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Blue Jackets Place Christián Jaroš On Unconditional Waivers

October 6, 2025 at 3:50 pm CDT | by Brennan McClain Leave a Comment

10/6/25: Jaroš has now found a place to play for the 2025-26 season. Per an official announcement, Jaroš has signed a one-year contract with Spartak Moscow. The signing returns Jaros to the KHL, the league he has played in since he last played in North America in 2021-22. Spartak currently sit sixth in the KHL’s Western Conference with a 5-4-3 record through 12 games played.

10/01/25: For the second time since debuting with the Ottawa Senators in the 2017-18 season, defenseman Christián Jaroš has been placed on unconditional waivers for contract termination. The Columbus Blue Jackets announced today that the two sides have agreed to a mutual termination should he clear unconditional waivers.

Surprisingly, today’s news comes three months to the day when the Blue Jackets first shared that they had signed Jaroš. He was projected to play for the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters to start the year. There are no additional reports about his potential landing spot, but news may arrive tomorrow if he clears.

The Kosice, Slovakia native has spent the last three years in the KHL, split between the Avangard Omsk, Severstal Cherepovets, and CSKA Moskva. Throughout that stretch, the 29-year-old has scored eight goals and 42 points in 134 contests with a +16 rating.

He was largely unnoticeable throughout his playing days in the NHL, though he earned an extended look with the Senators during the 2018-19 campaign. From 2017 to 2022, Jaroš scored one goal and 14 points in 94 games with the Senators, San Jose Sharks, and New Jersey Devils, averaging 13:04 of ice time per game. He had been far more respectable with those teams’ respective AHL affiliates, registering five goals and 34 points in 90 games with a +16 rating.

Columbus Blue Jackets| Transactions| Waivers Christian Jaros

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Oilers Extend Connor McDavid, Jake Walman

October 6, 2025 at 3:30 pm CDT | by Josh Erickson 40 Comments

Edmonton’s biggest piece of offseason business is done on the eve of opening night. They’ve announced a two-year, $25MM extension to keep captain Connor McDavid off next year’s unrestricted free agent market. That’s a $12.5MM cap hit, the same as his current eight-year deal signed back in 2017 carries. It’s not just the Oilers’ generational talent inking a new deal, either. Defenseman Jake Walman has agreed to terms on a long-term extension, according to Sportsnet’s Mark Spector. That deal will be a seven-year, $49MM contract with a $7MM cap hit, per Friedman.

According to PuckPedia, McDavid’s new deal will be largely paid out in signing bonuses as expected. In 2026-27, he’ll earn an $850K salary with a $13.4MM signing bonus, and in 2027-28, he’ll make a $900K salary with a $9.85MM signing bonus. He’ll have full no-movement protection in each year of the deal.

Meanwhile, a few hours later, PuckPedia shared that Walman’s contract breaks down as follows:

  • Year 1: $1.24MM salary, $6MM signing bonus, full no-movement clause
  • Year 2: $2.5MM salary, $5MM signing bonus, full no-movement clause
  • Year 3: $4MM salary, $4MM signing bonus, full no-movement clause
  • Year 4: $2.565MM salary, $4MM signing bonus, full no-movement clause
  • Year 5: $5.565MM salary, $1MM signing bonus, 15-team no trade clause
  • Year 6: $5.565MM salary, $1MM signing bonus, 15-team no trade clause
  • Year 7: $5.565MM salary, $1MM signing bonus, 15-team no trade clause

In his first two years on the job, Edmonton general manager Stan Bowman has now been successful in renewing his two franchise cornerstones well before unrestricted free agency became a real threat. He went through a similar song and dance with Leon Draisaitl last year. However, unlike McDavid, Draisaitl’s commitment was long-term – an eight-year, $112MM extension in September 2024 that, at the time, carried the league’s highest cap hit at $14MM.

Draisaitl’s decision to extend came before the Oilers dropped a second straight Stanley Cup Final to the Panthers. Now 28 and entering his 11th NHL season, the context surrounding McDavid’s negotiations was markedly different as a result. The team has been knocking on the door for quite some time, but is now years deep into a contention window without a championship to show for it. With a bottom-five prospect pool and spending flexibility limited in recent seasons, there was an expectation that McDavid wanted the option to reach free agency in a few years, while still in his prime, if he hadn’t yet won a Cup with the Oilers.

But at least for the next few years, Edmonton’s contention window remains wide open with today’s news. McDavid is coming off an underwhelming regular season by his standards, one that saw him miss significant time with an injury for the first time since a fractured collarbone stole nearly half of his rookie season. He still managed to hit the 100-point mark in 67 appearances, but only 26 of them were goals, also his lowest output since his rookie year and one of the worst per-game efforts of his career.

That was all put to bed by another dominant postseason run that would have earned him MVP honors had Edmonton emerged victorious this time around – an honor he managed to win anyway in 2024 despite being on the losing end as well. In the Oilers’ back-to-back Final runs, McDavid has led the league in playoff scoring both times for a cumulative 15-60–75 line in 47 games. He’s established himself as one of the top playoff performers of all time in the process. He’s got 150 points in 96 games across seven trips to the postseason, making his 1.56 points per game third in league history behind Wayne Gretzky’s 1.84 and Mario Lemieux’s 1.61.

The regular-season numbers are similarly fantastic. Only twice in McDavid’s career has he managed not to hit the century mark – his rookie season and the 2019-20 campaign that COVID cut off with weeks left in the season. He enters Year 11 with 361 goals, 721 assists, and 1,082 points in 712 career games. That’s good for 1.52 points per game, also third all-time behind Gretzky (1.92) and Lemieux (1.88).

He and Draisaitl remain the co-headliners of a forward group that’s lost a bit of depth punch due to cap constraints, but still has Zach Hyman signed through 2028 and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins through 2029. McDavid’s deal coincides with the expiry of Hyman’s contract. It also marks an immense discount on his market value, which was close to – if not the max salary ($20MM-ish per season) – in order to help facilitate a long-awaited championship. If that doesn’t happen, it’s hard to envision a world in which McDavid doesn’t head elsewhere in the offseason of 2028.

As for Walman, it’s hard to find a player whose fortunes have changed as dramatically since last offseason as his. The 29-year-old is entering the final season of a three-year, $10.2MM contract extension he signed with the Red Wings back in 2023. Despite Walman averaging nearly 20 minutes per game in the first year of that deal and managing a 12-9–21 scoring line in 63 appearances – fine value for the money – Detroit opted to clear his contract. They even paid a second-round pick to the Sharks to take him on.

On a thin San Jose blue line, Walman quickly emerged as their No. 1 option. He averaged north of 23 games for the Sharks and responded with an offensive breakout, notching a 6-26–32 line in 50 appearances with a highly respectable -1 rating on a club that ended up finishing the season with a -102 goal differential. San Jose parlayed the lefty’s breakout by trading him to the Oilers at the deadline, netting a 2026 first-round pick in return in addition to the second-rounder they received from the Wings for taking on his contract in what remains one of the more puzzling trades in recent memory.

Walman’s production barely even took a hit despite slotting in as Edmonton’s No. 4 behind Evan Bouchard, Mattias Ekholm, and Darnell Nurse. He spent most of his time last year anchoring a third pairing with John Klingberg, but is now getting a look in the top four to start 2025-26, moving to his offside to play with a fellow lefty in Nurse. In 37 combined regular-season and playoff games with the Oilers after the move, Walman had a 3-15–18 scoring line with a +14 rating while still averaging north of 20 minutes per game.

A seven-year extension keeps the pending UFA under contract through the 2032-33 season, so Walman now carries the longest remaining term of any Oiler alongside Draisaitl and Trent Frederic. He’s also due to be their fifth-highest-paid skater next season behind Draisaitl, McDavid, Bouchard ($10.5MM), and Nurse ($9.25MM). With McDavid and Walman in tow, the Oilers now have $81.3MM committed to 14 players for 2026-27, per PuckPedia. That still leaves at least $22.7MM in flexibility to fill nine roster spots, a number that could grow if the salary cap exceeds its $104MM projection. They do still have a few notable UFAs left unsigned past this season, a class headlined by Ekholm and starting netminder Stuart Skinner.

Frank Seravalli of Bleacher Report and Victory+ was first to report notable progress on McDavid talks today. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet was first to report the deal had gotten signed. TSN’s Ryan Rishaug was first on the two-year term.

Image courtesy of Perry Nelson-Imagn Images.

Edmonton Oilers| Newsstand| Transactions Connor McDavid| Jake Walman

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Rangers Sign Conor Sheary To One-Year Contract

October 6, 2025 at 2:36 pm CDT | by Paul Griser 6 Comments

Oct. 6th: As expected, the Rangers announced that they’ve signed Sheary to a one-year, league minimum contract for the 2025-26 campaign. He scored one goal and three points in four preseason contests, averaging 16:05 of ice time per game.

Jul. 25th: In an effort to extend his NHL career, veteran winger Conor Sheary has agreed to a professional tryout (PTO) with the New York Rangers, per the NY Post’s Mollie Walker.

Sheary has played in 593 games throughout his 10-year career, posting 124 goals and 267 points. He has also shown an ability to elevate his game in big moments during the playoffs, as evidenced by his contributions to the Pittsburgh Penguins’ back-to-back Stanley Cup wins early in his career, when he often played a key role alongside Sidney Crosby. Notably, some of his best professional seasons came in Pittsburgh under head coach Mike Sullivan. After signing a five-year deal in May to lead the Rangers, Sullivan is bringing in a familiar face as he looks to implement a new game plan in New York.

However, Sheary has struggled in recent years. After producing just 15 points in 57 games with the Tampa Bay Lightning during the 2023-24 season—his lowest output since his rookie year—he dressed in only five games last season with the team. He spent the majority of his year with Tampa’s AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch, where he produced 20 goals and 61 points in 59 games.

Sheary, 33, will now look to rejuvenate his career with the Rangers, a team in the midst of transition. Beyond the obvious changes that come with a new head coach, the team has also seen longtime staples Chris Kreider and K’Andre Miller depart, while adding forward Taylor Raddysh and prospect Carey Terrance. While PTOs are anything but guaranteed, Sheary’s history of producing quality offense, combined with his relationship with Sullivan, should give him a strong chance to make the opening night roster.

New York Rangers| Transactions Conor Sheary

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Blackhawks Recall Ryan Greene, Place Two On IR

October 6, 2025 at 2:31 pm CDT | by Brennan McClain Leave a Comment

The Chicago Blackhawks appear to have their opening night roster in place ahead of tonight’s action against the Florida Panthers. Earlier today, the Blackhawks announced that they’ve recalled Ryan Greene from their AHL affiliate, the Rockford IceHogs. In a separate transaction, the team has placed forwards Landon Slaggert and Joey Anderson on the injured reserve.

Greene, 21, is coming off an impressive three-year run with the NCAA’s Boston University Terriers. Drafted by the Blackhawks with the 57th overall selection of the 2022 NHL Draft, he’s become one of the several up-and-coming forward prospects that the organization boasts.

During his time with the Terriers, Greene scored 34 goals and recorded 105 points in 118 games, achieving a +24 rating. He earned the program’s captaincy in his final season. After losing the National Championship to the Western Michigan University Broncos last season, Greene signed his entry-level deal with the Blackhawks and made his NHL debut one day later.

Unfortunately, Greene’s inclusion on Chicago’s opening night roster comes with less positive news. Slaggert, 23, who’s another forward prospect coming from the NCAA ranks, will begin the year on the injured reserve due to a lower-body injury.

In late September, there was an expectation that Slaggert might start the year on time with the Blackhawks. However, as he became more involved in the team’s practices and scrimmages, he may have re-aggravated something. He scored 10 goals and 25 points in 39 games for the IceHogs last year, with another two goals and six points in 33 appearances with Chicago.

Meanwhile, Anderson will join Slaggert on the Blackhawks’ IR. Although Anderson lacks significant prospect value and mainly serves as a depth player, he has spent the last four years with Chicago after being acquired from the Toronto Maple Leafs during the 2022-23 season.

Signed to a modest $800K salary for this season before being eligible for unrestricted free agency next summer, Anderson wasn’t a lock to make the Blackhawks’ opening night roster regardless of his lower-body injury. This is likely why Chicago has designated him as an injured non-roster player to start the campaign. He spent much of last season with Rockford, tallying 17 goals and 27 points in 33 games.

Chicago Blackhawks| Injury| Transactions Joey Anderson| Landon Slaggert| Ryan Greene

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Braeden Cootes Makes Canucks’ Opening Night Roster

October 6, 2025 at 2:03 pm CDT | by Ethan Hetu 8 Comments

Oct. 6th: According to commentator John Shannon, Cootes has indeed cracked Vancouver’s opening night roster. In a somewhat wacky comparison, Cootes will become the first 18-year-old to play for the Canucks since Petr Nedvěd in 1990, who was also selected in the first round and played in the WHL for the Seattle Thunderbirds.

Sep. 30th: 2025 15th-overall pick Braeden Cootes is “in the driver’s seat” to make the Vancouver Canucks’ season-opening roster, reports The Athletic’s Thomas Drance. Per Drance, Cootes’ performance this preseason and training camp has been so impressive that internally, the “conversation around him is beginning to shift materially” amongst Canucks decision-makers.

According to Drance, the team’s “internal discussion” around Cootes has shifted from whether Cootes should get early-season NHL games (a prospect Drance called “increasingly likely”) to whether he can sustain this high level all year or is best served returning to the WHL.

For those not paying close attention to Canucks training camp, this is likely to be a surprising development, as most 18-year-olds who make it onto NHL rosters are players who were one of the draft’s top handful of picks.

But keeping Cootes on their opening-night roster would not be a move without precedent. The Philadelphia Flyers played 2024 13th overall pick Jett Luchanko in four NHL games to start their 2024-25 season, and 2023 13th pick Zach Benson ended up making the Buffalo Sabres roster on a full-time basis.

There are actually quite a few parallels between Luchanko’s situation and Cootes’.

Similar to Cootes, Luchanko entered his first professional training camp as a long-shot possibility to make it onto the NHL roster, but his complete play and pro-ready qualities left the Philadelphia Flyers coaching staff extremely impressed. Rocky Thompson, then a member of the Flyers’ coaching staff, said at the time that Luchanko’s performance “opened [the] eyes” of the organization.

Cootes has generated similar sentiments in Vancouver. Although the Canucks have not been as public with their praise for Cootes as the Flyers were with Luchanko, Drance reports that the Canucks have been pleasantly surprised by just how “complete” and “mature” Cootes is – “down to his positioning and work in the faceoff circle.”

Beyond receiving similar-sounding praise at the same stage of camp one year apart, Luchanko is also a player who had a similar overall profile to Cootes. They both stand around six feet tall and 180 pounds, both registered just above point-per-game scoring rates in their draft-year CHL campaigns, and both are widely credited with having clear pro-ready qualities that are at the center of each player’s game.

As a result, it appears that Cootes is following Luchanko’s path and is likely to see NHL action despite being just 18 years old and not one of the draft’s top picks. The Canucks recently learned that forward Nils Hoglander will miss significant time due to injury, a development that only makes it likelier that the Canucks have room on their season-opening roster to keep Cootes.

Despite all of this, it remains the likeliest possibility that in a few months’ time, Cootes is back playing with his junior team. Playing in the NHL at 18 is such a difficult task, it’s only the best of the best who typically manage to hold onto a lineup spot for a full season.

While Cootes is undoubtedly an impressive, promising young player, his résumé is not at the level of the recent players who have been full-time NHL players at 18. Benson was one of the WHL’s most complete players with a lethal offensive arsenal, and Connor Bedard, Macklin Celebrini, Leo Carlsson, and Adam Fantilli were each top picks who had overwhelmingly proven themselves to be beyond their previous levels of competition. For as impressive as Cootes has been this preseason, most evaluators don’t place him at that level.

Even so, forcing his way into the roster conversation at 18 is a significant positive for both Cootes and Vancouver, and it reinforces projections of him developing into the kind of do-it-all middle-six center NHL teams routinely covet.

Photo courtesy of Perry Nelson-Imagn Images

Vancouver Canucks Braeden Cootes

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Harrison Brunicke, Ben Kindel To Make Penguins’ Opening Night Roster

October 6, 2025 at 1:43 pm CDT | by Brennan McClain 2 Comments

For the first time in a while, the Pittsburgh Penguins will have a pair of teenagers on their opening night roster. Earlier today, head coach Dan Muse confirmed to play-by-play commentator Josh Getzoff that defenseman Harrison Brunicke and forward Benjamin Kindel will make their NHL debuts tomorrow night.

Neither player making the roster is overly surprising, given that the Penguins have been actively looking to get younger under General Manager Kyle Dubas’ stewardship. Still in the early stages of their rebuild, Pittsburgh was the oldest team in the NHL last season with an average age of 30.9.

Although he wasn’t a first-round selection, Brunicke has risen quickly up the Penguins’ organizational depth chart. He was drafted with the 44th pick of the 2024 NHL Draft after scoring 10 goals and 21 points in 49 games for the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers.

After having a solid training camp last season, the Blazers appointed Brunicke one of the team’s assistant captains for the 2024-25 campaign. He had a mildly better season in terms of offensive production, scoring five goals and 30 points in 41 games. Moving to the AHL’s Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins for the final stretch of their regular season, Brunicke tallied two assists in 10 games in his first few professional contests.

The only issue out of the gate for Brunicke is that the Penguins are already saturated on the right side of their blue line. Outside of him taking a step back in his development, Pittsburgh has nothing to lose by playing Brunicke over some of their options, and the team has already committed to limiting veteran Kris Letang’s ice time this season. Still, even outside of those two, the Penguins need to find ice time for Erik Karlsson, Matt Dumba, and Connor Clifton.

Meanwhile, Kindel had much more hype coming out of the draft, given that he was selected with the 11th overall pick of the 2025 NHL Draft. He’s coming off an impressive campaign with the WHL’s Calgary Hitmen, seeing Kindel score 35 goals and 99 points in 65 games with a +39 rating. In the postseason, Kindel maintained a high level of performance, scoring eight goals and 15 points in 11 games, with a +6 rating.

Despite being one of the younger players at the Penguins’ training camp, Kindel tied for fifth in preseason scoring, putting up one goal and three points in six games. Even though he was typically used as a right winger throughout his tenure in juniors, Pittsburgh had been using him as a center this September, and he could start the year down the middle of the third line. Regardless, if he doesn’t find success to start the year, the Penguins have plenty of flexibility to move him to the wing.

Pittsburgh Penguins Benjamin Kindel| Harrison Brunicke

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Tampa Bay Lightning Claim Curtis Douglas

October 6, 2025 at 1:14 pm CDT | by Brennan McClain 7 Comments

The Tampa Bay Lightning have claimed a towering forward off the waiver wire. According to an announcement from his now-former team, the Utah Mammoth, Curtis Douglas is headed to Florida.

It’s readily apparent that the Lightning had one thing in mind by claiming Douglas. The former 106th overall pick of the 2018 NHL Draft stands at 6’9″, 243lbs, being one of the biggest forwards in the AHL.

Despite being drafted by the Dallas Stars, Douglas’ professional career began with the Ottawa Senators’ AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators, on an amateur tryout agreement to end the 2020-21 campaign. After scoring one goal and four points in 11 games, he signed a two-year, $1.675MM entry-level deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs the following offseason.

Since then, the only other time he’s been mentioned in the news before today is when the Maple Leafs traded him to the now-defunct Arizona Coyotes toward the beginning of the 2022-23 season for defenseman Conor Timmins.

Including his brief stint with the baby Senators, Douglas has played in parts of five AHL seasons with the Toronto Marlies and Tucson Roadrunners, scoring 37 goals and 97 points in 261 games. In an oddly impressive statistic, Douglas has accrued 508 PIMs over that stretch, averaging out to two minor penalties a game, or one major penalty every three games.

Tampa Bay Lightning| Transactions| Utah Mammoth| Waivers Curtis Douglas

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Buffalo Sabres Claim Colten Ellis

October 6, 2025 at 1:11 pm CDT | by Brennan McClain 12 Comments

The Buffalo Sabres have added one of the top netminders from the AHL last season off the waiver wire. According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the Sabres have claimed netminder Colten Ellis from the St. Louis Blues.

All of a sudden, the Sabres have accumulated a relatively solid crop of goaltending depth. The team is expected to be without regular starter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen through the first couple of weeks of the regular season. Still, they’ll have three NHL-caliber netminders, all acquired this offseason, to hold down the fort. And that’s without factoring in Devon Levi.

Unfortunately, unlike Alex Lyon and Alexandar Georgiev, along with Levi, Ellis has no NHL experience to rely on. Should he appear for the Sabres over the next few weeks, it would become his NHL debut after spending the last four years within the Blues organization.

Ellis came to the Blues as the 93rd overall selection of the 2019 NHL Draft, coming from the QMJHL’s Rimouski Océanic. After one more year with the Océanic and another with the Charlottetown Islanders, he made his professional debut in the 2021-22 campaign.

His AHL tenure didn’t get off to a positive start, leading him to spend much of his first two years in the ECHL. Still, he came into his own last year, managing a 22-14-5 record in 42 games with a .922 SV% and 2.63 GAA, including three shutouts.

It’s difficult to argue that Ellis is better than Lyon or Georgiev at this stage. Though the latter’s shaky performance last season could open up an opportunity for Ellis should he falter out of the gates. Still, by adding Ellis today, Buffalo now has seven netminders signed to NHL contracts for the 2025-26 campaign, meaning their goaltending carousel could be far from over for this season.

Buffalo Sabres| St. Louis Blues| Transactions Colten Ellis

12 comments

Maple Leafs Claim Cayden Primeau, Sammy Blais Off Waivers

October 6, 2025 at 1:08 pm CDT | by Brennan McClain 8 Comments

The Toronto Maple Leafs have added a pair of depth options off the waiver wire. According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the Maple Leafs have claimed netminder Cayden Primeau from the Carolina Hurricanes and forward Sammy Blais from the Montreal Canadiens.

Primeau’s tenure with the Hurricanes will end after having never appeared in a regular-season contest. Carolina acquired Primeau from the Canadiens this summer for a 2026 seventh-round pick. Despite signing him to a one-year, $775K contract a few days later, he’ll now play out that contract with Toronto.

After a promising 2023-24 campaign in which Primeau managed an 8-9-4 record in 24 games with a .910 SV%, he took a nosedive last year. Despite holding a 2-3-1 record in 11 games, he produced a disastrous .836 SV% and lost his job as the Canadiens’ backup to Jakub Dobes. Fortunately, Primeau revived some of his value with the AHL’s Laval Rocket, earning a 21-2-3 record in 26 games with a .927 SV%.

The Maple Leafs’ desire to add Primeau is fairly straightforward. The team will use Anthony Stolarz as the primary starter to begin the year, but has a question mark behind him with Joseph Woll taking an indefinite leave of absence. Dennis Hildeby has likely earned the role given his impressive preseason performance, and Primeau may start the year as their third-string option behind him, unless the team converts James Reimer’s PTO to a contract.

Meanwhile, Blais rejoins head coach Craig Berube in Toronto after winning a Stanley Cup ring with him in the 2019 playoffs. He’s a high-intensity forward and is coming off an impressive year with the AHL’s Abbotsford Canucks, scoring 14 goals and 40 points in 51 games, with another six goals and 19 points in 23 games in the Calder Cup playoffs en route to another championship run.

Carolina Hurricanes| Montreal Canadiens| Toronto Maple Leafs| Transactions| Waivers Cayden Primeau| Sammy Blais

8 comments

Logan Cooley’s Camp Reportedly Rejects Eight-Year, $77MM Offer

October 6, 2025 at 1:01 pm CDT | by Brennan McClain 5 Comments

The Utah Mammoth are struggling to extend their top center. According to insider Frank Seravalli, Logan Cooley and his representation turned down an eight-year, $77MM ($9.6MM AAV) contract extension offer from the Mammoth this offseason.

It’s an interesting development considering a $9.6MM AAV would make Cooley the highest-paid forward on the team by more than $2MM margin, and the highest-paid player on the team by over $1MM. Still, given his career trajectory up to this point, there’s no question why Cooley would want to wait for a larger offer.

As the third overall pick from the 2022 NHL Draft, expectations were high for Cooley coming into his rookie campaign. Then, with the Arizona Coyotes, Cooley scored 20 goals and 44 points in 82 games, averaging 15:49 of ice time per night with a 38.0% success rate in the faceoff dot. He did finish with a slightly disappointing 47.9% CorsiFor% at even strength, but his defensive metrics were good with a 90.5% on-ice save percentage at even strength.

Much of his defensive poise at such a young age can be attributed to his time at the University of Minnesota, which put together one of the best collegiate rosters of all time during the 2022-23 season. All in all, although he slipped to fifth in Calder Trophy voting, Cooley’s rookie season was largely considered a success.

Fortunately, Cooley completely avoided the dreaded ’sophomore slump’ in 2024-25. Showing off much more playmaking ability, he finished with 25 goals and 65 points in 75 games — good for second on the team in scoring. Much of that can be attributed to his bump in ice time, jumping to 17:52 on average while centering the first line.

His underlying metrics were more mixed, as his CorsiFor% took a step forward, while his on-ice save percentage took a step back. Still, even at 20 years old, Cooley proved he could shoulder first-line minutes at the center position on a relatively competitive team.

Unfortunately, even if Cooley takes another leap in his on-ice production, he doesn’t have much bargaining power if he waits until next summer. Given that he’ll become a 10.2(c) restricted free agent, he’s ineligible for an offer sheet from an opposing team. Still, given that New Jersey Devils defenseman Luke Hughes was in a similar boat and landed a $9MM salary for the next seven years, Cooley may have an opportunity to become the first $10MM player in franchise history for the Mammoth.

Utah has plenty of financial flexibility moving forward, largely due to the shrewd extension of JJ Peterka and Dylan Guenther. At any rate, although he has reportedly rejected their most recent offer, the news indicates that the Mammoth are more than willing to invest in Cooley and retain him for the foreseeable future.

Newsstand| Utah Mammoth Logan Cooley

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