- Hurricanes prospect Anttoni Honka will be staying overseas next season. HC Ajoie of the Swiss NL announced that they’ve signed him to a two-year contract that begins in 2025-26. The 24-year-old is playing for Ajoie this season while on loan from Carolina, the second straight year he has played overseas despite being on an NHL agreement; he suited up for JYP in Finland last season. This is the final year of Honka’s entry-level deal and considering he has already decided to stay in Switzerland, there’s a good chance he’ll be non-tendered this summer. Honka was selected late in the third round in 2019.
- Still with Carolina, the Hurricanes have re-assigned defenseman Ty Smith to AHL Chicago, per a team release. Smith has been shuffled back and forth throughout the season while spending time in a seventh defender role at times with Carolina but has yet to get into an NHL game this season. The 24-year-old has three goals and four helpers in seven games with the Wolves so far.
Hurricanes Rumors
Morning Notes: Lemieux, Cowan, Fowler
Former Carolina Hurricanes forward Brendan Lemieux has signed a contract with HC Davos, matching a report earlier this week that the 27-year-old would move overseas to continue his career. The Hurricanes and Lemieux mutually split this past week, allowing him to move to Switzerland to play in the National League. Lemieux spent this season with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves, making $775K on a one-way deal. It was the first time Lemieux was in the AHL since the 2017-18 season, and the former second-round pick was struggling offensively, with just two goals in 12 games.
As for why Lemieux chose to go overseas, it does appear that he was chasing a new opportunity. Derek O’Brien of The Hockey News writes that Lemieux has signed for the rest of this season as well as two additional years.
In other morning notes:
- Hockey Canada tweeted that Toronto Maple Leafs prospect Easton Cowan will attend the team’s selection camp but won’t participate for precautionary reasons. The news caps off an eventful, albeit difficult couple of days for the 19-year-old. Cowan recorded a point for the 56th consecutive game on Friday, unofficially setting an OHL record, but was injured a short time later by an open-ice hit. In a corresponding move, Team Canada added Anaheim Ducks prospect Beckett Sennecke to their selection camp. The 2024 third-overall pick has 21 goals and 23 assists in 26 OHL games this season and has 14 points over his last four games.
- It’s being reported that the Anaheim Ducks were hoping to include defenseman Cam Fowler in the trade to acquire Jacob Trouba (as per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet). Fowler has been looking for a trade for quite some time, but the Rangers wanted to keep flexibility for this year and next and wouldn’t have realized much savings if they were to add Fowler’s $6.5MM cap hit. Friedman notes that the Ducks and Fowler are looking for a solution to their situation that will help both the team and the long-time Ducks veteran. The 33-year-old Fowler has been a perennial 40-point player for most of his career but has struggled this season with just three assists in 14 games.
Smith Recalled, Tokarski Papered To AHL
- A day after sending Riley Stillman to the minors, the Hurricanes have found his replacement for the time being. The team announced that they’ve recalled defenseman Ty Smith from AHL Chicago. The 24-year-old has been up multiple times with Carolina this season but has yet to play and will likely continue to serve in the seventh defenseman role while he’s on the roster. Smith has three goals and four assists in seven games with the Wolves so far.
- Still with the Hurricanes, they assigned goaltender Dustin Tokarski to Chicago, per the AHL’s transactions log. As has frequently been the case this season, this is merely a move to bank a bit of cap space and delay Tokarski’s waiver clock. He’ll almost certainly be recalled before Tuesday’s game against San Jose.
Stillman Assigned Back To AHL
- The Hurricanes announced that they have re-assigned defenseman Riley Stillman to AHL Chicago. The 26-year-old has been sent back and forth a few times in recent weeks but he hasn’t seen any game action yet with Carolina. Stillman has been limited to just six games with the Wolves after starting the season on injured reserve and has two assists in those outings. With the move, the Hurricanes now have two vacancies on their active roster for the time being.
Brendan Lemieux Clears Unconditional Waivers
Saturday: Lemieux has cleared waivers, reports James Mirtle of The Athletic. In the team’s announcement of his waiver placement yesterday, GM Eric Tulsky indicated that Lemieux requested the release to pursue a new opportunity. A report from Puck Empire in Switzerland suggests that Lemieux is likely to sign with HC Davos of the Swiss NL.
Friday: The Carolina Hurricanes are expected to place forward Brendan Lemieux on unconditional waivers for the purpose of contract termination, per Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff. Lemieux signed a one-year, league-minimum contract in Carolina this summer but has spent the entirety of the early season in the minor leagues. He has just two goals, 30 penalty minutes, and a -4 through 12 AHL games this season. He’s the lowest-scoring forward among Chicago Wolves with 10 or more games this season.
Lemieux made a name for himself as a sharp-edged bruiser with the drive to play at the NHL level. That’s what kept him in the top league from 2017 to 2024 – through trips with the Winnipeg Jets, New York Rangers, Los Angeles Kings, Philadelphia Flyers, and Carolina. He served a fourth-line role at every stop, making more noise with his penalty minutes than his scoring. Lemieux has 548 penalty minutes through 307 career games, with his statement year coming in 2019-20 – when he posted 111 PIMs in 59 games with the Rangers. He’s only added 74 career points – 36 goals and 38 assists – in those outings, with 18 points in 2019-20 also standing as a career-high.
This season marks Lemieux’s second in the Carolina organization, after playing through last year on a separate one-year contract. He earned 32 games on the deal, recording five points and 64 penalty minutes. That wasn’t enough to stick in the Hurricanes’ lineup with the emergence of top youngsters Jack Drury and Jackson Blake, pushing Lemieux to the minor leagues this season – his first time playing AHL hockey since 2017-18. With both scoring and meaningful penalties hard to come by this year, Lemieux will now look forward to more productive minutes in his next landing spot.
Hurricanes Recall Dustin Tokarski, Reassign Spencer Martin
The Hurricanes swapped backup goaltenders on Wednesday, announcing they recalled the newly signed Dustin Tokarski from AHL Chicago while reassigning Spencer Martin in a corresponding transaction.
Carolina signed Tokarski, 35, to a one-year, two-way contract on Monday. They immediately placed him on waivers to send him down to Chicago, where he’d spent the season to date on a minor-league deal, and he cleared yesterday.
They’ll turn to the highly experienced netminder to give them more passable play in a backup role than what Martin has provided them over the past few weeks. He’ll play sparingly as long as Pyotr Kochetkov is healthy – he’s the de facto No. 1 as Frederik Andersen is on the shelf recovering from knee surgery – and his .933 SV% and 1.61 GAA in five AHL showings this season suggests he’s still up to the task.
It’s no surprise to see Carolina look elsewhere for a temporary backup after Martin posted a sub-.900 SV% in all but one of his seven starts last month. He allowed 10 goals on just 57 shots faced in back-to-back losses to the Panthers last Friday and Saturday and has a horrid .846 SV% to go along with his 3-4-1 record in nine total appearances.
Tokarski now gets a shot at playing in his first NHL game since he was a member of the Penguins in the 2022-23 season. The Saskatchewan native has rarely been a full-time NHL option throughout his lengthy professional career, but he did briefly get a chance at being a full-time backup with the Sabres a few years ago. Since making his NHL debut with the Lightning way back in the 2009-10 season, he has a 23-34-12 record, two shutouts, 3.15 GAA, and a .902 SV% in 67 starts and 13 relief appearances.
Tokarski can remain on Carolina’s roster for up to 30 days or play 10 games before he requires waivers to return to the AHL. Martin bypassed waivers today because he’s played in nine games since last clearing waivers during the preseason, and a series of paper transactions have kept him on the active roster for fewer than 30 days since his initial recall in late October.
Carolina Hurricanes Sign, Waive Dustin Tokarski
Dec. 3: Tokarski passed through waivers unclaimed, per Friedman. He’ll return to AHL Chicago with Martin remaining on the NHL roster for now, unless Kochetkov can’t go tonight.
Dec. 2: The Carolina Hurricanes are adding more goaltending depth to the NHL roster due to injuries to Frederik Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov. TSN’s Chris Johnston reported that the Hurricanes have signed goaltender Dustin Tokarski to a one-year, two-way agreement. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman followed up the report by sharing that Carolina has placed Tokarski on waivers.
Placing Tokarski on waivers is a prudent move by the Hurricanes organization. Team reporter Walt Ruff shared earlier that Kochetkov still needs to pass one more test to be medically cleared from concussion protocol. The team is hopeful he’ll be able to return tomorrow night against the Seattle Kraken. Tokarski will back up Kochetkov tomorrow night, assuming he passes through waivers and Kochetkov is medically cleared. He won’t need to go through waivers again for another 30 days, giving the team more flexibility with their netminders.
Tokarski isn’t unfamiliar with the Hurricanes organization either. Up to this point in the season he’s been playing on an AHL contract with the team’s AHL affiliate, the Chicago Wolves. The veteran netminder has managed a 4-1-0 record in five games for the Wolves with a .933 save percentage and 1.61 goals against average.
The signing of Tokarski also sheds some light on the team’s lack of confidence in third-string goaltender Spencer Martin. Carolina acquired Martin from the Columbus Blue Jackets last year for situations like this and he hasn’t been able to hold his own at the NHL level. Martin appeared in nine games for the Hurricanes in November but disappointed with a .846 SV% and 3.89 GAA.
The organization will now take a different approach to their goaltending with Tokarski. He hasn’t played in an NHL contest since his time with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 2022-23 regular season but could get into action again should Carolina deal with continued injuries in the crease.
Hurricanes Recall Riley Stillman, Assign Yaniv Perets To AHL
The Hurricanes have made a pair of roster moves leading up to Tuesday’s game against Seattle. The team announced that they’ve recalled defenseman Riley Stillman from AHL Chicago while they returned goaltender Yaniv Perets to the Wolves.
Stillman signed a one-year, two-way deal with Carolina early in free agency back in the summer. However, the 26-year-old suffered a lower-body injury in training camp that kept him out of the lineup for the first 14 games of the season. He was waived upon being cleared to return and has gotten into six games with Chicago since then, picking up a pair of assists.
Stillman has 158 career NHL appearances to his name so far between four different organizations. Over that stretch, he has 26 points, 197 blocks, and 318 hits while averaging a little under 16 minutes a night. However, he didn’t see any NHL action last season, instead playing exclusively with AHL Rochester where he had six points and 49 penalty minutes in 47 games before being non-tendered by Buffalo in June.
As for Perets, he served as Carolina’s backup in recent days with Frederik Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov both banged up. However, the team is hopeful that Kochetkov can return against the Kraken, allowing him and Spencer Martin to be the tandem. Perets stopped six of seven shots in relief on Saturday for his first NHL appearance of the season. He has a 3.67 GAA and a .825 SV% in three games with the Wolves so far this year.
Carolina Hurricanes Reassign Ty Smith
- In what is becoming a theme for the organization this season, the Carolina Hurricanes have again reassigned defenseman Ty Smith to their AHL affiliate, the Chicago Wolves. It’s becoming apparent that Smith will serve primarily as a practice player for the Hurricanes this season barring injury to the regular six defensemen on the active roster. The constant movement from Carolina to Chicago has cost him playing time in the AHL as Smith has only managed to suit up in four games for the AHL Wolves this season.
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Kochetkov Doubtful To Play Saturday
- Hurricanes goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov is listed as doubtful for tomorrow’s game against Florida, team reporter Walt Ruff reports (Twitter link). Kochetkov remains in concussion protocol but head coach Rod Brind’Amour wants to get him in a practice before getting him back into a game. Kochetkov has a 2.42 GAA and a .909 SV% in 13 games so far this season. With him and Frederik Andersen out, Spencer Martin and Yaniv Perets are Carolina’s tandem between the pipes for the time being.