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West Notes: Kempe, Cooley, Stars

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While Kings forward Adrian Kempe made it known that his desire was to get a contract extension in place before the start of the season, it’s not looking like it will happen.  Part of the reason for that might be the comparable his camp is using.  Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports (video link) that Toronto’s William Nylander is believed to be one of the comparables that Kempe’s camp is using.  Nylander is in the second season of an eight-year, $92MM contract and has reached the 80-point mark in four straight years, including a 97-point effort in 2023-24.  Meanwhile, Kempe has yet to reach that plateau although he has topped 70 the last two seasons.  The difference, of course, is the much different salary cap environment now compared to when Nylander’s deal was signed but it’s not surprising that Los Angeles GM Ken Holland would be resistant to make an offer around that price point.

More from out West:

  • While Logan Cooley won’t play in Utah’s preseason finale tonight, Cole Bagley of KSL Sports relays (Twitter link) that the team has a good feeling that he’ll be ready to go for their season opener next week. The 21-year-old was injured earlier this preseason against Colorado.  Cooley took a big step forward last season, going from 44 points in his rookie year to 65 in his sophomore campaign.  It’s fair to say that the Mammoth hope that he will take another step in the right direction this season, the final year of his entry-level deal.
  • The Stars are currently locked into a lease to play at American Airlines Center in Dallas through the 2030-31 season but it appears that they’re already looking ahead. Eric Fisher and Daniel Roberts of Front Office Sports report that the organization is looking at Plano as a possible destination to build a new arena.  Arlington is also believed to be in consideration as well.  At this point, the team hasn’t ruled out staying where they are either but with these projects often taking a long time to put together, it’s not surprising that they’re already looking into their options despite having six years left on their current agreement.

Waivers: 10/4/25

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With a little over 48 hours remaining before season-opening rosters need to be submitted to the league, it’s expected to be a very busy weekend on the waiver wire.  Not surprisingly, it’s another big list of players on waivers today as 17 players have been put there, per PuckPedia.  Meanwhile, all 12 players on waivers yesterday passed through unclaimed, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman (Twitter link).  Here’s today’s list of players on the wire:

Dallas Stars

F Cameron Hughes
D Vladislav Kolyachonok

Florida Panthers

D Tobias Bjornfot
G Brandon Bussi

New Jersey Devils

F Thomas Bordeleau
F Angus Crookshank
F Brian Halonen
F Zack MacEwen
D Colton White

Philadelphia Flyers

D Dennis Gilbert

Pittsburgh Penguins

D Alexander Alexeyev
D Ryan Graves
F Rafael Harvey-Pinard
F Bokondji Imama
F Samuel Poulin

San Jose Sharks

F Colin White

Utah Hockey Club

F Cameron Hebig

Graves is the headliner in today’s class, primarily due to his contract which has four years left on it.  We covered his situation in more detail earlier today.

Among the rest of the players, Bjornfot is no stranger to being in this situation but he has been claimed twice before.  He spent most of last season in the minors with Florida but did get into 14 games with the Panthers and has 134 games at the top level under his belt.  Alexeyev played sparingly last season with Washington not wanting to risk losing him for nothing on waivers but it appears that Pittsburgh doesn’t have that same level of hesitance.  Meanwhile, Kolyachonok was claimed off waivers by the Penguins back in February before being flipped to Dallas over the summer so it’s possible another team might have their eye on him as well.  Gilbert signed with the Flyers this summer after splitting last season between Ottawa and Buffalo but while the thought was that he’d at least be able to land a seventh role, that isn’t the case.

As for the forwards, San Jose’s White is by far the most experienced with 323 NHL appearances.  However, he has primarily been an AHL player in recent years and it’s likely that he will clear and be assigned to the Barracuda.  Poulin was a 2019 first-round pick but hasn’t seen much time with the Penguins, including just seven games last season.  But at 24, he’s young enough to potentially be of interest to a team that wants to take a longer look at him.  Bordeleau held his own in 27 games with the Sharks in 2023-24 but only played once for them last season before being moved in July in a swap of AHL players.  But like Poulin, he’s young enough (23) to potentially draw attention.

These players will be on waivers until 1:00 PM CT on Sunday.

Devils Issue Multiple Injury Updates

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One of the goals of the preseason is to get through things injury-free or as close to it as possible.  While plenty of teams have been successful on that front over the past few weeks (at least so far), the Devils have not been one of those.  Speaking with reporters (video link), head coach Sheldon Keefe provided updates on several players, with most of them not of the positive variety.

Prospect blueliner Seamus Casey was having a strong training camp but that has come to a sudden conclusion.  He is now dealing with an undisclosed injury with Keefe noting that he won’t be on skates for the foreseeable future.  The 21-year-old had four goals and four assists in just 14 games with New Jersey last season while also notching 18 points in 30 games with AHL Utica.  It looked like he had a realistic chance of breaking camp with the team but instead, he’ll start the season on season-opening injured reserve where he’ll have a prorated cap charge relative to the percentage of time he was on New Jersey’s roster last season.

The one good injury tidbit also came on the back end.  Brett Pesce skated Friday after leaving their last preseason game early.  At this point, his availability for opening night remains up in the air but the fact he was skating suggests that he either will be available for that game or should be back soon after.  Pesce had 17 points and 138 blocked shots in 72 games last season while averaging over 21 minutes a night of playing time.

Meanwhile, up front, winger Stefan Noesen has been dealing with a groin injury that he played through last season and re-aggravated over the summer.  While the hope was that he was making some progress in recovery, Keefe noted that he is not yet close to playing.  The 32-year-old had a career year last season, collecting 22 goals and 41 points in 78 games while chipping in with 152 hits but now he won’t be available on opening night either.

The same can be said for center Juho Lammikko.  After spending the last three seasons in Switzerland with Zurich, he signed a one-year, $800K contract to try to return to the NHL.  However, Keefe indicated that he is out for the near future as well.  Notably, his contract is a one-way pact, meaning it will count in full against New Jersey’s salary cap while he’s injured, even if he’s ultimately going to be ticketed to play in Utica.

Minor Transactions: 10/4/25

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With the preseason wrapping up today, some teams will be recalling players they’ve already cut to give them one more game or they will be returning players recently brought up for that purpose.  We’ll keep track of those moves here along with any other minor transactions.

Predators Re-Sign Luke Evangelista To Two-Year Deal

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Oct. 4, 11:02 AM: The Predators have officially announced the signing, confirming the $3MM AAV.

Oct. 4, 9:28 AM: Evangelista’s deal pays him $2.25MM in 2025-26 and $3.75MM in 2026-27, according to PuckPedia. That backloaded structure results in the maximum possible qualifying offer of $3.6MM, or 120% of his cap hit.

Oct. 3: The list of players who saw NHL action last season and remain restricted free agents is down to just two.  That number is soon set to be cut in half.  David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reports (Twitter link) that the Predators and Luke Evangelista are making progress tonight on a contract; TSN’s Darren Dreger adds (Twitter link) that an agreement is expected to be reached soon while Chris Johnston of TSN and The Athletic indicates (Twitter link) that it should be a two-year deal worth $3MM per season.

The 23-year-old was a second-round pick by Nashville back in 2020, going 42nd overall.  Evangelista spent a good chunk of his first full professional season in the minors back in 2022-23.  However, following a 24-game stint that season that saw him record 15 points in a late-season recall, he has been a full-time player with the Predators ever since.

Evangelista’s first full NHL campaign saw him pick up 16 goals and 23 assists in 80 games despite averaging less than 14 minutes a night of playing time.  That earned him some down-ballot support in Calder Trophy voting for Rookie of the Year as he finished ninth in balloting that season.  He was limited to just one goal in the playoffs that season but expectations were high that Nashville had a legitimate middle-six contributor that could be relied upon.

Last season, Evangelista had 10 goals and 22 helpers in 68 games, producing at pretty much the same clip as the year before.  While it would be fair to say they were hoping he’d take a step forward offensively, staying at almost the exact same point-per-game rate was notable in a season that saw a lot of Predators underwhelm offensively as an early-season speculative contender wound up missing the playoffs altogether and not by a small margin.

Considering that he had two seasons of similar production under his belt, Evangelista was a safe bet to land a bridge deal; a long-term pact likely wouldn’t have been feasible for either side.  That makes the fact that it has taken this long to get a deal done rather puzzling.  While it’s believed that the two sides briefly explored a three-year agreement, those talks didn’t last long given the gap in expected salary, putting the sides back to a two-year agreement.  Clearly, both sides were pretty dug in with what they thought was fair in terms of money and only the threat of the season starting early next week with him still unsigned was enough to get this across the finish line.

Evangelista will once again be a restricted free agent in the 2027 offseason.  However, there will be one big difference next time, that being his arbitration eligibility.  As long as one of the two sides files for a hearing, the case will be resolved sometime in August that summer, preventing things from getting to this point next time.

Penguins To Waive Ryan Graves

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The Penguins announced (Twitter link) a significant list of cuts today as they work towards getting their season-opening roster in place.  Among those are five waiver placements, headed up by veteran defenseman Ryan Graves who will officially hit the wire at 1 PM CT today.

It wasn’t that long ago that the 30-year-old was viewed as a key shutdown defender.  Over his two seasons with New Jersey, he went from being a role player (going back to his Colorado days) to a consistent top-four player.  That helped earn him a six-year, $27MM contract with Pittsburgh back in 2023 as they were hoping that he could be a defensive anchor for them for a long time.

That hasn’t happened.  In the first season of the deal, his offensive numbers dipped to just three goals and 11 assists after two straight years of at least 26 points.  On top of that, he struggled in Pittsburgh’s defensive system and started to see his ice time cut later in the year.

That proved to be a sign of things to come for last season.  Instead of showing improvement in his second year with the team, things continued to go in the wrong direction.  As a result, Graves only got into 61 games (managing just four points) while averaging less than 15 minutes per night as he was deployed as a number-six defender when he was in the lineup.

That led to some speculative talk about a buyout this summer which clearly didn’t come to fruition.  However, with the acquisitions of Connor Clifton and Mathew Dumba in trades over the offseason plus a strong training camp from prospect Harrison Brunicke, there simply isn’t a spot for Graves on their opening roster.

Given his recent struggles and the fact that he has four years left on his contract, it’s safe to say that Graves will pass through unclaimed on Sunday and be assigned to AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.  From there, he can try to rebuild some confidence and try to work his way back to Pittsburgh.  But few would have seen this coming just two years ago when he was given one of the bigger deals in free agency.

Joining Graves on the waiver wire from today’s moves are defenseman Alexander Alexeyev along with forwards Rafael Harvey-Pinard, Bokondji Imama, and Samuel Poulin.

The Importance Of October 6th On The NHL Calendar

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Generally speaking, October 6th is not a particularly important day in the NHL.  It’s either a day late in the preseason or early in the regular season, depending on when the campaign gets underway.

However, that’s not the case this year.  First, that is the day that season-opening cap-compliant rosters need to be submitted to the NHL as it’s the day before the regular season starts.  Accordingly, any players who have to clear waivers and be sent down before those rosters are due will have to be on waivers no later than Sunday, allowing for them to clear (or be claimed elsewhere) at 1 PM CT on Monday.  Accordingly, expect the waiver wire to be even busier than it has been in recent weeks in advance of a busy Monday afternoon for teams to get their opening rosters submitted.

Meanwhile, there is a second deadline on October 6th this season.  It also represents the deadline for players to sign contracts that contain salary deferrals.  A practice used a little more frequently in recent years (Toronto and Carolina have more than one player with this) in order to lower the cap charge, it was removed in the CBA extension that comes into effect next September.  However, parts of the new Memorandum of Understanding will be in play earlier, including this one.  With October 7th being the start of the regular season schedule, any deals with deferred salary have to be registered with the league no later than Monday.

With a few contracts of significance signed around the NHL in recent days (Kirill Kaprizov, Luke Hughes, and Jackson LaCombe, in particular), some fresh comparables have come in for teams and agents to work with.  That could push a few more deals across the finish line in the coming days with some players preferring not to have discussions extend into the regular season.

But if an agreement can’t still be reached, salary deferral is a mechanism that could allow the player to get a certain amount of total money in a contract while allowing the team to keep the cap charge at a particular number, allowing both sides to get what they want.  That is, assuming that the player is willing to wait until after the expiration of the contract to receive some of the money, something that isn’t overly popular.  But with the deadline to utilize this particular mechanism now just a few days away from being outlawed, it wouldn’t be surprising to see upcoming contract talks revisit this option to try to get a deal across the finish line.  If some prominent pending free agents are amenable, there could be an uptick in activity on the extension front by October 6th.

Snapshots: Eichel, Janmark, Sweden, Sharks

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With Kirill Kaprizov off the board, Golden Knights center Jack Eichel is now arguably the top pending unrestricted free agent in the 2026 class.  In a recent appearance on Daily Faceoff’s The Sheet (video link), David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reported that the hang-up in those conversations appears to be term more than money.  Financially speaking, he pointed to the $14MM AAV on Leon Draisaitl’s contract as one that stands as a reasonable comparable with Eichel’s price tag likely to come in somewhere near that mark on a max-term agreement.  But at this point, talks appear to be relatively slow with the two sides evidently not on the same page for how long they’d like this contract to be.

Elsewhere around the hockey world:

  • Oilers winger Mattias Janmark will miss around a week due to an undisclosed injury, relays Daniel Nugent-Bowman of The Athletic (Twitter link). Janmark had 18 points in 80 games last season while playing a regular role for them in the playoffs as well.  Notably, Edmonton’s cap situation is relatively tight and they’ll already be without Zach Hyman to start the season.  Now, while Janmark won’t miss much time, he’ll be out for the opener which could create a bit of an early cap crunch for them to navigate through.
  • Sweden’s hockey federation revealed today that future Blues GM Alex Steen has been named as a Player Personnel Consultant for their entry into next year’s Olympics. Steen will be taking over for Doug Armstrong as GM in St. Louis after this season.  Meanwhile, Blackhawks assistant coach Anders Sorensen will have that title for the Swedes in that tournament while Panthers assistant Myles Fee will serve as their video coach.
  • The Sharks announced (Twitter link) that they have recalled forward Shane Bowers, defenseman Braden Hache, and goalie Jakub Skarek from AHL San Jose. All three were cut earlier this week with Bowers and Skarek passing through waivers unclaimed.  They’ll likely be sent back to the Barracuda over the next day or two.

Atlantic Notes: Hutson, Jensen, Senators, Greer

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With new contracts handed out in recent days to Luke Hughes and Jackson LaCombe, some attention has shifted to Canadiens blueliner Lane Hutson.  While he still has one year left on his entry-level contract, the belief is that there is mutual interest in getting something done before the season begins.  In a recent appearance on Daily Faceoff’s The Sheet (video link), David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period suggested that the blueliner appears to be willing to leave a bit of money on the table, similar to what several of his teammates did in an effort to give themselves a chance to continue to add down the road.  However, that discount might be capped at a few hundred thousand per season on a long-term pact.  With both Hughes and LaCombe checking in at $9MM, it stands to reason that Hutson could very well land close to that number on his next deal as well, whether that comes now, in-season, or next summer.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic:

  • Senators defenseman Nick Jensen told reporters including Sportsnet’s Alex Adams (Twitter link) that he will suit up in Saturday’s preseason finale against Montreal. The 35-year-old underwent offseason hip surgery and at the time, it looked unlikely that he’d be back for the start of the regular season.  However, his recovery has been ahead of schedule and now he’ll get a chance to get a game in to see if he’ll be ready for opening night.  Jensen played a big role for Ottawa last season, averaging over 20 minutes a game while chipping in with 21 points in 71 outings, many of which were played through injury.
  • Still with the Senators, after recalling eight players back on Tuesday who had already been cut, the team announced (Twitter link) that all eight – Tyler Boucher, Hunter Shepard, Jorian Donovan, Oskar Pettersson, Xavier Bourgault, Tomas Hamara, Keean Washkurak, and Scott Harrington, have been sent back to AHL Belleville.
  • The league announced that the Department of Player Safety has fined Panthers winger A.J. Greer $2,213.54, the maximum allowable in the CBA, for a roughing incident on Tampa Bay’s Brandon Hagel. Thursday’s affair between the two sides was particularly chippy with the two teams combining for 186 penalty minutes, a dozen of which went to Greer on the play.

Jason Robertson To Wait On Contract Talks Until After The Season

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The future of Jason Robertson with the Stars has been a talking point going back to the summer when there was some speculation about whether they could afford him for the upcoming season.  However, a trade didn’t materialize.

Meanwhile, despite that, there has been some speculation about his long-term future with Dallas.  One year away from restricted free agency, Robertson is in line for a significant raise from his current $7.75MM AAV and with their salary structure, some have wondered if the Stars will be able to afford to keep him long-term while continuing to add to their core.

However, despite all that speculation, Robertson told Stars staff writer Mike Heika that he’s not concerned about it at this time:

It doesn’t really bother me. I think what is important is this year for us as a team. The window is open, we’re trying to win it this year, and then we’ll look at it.

The 26-year-old had his second straight 80-point season last year, despite missing all of training camp while recovering from foot surgery which led to a slow start.  He was also a bit quieter than expected in the playoffs after returning from injury although he still managed six points in 11 games.

Robertson has had either 79 or 80 points in three of the last four seasons, seemingly providing a reasonable baseline for talks.  However, he managed 109 points the other year.  It stands to reason that Robertson wants to see if a full training camp and a strong start could propel him closer to his best year which would certainly boost his stock heading into negotiations.

GM Jim Nill noted earlier this month that discussions were at a standstill.  It appears he’s not worried about Robertson’s decision to hold off on any further discussions until after the season either:

With Jason, I don’t blame him. He’s not a UFA, he’s an RFA. He wants to see what the market is. Jason wants to bounce back from last year. He missed all of training camp and that was a tough start for him. He can now come in clear-minded and say I’m going to have my best year. That’s what I’m looking forward to. We’re going to get the best version of Jason Robertson and we’re going to benefit from that.

Earlier this offseason, AFP Analytics projected that a max-term eight-year extension for Robertson would cost the Stars just over $11.5MM per season.  The new rules on maximum term are in effect until the new CBA extension officially starts on September 16, 2026 so a deal of that length will be doable when talks resume down the road.  Regardless of when it happens, Robertson will be getting a much bigger payday when the 2026-27 season gets underway but we now know that it won’t be coming anytime soon.

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