cold compared to Oshie’s steadfast impact in his healthy games.

It’s in that spirit that Oshie’s career will be remembered. He was a set-and-forget lineup piece for throughout his entire career, providing consistent goal-scoring and big-game ability from the second-line for both clubs he played for. Oshie was seen as a special player from the onset of his career. The Blues drafted him directly out of high school, taking him in the first-round of the 2005 NHL Draft. Oshie followed that selection up with three years at the University of North Dakota, where he formed a truly legendary tandem with eventual-rival Jonathan Toews. The two were automatic in their freshman season, helping Oshie reach an impressive 24 goals and 45 points in 44 games of his first year.

The good times kept rolling through Oshie’s sophomore and junior seasons in college. He chased 52 points in 43 games, then 45 points in 42 games, in his final two seasons – while supporting North Dakota to the Frozen Four in all three seasons. The Fightning Sioux never got over the hump, but Oshie’s performances were enough to ramp him directly into the NHL in the 2008-09 season.

He entered the league on bumpy ground – and struggled to find his footing early on after dominating high school and college. That was exacerbated by a pair of ankle injuries early into his career, holding him to just 12 games in the first half of his rookie season. But Oshie shot back to form once he returned to full health, and proceeded to stamp his place in the Blues’ lineup with 35 points in 45 games through the year’s second half. That’s a 64-point scoring pace – a staggering number for a rookie coming off injury.

The statement first year was enough to earn Oshie a top-six role in the 2009-10 season – and a bid of health gave him a chance to show what he could do. He finished the year with 18 goals and 48 points in 76 games, and ranked second on the team in total hits (149) behind prominent bruiser David Backes (266). In year three, his role shifted back to that of a play-driving scorer – and he posted 34 points in 49 games while battling through injuries once again.

With three years under his belt, Oshie’s impact became clear. He was a feisty, hard-working winger at the NHL level who sought out flashy dekes, gritty goals, and big open-ice hits… even when the latter resulted in repeat injuries. It was an, again, unwavering style that beautifully complimented the heft of Backes and the skill of David Perron or Jaden Schwartz. Oshie ranked in the top-three of St. Louis’ scoring in three of his six years with the club, even despite missing 131 combined games due to injury.

But eyeing a lineup more geared towards hits along the boards than flashy plays in the middle, St. Louis opted to trade Oshie to the Capitals for Troy Brouwer, Pheonix Copley, and the draft pick used to select Garrett Pilon in 2015. Brouwer would manage some electric moments in St. Louis, but his performances all fell short of the routine 50-point seasons Oshie provided the Capitals. He managed one of his many career-defining performances in the 2016-17 season – his second with the Capitals. Oshie scored a career-high 33 goals that year en route to 56 points in 68 games. He kept it up in the summer, netting 12 points in 13 games of Washington’s postseason.

The Capitals fell short that year, but Oshie’s energy on the wing seemed to give the club an extra oomph. He returned with 18 goals and 47 points in the 2017-18 regular season, then became one of the team’s top players during the 2018 postseason run. His 21 points in 24 games ranked fourth on the Capitals in playoff scoring behind Evgeny Kuznetsov, Alex Ovechkin, and Nicklas Backstrom. It was the consistent gut-punch offense of that quartet, and the stout goaltending of Braden Holtby, that launched the Capitals to the first Stanley Cup win in franchise history.

Oshie continued to provide his routine impact – scoring on pace for north of 20 goals and 40-to-50 points – through the rest of his NHL career.

He was also a focal piece of Team USA at the 2009 and 2010 World Championships and 2017 World Championship. But his most notable international performance came at the 2014 Olympic Games. Oshie potted four points in six games across the full tournament, but cemented a legacy performance in USA’s final group stage game against the host-country Team Russia. The two clubs went through regulation and overtime unable to break a 2-2 tie game. International rules pushed the game into a standard shootout, with one exception – there was no limit on how many times a single player could shoot.

With that knowledge, USA head coach Dan Bylsma opted to give Oshie’s lightning hands as many opportunities as he could. The winger took five of the USA’s eight shootout attempts, and beat goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky on four of them. His goals were each tremendous. He scored five-hole on the first, managed a fast deke and glove-side goal on the next two, then scored the game-winner with a simple, head-on shot. The performance gave USA a bye in the knockout stages, though they ultimately finished the tourney fourth-overall after tough losses to Canada (Gold-medal winner) and Finland (Bronze-medal winner).

But even without a Gold medal, Oshie’s 2014 Winter Olympics went down in history. The IIHF amended the shootout rule soon after, forcing teams to select different skaters through the first five shots. Oshie’s would lift the Cup four years later, and  play his 1,000th NHL game four years after that. His journey through the hockey world now ends with one Cup win, one Bronze medal at the World Championship, and two Minnesota High School state championships. He, and his father Tim Oshie, are thought of highly by many around the hockey world – and it seems unlikely that Oshie will be away from the NHL for all too long. He’s already broken into the broadcasting business, joining ESPN’s coverage of Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals this year. Whether it’s in broadcasting or coaching, this surely isn’t the last fans will hear of T.J. Oshie.

Photo courtesy of Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports.

Spencer Carbery Wins 2025 Jack Adams Award

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In recent days, the NHL has been revealing some of its end-of-season award winners heading into next week’s NHL Awards show.  Today, the league announced that Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery has won the 2025 Jack Adams Award as “the NHL coach adjudged to have contributed the most to his team’s success,” as selected by the NHL Broadcasters’ Association.

Carbery recently wrapped up his second season behind the bench in Washington and it was a very successful one.  After the Capitals put up 91 points in 2023-24, they were 20 points better this year, good for tops in the Metropolitan Division and the Eastern Conference while finishing second overall to Winnipeg.  They improved significantly offensively with a jump of 68 goals compared to the year before while being one of the top squads in goal differential and penalty killing.  While voting was done before the playoffs, Washington made it to the second round before being ousted by Carolina.

With that improvement, Carbery was the runaway winner for the award, finishing with 81 first-place votes out of 103 and appeared on all but one ballot, good for 464 voting points.  He becomes the fourth Washington coach to win the Jack Adams, joining Bryan Murray (1984), Bruce Boudreau (2008), and Barry Trotz (2016).  Carbery also becomes the first head coach to win Coach of the Year at all of the ECHL, AHL, and NHL levels.

Jets head coach Scott Arniel finished second in the voting, garnering a total of 16 first-place selections while being on 81 ballots overall, earning him 249 voting points.  Canadiens bench boss Martin St. Louis was the other finalist but came a distant third with just two first-place selections and 66 voting points while being picked on 34 ballots.  Jim Montgomery (Blues) and Dean Evason (Blue Jackets) rounded out the top five.

The NHL Awards show will run prior to Game 4 of the Oilers/Panthers series at 5 PM CT on Thursday with the full list of all award winners being revealed at that time.

Snapshots: Larionov, Rotenberg, Vellucci, Bjorklund

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Top Russian club SKA St. Petersburg announced on Monday that they’ve relieved head coach Roman Rotenberg of his duties, and hired Igor Larionov as an immediate replacement. The move concludes Rotenberg’s four-year tenure as SKA’s head coach, which began when he took over for Valeri Bragin partway through the 2021-22 season. It is currently unclear if Rotenberg will continue on in his role as SKA’s Vice Chairman, though it’d be hard to imagine the prolific Russian stepping down after 14 years in the club’s front office.

SKA has seemed to fall short in every single season as of late. They lost in the conference finals each year between 2021 and 2023, then followed it up with earlier exits in the last two years. St. Petersburg also finished seventh in the KHL’s Western Conference this season, despite tremendous performances from star youngsters Ivan Demidov and Alexander Nikishin, midseason acquisition Evgeny Kuznetsov, and top goalie prospect Yegor Zavragin. A seventh-place finish is SKA’s lowest since the 2008-09 season, when they finished eighth.

To curb that poor momentum, SKA will turn to Igor ’The Professor’ Larionov. The legendary Russian player served as SKA’s Director of Hockey Operations in 2008-09, but didn’t kick off his coaching career until he began supporting Russia’s U20 club in 2019-20. He moved to KHL club Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod in 2022-23, and has led the club to quaint finishes and conference quarterfinals exits in each of the last two seasons. Larionov was a true star in the NHL. He won three Stanley Cups across his 14-year career, and served as a gut-punch scorer on the Detroit Red Wings at the turn of the century. His career concluded with 644 points in 921 NHL games, sprinkled across tenures with five different clubs.

Other notes from across the league:

  • The Chicago Blackhawks have rounded out their coaching staff with the hire of Mike Vellucci into an assistant coach role. Vellucci has spent the last five seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and served as an assistant on the gold-medal winning Team USA at this summer’s World Championship. He’s a seasoned-in name in the hockey world, having served as the general manager and head coach of the OHL’s Plymouth Whalers from 2001 to 2014, then pursuing an assistant GM and Director oh Hockey Operations role with the Carolina Hurricanes until 2019. Part of his time with Carolina also saw Vellucci serve two years as head coach of the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers, who he led to a Calder Cup championship in 2019. He also served one year as the GM and head coach of the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. Vellucci should be another strong veteran voice to help guide Chicago’s young roster to a new era.
  • The Washington Capitals have signed AHL depth goaltender Garin Bjorklund to a one-year, two-way contract for next season. He will make a league-minimum $775K at the NHL level and $110K at the AHL level. Bjorklund spent the bulk of this season with the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays, where he posted a .927 save percentage and 21-4-1 record. Those marks stand as the sixth-highest save percentage and wins in the league, despite Bjorklund ranking 35th with 29 total appearances. It was a true breakout year for Bjorklund, capped off by a 2-0-0 record and .942 save percentage in the first two AHL games of his career. A new deal should give the 22-year-old a chance to gain footing in the AHL next season, and potentially eye the starter’s role should he be able to keep up the stonewall performances.

Wild Sign Marcus Johansson To One-Year Contract

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The Minnesota Wild have signed veteran forward Marcus Johansson to a one-year, $800K contract for the 2025-26 season. The deal was first reported by Michael Russo of The Athletic. Johansson was set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, after concluding a two-year, $4MM contract signed with Minnesota in 2023.

Johansson maintained his modest scoring through his last two years in Minnesota. He posted 11 goals, 34 points, and a minus-seven in 72 games this season – all a slight improvement over the 11 goals, 30 points, and minus-15 he posted in 78 games last year. Johansson also contributed two assists in five postseason games this year, marking his third-consecutive postseason appearance with two points – though he’s alternated appearances in and out of the playoffs.

Johansson will continue onto his 16th NHL season with this deal. He’ll also be set up to reach his 1,000th career game in Minnesota – currently sat just 17 games back from the milestone. Reaching that mark will put a pin on what’s been a tremendous career for the versatile Johansson. He was originally drafted 24th-overall in the 2009 NHL Draft, and has carried his slick skating and role-filling talents through tenures with six different clubs.

His career-year stands as the 2016-17 season, when Johansson posted 24 goals and 58 points while appearing in all 82 games of the Capitals’ season. It’s the only season he has played in every game. Johansson moved out of Washington in the following summer, and has stayed on a steady but manageable decline ever since. He’s routinely rivaled 10 goals and 30 points through each of the last eight seasons, fighting through injury and shifting lineup roles. His only return to scoring prowess came back in Washington in 2022-23. After joining the team partway through the prior season, Johansson was able to pot 28 points in 60 games before another mid-season move – but then rounded out his year with 18 points in 20 games with Minnesota, good for 46 combined points on the year.

Johansson isn’t likely to challenge those scoring heights in what could be his final season in the NHL. Instead, he’ll likely return to a middling role on the Wild’s third-line, where he’ll offer a veteran presence and shifty backup in the case of injuries.

Capitals Walk Back Message Regarding Alex Ovechkin’s Retirement

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11:44 a.m.: Silber clarified for DC Backcheck that the team alleges no email was sent at all, not just that Ovechkin’s decision was unconfirmed. “An email was sent from an individual with the corporate sales department that mistakenly alluded to next year being Alex Ovechkin’s final year,” the team later said in a statement.

11:03 a.m.: The Capitals indicated in an email to season ticket holders that the upcoming 2025-26 season will be Alex Ovechkin’s last in the NHL, relays Tony Wolak of The Hockey Writers. The organization relayed to Sammi Silber of The Hockey News that no official decision has been made on his future, but Washington appears to at least be operating under a strong assumption that Ovechkin will announce his plans to retire from the NHL next offseason.

Next year is Ovechkin’s last one under the five-year, $47.5MM extension he signed in 2021. He told reporters during locker clean-out day earlier this month that he fully intended to honor the final year of his contract but was unsure of his future beyond that, saying he hadn’t given any thought to whether or not he’d be open to extension talks with the Caps as soon as he becomes eligible to sign one on July 1.

There’s not much left for the 39-year-old to accomplish in his career. He’ll walk away as the greatest left-winger of all time and one of the most impactful players in the league’s history, breaking Wayne Gretzky’s goal-scoring record in the regular season’s final weeks. He now sits at 897 career tallies entering what should be his 21st and final NHL campaign, all spent with the Capitals.

Metropolitan Notes: Penguins Coaching, Roest, Kuokkanen

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The Pittsburgh Penguins’ coaching search continues to headline news out of the Metropolitan Division, as the squad seeks out their first change at head coach in the last decade. Their final rounds of interviews have led to two candidates emerging above the rest – Washington Capitals assistant coach Mitch Love, and former Ottawa Senators head coach D.J. Smith, per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period.

Love has been behind the Capitals’ bench for the last two seasons, after spending the two years prior serving as the head coach of Calgary’s AHL squad. Love worked in the WHL and Canada’s U17 and U18 squads for the better half of the 2010’s. He supported Team Canada’s Gold Medal wins at the 2016 U17 World Hockey Championship, 2019 Hlinka Gretzky Cup, and 2020 World Junior Championship. He also won the AHL’s ’Coach of the Year’ award in both of his two years in the league – 2021-22 and 2022-23. The past two years in Washington have marked Love’s first in the NHL in any capacity, and a move to head coach would mark a quick reward after he supported Pittsburgh’s rival to a second-round exit this season.

Smith sits as an interesting option opposite of Love. He has spent the last season-and-a-half in an assistant or associate coach role with the Los Angeles Kings, who hired him on the same day that he was fired from the Senators’ head coaching role in 2023. Smith posted a combined 131-154-32 record in just over four years with the Senators. He also has six years of experience as an NHL assistant coach, spread between tenures with the Toronto Maple Leafs and L.A. Kings. He’d be a hotly debated addition, though offers a much hardier pro coaching resume than Love.

Other notes from the Metro Division:

  • The Tampa Bay Lightning have parted ways with assistant general manager and AHL general manager Stacy Roest, per Ashley Wenskoski of CNY Central. Roest was a colleague of freshly-hired New York Islanders general manager Mathieu Darche during their shared time in Tampa Bay, and could be a candidate to join their front office. Roest has been with the Tampa Bay organization since the 2013-14 season, when he joined on as a Director of Player Development and AHL assistant coach. He was promoted to AHL GM in the 2019-20 season. Roest also played in 244 career games in the NHL, split between tenures with the Detroit Red Wings and Minnesota Wild. He ended his career with nine years in Switzerland’s National League, which allowed him to support Team Canada at six separate Spengler Cups.
  • Former Carolina Hurricanes and New Jersey Devils centerman Janne Kuokkanen has extended his tenure overseas. He has signed a four-year contract with the SHL’s Malmo Redhawks. Kuokkanen played one season with Malmo in 2023-24 – scoring 44 points in 43 games – but opted to move to the National League for this season. He’ll reverse that decision one season later, after netting just 25 points in 35 games with Lausanne HC. Kuokkanen was a second-round selection in the 2016 NHL Draft and played in 119 NHL games split between the Hurricanes and Devils. He scored 14 goals and 42 points in those appearances.

Ovechkin Wins Messier Leadership Award

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Capitals winger Alex Ovechkin is the winner of this year’s Mark Messier Leadership Award, the league announced.  First awarded in 2007, the award goes to “the player who exemplifies great leadership qualities to his team, on and off the ice, during the regular season and who plays a leading role in his community growing the game of hockey.”  Ovechkin helped lead Washington to an improbable top spot in the Eastern Conference while breaking the all-time goal-scoring record on the heels of a 44-goal, 73-point campaign.  Ovechkin has captained the Caps for the last 16 years and this is his first time winning the award; there has yet to be a repeat winner league-wide thus far.

Michael Sgarbossa Signs With Swiss League’s HC Lugano

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Forward Michael Sgarbossa has signed a two-year deal with HC Lugano of the Swiss National League, per a club announcement. He was set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1 after completing his two-year, two-way deal with the Capitals.

Sgarbossa, 33 in July, has carved out a lengthy pro career as an AHL mainstay and frequent call-up option despite going undrafted. He got his first NHL look with the Avalanche back in the 2012-13 season and played for four organizations in his first six pro seasons, including the Ducks, Panthers, and Jets – all in fringe NHL roles (or none at all, as was the case during his lone season in Winnipeg). He played 48 NHL contests over that span and recorded two goals and 10 points, including a career-high 38 appearances split between Anaheim and Florida in the 2016-17 campaign.

While Sgarbossa never found stability as a full-time NHL roster piece, he did at least find organizational stability for the latter half of his career. After spending the 2017-18 season with the Jets’ AHL affiliate, he signed with Washington in free agency the following summer and has remained in the Capitals’ system since.

He played almost exclusively for Hershey over the first couple of two-way deals he signed, but amid a near point-per-game season in the AHL, he did get more of an extended NHL look in the 2023-24 season. The veteran center slotted in 25 times for Washington down the stretch as the Caps fought for and won a wild-card spot, scoring a career-high four goals while averaging nearly 11 minutes per game.

Sgarbossa only got three NHL reps here in 2024-25, though, and injuries limited him to 35 games on the farm with Hershey. He was still extremely productive when healthy, though – the playmaking pivot notched a 7-24–31 scoring line.

He’s been a remarkably consistent first-line producer for Hershey since his arrival in the Caps’ system in 2018, scoring 268 points in 297 games for the franchise (0.90 per game). A two-time AHL All-Star and a Calder Cup champion with Hershey in 2023 (he didn’t play in the playoffs when the Bears won in 2024), he pauses his North American minor-league career after recording a 165-302–467 scoring line in 609 AHL games over the last 13 years. Since Sgarbossa made his pro debut in 2012, only eight players have recorded more AHL points than he has.

He’ll now join a Lugano team that was on the brink of relegation to the second-tier Swiss League but won their play-out series to extend their 42-year stay in the top level. They’ve been active in inking productive veteran AHLers this offseason, also signing defenseman Connor Carrick a few weeks back.

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