Blackhawks Sign Caydon Edwards To PTO, Spencer Knight Sick
The Chicago Blackhawks had to change their lineup plans just before Friday night’s game against the Vancouver Canucks. Goaltender Spencer Knight was announced as unavailable due to an illness before the game, forcing the team to sign local goaltender Caydon Edwards to a professional try-out to serve as backup goaltender, per Charlie Roumeliotis of WGN Radio. Edwards frequently serves as a practice goaltender for the Blackhawks and coaches the loacl Chicago Phantoms 16U AAA team.
Knight has settled back to Earth after a strong start to the year. He has a .905 save percentage in 15 games since the start of 2026. His new year began with a 5-2-0 streak but that has since been squashed with a 1-4-2 record in his last seven games. Knight has set 16 wins and a .908 save percentage in 42 games this season, all career-highs for the first-year starter.
The Blackhawks turned towards Arvid Soderblom for their starting role in light of Knight’s illness. Soderblom has six wins and a .879 save percentage in 18 games this season. The campaign has continued his streak of sub-.900 save percentages into its fifth season. He is a true backup who is coming off of his first NHL shutout, recorded against the Utah Mammoth on March 1st.
Edwards’ played five seconds of one game for the ECHL’s Indy Fuel in the 2023-24 season. He grew up through Canadian junior hockey and played a handful of semi-professional games from 2017 to 2022. He has served as a Chicago-based goaltending coach since 2023, supporting the Windy City Storm and Phantoms at multiple levels.
Penguins’ Evgeni Malkin Suspended Five Games For Slashing
The Pittsburgh Penguins will be without a cornerstone of the lineup for the short-term. Forward Evgeni Malkin has been suspended for five games by the NHL Department of Player Safety for slashing Buffalo Sabres’ defenseman Rasmus Dahlin in the face. He will be eligible to return on March 16th, when the Penguins face the Colorado Avalanche.
Malkin has been suspended twice in his career. His first was a one-game suspension for slashing opponents in the head during a Penguins versus Flyers matchup on February 11th, 2019. The second was a four-game suspension handed out on April 11, 2022 for cross-checking an opponent in the face. With Malkin’s track record in mind, he will now land the longest suspension of his career, and forfeit $158,854.15 in salary, while Buffalo appreciates the silver lining that Dahlin wasn’t seriously injured on the play.
Malkin is an important piece of the offense when he’s in the lineup. He has averaged 17:29 in ice time this season – a career-low – but still sees upwards of 20 minutes a night when the Penguins lean into their veteran leaders. Malkin has scored 13 goals and 47 points in 46 games this season, making him one of only two Penguins still scoring above a point-per-game pace alongside Sidney Crosby. Pittsburgh will need to find a way to replace that offense now that Malkin will miss time.
Pittsburgh has recalled winger Ville Koivunen from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins to try and bridge that gap. Koivunen has scored 33 points in 28 AHL games this season but only has five points in 27 NHL games to go with it. He is still searching for a spark and could find one in a top-nine role with Malkin out. Pittsburgh is also carrying Kevin Hayes and newcomer Elmer Soderblom as extra forwards after the Trade Deadline. Hayes has scored five points in 25 games this season, while Soderblom had three points in 39 games with Detroit.
Devils Notes: Pesce, Cholowski, Gritsyuk
The New Jersey Devils will be down a usual lineup piece this weekend. Defenseman Brett Pesce will be unavailable due to a lower-body injury, head coach Sheldon Keefe told NHL.com’s Mike Morreale.
Pesce has already missed 25 games this season with extended absences in November and February. He fills a key role in the lineup when healthy, playing upwards of 22 minutes a night when New Jersey is looking for a shutdown piece. Pesce has worked to seven points and a minus-11 in 37 games this season. He ranks second on the Devils in shot blocks (80) and fourth on the defense in takeaways (16). Pesce has been knocked off course by injury in his age-31 season but his two-way reliability will still continue to command major lineup minutes when he’s back to full health.
Other notes out of New Jersey:
- The Devils have responded to Pesce’s injury by recalling depth defenseman Dennis Cholowski from the AHL. Cholowski didn’t begin his season until November, due to injury, but his year started on the NHL roster. He scored one point in 15 games through November and December while filling in during Pesce’s first extended absence of the season. Cholowski was reassigned on December 14th and has spent the entirety of the new calendar year in the AHL. He has racked up five assists in 13 games. Pesce’s injury likely won’t push Cholowski ahead of Simon Nemec and Brendan Dillon on the depth chart but it will give New Jersey one more set of hands as they approach back-to-back games.
- Away from injury news, the Devils have also begun talks of a contract extension with winger Arseny Gritsyuk, general manager Tom Fitzgerald told Devils’ team reporter Amanda Stein. Gristyuk has scored 11 goals and 26 points in 58 games as an NHL rookie this season. He is on pace for 15 goals and 37 points across a full 82-game season, which would be the seventh-highest scoring total from a Devils rookie since 2000. Gritsyuk blossomed in Russia’s KHL over the last three seasons, kicked off with 40 points in 60 games of Omsk Avangard’ 2022-23 campaign, and concluded with 44 points in 49 games with SKA St. Petersburg last year. He has adjusted seamlessly into an NHL top-nine role in the season since. That should be enough to earn Gritsyuk a contract with term as he looks to sign the first deal after his entry-level contract. He is set to become a restricted free agent with arbitration rights this summer.
Capitals Recall Ivan Miroshnichenko
The Washington Capitals will have a bit more opportunity available on offense after trading Nic Dowd to the Vegas Golden Knights on the eve of the Trade Deadline. Washington acquired David Kampf from the Vancouver Canucks and will now bring in some competition by recalling winger Ivan Miroshnichenko from the AHL.
Miroshnichenko has spent the majority of his season in the minor leagues. He has racked up 12 goals and 31 points in 38 games with the Hershey Bears, good for fourth on the team in scoring. Miroshnichenko is on pace to narrowly beat out his career-high 42 points scored in 52 games last season. His AHL season has been inetercut with routine NHL call-ups and four games. He has no NHL scoring this season but did manage 10 points in 39 NHL games over the last two seasons.
Miroshnichenko has been a standout shooter since his days in Russia’s Omsk Avangard pipeline. He scored 15 goals and 29 points in 22 U20 games, across two seasons, and set a U18 record when he scored 10 goals in 31 VHL games – Russia’s second-tier pro league – in 2021-22. He broke the previous record of eight goals, set by Colorado Avalanche winger Valeri Nichushkin in 2012-13.
That performance earned Miroshnichenko the 20th-overall selection in the 2022 NHL Draft. He made his KHL debut in the following season marked by four points in 23 games, then moved to the NHL/AHL circuit in 2023-24. After battling that rotation for three seasons, Dowd’s exit could open just enough space for Miroshnichenko to take his next step.
Sabres Acquire Tanner Pearson
The Buffalo Sabres have made one more move to shore up their depth before the Trade Deadline hit. They dealt a 2026 seventh-round pick to the Winnipeg Jets in exchange for winger Tanner Pearson per TSN’s Darren Dreger.
Buffalo has confirmed the deal.
Pearson heads back to the Eastern Conference for the first time in three years, after spending last season with the Vegas Golden Knights and this season in Winnipeg. He has grown into a journeyman, extra forward in the latter part of his career, now headed for his fourth club in the last three seasons after a five-year stay with the Vancouver Canucks. Pearson will be playing with the seventh club of his 13-year NHL career when he joins the Sabres.
The 33-year-old winger has scored seven goals and 13 points in 52 games with Winnipeg this season. He has buoyed the quiet scoring with a plus-seven – highest on the Jets offense – and 68 hits – fourth-most among Winnipeg forwards. Two-way responsibility has underlined Pearson’s game in recent years, marked by 53 points, a minus-one, and 214 hits over his last 184 games.
Pearson was originally drafted by the Los Angeles Kings with the 30th-overall pick in the 2012 NHL Draft. He debuted with the club one season later, netting seven points in 25 games of his rookie year. Pearson grew those numbers to back-to-back, 40-point seasons in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 campaign. He reached that feat once more in 2019-20, his first year in Vancouver, but has otherwise failed to crack into his team’s top-nine. He will be a responsible, depth forward to help Buffalo keep afloat as they approach their first postseason in over a decade.
Morning Notes: Thomas, Blue Jackets, Belchetz
The Philadelphia Flyers are highly unlikely to be the landing spot for St. Louis Blues star center Robert Thomas if he is traded before the deadline, The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz reported today. A Flyers team source told Kurz that the team considers a trade for Thomas “completely unreasonable,” and with that feeling likely a result of the high price the Blues have set for teams interested in Thomas. According to Kurz, the Flyers “would probably have to be willing to part with” one of their two young wingers with star potential (Matvei Michkov, Porter Martone) as well as a first-round pick and another young roster player. Despite a pressing organizational need for a top-line center, the Flyers, per this report, believe the Blues’ asking price to simply be too steep for them to get involved in trade talks for Thomas.
Of course, value is in the eye of the beholder. From the Blues’ perspective, they’re likely to believe their high asking price for Thomas to be entirely fair. To an extent, it’s easy to see why. Thomas is an established No. 1 center who scored 81 points in 70 games last season, a 95-point 82-game scoring pace. While his production is down this year, the Blues’ struggles as a team this season make it difficult to pin Thomas’ decline entirely on some lasting decrease in his talent level. Thomas is 26 years old and has five additional seasons on a $8.125MM AAV contract. His below-market cap hit presents a serious opportunity for a team to get surplus value from him, especially as the upper limit rises.
There’s an argument to be made that, combining his talent and contract status, Thomas is one of the more valuable players to have been shopped on the in-season trade market in some time, so it’s understandable that the Blues would want to fetch a high price for the player. Value is all about leverage, after all, and the fact that the Blues can simply retain Thomas for the next half-decade gives them considerable leverage in comparison to a team shopping a rental player. But in any case, the Flyers have to move forward with the path they feel is best for them – and if they deem the Blues’ asking price too high, that is their right. Their search for a first-line center may yet continue in the 2026 draft, or perhaps within the continued development of recent first-rounders Jett Luchanko and Jack Nesbitt.
Other notes from around the hockey world:
- Insider Frank Seravalli reported this morning that the Blue Jackets continue to receive trade inquiries centered around pending UFA forwards Charlie Coyle and Mason Marchment, though to this point, that trade interest has been turned away. Both players have been stellar since being traded to the Blue Jackets, with Marchment scoring 10 goals and 17 points in 18 games, and Coyle nabbing 16 goals and 46 points in 60 games. The Blue Jackets traded second and fourth-round picks for Marchment earlier this season, but could receive more than they invested given the player’s uptick in form since arriving in Ohio. They traded quality prospect Gavin Brindley alongside second and third-round picks for Coyle this past summer, but could receive similar, if not increased, value in return before the deadline. The issue with trading either player would be that it would signal a retreat on their playoff chase for the rest of the season. Columbus sits three points behind the Boston Bruins for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, and has gone 13-2-1 since hiring Rick Bowness as their head coach.
- Top 2026 NHL Draft prospect Ethan Belchetz will miss the rest of the season after suffering a broken left clavicle, per an announcement from his team, the Windsor Spitfires of the OHL. Belchetz was the No. 1 overall pick of the 2024 OHL Priority Selection, and will finish his season with 34 goals and 59 points in 57 games. The 17-year-old stands 6’5″, 226 pounds, and projects as the kind of power forward who blends physicality and scoring ability that NHL teams covet. He has been ranked around the back-end of the top-10 in this year’s class, but it remains to be seen how his draft stock might change despite playing his final game before the draft.
Wild Claim Robby Fabbri, Place Tyler Pitlick On Waivers
March 3: Pitlick passed through waivers unclaimed, per Friedman.
March 2: The Minnesota Wild have found a depth forward upgrade on the waiver wire. Minnesota has claimed St. Louis Blues winger Robby Fabbri off of waivers and, in a corresponding move, placed Tyler Pitlick on waivers to clear roster space, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. Fabbri will join former Blues teammate Vladimir Tarasenko in his move to the Wild.
Fabbri signed a one-year, two-way contract with the Blues in December after beginning the year with three games and two points, with the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers. He slotted into a fourth-line role – but routinely stepped up in the lineup – in his return to St. Louis, where he spent the first four years of his career. Fabbri racked up four points, 12 penalty minutes, and a minus-three in 15 games with the Blues before landing on waivers. His waiver designation came in conjunction with Robert Thomas‘ return from a month-long absence due to injury and personal leave.
Fabbri was a first-round pick for the Blues in 2014. He made his NHL debut two seasons later and posted what’s become a career-year right out of the gates – marked by a career-high 18 goals and 37 points in 72 games. Fabbri’s career was quickly derailed by multiple knee injuries, holding him out of over 100 games between 2016 and 2020. Despite that, Fabbri stuck in the lineup long enough to seal a Stanley Cup victory with the Blues in 2019, netting a combined seven points in 42 games between the 2018-19 regular season and playoffs.
Fabbri will rival fourth-line minutes in Minnesota. Pitlick recorded only two goals, along with 24 penalty minutes and a minus-four, in 32 games with Minnesota this season. He has also scored 11 points in 12 AHL games this season. Pitlick spent the entire 2024-25 season with the AHL’s Providence Bruins. He finished the year ranked third on the team in scoring, with 46 points in 59 games. Pitlick rotated through NHL extra forward roles between 2013 and 2024 – making appearances with seven different clubs, including the Blues and Edmonton Oilers. In total, Pitlick has scored 58 goals and 111 points in 452 NHL games. He will return to a productive role in the minor leagues, if no team finds a need for his depth services in the NHL.
Kraken Sign, Reassign Gustav Olofsson
March 3: Olofsson has cleared waivers, per Friedman. The team confirmed he’s been sent back to Coachella Valley
March 2: The Seattle Kraken have continued their run of new contracts by signing defenseman Gustav Olofsson to a one-year, $775K contract. Olofsson is currently playing in the first year of a two-year, AHL contract signed with the Coachella Valley Firebirds in July 2025. This deal will bump him back up to an NHL, two-way contract – mirroring the contract details of his last deal with the Kraken: a two-year, two-way, league-minimum contract signed in 2023. Olofsson’s last NHL contract paid him $350K in minor-league salary. He will earn a bump in pay – up to $460K – in minor-league salary on this deal per PuckPedia.
With his promotion from an AHL deal to an NHL deal, the 31-year-old Olofsson will have to clear NHL waivers. He has been placed on the waiver wire per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.
Olofsson has served as an alternate captain with Coachella Valley for the last four seasons. Unlike in previous years, he has found a new scoring touch this season, racking up 16 points in 29 games played – third-most on the Firebirds defense behind Tyson Jugnauth and Ty Nelson. A chunk of that scoring has come over Olofsson’s last eight games, where he’s racked up five points, 10 penalty minutes, and a plus-five.
Seattle has not recalled Olofsson since the 2023-24 season. Prior to his time in Seattle, Olofsson earned extended looks in the NHL with the Minnesota Wild, including 41 games in the 2017-18 season. In total, Olofsson has racked up no goals and 11 assists in 63 games and six seasons in the NHL. His role has often been focused on the defensive side of the puck, where his long reach and big frame help close off opponents breaking into the zone. The Kraken will ensure a bit more defensive depth with this move, though it’s not likely to change Olofsson’s role in the Coachella Valley lineup for the foreseeable future.
Kings’ Quinton Byfield Sustains Upper-Body Injury
The Los Angeles Kings were without yet another top forward in Monday night’s game against the Colorado Avalanche. Quinton Byfield sat out of the match with an upper-body injury per a team release. It was Byfield’s second absence of the season. The Kings awarded rookies Jared Wright and Kenny Connors with their NHL debuts in relief of the injured Byfield and Andrei Kuzmenko.
It is not clear what the source of Byfield’s injury was. Either way, his absence left the Kings scrambling to fill yet another top-six role, after losing Kevin Fiala to a season-ending injury during the 2026 Winter Olympics. Byfield has made his presence felt in the return from break, with three points in three games since Los Angeles took back to the ice. He has averaged 20 minutes of ice time throughout the season and earned 13 goals, 33 points, and a minus-five in 58 games.
Byfield is scoring at a 47-point pace this season, a step below the pace that led him to 55 and 54 points over the last two seasons respectively. He has stayed a central piece of the Kings’ offense despite that, averaging more ice time than any Kings forward and taking the second-most faceoffs on the team. Byfield’s impact away from the scoresheet has helped the Kings make up for a down year from franchise legend Anze Kopitar, who has only 24 points in 45 games.
Should Byfield need to miss extended time with this absence, the Kings will need to heap even more responsibility onto recent, superstar addition Artemi Panarin. The former New York Rangers scoring leader has notched three assists in his first four games with the Kings. He looked like a dangerous addition to Byfield’s wing but will now serve next to Kopitar, while Alex Turcotte and Connors earn bumps into the middle-six. Neither Connors nor Wright earned a point in their first NHL game but both could have another crack at scoring with injuries piling up in Los Angeles.
Avalanche’s Artturi Lehkonen Leaves Game Injured, Will Miss Time
The Colorado Avalanche went down a winger early into Monday night’s game against the Los Angeles Kings. Winger Artturi Lehkonen left the game in the first period after a puck caught him up high. He had only played three shifts and just under four minutes of ice time. After the game, head coach Jared Bednar shared that Lehkonen will “miss some time” with an upper-body injury per Evan Rawal of The Denver Gazette.
Lehkonen has filled an important role in his fourth full season in Colorado. He has averaged just under 19 minutes of ice time each game, and reached a career-high scoring pace in the role. Lehkonen has 19 goals and 42 points in 59 games, putting him on pace for 26 goals and 58 points across a full 82-game season. Both of those marks would be new career-highs, surpassing the 21 goals and 51 points he scored in 64 games of the 2022-23 campaign.
Lehkonen has found that extra scoring gear while serving as the left-winger next to Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas on Colorado’s top, even-strength line. The trio have played nearly 475 minutes together this season, over 340 minutes more than any other Avalanche line. Together they have outscored opponents by a staggering 38-to-16.
With Lehkonen set for the shelf, Colorado will face the tough question of how to rework their most consistent line. Captain Gabriel Landeskog will likely move to a top-line role but which extra forward will step into the lineup isn’t clear. Colorado is not currently carrying a healthy, extra forward – so they’ll need to make a recall to find some added help. Left-winger Taylor Makar has received the most NHL action of any of Colorado’s minor-leaguers, with 12 NHL games and no scoring this season. He could be the favorite for a short-term, NHL role. Colorado could also look for a bit more scoring spark from a player like Alex Barre-Boulet, who leads the AHL’s Colorado Eagles with 54 points in 52 games and scored a point in his only NHL game this season.