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Capitals Hire Derek King As AHL Head Coach

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The Washington Capitals have appointed Derek King as the Hershey Bears head coach. He will become the 29th head coach in franchise history, taking over the role from Todd Nelson who was promoted to an assistant coach role with the Pittsburgh Penguins earlier this summer. This will mark King’s first head coach role since the 2021-22 season.

King has deep roots in professional hockey. He was once a top prospect of his own, drafted 13th-overall in the 1985 NHL Draft by the New York Islanders after a junior career rife with high scoring and even higher penalty minutes. King turned pro two seasons later, and quickly shed the role of bruiser to step up as a high-end utility man. He scored 12 goals and 36 points in 55 games of his rookie season. He reached the 40-point mark in each of the next three seasons, building up to a true breakout campaign in 1991-92, when King scored a career-high 40 goals and 78 points in 80 games. It was his first time appearing in more than 70 games in a single season.

King surpassed 30 goals in each of the next two seasons, then began a gradual decline in scoring following a move to the Hartford Whalers at the age of 29. He was productive through his final years, including netting 52 points in 81 games of the 1998-99 season – his last full year in the NHL.

With NHL totals dwindling, King was assigned to the minor leagues in the 1999-2000 season, where he quickly returned to the heights of team-leading scoring. His proficiency, and veteran experience, were enough to earn a player-coach title for the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins in the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons.

That role kicked off King’s coaching career, though he wouldn’t take on a full-time coaching role until he joined the Toronto Marlies as an assistant in 2009. He stayed in that role until a promotion to associate coach in 2014. He opted to move to the OHL’s Owen Sound Attack one year later, then returned to the AHL in an assistant role with the Rockford IceHogs in 2016. King was promoted to the role of interim head coach when Jeremy Colliton was promoted to Blackhawks head coach in the 2018-19 season. He then superseded Colliton for the NHL role in 2021, stepping up as Chicago’s interim head coach through 70 games and setting a 27-33-10 record.

The Blackhawks would hire Luke Richardson to fill the head coach role full-time in 2022, but kept King as an assistant coach through last season. He’ll now return to the minors once more to man the bench of a club that’s won the Calder Cup in two of the last three seasons. King previously joined the Marlies to a Calder Cup Finals loss in 2012, but didn’t manage much success in transformative years with Rockford and Chicago. His move to Hershey will bring the club a heap of veteran experience, and could solidify King’s claim for an NHL head coach role should he lead the club to their usual success.

Marlies Sign Alexander Nylander, Luke Grainger, Brandon Baddock

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The Toronto Marlies have announced that they’ve signed forwards Alexander Nylander, Luke Grainger, and Brandon Baddock each to one-year, AHL contracts. The new deals will mark a return to Toronto for Nylander and Baddock, while Grainger will be making the first move of his career after spending his first pro season in the San Jose Sharks’ system last year.

The trio of signings will be undoubtedly headlined by Nylander – who re-ups with the Marlies after successfully playing through a one-year contract with the club last season. He ranked second on the team in scoring with 23 goals and 44 points across 64 games. That production was enough to earn Nylander five games at the NHL level, though he failed to record any scoring. Nylander was formerly the eighth overall pick in the 2016 NHL Draft, but he’s spent the better part of the last eight seasons thriving in the minors but struggling to keep his footing in the majors.

Nylander has racked up an impressive 254 points across 394 games at the AHL level. That includes a career-yaer in the 2022-23 season, when he notched 50 points, split evenly, in 55 games with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. But despite rivaling point-per-game scoring in the minors, Nylander’s best NHL season stands as the 2019-20 campaign, when he scored just 26 points in 65 games with the Chicago Blackhawks. That was the only season of his career spent solely in the NHL, and an AHL contract suggests he still has ground to gain before earning a spot on top of Toronto’s call-up list.

Nylander will continue to be supported with the Marlies by bruising forward Baddock, who joined the team via a mid-March trade that sent future considerations back to the Rockford IceHogs. Baddock went on to rack up one point and 11 penalty minutes in seven games with the Marlies, bringing his year-long totals up to eight points and 97 PIMs in 45 games. That performance speaks well to Baddock’s M.O. – he’s a hefty winger who earns his keep with big hits and extended time in the penalty box. His best season came in 2018-19, when he recorded 154 PIMs in 67 games with the Binghamton Devils – over 20 more penalty minutes than his next-highest season.

Rounding out the move is depth forward Grainger, who spent the bulk of last season with the ECHL’s Wichita Thunder. The small-but-mighty forward signed with the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda at the end of the 2023-24 season, and played nine games for the club over the last two seasons. But after notching just one goal in those performances, he was deemed better suited for the third tier of pros. That proved a sensible bet, as Grainger posted 21 points in 36 games of Wichita’s season. A new deal in Toronto should come as a bode of confidence in the 25-year-old forward. He could get a chance to carve out a role in the Marlies’ bottom-six in training camp, but could be headed back to the ECHL if any more conditioning is needed.

Mathias Laferriere Signs In Slovakia

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Free agent forward Mathias Laferriere has decided to take his talents overseas. He has signed with HK Spisska Nova Ves of Slovakia’s Tipsport Extraliga, the team announced on social media. Laferriere spent all of last season in the AHL. His year was split between the Springfield Thunderbirds and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins following a Spring trade that sent Corey Andonovski to Springfield.

Laferriere’s 2024-25 campaign was a muted one. He scored just 18 points across 55 games on the season – 10 in 33 games with Springfield, and eight in 22 games with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. The performance marked a new low for the slight-framed winger, after he totaled 26 points in 50 games of the 2022-23 season, and 25 points in 68 games in 2023-24. Those performances were a healthy ramp up from Laferriere’s nine points in 56 games as an AHL rookie in 2021-22 – but it seems he couldn’t maintain the stout production through a change of teams.

Instead of lamenting in AHL bottom-sixes, Laferriere will test his talents overseas. This will mark the first European hockey of his career, after he grew up through Canadian youth hockey, played American pros, and never made a national team roster. Laferriere was drafted by the St. Louis Blues in the sixth round of the 2018 Draft, on the heels of scoring 41 points in 67 games with the QMJHL’s Cape Breton Screaming Eagles.

He’s a lanky winger who leans on finesse and athleticism to make good plays along the boards. Those attributes could prove a helpful boost to a HK Spisska Nova Ves roster that stood on top of Slovakia’s pro league at the end of last season. Laferriere will join former AHL and ECHL pro Damien Giroux in the move to Slovakia. Despite quaint AHL scoring, sources available to Pro Hockey Rumors suggest that Laferriere was recruited by pro clubs in multiple European countries, and should have the chance to earn a middle-six role with his new club.

Maple Leafs Re-Sign Nicholas Robertson

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There will be no arbitration hearings in the NHL this summer.  The last remaining case has settled as the Maple Leafs announced that they have re-signed winger Nicholas Robertson to a one-year, $1.825MM contract.

The agreement comes one day after the two sides made their submissions in advance of Sunday’s scheduled hearing.  Toronto filed at $1.2MM while Robertson’s camp came in at $2.25MM.  The midpoint of those numbers is $1.725MM so Robertson was able to beat that by $100K with this agreement while it represents a big raise on the $875K he received last season.

The 23-year-old has shown himself to be a capable depth scorer but that alone hasn’t been enough to stay in the lineup with much consistency.  After notching 14 goals in 56 games in 2023-24, Robertson was able to slightly beat that total last season, tallying 15 times while adding seven assists in 69 games.  He also averaged a career-high 12:00 per game of playing time.

However, while he was in the lineup more often than not during the regular season, that wasn’t the case in the playoffs.  Robertson played in just three games for the Maple Leafs during the playoffs despite picking up points in two of those outings, a goal and an assist.

The lack of consistent playing time led Robertson to request a trade last summer, an ask that wasn’t granted.  At this point, it doesn’t appear as if the request has been dropped either.  However, a $1.825MM price tag for a player who hasn’t been able to stay in the lineup on a regular basis might be on the high side for some teams although a swap of young forwards on similar contracts could be a viable path to a change of scenery for Robertson.

On the other hand, Toronto’s most prominent offseason addition up front to replace Mitch Marner was winger Matias Maccelli, acquired from Utah.  With the Maple Leafs looking to ice a more balanced lineup, there could be a chance for Robertson to get more of a look in a top-six or even top-nine role in 2025-26 and if that were to happen, he might be inclined to rescind his request to be moved.

With the signing, Toronto has all its NHL restricted free agents under contract but they still have a pair of prospects to re-sign over the coming weeks in goaltender Dennis Hildeby and defenseman William Villeneuve.  While Hildeby was arbitration-eligible, he declined to file for a hearing early last month.

Now that Robertson is signed, the cap picture for the Maple Leafs looks clearer.  Per PuckPedia, Toronto has around $1.1MM in flexibility, albeit with 24 players on its roster with the maximum being 23 healthy players.  That gives GM Brad Treliving a bit of wiggle room to work with while they’re believed to be looking to move winger Calle Jarnkrok ($2.1MM) and David Kampf ($2.4MM) to open up both cap and roster space.  Their ability (or lack thereof) to do so might ultimately dictate if they can make any other moves this summer.

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was the first to report the deal. 

Kings Sign RFA Alex Laferriere To Three-Year Deal

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The Los Angeles Kings have signed restricted free agent Alex Laferriere to a three-year, $12.3MM contract, per a team announcement. The deal comes with a $4.1MM cap hit per season. The deal includes a $3.5MM salary for year one and $4.4MM salaries for years two and three, per PuckPedia. The Kings extended a qualifying offer to Laferriere on July 1, and it took exactly one month for both sides to come to terms on a new deal.

Coming off of his second season in the league, the 24-year-old right winger posted a solid 19 goals and 42 points in 77 games. He also produced a plus-22 rating, 124 hits, and 43 blocked shots while averaging 16:22 of ice time per night. He added three assists in six playoff games.

A third-round selection in the 2020 draft (83rd overall), the New Jersey native quickly established himself as one of the franchise’s key prospects. After being drafted, Laferriere spent two seasons in the NCAA at Harvard University, where he put up 73 points in 69 games. He then made his pro debut in the AHL with the Ontario Reign at the tail end of the 2022-23 season.

That was all the minor league experience the 6’1″, 205-pound winger needed. The following season, he broke camp with the Kings and appeared in 81 games as a rookie, posting 12 goals and 23 points. He took a major step forward offensively this last season (doubling his point total), and it’s reasonable to expect continued growth.

Frank Seravalli was first to report the agreement.

International Notes: Henman, Little, Good Bogg

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After spending the last four years in the minors with the Kraken organization, center Luke Henman is headed to Finland on a one-year deal with Ilves, the Liiga club announced today.

Henman, 25, was actually the first signing in Seattle franchise history in 2021. He was a fourth-round pick of the Hurricanes in 2018 but never signed, instead becoming an unrestricted free agent.

He’d remained in the Seattle organization ever since, recording 26 goals and 33 assists for 59 points in 229 AHL games for their affiliates in Charlotte and Coachella Valley. They re-signed him last summer after his entry-level contract expired, but since Henman was old enough and had accrued enough experience for Group VI unrestricted free agency this year, he was ineligible for a qualifying offer and wasn’t retained.

The Nova Scotia native will now head to Ilves, one of two Liiga clubs based in the city of Tampere. While the club is light on NHL-experienced talent, they’ve finished second in Liiga in three straight years as they aim to capture their first title since 1985.

There’s more from overseas:

  • American winger Broc Little has announced his retirement, according to the SHL’s Linköping HC. Little, 37, was an ECAC champion and All-Star with Yale but was never drafted and never signed an NHL contract. He spent the vast majority of his professional career in Europe aside from a 21-game AHL stint with Springfield and Iowa back in 2013-14. He played 10 of his 14 pro seasons for Linköping, where he’s served as an alternate captain since 2018 and led the SHL in goals twice. His 367 points in 454 games for Linköping are fifth in franchise history.
  • Islanders defense prospect Dennis Good Bogg has found a place to play next season, signing with Väsby IK of HockeyEttan, Sweden’s third division. Good Bogg, 21, was a seventh-round pick in 2023, and New York holds his signing rights for two more years. Unless something changes drastically, he likely won’t ever sign an NHL contract. The 6’2″, 201-lb lefty has yet to reach Sweden’s top flight and has struggled at lower levels. He split last season between second-tier club Östersunds and third-tier club Mariestad, combining for just three points and a -10 rating in 35 games.

Czechia’s HC Dynamo Pardubice Signs Jakub Lauko

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HC Dynamo Pardubice of the Czech Extraliga has signed forward Jakub Lauko to a three-year deal, the team announced today. Lauko wasn’t tendered by the Bruins in June, and after presumably not receiving any suitable NHL offers as an unrestricted free agent, he’ll be returning to his home country.

Lauko put up a career-high five goals and 11 points in 56 games in an injury-plagued campaign split between the Wild and Bruins last season, missing long stretches of the early going with Minnesota while dealing with a muscular lower-body issue. Lauko played in all 18 games for Boston after they re-acquired him from Minnesota at the deadline in the Justin Brazeau deal, finishing the year with five points and 50 hits while averaging 12:07 per game.

After making his NHL debut with Boston in 2022-23, four years after they drafted him in the third round of the 2018 draft, the Bruins moved him to the Wild last summer in exchange for veteran depth forward Vinni Lettieri. While Minnesota was hoping the young energy winger could flash a little more upside than he had in his first two years in Boston, he struggled to produce like everyone else the Wild tried in a fourth-line role. He had six points and a minus-five rating with 69 hits in 38 appearances for the Wild before getting shipped back to the B’s.

The Prague native now returns home to build on his previous Extraliga experience, which includes stints with Piráti Chomutov (2016-18) and HC Energie Karlovy Vary (2020-21). He has a 10-11–21 scoring line in 95 career Extraliga games, but he presumably hopes returning home helps him rediscover his offensive game. In his post-draft season, Lauko came to North America to play junior hockey and recorded 41 points in only 44 games for the QMJHL’s Rouyn-Noranda Huskies en route to a Memorial Cup championship.

Entering his age-25 season, there’s still time for Lauko to put himself back on the NHL radar by the time his contract with Dynamo ends. He joins a Pardubice roster that has over 1,100 combined games of NHL experience with names like Libor Hájek, Lukáš Sedlák, and Vladimír Sobotka. They’re looking to get over the hump after back-to-back Extraliga final losses in 2024 and 2025.

Snapshots: Lawrence, Wassilyn, Schneider

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2026 projected top-10 pick Tynan Lawrence was a high pick in the QMJHL Entry Draft one year ago by the Chicoutimi Saguenéens, leading to speculation he may jump there for his draft year. That doesn’t appear to be the case, per Jonathan Hudon of Le Quotidien, who relays Lawrence is expected to remain with the USHL’s Muskegon Lumberjacks for 2025-26 instead.

Lawrence, a late birthday for the class who turns 17 next weekend, is a 6’0″ center currently pegged to go in the No. 6-No. 10 overall range in preseason rankings. The New Brunswick native has played in the United States since 2022, when he opted to head to renowned prep school Shattuck St. Mary’s to continue his development. He joined Muskegon last season, posting 54 points in 56 regular-season games before guiding the Lumberjacks to a Clark Cup championship, posting 18 points in 14 playoff games to be named MVP as a 16-year-old rookie in the high-end junior league.

He would have been a big get for Chicoutimi and joined what looks like a stronger-than-normal class out of the QMJHL next season, but he’ll instead stay south of the border with a commitment to Boston University for the 2027-28 campaign still on the books (although that will presumably get moved up to the 2026-27 campaign).

Elsewhere from around the hockey world:

  • Sticking with next year’s draft, projected first-rounder Braidy Wassilyn is also a Boston University commit. There was some speculation he might join them as a 17-year-old freshman for the upcoming season but that won’t happen, according to Cam Robinson of Elite Prospects. The 5’11” forward will instead remain with the OHL’s Niagara IceDogs, where he had an 8-31–39 scoring line in 62 games last season.
  • Heading overseas, former NHLer Cole Schneider has signed with Italy’s HC Bolzano in the ICEHL, the club announced. The 34-year-old American headed to Europe last summer after a lengthy AHL career, winning the Norwegian league scoring title with 64 points in 45 games for Storhamar. Schneider, who had one assist in six career games for the Sabres, also has 574 points in 776 career AHL games.

Sabres Sign Devon Levi To Two-Year Deal

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The Sabres announced that they have signed restricted free agent goaltender Devon Levi to a two-year deal. It’s a cap hit of $812,500, presumably paying him a league-minimum salary in each of the next two years on a one-way deal for a total value of $1.625MM.

Levi, 23, was Buffalo’s last unsigned RFA. The promising netminder had little to no leverage in contract talks this summer as a dual-threat 10.2(c) player – not only was he ineligible to file for salary arbitration, he was also ineligible to receive and sign offer sheets.

His time in the Sabres organization has been marked by a clear disconnect between his NHL and minor-league performances. Overall, he has 39 NHL appearances (36 starts) to his name over the last three years, underwhelming with a 3.29 GAA and .894 SV%. Those numbers are even propped up by a strong showing in his first taste of NHL action in late 2023; he only has a .892 SV% in the last two seasons with a subpar .448 quality start percentage.

Combining that with his excellent performance with the AHL’s Rochester Americans over the last two seasons has put him in an odd spot between being a true No. 2 or No. 3 on the Sabres’ depth chart. He’s logged 68 games for the Amerks since the beginning of 2023-24, posting a .922 SV% and 41-19-10 record with seven shutouts. He’s arguably been the league’s best goalie during that time, usurping the Flames’ Dustin Wolf after he landed a full-time NHL gig.

Those numbers come on the back of Levi serving as the best goalie in college hockey for two seasons with Northeastern, making his ceiling all the more tantalizing. Initially a 2020 seventh-round pick by the Panthers from the Carleton Place Canadians of the CCHL, a junior ’A’ league, he had a coming-out party with Canada at the following year’s World Juniors and was eventually traded to Buffalo in the Sam Reinhart deal. In his two years with Northeastern before turning pro with the Sabres, he posted a .942 SV% and 16 shutouts in 66 games and was given the Mike Richter Award as the NCAA’s top goaltender both times.

The Sabres were hoping Levi could take a significant step forward in his development last season, even waiving veteran James Reimer at the beginning of the year to make Levi the opening-night backup. He had just a .870 SV% through his first seven games before Buffalo was able to reclaim Reimer off waivers from the Ducks, allowing them to return Levi to the AHL. He only made two more NHL appearances the rest of the way for a 2-7-0 record, .872 SV%, 4.12 GAA, and -8.0 goals saved above expected, per MoneyPuck.

That undoubtedly left a sour taste in the Sabres’ mouth and left them unwilling to dole out a contract with a seven-figure cap hit, something we’ve seen teams do with high-ceiling but unestablished netminders to try and squeeze some value out of them while they’re breaking out into NHL minutes. For Levi, it’s not as if he had much choice if he wants a legitimate chance to fight for an NHL job in camp and leapfrog veteran Alex Lyon, who the Sabres signed in free agency as veteran insurance, as Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen’s backup to begin the year.

His lack of leverage in talks means a league-minimum deal if he cracks the NHL roster. Still, he’ll at least be much more well-compensated if he returns to Rochester after spending the last two seasons under the two-way structure of his entry-level contract.

Image courtesy of Timothy T. Ludwig-Imagn Images.

Flames Sign Martin Pospisil To Three-Year Extension

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The Flames have signed Martin Pospisil to a three-year extension, according to his agent, Dan Milstein of Gold Star Hockey. The 6’2″ center/winger will earn an average of $2.5MM per season for a total value of $7.5MM, according to PuckPedia.

Pospisil, 25, began the 2024-25 season on the NHL roster for the first time. He was fresh off signing a two-year, $2MM extension that he signed amid his rookie campaign in 2023-24 that will still carry him through the upcoming season at a $1MM cap hit, but he now won’t be eligible for restricted free agency next summer. Today’s extension will take him to unrestricted free agency in 2029.

The heavy-hitting Slovak forward has been consistent ever since working his way into a regular NHL role. He appeared in all but one game for Calgary in 2024-25, recording a 4-21–25 scoring line while improving his discipline, bringing his PIM total down to 84 after logging 109 in 63 appearances in his rookie campaign. He still had a team-leading 301 hits, tied with William Cuylle for third in the league.

Pospisil averaged 13:48 of ice time per game last season, including a tad under a minute per game on the power play as a net-front presence. Without much turnover among the Flames’ forward group this summer, he’ll figure to slot into a similar role in his final season under his current deal before the extension kicks in for 2026-27. He saw more time at center in 2024-25, winning 40.8% of his 174 faceoffs, and that could continue if he continues to see primarily fourth-line deployment at even strength.

While his new cap hit is fair value for the production and overall impact he’s provided in Calgary’s lineup over the past couple of years, it is interesting to see them prioritize a multi-year deal for Pospisil over some other more pressing items. Restricted free agent Connor Zary remains without a contract for the upcoming season, while Calgary also has key players at each position – Mikael Backlund at center, Rasmus Andersson at defense, and pending RFA Dustin Wolf in goal, who need new contracts for 2026-27, although Andersson is more likely a trade candidate than an extension one.

Image courtesy of Jerome Miron-Imagn Images.

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