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Maple Leafs Sign Dennis Hildeby To Three-Year Deal

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Maple Leafs goaltender Dennis Hildeby had spent most of the summer as a restricted free agent, but he finally has a new contract in hand. The team announced Tuesday that they’ve signed their No. 3 option between the pipes to a three-year deal, keeping him in Toronto through 2027-28.

Hildeby’s deal carries a two-way structure through 2026-27 before converting to a one-way deal in its final season, the team said. He’ll carry a cap hit of $841,667 if he’s on the NHL roster.

The 24-year-old is coming off his first season of NHL action. The towering Swede didn’t fare all that well in his six starts, however, logging a .872 SV% and 3.33 GAA with a 3-3-0 record. Only two of those starts were quality ones, and he conceded 4.3 goals above expected in just over 360 minutes of ice time, per MoneyPuck.

Toronto is betting on there still being better days ahead in Hildeby’s development. He was initially draft-eligible in 2019 but was passed over three times before finally being selected by the Leafs in the fourth round in 2022 following a small but stellar first taste of professional action with Färjestad BK in Sweden’s SHL.

After Hildeby became the first player from the 2022 class to sign his entry-level deal, Toronto loaned him back to Färjestad before bringing him to North America at the end of the 2022-23 season. He’s largely remained on assignment to the AHL’s Toronto Marlies ever since, where he has a .909 SV%, 2.53 GAA, six shutouts, and a 37-21-14 record in 73 appearances for the club in the last three years.

Hildeby was an AHL All-Star in 2023-24 and, since he won’t require waivers for another season, is virtually guaranteed to begin this season as the Marlies’ starting option unless an injury strikes down one of Toronto’s NHL tandem of Anthony Stolarz and Joseph Woll in preseason. He’ll be the Leafs’ only real recall option unless they make another addition. Their other goalies under contract, Russians Artur Akhtyamov and Vyacheslav Peksa, are potentially high-ceiling options but are still too early in their development to warrant an NHL look.

Cal O’Reilly Signs In Switzerland

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After 19 professional seasons in North America and well over 1,100 games, center Cal O’Reilly is making the jump overseas for a second time. He’s signed a contract with SCL Tigers of Switzerland’s National League that runs through the end of October with an option to extend for the remainder of the 2025-26 season, the team announced.

O’Reilly, the older brother of Ryan O’Reilly, has 145 NHL games to his name but hasn’t touched the top level since 2017-18 with the Wild. He’s played exclusively in the minors ever since, spending the last two seasons in the same organization as his brother on an AHL contract with the Milwaukee Admirals.

Long a premier playmaking threat at the game’s second-highest level this side of the Atlantic, the 6’0″, 187-lb pivot still managed an 11-38–49 scoring line in 68 games for the Admirals last season to lead the club in scoring. As he enters his age-39 season, he’s showing little sign of slowing down – rebounding quite well from some regression that saw him produce as little as 18 points in 59 games with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in 2022-23.

The move to Langnau marks O’Reilly’s first time playing in Europe in over a decade. His only previous overseas stint coincided with the 2012 lockout, when he joined the KHL’s Metallurg Magnitogorsk on a multi-year deal. For whatever reason, his offense didn’t translate – he only managed 20 points in 46 games before he was released early in the 2013-14 season and promptly returned to North America.

O’Reilly was a fifth-round pick by Nashville way back in 2005 and has since gone on to appear in five AHL All-Star games, although a Calder Cup title has eluded him. He’s notched 177 goals and 606 assists for 783 points in 1,022 career minor-league games, tied for 17th in AHL all-time total points and second among active players behind Chris Terry’s 807.

He joins the Tigers a week ahead of their regular-season opener amid some recent injuries to their forward group. He joins Saku Mäenalanen, Harri Pesonen, André Pettersson, and Juuso Riikola as the NHL-experienced talent on their roster.

What New Features Would You Like To See At PHR?

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As the new regular season approaches and we add to our staff at Pro Hockey Rumors, we’re looking to expand our slate of features, originals, and trackers in 2025-26.

In doing so, we’d love to get some reader input. Were tools like our Active Roster Tracker from the 2024-25 season useful? What other features do you wish PHR had to make it a more immersive home for everything related to hockey transactions?

If there are certain features you find valuable or there are things you’d like us to implement, let us know in the comment section below, use the Contact Us page on our website, or email us directly at prohockeyrumorshelp@gmail.com.

International Notes: Smith, Yip, Josefson, Barron

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As the Shanghai Dragons begin their first season in the KHL under their new name, they’re parting ways with a pair of longtime fixtures under the club’s former moniker, Kunlun Red Star. Former NHL winger Brandon Yip and goaltender Jeremy Smith will not return to the club in 2025-26, the league announced today.

Both Smith and Yip played long enough for Kunlun to earn Chinese player licenses and suited up for the country in top-level competition when they hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics. Yip served as captain and also helped them gain promotion from Division 2A to Division 1B of the World Championship that same year.

Yip continued to serve as Kunlun’s captain until last season, but injuries limited the former Avalanche and Predators forward to two assists in eight games. He played parts of seven seasons for Kunlun since joining the club in 2017, and the 40-year-old now presumably ends his professional career as the franchise’s all-time leader in goals (92), assists (93), and points (185).

As for Smith, the former ECHL MVP and longtime NHL farmhand had been Kunlun’s starter since he first headed overseas in 2019. The 36-year-old Michigan native was arguably one of the league’s best netminders, considering the often porous defense in front of him, logging a respectable .912 SV% in 184 games for the club despite holding an overall record of 53-103-12.

Elsewhere from around hockey:

  • Ex-Devils forward Jacob Josefson’s attempted comeback after three years away is successful, at least for now. After skating for SHL club Djurgårdens IF on a tryout basis during the preseason, he’s landed a full contract with the club for the upcoming regular season, the team announced today. The 34-year-old, who has only played for Djurgården in his home country, dating back to his youth hockey days, has not played a professional game since 2021 and has served in their front office for the past three seasons. He had a 20-44–64 scoring line in 315 career NHL games with New Jersey and Buffalo from 2010 to 2018.
  • After spending the last four seasons with AHL Tucson in the Arizona and Utah organizations, power winger Travis Barron is headed to Austria on a one-year deal with Black Wings Linz of the ICEHL. He was a Group VI unrestricted free agent this summer and turned 27 last month. He was previously pursuing KHL offers but was evidently unsuccessful, leading to him signing in a less competitive but still premier European league. A seventh-round pick by the Avalanche back in 2016, Barron has 43 goals and 93 points in 305 career AHL games.

Snapshots: Price, Prokhorov, PHR Chat

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The Canadiens are reportedly intent on moving the contract of LTIR-bound goaltender Carey Price as it enters its final season, a feat that becomes astronomically more achievable after they pay out a $5.5MM signing bonus today. Today, Marco D’Amico of RG confirms that the Sharks are the most likely trade partner for Montreal, but that a move would require some maneuvering on San Jose’s behalf since they’re one contract shy of the 50-player limit. Given that, the framework of any deal would involve the Sharks sending a few AHL depth pieces back to the Canadiens to free up some flexibility, while taking on Price’s deal to ensure they stay above the salary cap floor throughout the season. Montreal still has seven open contract slots, per PuckPedia, so it’s a non-issue for them to take some two-way deals on in a Price trade.

More things to keep an eye on throughout the hockey world:

  • Late last month, Islanders 2025 second-rounder Daniil Prokhorov signed a two-year contract with Dynamo Moscow in his native Russia to continue his development. Unlike with other Russian players, though, that won’t necessarily delay his North American arrival until 2027, Stefen Rosner writes for The Elmonters. His deal has a formal out-clause that could allow him to report to the Islanders or their AHL affiliate in Bridgeport if he’s offered an entry-level contract before his KHL obligation ends. The gargantuan 6’6″, 218-lb power winger scored 20 goals in 43 junior games for Dynamo St. Petersburg’s MHL club last year.
  • With preseason looming, PHR’s Josh Erickson will host a holiday edition live chat today at 1pm CT. You can click here to ask a question in advance, join in live when the chat begins, or stick around to read the transcript when it’s finished.

Who Will Be The Odd Man Out Among The Panthers’ Depth Forwards?

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It’s long been expected that the Panthers will be without star winger Matthew Tkachuk to start the season as a result of the adductor injury he played through in last year’s postseason en route to his second straight Stanley Cup. Late last month, that was essentially confirmed with reports indicating Tkachuk’s surgery will keep him out past New Year’s, making him eligible to begin the season on long-term injured reserve and, at least for now, solving Florida’s cap woes. They likely won’t care too much about optimizing their LTIR pool since they’ll need flexibility to activate Tkachuk before the trade deadline, meaning they’ll only get about half the potential relief, but won’t need to make any other changes to their roster as the trade-off.

The Panthers did well to retain virtually their entire forward group, including their fourth-liners and press box fixtures, keeping the would-be free agents on deals close to or at the league minimum. They’ll still need to shed north of $4MM worth of cap hits from their roster when Tkachuk is ready to return, which should inform their early-season strategy in how they go about replacing his top-six minutes.

Long speculated as a trade candidate this offseason was Evan Rodrigues, at least until Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet threw cold water on the idea of them moving him before the start of the season a few weeks ago. Understandably, they wouldn’t want to be down a serviceable, versatile veteran with Tkachuk unavailable, but the reality stands that he’s a $3MM luxury they likely won’t be able to afford when he’s ready to return.

That could result in him seeing some consistent top-six deployment in Tkachuk’s absence to boost his trade value for when general manager Bill Zito’s hand is inevitably forced. The 32-year-old has two years left on the four-year commitment he signed with the Cats in 2023, and he’s coming off his worst offensive season since the pandemic on a per-game basis. His 0.39 points per game still worked out to a fine 15-17–32 scoring line in 82 games, but he’d been on pace for at least 40 points over a full schedule in each of the past few seasons.

That production dip came despite him spending most of his ice time in the regular season with Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart at even strength. It’s worth noting he was coached into far more of a checking role than he was previously used to as the third wheel on that top unit, ending the season with a career-high 128 hits. That likely offers some explanation for the diminished offensive production, but it’s worth wondering if he might get some of Tkachuk’s vacated power-play time as well to boost his numbers and maximize his value if they do end up needing to put him on the block.

Mackie Samoskevich, their 2021 first-rounder, isn’t going anywhere this season. He projects to be their most cost-effective player this season after signing a one-year, league-minimum deal as a 10.2(c) RFA this summer and will get every chance to build on his 15-goal, 31-point performance in 72 games during his rookie season last year. He got reps in second-line duties when Tkachuk was out of commission for the last few months of the regular season and is the odds-on favorite to hold down that spot alongside Sam Bennett again when the new season opens next month.

He stands to be the most significant long-term beneficiary of Tkachuk’s absence. He’ll have infinitely increased negotiating leverage next summer with his newfound eligibility to receive and sign offer sheets, positioning himself to land a lucrative contract if he breaks out – one that the Panthers will have to do serious math to determine if they can afford.

Shedding Rodrigues won’t be enough to make Florida cap-compliant when Tkachuk comes back, though. They’re at a projected cap excess of $4.5MM with a full roster, per PuckPedia, leaving a $1.5MM balance to make up for. That would suggest Jesper Boqvist, who makes exactly that against the cap and served as the Cats’ 13th forward for a good portion of last season, will be on his way out as well. The team recently brought in free agent Luke Kunin to serve a similar role on a league-minimum salary, offering them another safeguard. Subtracting from their already thin defensive depth behind their elite top-end group isn’t a likely option.

Jets’ Josh Morrissey Fully Recovered From Knee Injury

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Jets star defenseman Josh Morrissey has recovered fully from the knee injury he sustained in the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs and will not have any restrictions heading into training camp, he told Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Free Press last week.

Morrissey, 30, had to battle through quite a bit of physical adversity in the postseason after finishing fourth in Norris Trophy voting in the regular season – his third straight top-10 finish and the highest placement of his career. He sustained an upper-body injury early in Winnipeg’s come-from-behind Game 7 win over the Blues in the first round that caused him to miss the first game of their second-round tilt against the Stars. While he played the bulk of the Dallas series, he couldn’t finish what ended up being their final contest of the season in Game 6 after sustaining an injury to his left knee while getting tangled up with Stars forward Mikko Rantanen.

Most were expecting Morrissey to be able to go for camp when he said that he wouldn’t require surgery following their elimination, shortening his recovery timeline. All in all, he was only off the ice for around a month while rehabbing. “I’ve been skating for two months now and it feels as good or better than it did before,” he told Wiebe. He also said that he sustained a similar injury in his right knee two years ago during their first-round series against the Golden Knights, meaning he “knew the protocol” and “knew the plan.”

Having Morrissey at full availability out of the gate will be a crucial step for a Winnipeg roster that will need to rely heavily on its defense after losing a key top-six forward piece in Nikolaj Ehlers to free agency. Luckily for them, their group of defenders remains almost entirely unchanged from last year’s Presidents’ Trophy win. Morrissey, Dylan DeMelo, Neal Pionk, and Dylan Samberg will continue to comprise one of the league’s most competent two-way top-four groups after Pionk signed a massive six-year extension midseason and Samberg inked a three-year settlement with the Jets this summer to avoid an arbitration hearing.

The lefty now enters his 11th year in Winnipeg after being taken 13th overall in the 2013 draft. He has three years left on his deal with a $6.25MM cap hit – part of an eight-year deal signed in 2019 that ranks among the league’s most team-friendly deals. Over the last three years, only Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar have produced more assists among defensemen than Morrissey’s 167.

Seeking Writers For Pro Hockey Rumors

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PHR is looking to hire two part-time writers with strong weekend availability preferred. The position pays on an hourly basis, with a workload ranging from 10 to 15 hours per week.

Applicants must meet all of the following criteria:

  • Exceptional knowledge of all 32 NHL teams, with no discernible bias.
  • Knowledge of the salary cap, CBA, and transaction-related concepts.
  • At least some college education.
  • Extensive writing experience, with professional experience and a background in journalism, is strongly preferred.
  • Keen understanding of journalistic principles, ethics, and procedures. Completion of basic college-level journalism classes is strongly preferred.
  • Attention to detail — absolutely no spelling errors, especially for player and journalist names.
  • Ability to follow the site’s style and tone.
  • Ability to analyze articles and craft intelligent, well-written posts summing up the news in a few paragraphs. We need someone who can balance quick copy with thoughtful analysis. You must be able to add value to breaking news with your own insight, numbers, or links to other relevant articles.
  • Familiarity with Twitter/X, X Pro, and other relevant platforms. In general, you must be able to multitask.
  • Flexibility. You must be available to work on week-to-week notice.

If you’re interested, email prohockeyrumorshelp@gmail.com by Sunday, Aug. 31, and in a few paragraphs, explain why you qualify. Be sure to attach your resume to the email.

We understand that many of those who read this have applied in the past. If you have previously submitted an application for PHR and are still interested, please submit it again. Many will apply, so unfortunately, we cannot respond to every applicant.

Minor Transactions: Hurlbert, Boltmann, Uens

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American forward J.P. Hurlbert, widely tabbed as a first-round pick in the 2026 draft class, will spend his draft year north of the border with the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers, the team announced.

It’s a sharp course reversal from the growing trend of CHL-committed players coming to the United States to play college hockey, as they’re now eligible to do before their usual run in junior hockey would have concluded. Hurlbert is still a University of Michigan commit – that hasn’t changed – but he wasn’t expected to join the team until his age-18 season in 2026-27. He’s still expected to attend while making the Blazers a brief detour on his development path, buying himself out of the U.S. National Team Development Program in order to do so.

Hurlbert, a Texas native, joined the USNTDP’s under-17 squad last year after playing his youth hockey with the Dallas Stars Elite program. He finished third on that club in scoring with a 19-18–37 line in 56 games, adding three assists in five games for the Americans at the under-17 World Hockey Challenge.

The 17-year-old joins a Kamloops roster headlined by Penguins 2024 second-rounder Harrison Brunicke on defense – assuming he doesn’t make Pittsburgh’s opening night roster. At forward, he’ll have Blackhawks pick Nathan Behm, a third-rounder this year, to help him out.

More minor moves from around hockey:

  • Former Flames defense prospect Jake Boltmann is landing in the Stars organization on a contract with ECHL Idaho, per a club announcement. The 23-year-old righty was a third-rounder by Calgary in 2020 but wasn’t signed following his fifth season of college hockey, so assuming he’s submitted the proper paperwork, he’s now an unrestricted free agent in the NHL’s eyes. The 6’1″, 201-lb rearguard had 20 points and 108 PIMs in 126 games with Notre Dame over four seasons before transferring to Northeastern for a fifth year. He had a 2-10–12 scoring line with 39 PIMs and a -2 rating in 35 showings for the Huskies last year.
  • Ex-Panthers farmhand Zachary Uens has signed an AHL deal with the Kraken’s affiliate in Coachella Valley. The 24-year-old was an unrestricted free agent after being non-tendered back in June before the expiry of his entry-level contract. A 2020 fourth-round pick, he saw fringe action for Florida’s AHL club in Charlotte but played mostly in the ECHL, most recently for the Savannah Ghost Pirates. The 6’2″ lefty spent all of last season there, logging 17 points and 68 PIMs in 62 games.

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