• Dwight King, a veteran of 365 NHL games, has signed in Austria for the 2018-19 season according to his agency 37 Hockey. King spent last year in the KHL where he registered 14 points in 49 games, but will try to take advantage of a lower league this time around. The 29-year old was once a 15-goal player for the Los Angeles Kings en route to a Stanley Cup, but couldn’t make much of an impact over the last few years.
• Yannick Veilleux has signed a one-year deal with the Rochester Americans after spending last season with the Montreal Canadiens organization. Veilleux is still waiting to make his NHL debut, but will join a Rochester team that is looking to compete for the Calder Cup this season. Originally selected in the fourth round by the St. Louis Blues, Veilleux has never been quite able to fulfill his potential as an offensive power forward.
• Chad Rau, who has spent the last two seasons in the KHL has now moved onto his fourth team in the league by signing with HC Bratislava. Rau played nine games for the Minnesota Wild back in 2011-12, but never could replicate the success he found during his time in the NCAA.

Mitchell, 32, didn’t have much of a role on the Canadiens this season and had been held scoreless through 11 games. While this isn’t the shake-up some believe Montreal needs, it clears room in the team’s bottom-six for a younger player to try and give the team some spark. Mitchell did have 17 points last season and has been excellent in the faceoff dot since coming to Montreal, but hadn’t been effective in limited minutes this year.

The Kings have had some depth issues down the middle since Jeff Carter’s long-term injury, and Mitchell will give them another option for the fourth line and penalty kill. The veteran of 617 games is familiar with the west coast from his early days in San Jose, where he broke into the league as a defensive-minded forward. Perhaps the Pacific breeze and a more secure role can give him a bit of a youthful burst for the second part of the season.

Mitchell is in the last season of a three-year, $3.6MM deal and will push the Kings a little closer to the cap ceiling. As for Montreal, who already had quite a bit of cap room even with six players on injured reserve (and thus 29 players counting towards the cap), they now have even more room to complete a splashy deal if they want to try and turn around their season right away. The Canadiens were active in the offseason, bringing in Jonathan Drouin and Karl Alzner among others, but were left with several million dollars of cap space after both Alexander Radulov and Andrei Markov left for greener (Dallas pun intended) pastures.

It also returns a draft pick to a team that is looking further from contention than anyone expected. Even with the addition of Drouin, Montreal can’t seem to generate much offense on a nightly basis and is currently led by Brendan Gallagher in goals and points. Drouin, Max Pacioretty and Alex Galchenyuk have combined for just 14 goals and 33 points, a disappointing total from a trio who have all shown elite offensive ability at times in the past. If the Canadiens aren’t able to turn things around from their 8-12-3 start, hoarding draft picks for a deep 2018 class is the likely course of action.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

King had previously been a solid bottom-six contributor for the Kings, winning two Stanley Cups with the club. At 28, he’ll now try to revitalize his career in a foreign league, quite a distance from his hometown of Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan. The big-bodied forward could return in a few years should he find that secondary scoring touch again, but this departure could also provide another opportunity.

With Team Canada scouring the world for potential Olympic players, King’s experience and NHL pedigree may put him in consideration. He wouldn’t be an exciting add, but when players like Rob Klinkhammer are getting similar looks, he may just be one of the best options available.

While King isn’t a household name by any means, he nevertheless has been an effective fourth line player throughout his career. With size (6’4″ 232-lbs) and some surprising offensive skill, he can provide some much needed secondary (or tertiary) scoring in limited minutes. Twice he’s scored double digit goals, and even registered 30 points in 2013-14 with the Los Angeles Kings.

With more effective players like Drew Stafford, Jaromir Jagr and Thomas Vanek still available it’s easy to see why King would be left out in the cold, and he should find some success in the Russian league even if he doesn’t possess the elite puck skills that are so prevalent there. Still just 28, he could easily return to the NHL at some point in the future.