After a day that did not feature a single NHL game, the world’s top league is back with a whopping 14 games today, meaning all but four of the league’s clubs will be playing tonight.
Highlights from today’s schedule include a playoff rematch between two Atlantic Division contenders when the Florida Panthers take on the Boston Bruins, and two intriguing matches out west between possible Stanley Cup contenders with the Dallas Stars taking on the Vegas Golden Knights and the Colorado Avalanche taking on the Vancouver Canucks.
Outside the NHL, the Champions Hockey League Round of 16 continues with two games: German champions EHC Red Bull Munich against HC Genève-Servette, and Austria’s HC Innsbruck against Lukko Rauma. In the AHL, two of the league’s top teams will play tonight as Ivan Miroshnichenko’s Hershey Bears take on Ty Smith’s Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins. The continued grind of the 2023-24 season has naturally caused quite a bit of player movement outside the NHL, so as always, we’ll keep track of notable transactions here.
- Swedish netminder Niklas Rubin has signed a one-year contract extension with his current club, Liiga’s Ässät Pori. Rubin, 27, has had a strong career so far in both Sweden and Finland, and is arguably now in the most prominent role of his career. Starting in 2016, Rubin emerged as one of the top netminders in the HockeyAllsvenskan, posting a brilliant .929 save percentage across 81 career games. He then moved to be the backup for Frölunda HC in the SHL, and won a Champions Hockey League title in 2019-2020. In 2022-23, Rubin got his first shot as a starter in a European top flight, playing in 47 games for Pori. He did very well there, posting a .922 save percentage en route to the playoffs. So far this season, Rubin has a .918 save percentage as Pori have gotten off to a decent start, and given his early form this year it’s easy to see why Ässät club management have made the decision to extend Rubin.
- 20-year-old SHL forward Dennis Värmhed has signed a two-year contract extension with Timrå IK. Timrå is not actually the club he’ll play for in the immediate term, though, as the SHL side has loaned him to HockeyAllsvenskan’s Tingsryds AIF. Värmhed served as Timrå’s captain and top player for their J20 team last season, and that year earned him 14 games in the SHL in 2022-23. So far this season, Värmhed has played in 17 SHL games for Timrå, but has not found much success. So the club is loaning him to the second-tier HockeyAllsvenskan in the hopes that playing in a professional league with a lower talent level will be best for his development.
- Genève-Servette HC has signed 21-year-old forward Christophe Cavalleri to a one-year contract extension. The six-foot-four center played in a total of 18 games for Geneva last season, including six postseason games on the club’s NL championship run. This season, Cavalleri appears to have taken some genuine steps forward in his development. After scoring just two points in 12 games on loan with second-tier SL side HC La Chaux-de-Fonds last year, Cavalleri is already up to eight points in 11 games this campaign. While he hasn’t yet had the same level of success in the NL, this extension provides him another campaign on his contract to continue pushing for regular appearances with Geneva.
- Former Minnesauga Steelheads and Peterborough Petes forward Nick Isaacson was traded in the ECHL earlier this week, sent to the Cincinnati Cyclones from the Jacksonville Icemen in exchange for future considerations. Isaacson, a physical six-foot-three forward, is a University of Guelph product who began his pro career in 2021-22 with the South Carolina Stingrays in the ECHL. He was decent there, scoring 11 points in 26 games, and his performances earned him a three-game look at the AHL level with the Hershey Bears. 2022-23 was a difficult year, though, as he bounced between the Maine Mariners and IceMen, only playing in five total games. So far this year, Isaacson has two points in five games but has not found his way onto the scoresheet since an early November contest against the Savannah Ghost Pirates. The Cyclones traded forward James Hardie to the Rapid City Rush on Monday, so Isaacson appears to be Hardie’s replacement.
- Former SPHL star Aaron Aragon has signed with the ECHL’s Utah Grizzlies, replacing forward Jared Power on their roster. Power was released in a corresponding move. Aragon, 26, is an undersized winger who began his pro career last season. He scored 39 points in 41 games for the SPHL’s Macon Mayhem, a year that earned him six ECHL games with the Savannah Ghost Pirates. Aragon began this season with the Idaho Steelheads, and scored five points in four games, with Idaho winning all four contests. But the Steelheads did not dress Aragon after their November 10th win over the Wheeling Nailers and released Aragon on November 16th. Now he’s signed in Utah, a team that could use some scoring help as they have registered the second-fewest goals scored in the ECHL this year.
- 2018 Carolina Hurricanes seventh-round pick Jacob Kucharski was released by the ECHL’s Reading Royals, ending a tough stint there that included just three games played. Kucharski had not seen game action since November 5th and had not even served as a backup since November 11th, as Reading have reverted to a tandem of Nolan Maier and St. Louis Blues prospect Will Cranley. Kucharski struggled in Reading, posting an .852 save percentage and 5.09 goals-against-average in his limited game action.
This page may be updated throughout the day.