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Jets Expected To Activate Jonathan Toews From IR

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Jonathan Toews’ return to NHL ice will proceed as scheduled tonight. Despite being listed on injured reserve due to an undisclosed issue on the Jets’ opening night roster, Toews was a full participant in morning skate and is expected to be added to the active roster before tonight’s home opener, according to the team’s Mitchell Clinton. Winnipeg has a full 23-man roster and will need to make a corresponding transaction – presumably demoting one of their two waiver-exempt scratches in Parker Ford or Brad Lambert to AHL Manitoba.

The 37-year-old has carried a day-to-day designation for the past week after getting banged up in his final preseason appearance against the Wild on Sep. 30. Toews did not record a point in any of his three exhibition appearances but skated heavy minutes in the first two, around 18 minutes per game. The elite faceoff man showed no rust in the dot, going 28-for-46 on draws for a 60.9% win rate.

Toews will be anchoring Winnipeg’s second line between rookie Nikita Chibrikov and fellow offseason free agent signing Gustav Nyquist in his debut for his hometown team. The three-time Stanley Cup champion and future Hall of Famer last played a regular-season game 910 days ago on April 13, 2023, the final game of the Blackhawks’ 2022-23 season.

The longtime Chicago franchise cornerstone became a free agent the following summer and spent the last two seasons on the sidelines while dealing with the combined effects of chronic inflammatory response syndrome and long COVID. Back in May, he made clear his intent to return to play in 2025-26 and fielded calls from the Avalanche and Lightning as well before opting to sign in Winnipeg.

In his most recent NHL showing, Toews churned out a 15-16–31 scoring line in 53 appearances for the Hawks. With Winnipeg needing Toews to shoulder top-six minutes out of necessity to kick off the campaign, they’ll need at least that level of production – if not more – to help their offense stay afloat behind their dominant first line of Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele, and Gabriel Vilardi. In addition to losing top-six fixture Nikolaj Ehlers to free agency, the club is also without Cole Perfetti to begin the campaign after a preseason ankle injury and is missing captain Adam Lowry until later this month in the best-case scenario after he underwent hip surgery at the beginning of the offseason.

Will Butcher Signs With AHL Cleveland

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After one year overseas, a former Calder Trophy vote recipient is returning to North America. According to an announcement from the team, the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters have signed defenseman Will Butcher to a one-year contract for the 2025-26 season.

Last season, the University of Denver alumnus split his time between the KHL’s Barys Astana and the DEL’s EHC München. He performed much better with the latter, scoring three goals and 11 points in 32 games with a +7 rating, after tallying three assists in 15 games with the former.

Despite his offensive struggles in Europe, Butcher is only two years removed from being one of the better puck-moving defenseman in the AHL. In his first full season in the AHL with the Texas Stars during the 2022-23 season, Butcher scored six goals and 43 points in 65 games with a +11 rating, tying for 14th in scoring among defensemen.

Still, it’s difficult not to assess Butcher’s career as somewhat disappointing. On his entry-level deal with the New Jersey Devils, as recently as the 2018-19 campaign, Butcher was considered to be an up-and-coming offensive contributor from the blue line, scoring nine goals and 74 points in 159 games, averaging 17:38 of ice time per game.

New Jersey rewarded Butcher with a three-year, $11.2MM extension, though his production began to decline almost immediately upon putting pen to paper. In the following three campaigns, the final one with the Buffalo Sabres, Butcher registered seven goals and 40 points in 116 games before becoming a full-time AHL contributor.

In Cleveland, he’ll join a team that’s reached the postseason in back-to-back seasons. Given that Denton Mateychuk has graduated into a full-time role with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Butcher could be in line for significant responsibility on the Monsters’ blue line alongside Stanislav Svozil, especially if he returns to form from his 2022-23 campaign.

Michael McLeod Signs With KHL’s Avangard Omsk

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After some lukewarm interest from the Carolina Hurricanes, Michael McLeod’s comeback bid to the NHL will prove unsuccessful. He will return to the organization where he played last season, as the KHL announced a three-year deal for McLeod with Avangard Omsk.

Toward the beginning of training camp, reports indicated that McLeod would inevitably sign with the Hurricanes to return to the North American professional circuit. Still, since the NHL determined that none of the acquitted players from the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial could sign until October 15th, it gave Carolina plenty of time to change their mind.

The Hurricanes faced significant backlash from fans over their decision to target McLeod and former Philadelphia Flyer Carter Hart after they became eligible to return. Carolina pivoted relatively quickly, with TSN’s Chris Johnston saying the two sides couldn’t “get to something both sides would be comfortable with.”

Now, McLeod will return to Russia on a relatively lengthy three-year pact with Avangard Omsk. He spent much of last season with the team, scoring three goals and 13 points in 19 games, and another three goals and six points in 13 games for Barys Astana. He had much improved offensive production in the Gagarin Cup playoffs, tallying one goal and eight points in nine postseason contests.

Avangard Omsk doesn’t have much in the way of former NHL talent outside of McLeod, though they do have former three-time AHL scoring champion Andrew Poturalski and former first overall pick Nail Yakupov. Additionally, the team is coached by Guy Boucher, former head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Ottawa Senators.

Oilers Sign Jack Roslovic

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The Oilers announced they’ve signed forward Jack Roslovic to a one-year deal worth $1.5MM. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was first to report the deal. Edmonton won’t be able to officially register the contract until they make a corresponding roster move, as they’ve got a full 23-man contingent.

Roslovic, 28, finally lands a contract after going all summer on the free agent market, not even opting to ink a PTO for training camp. He was PHR’s 20th-ranked UFA and had been the highest-profile skater available from Day 4 of free agency onward after Nikolaj Ehlers signed his deal with the Hurricanes, Roslovic’s now-former team.

It’s not often a 22-goal man stays unsigned into August, let alone October, but for whatever reason, that was the case. It’s not Edmonton’s first attempt to bring Roslovic in – they made a pitch early in the summer, which he declined, Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic reported at the beginning of camp. After tying his career-high in goals and totaling 39 points in 81 games with the Canes last year, he may well have asked for too much for too long in negotiations and ended up pricing himself out of a multi-year deal when the game of musical chairs stopped.

He now takes a nearly 50% pay cut from the one-year, $2.8MM deal he signed with Carolina last summer. There’s immense value potential for the Oilers here. The 2015 first-rounder brings over 500 games of NHL experience, can play all three forward positions, and has consistently hovered around a 40-point pace over the past few years. He’s a career 12.4% shooter and has posted a 16-25–41 scoring line per 82 games since debuting with the Jets back in 2017.

Roslovic will provide early-season top-nine reinforcements to a club missing Zach Hyman and Mattias Janmark to begin the season due to injuries. Early on, the Oilers haven’t opted to elevate their young players in the lineup as most expected. Only Matthew Savoie has managed to latch onto a top-six role, skating with Andrew Mangiapane and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on opening night, while fellow rookie Isaac Howard has been relegated to fourth-line duties. That’s led to names like Kasperi Kapanen and Noah Philp potentially being overtaxed in third-line duties out of the gate, something adding Roslovic into the mix will help avoid.

Roslovic’s up-and-down versatility means he could conceivably slot in as high as first-line right wing with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl or usurp the inexperienced Philp for third-line center duties. It’s not clear who he’ll force out of the roster in the coming days when Edmonton registers his contract. Waiver-exempt forwards on Edmonton’s active roster include Howard, Savoie, and international free agent signing David Tomasek.

Golden Knights To Sign Jack Eichel To Eight-Year Extension

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The Vegas Golden Knights are expected to sign star center Jack Eichel to an eight-year, $108MM contract extension, per the Vegas Review Journal’s Danny Webster. The move was first reported by TSN’s Darren Dreger. Weber adds that the deal is believed to carry a $13.5MM cap hit.

On a day where the Winnipeg Jets extended star winger Kyle Connor, the Golden Knights have still found a way to steal the show. Eichel’s extension was long anticipated, both for his impact on the Golden Knights’ roster and the intricacies of how Vegas would fit the deal in alongside the $12MM cap hit of Mitch Marner. That question has now been answered, with Vegas locking up the tandem through the next eight seasons for $25.5MM each season.

Landing a max-term extension with Eichel before he has a chance to play alongside 100-point scorer Marner could prove lucrative for the Golden Knights. Eichel had a career-year last season, setting career-highs with 94 points and a plus-32 in 77 games. It was a major leap over the 31 goals and 68 points that Eichel managed in 63 games of the 2023-24 season – and the 66 points he scored in 67 games of the 2022-23 campaign. It seems the top center simply needed to ease into his starring role in Vegas after going through a true saga with the Buffalo Sabres.

Buffalo drafted Eichel second-overall in 2015, properly dubbing him second-fiddle to Connor McDavid’s historic draft season. Despite that seat, Eichel boasted plenty of reason for excitement in his own right, and seemed to single-handedly will Boston University to a National Championship loss in his draft year. He brought that team-leading drive straight into the NHL, marked by 24 goals and 56 points in 81 games of the 2015-16 season. That remains the most a Sabres rookie has scored since the 1980s. Even better, Eichel matched it in fewer games of his sophomore season, with 24 goals and 57 points in 61 games.

But – that quickly became Eichel’s M.O. He was oft-injured, but proved to be the undeniable star of Buffalo’s lineup when healthy. He reached at least 25 goals in each of his next three seasons in Buffalo, and even showed his strength with 82 points in 77 games of the 2018-19 season, when the Sabres collectively only won 33 games. The tension between a struggling club and their productive star reached a peak as the 2020s rolled around – and a breaking point when the two sides couldn’t come to an agreement on how Eichel should handle an unprecedented shoulder surgery in 2021.

After multiple bouts back-and-forth, and a seemingly endless run of trade rumors, Buffalo decided to trade Eichel to Vegas in November, 2021. In return, the Sabres received Alex Tuch, Peyton Krebs, the draft pick used on Noah Ostlund (2022: 1-16) and a second-round pick traded to Minnesota. All three players remain with Buffalo.

Meanwhile, Eichel quickly received the surgery he had preferred upon arriving in Vegas. His 2021-22 campaign was limited to 34 games as he recovered from injury, but he was back to health in time for the 2022-23 season. Routine injury still marred his year, but he stayed healthy long enough to lead Vegas on a run to the Stanley Cup in 2023. He led the Golden Knights, and the postseason, in scoring with a dazzling 26 points in 22 games – though the Conn Smythe trophy would go to his goal-scoring teammate Jonathan Marchessault.

Regardless, Eichel’s push towards a Cup win showed the Golden Knights, and the hockey world, that he had the grit to be the star center on an NHL champion. He has reaffirmed that thought with 17 points in 18 playoff games since Vegas lifted the Cup.

With this move, Vegas will place a strong bet on Eichel’s ability to hang onto that role through his 30s. More importantly, they’ll give him a big bode of confidence as he heads into his age-29 season. Eichel has never played alongside a 100-point scorer, nor broken that ceiling himself, but he’ll get his first chance this season. Like Eichel, Marner struggled to crack the century mark for multiple seasons, recording at least 85 points three times between 2021 and 2024. He even reached 99 points in 2022-23. But it wasn’t until last season, when he scored 27 goals and 102 points in 81 games, that Marner was finally able to achieve the feat.

In a rare shift, he has now changed teams following the career-year, and will look to keep the good times rolling on a recent Cup winner. The top of Vegas’ offense is truly a stacked group, featuring Mark Stone, Tomas Hertl, William Karlsson, Pavel Dorofeyev, and Ivan Barbashev to support Eichel and Marner. The heights of the lineup seem hard to place, and should all go well, Vegas has ensured they can keep the band together with a pair of max-term extensions for their two stars.

Photo courtesy of Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports.

Hurricanes Waive, Assign Juha Jaaska

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The Carolina Hurricanes placed centerman Juha Jaaska on waivers on Tuesday. He cleared waivers on Wednesday, and will be assigned to the AHL’s Chicago Wolves, per NHL.com’s Walt Ruff.

Jaaska spent the majority of the 2024-25 season in the Chicago lineup. It was his first year in North American pros after playing in Finland’s Liiga from 2017 to 2024. Jaaska made quick work of the rookie year, earning an alternate captain role on the Wolves and posting 12 goals and 33 points in 53 games. His scoring ranked fifth on the Wolves and would have rivaled the top-30 in league-wide rookie scoring, though at 26, Jaaska was excluded from rookie counts.

Still, his debut year in Chicago was a promising one. It came as no surprise for those who followed the bulky winger’s career in Finland. He has long been lauded as a leader for his clubs, and wore a letter in all five years he spent with HIFK’s junior program. That includes captaining the U20 team in 2016-17 – his first year of draft eligibility – when he scored 24 points in 25 games in Finland’s top U20 league.

Despite the hot scoring, Jaaska’s struggles to match pace at the top level held back a lot of NHL attention. Those concerns continued through his final two years of draft eligibility, leaving Jaaska to pursue HIFK’s men’s team rather than a move to North America. That proved a fruitful decision, as the Helsinki-native began to claw his way up the lineup between 2018 and 2023. He showed his might at the pro level with 12 goals, 37 points, and a plus-14 in 56 games of the 2022-23 season; then matched that performance with 30 points and a plus-four in 57 games of the 2023-24 season. He wore an ’A’ in both seasons.

Those performances were enough to earn Jaaska a spot on Finland’s World Championship roster, and a contract with the Carolina Hurricanes. In addition to a prominent role on the Chicago Wolves, Jaaska also made his NHL debut last season, and totaled four assists in 18 games with the Hurricanes. Now, he’ll return to his role of alternate captain for the Wolves, with the goal of improving on a strong push into North America. With the right start to the season, or a few injuries ahead of him on the depth chart, Jaaska could quickly find his way into routine minutes on Carolina’s fourth-line.

Ducks’ Ville Husso Clears Waivers

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10/8: Husso has cleared waivers per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. That will open the door for Husso to take on the starting role for the AHL’s San Diego Gulls. He has posted 66 wins and a .909 save percentage in 152 career appearances in the AHL.

10/7: The Anaheim Ducks have placed goaltender Ville Husso on waivers, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. The move cuts the Ducks roster to two goalies – Lukas Dostal and Petr Mrazek – with a few days left before opening night. Anaheim signed Husso to a two-year, $4.4MM contract extension in late June. Should he make it to the minor leagues, he would only carry a $1.05MM hit against Anaheim’s cap.

It’s no surprise to see Husso back on the waiver wire. He was waived by the Detroit Red Wings almost exactly one year ago, after starting their season with a 1-5-2 record and .866 save percentage in nine games. He moved to the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins and started to bounce back, marked by an 8-4-0 record and .912 save percentage in 13 games.

That was enough to catch the eye of a Ducks, who had lost goalie prospects Calle Clang and Tomas Suchanek to knee injuries. Anaheim acquired Husso in exchange for future considerations in February, and initially kept him in the minor-leagues. He suited up for nine games with the AHL’s San Diego Gulls, posting seven wins and a team-best .907 save percentage. When Anaheim lost John Gibson to injury in March and April, Husso stood as their go-to call-up, helping him push into four games at the end of Anaheim’s season. Husso was surprisingly sharp in the small sample, posting a .925 save percentage – higher than any of his prior seasons in the NHL.

With stout play at both levels, Anaheim opted to sign Husso to a more manageable cap hit this summer. Speaking about the deal, and about trading Gibson to Detroit, Ducks general manager Pat Verbeek told Derek Lee of The Hockey News that Husso offers a helpful bit of veteran reliability. He said:

If we have any injuries up top, it allows to be able to call that third goaltender up to support (Dostal or Mrazek). It also allows San Diego to have a good goaltender to carry a lot of the load and allow our younger guys to keep maturing

Goalies have been a popular commodity on the waiver wire. Each of Pheonix Copley, Cayden Primeau, and Colten Ellis have already been claimed by new teams. That means there’s no guarantee that Husso will fall through 31 other teams. If he does, he’ll be the clear starter for the San Diego Gulls, operating ahead of Suchanek and Clang.

Mammoth Waive Kevin Rooney, Assign To AHL

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10/8: Rooney has cleared waivers and will be assigned to the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners.

10/7: The Utah Mammoth have placed centerman Kevin Rooney on waivers. He signed a one-year, two-way contract with the club this summer. The deal moved Rooney away from three years with the Calgary Flames organization.

Rooney was on the Flames’ roster for the entirety of the 2024-25 season. He filled a true fourth-line role, and posted just 10 points in 70 games on the full year. Despite that, Rooney was routinely rotated onto the team’s penalty-kill, and his 47.2 faceoff percentage ranked third among all Flames centers to take at least 400 draws.

Rooney pulled his way back into an NHL role after spending the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons split between the NHL and AHL lineups. He totaled five points in 50 NHL games and 18 points in 56 AHL games between the two years. Before then, he found routine play in the Metropolitan Division, serving as a depth center for the New Jersey Devils, and then the New York Rangers, between 2016 and 2022. Through his career, Rooney has posted 60 points and 134 penalty minutes in 330 NHL appearances and 93 points and 156 penalty minutes in 242 AHL games.

An assignment to the minor-leagues comes as no surprise after Rooney signed a two-way deal. It would be a surprise to see a team claim the low-event center, only to be forced to hold him on their NHL roster or place him back on waivers. Instead, it seems more likely that Rooney will clear waivers and serve as the Tucson Roadrunners’ reliable veteran, until the Mammoth are in need of a call-up.

Sabres’ Alexandar Georgiev Clears Waivers

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10/8: Georgiev has cleared waivers for the Sabres, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. He will head to the AHL’s Rochester Americans, per Chad DeDominicis of Expected Buffalo. DeDominicis points out that Georgiev will become the fourth goalie on Rochester’s lineup, likely prompting another move or demotion to the ECHL for one of the quartet.

10/7: The Sabres will be placing goaltender Alexandar Georgiev on waivers today, head coach Lindy Ruff told reporters (including Bill Hoppe of the Olean Times Herald).

Georgiev was listed on Buffalo’s opening night roster yesterday, but they were carrying three goalies after claiming Colten Ellis off waivers from the Blues. The Sabres value the latter more, with Ruff telling Rachel Lenzi of The Buffalo News that Ellis is someone the Sabres have been “really high on” for quite some time and were unwilling to pass up the opportunity to have him on the wire. As a result, Georgiev won’t be starting the season with the club and will head to AHL Rochester should he clear waivers.

Georgiev, 29, finished top 10 in Vezina Trophy voting as recently as 2022-23 but is now scrambling to find an NHL job. He made 49 appearances last year between the Avalanche and the Sharks, heading to San Jose in the midseason deal that sent Mackenzie Blackwood the other way. Among goalies with at least 30 starts, no one had a worse save percentage or GAA than Georgiev’s marks of .875 and 3.71, and that includes making over a third of his appearances behind a dominant group of Colorado skaters in the first half of the year.

He still has roughly league-average numbers for his career. Since debuting with the Rangers in the 2017-18 season, he’s logged a 151-108-26 record with 15 shutouts, a 2.99 GAA, and a .903 SV% in 303 appearances. He’s allowed 21.1 goals (4%) more than the average netminder during that time. It’s his last two seasons of work that have soured teams. Despite posting a league-leading 38 wins for the Avs in 2023-24, he only managed a .897 SV% in 63 appearances. That preceded a 2024-25 campaign where only the Flyers’ Samuel Ersson posted a worse goals saved above expected figure than Georgiev’s -17.9, according to MoneyPuck.

That three-goalie figure from yesterday doesn’t include starter Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, who begins the season on injured reserve after suffering a lower-body injury late in preseason. That’s a different injury from the one he showed up to camp with, which was the motivator for Buffalo to sign Georgiev to a one-year, $825K deal last month in the first place. Luukkonen has improved in the past few days, according to Paul Hamilton of WGR Sports Radio 550, although he still carries a week-to-week designation. Buffalo certainly wasn’t going to carry four goalies after he returned, so it’s no surprise to see them get ahead of the wheel and remove one from their active roster now – especially after Georgiev allowed 11 goals on 74 shots in four preseason games for a .851 SV% and 4.19 GAA.

The Sabres might very well carry three goalies when Lukkonen returns, though. It’s hard to see them risk losing Ellis on waivers unless he struggles in his first taste of NHL action. The club also signed Alex Lyon to a two-year, $3MM deal in free agency over the offseason to be Luukkonen’s primary backup option. He might have an easier time passing through waivers thanks to his $1.5MM cap hit, so if Buffalo does want to only carry the traditional pair, Lyon might end up hitting the wire, too.

Golden Knights Sign Alexander Holtz, Waive Jeremy Davies

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10/8: In a corresponding move to Holtz’s signing, Vegas did indeed place defender Davies on waivers. He cleared earlier today, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, officially granting the cap space needed to register Holtz’s contract. Davies will be a top call-up option, while Holtz looks to stay above that standing as the season kicks off.

10/7: The Vegas Golden Knights have signed winger Alexander Holtz to a two-year, $1.675MM contract. The deal will carry an $825K salary in year one, and a $850K salary in year two, per PuckPedia. This move likely indicates that defenseman Jeremy Davies will be placed on waivers and assigned to the minor leagues, opening up $1.15MM in cap space for Vegas to sign Holtz. Davies signed a two-year deal with Vegas just a few days ago.

Holtz sat as an unsigned restricted free agent for the entire summer. He had to wait patiently for a new deal after splitting last season between Vegas’ NHL and AHL rosters. He began the year in the NHL, vying for routine ice time among the Golden Knights’ bottom-six. His season kicked off with a six-game scoring drought that he spurred with a five-game scoring streak, and seven points in nine games, during November. But Holtz’s scoring would prove cold more often than not, and he was assigned to the AHL in February with only 11 points in 49 NHL games.

Holtz found fire in the minor-leagues, netting seven goals and 13 points in 16 games with the Henderson Silver Knights. The second-tier flight shined as a proving ground of the flashy play-driving and quick shooting Holtz has long showed off. It was exactly those attributes that earned him the seventh-overall selection in the 2020 NHL Draft, coming off the heels of a standout rookie year in the SHL.

The New Jersey Devils originally drafted Holtz. He joined the organization’s ranks the next season, and quickly found a rut as a top-end AHL scorer but quiet NHL performer. Through four years split between the Devils’ NHL and AHL rosters, Holtz posted 65 points in 76 AHL games but only 34 points in 110 NHL games. Those totals include Holtz’s 2023-24 campaign, when he spent all 82 games in the Devils lineup and managed only 16 goals and 28 points.

Holtz will likely begin the 2025-26 season back on the cusp between major and minor rosters. Davies’ assignment could help Vegas keep the Swedish sniper as their extra forward for a bit longer, though a return to the AHL could make sense as a way to spur Holtz towards scoring early in the year. Meanwhile, Vegas will be pushed against the salary cap ceiling with this move.

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