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Dallas Stars Sign Mavrik Bourque To One-Year Deal

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Shortly after announcing a new one-year deal for defenseman Nils Lundkvist, the Dallas Stars have signed their only remaining restricted free agent. According to a team announcement, the Stars have signed forward Mavrik Bourque to a one-year, $950K contract for the 2025-26 NHL season.

Re-signing Bourque relatively early was a smart play by General Manager Jim Nill. Given their projected salary cap space entering the summer and Bourque’s combination of youth and skill, he was a prime offer sheet candidate this offseason. Now, he’ll remain with the Stars on a sub-$1MM deal.

The only concern with this deal is that Dallas was unable to secure a longer contract for him. According to PuckPedia, the Stars have less than $3MM in financial wiggle room, meaning they were practically forced to give Bourque a short-term deal to keep the salary low.

Despite already having solid players at the NHL level, Bourque forced himself onto the NHL roster this past season. Bourque had a historic season with the AHL’s Texas Stars in 2023-24, scoring 26 goals and accumulating 77 points in 71 games, along with three goals and 11 points in seven playoff contests. He likely had to buy a new shelf for his hardware, earning the AHL’s Les Cunningham Award, John B. Sollenberger Trophy, President’s Award, and First All-Star Team honors.

Due to the depth of the Stars’ roster, Bourque had limited opportunities in 2024-25. Still, he had a quality rookie season, scoring 11 goals and 25 points in 72 games, averaging 12:41 of ice time per game. Despite finishing 11th among forwards with more than 20 GPs in ice time at even strength, Bourque finished third among forwards in CorsiFor% at even strength with a 52.6% rate.

Dallas Stars Sign Nils Lundkvist To One-Year Deal

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A day after re-signing Matt Duchene to a four-year deal and trading Mason Marchment to the Seattle Kraken, the Dallas Stars have gotten another piece of business finished. According to a team announcement, the Stars have signed defenseman Nils Lundkvist to a one-year, $1.25MM contract for the 2025-26 NHL season, matching his projected qualifying offer.

According to PuckPedia, the new deal reduces Dallas’s available cap space to $3.705MM, with six players projected to reach unrestricted free agency, and Mavrik Bourque as the only remaining restricted free agent on the team. A few more transactions are needed to achieve the financial flexibility required, but the Stars continue taking steps in the right direction.

Whether through trade or free agency, the depth leaving Dallas this summer could create a large opportunity for Lundkvist. Outside of defensemen Mathew Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin (who could be traded in the coming days), Lundkvist is the top right-handed option for the Stars on the blue line.

It’ll be difficult for him to have a worse season than the 2024-25 campaign. Limited by injuries for much of the campaign, Lundkvist finished the 2024-25 season with five assists in 39 games, averaging 15:01 of ice time per night. In Lundkvist’s defense, he performed much better with increased availability from 2022 to 2024, scoring eight goals and 35 points in 119 games, averaging 15:13 of ice time.

Lundkvist’s primary value lies in his defensive play, which explains why he was selected in the first round of the 2018 NHL Draft. Since joining the Stars during the 2022-23 season, Lundkvist has averaged an impressive 52.9% CorsiFor% at even strength and a 92.2% on-ice save percentage at even strength. According to Hockey Reference, he’s never held an Expected +/- of less than zero throughout his tenure in Dallas.

There’s a concrete argument that Lundkvist is the Stars’ top defensive-oriented blue liner behind Esa Lindell. Because of this, there should be little doubt that he’ll find regular playing time in Dallas’s top two defensive pairings during the 2025-26 campaign.

Avalanche Sign Jason Polin, Matthew Stienburg To One-Year Deals

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In separate announcements, the Colorado Avalanche shared that they’ve signed forwards Jason Polin and Matthew Stienburg to one-year deals through the 2025-26 season. According to contract data provided by Puck Pedia, Polin will earn an NHL salary of $775K and $130K in the AHL. No contract details for Stienburg have been disclosed, but his salary will likely fall within a similar range.

Polin’s new deal comes with some surprise. The former Hobey Baker Award finalist hasn’t come close to the scoring output that he demonstrated with the NCAA’s Western Michigan University Broncos. Throughout his tenure with Colorado, the Holt, MI native has scored 15 goals and 30 points in 88 AHL contests, and only one goal in nine NHL appearances. Still, given the improbable number of injuries sustained by the Avalanche throughout the 2024-25 season, it makes sense that the team would like to retain most of their depth pieces in the system.

Like Polin, Stienburg signed with the organization out of college, though he had been previously drafted by the Avalanche in 2019, from Cornell University. Unlike Polin, Stienburg didn’t come to the organization with as much hype, given his career high of 13 goals and 29 points in 28 games with Cornell during his junior campaign in 2021-22.

Similarly to many of his peers, Stienburg earned a call-up with Colorado this past season, due to injuries to players on the NHL roster. Going scoreless in eight games, Stienburg’s only notable play was earning a two-game suspension for elbowing Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Erik Černák.

Link to the team’s announcement for Polin.

Link to the team’s announcement for Stienburg.

Dallas Stars Re-Sign Cameron Hughes To Two-Year Deal

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As announced by their AHL affiliate, the Texas Stars, the Dallas Stars have re-signed forward Cameron Hughes to a two-year, two-way contract. Although the team hasn’t confirmed his upcoming salary, the contract is likely to pay Hughes an AAV of $ 775K at the NHL level.

The former sixth-round pick of the Boston Bruins recently completed his first season with the Stars organization. The AHL Stars’ assistant captain finished third in scoring on the team, tallying 23 goals and 57 points in 69 games, with four additional goals and 19 points in 14 postseason contests, this time leading the team.

Still, as previously mentioned, Texas isn’t where Hughes began his professional playing career. As the 165th overall pick of the 2015 NHL Draft, it would take an additional three years for Hughes to debut with the AHL’s Providence Bruins. He was relatively successful with AHL Providence, primarily as a secondary scorer from 2018 to 2021. It wasn’t until the 2021-22 season that Hughes nearly doubled his previous career-high, scoring 14 goals and 45 points in 61 games.

Becoming a free agent after the 2021-22 campaign, Hughes settled on a two-year, $1.53MM agreement with the Seattle Kraken. His departure from the Bruins organization marked the final time he has played at the NHL level, appearing in one game during the 2019-20 season and another in the 2020-21 season.

Hughes’ two-year commitment with the Kraken proved wildly successful at the AHL level, this time with the Coachella Valley Firebirds. Scoring 44 goals and 113 points in 130 regular-season games, with another four goals and 39 points in 44 postseason contests, Hughes helped the Firebirds reach back-to-back Calder Cup Finals.

Hurricanes Sign Eric Robinson To Four-Year Extension

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The Carolina Hurricanes have signed forward Eric Robinson to a four-year, $6.8MM contract extension per a team release. The deal will carry an annual cap hit of $1.7MM, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.

Robinson has found a healthy stride in the latter half of his pro career. He originally went undrafted, and didn’t earn NHL acclaim until signing an entry-level contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets at the end of the 2017-18 season. Robinson was coming off of four impressive seasons at Princeton University. His rookie season in the AHL in 2018-19 was marked with solid impacts and hard effort – ultimately earning Robinson 24 points in 45 AHL games and the first extended NHL stint of his career, where he went scoreless in 13 games.

But Robinson wasn’t deterred – and continued to provide a strong impact to the AHL lineup through the start of the 2019-20 season. After just 14 games, Columbus made the move to promote him to a menial fourth-line role. He began rotating in-and-out of the lineup, though never managed much in the way of scoresheet impact. Prior to this season, his career-years stood as a 27-point performance in 67 games of the 2021-22 season, and 24 points in 72 games of the 2022-23 campaign.

Columbus relinquished Robinson last season, shipping him off to the Buffalo Sabres for a menial return. But Robinson began to show flashes of impact in the Buffalo lineup – even through scoring just nine points in 40 games. His stat line wasn’t enough to convince Buffalo to re-sign him, but it did catch the eye of new Carolina Hurricanes general manager Eric Tulsky, who signed Robinson to a one-year, $950K contract last summer.

That proved to be one of the more lucrative deals of the NHL season. Robinson posted 14 goals and 32 points while appearing in all 82 games of Carolina’s season. He was a low-stakes, high-reward lineup addition for a Hurricanes team that routinely relies on impactful pieces down the lineup. With that performance, Robinson has now earned the first million-dollar deal of his eight-year NHL career – and solidified a contract through his age-34 season.

Jonathan Toews In Agreement On One-Year Deal With Winnipeg Jets

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The Winnipeg Jets are approaching a one-year contract with three-time Stanley Cup winner Jonathan Toews, per Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic. The team later confirmed Toews’ agreement to join the club when he becomes eligible to sign on July 1st.

The details of Toews’ contract with Winnipeg have been revealed by Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Free Press. Toews will carry a base salary of $2MM, and receive a $550K bonus for every 20 regular season games that he plays. He will also receive a $500K bonus if the Jets make the playoffs and he appears in 50-or-more games. He’ll additionally receive a $250K bonus for each playoff round Winnipeg wins – assuming he plays in at least 50 percent of games – and a $1MM bonus if Winnipeg wins the Stanley Cup.

This news caps off a saga surrounding Toews’ professional career spanning the last four years. He hasn’t played in a pro game sine April 13, 2023 – though he only managed to play in 53 games of the 2022-23 season collectively. His absences were caused by a diagnosis with Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS), which can make workouts painful to get through even on a small scale. Toews spoke at lengths about his illness and rehabilitation process, which included a journey to India where he practiced Ayurveda – a traditional healing approach focused on centering spiritual wellness and purging unnecessary toxins.

It was on the heels of his five-week trip to India that Toews first spoke about making a return to the NHL level. Sparks around that fire grew stronger as the months went on, ultimately leading to Toews fully committing to a return in late May. With that commitment came plenty of NHL interest. The Colorado Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning were both listed as strong contenders to land Toews’ next contract alongside the Jets. But Toews will ultimately settle on continuing his career with his hometown club, and return to pastures of Winnipeg where he grew up.

The importance of Toews’ decision to move north can’t be understated. He is unequivocally one of the greatest Blackhawks in franchise history, having captained the team to three Cup wins starting at the clean-shaven age of 21. He was the yin to Patrick Kane’s yang for the entirety of the 2010s, serving as the responsible and impactful defensive backstop that facilitated Kane’s all-out offense. Toews reached unprecedented heights in that role. His 883 points in 1,067 games averages out to 29 goals, 39 assists, and 68 points per 82-game season. He tacked onto that Selke Trophy votes in every season between 2009 and 2020, including a Trophy win in 2013 and runner-up bids in 2011 and 2015.

Toews will go down in history as one of the league’s all-time great two-way forwards, in the vein of modern greats like Patrice Bergeron and Aleksander Barkov. But his return to the league stands out as an interesting move. He recorded 15 goals and 31 points in his shortened 2022-23 campaign – good for an 82-game pace of 23 goals and 48 points. Those are stout numbers for a then-34-year-old Toews – but it’s been two years since he’s competed at the same level, and it’s unclear if a 37-year-old Toews will bring the same punch.

Lucky for Winnipeg, they won’t need to rely on an all-star performance from Toews to get to the next level. The squad has appeared in three consecutive postseasons, and seven of the last eight. Many of those runs have come on the back of top-line center Mark Scheifele and partner-in-crime Kyle Connor, who are both already under contract for next season. That means that a rehabilitated Toews will only need to man second-line – or, thanks to Adam Lowry, even third-line – minutes in his return to the NHL scene. A one year deal and minimal role should give Toews the chance to really get his feet under him once again. Should he perform well, the polarizing return could stretch into a multi-year campaign with his childhood-favorite NHL squad.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports, Imagn-Images.

Seattle Kraken Acquire Mason Marchment

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As expected, the Dallas Stars have opened up additional salary cap space leading up to the offseason. According to a team announcement, the team has traded forward Mason Marchment to the Seattle Kraken for a 2026 third-round pick and Dallas’s 2025 fourth-round pick, which was previously sent to the New York Rangers and later acquired by the Kraken.

The trade is a beneficial arrangement for both teams. The Stars free up $4.5MM in cap space, which was given to Matt Duchene earlier today, while the Kraken add more goalscoring and physicality into their forward core.

Unfortunately for Dallas, trading Marchment without retaining salary doesn’t solve all of their financial issues. According to PuckPedia, the Stars have $4.95MM in cap space and either need to re-sign or add four to five more forwards to carry a full roster.

If Dallas can trade defensemen Matt Dumba and Ilya Lyubushkin, without retaining any salary, they’ll have just under $12MM in cap space, which would give them much more flexibility. Still, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which the Stars’ roster doesn’t come out worse off compared to the one they finished their 2025 Stanley Cup playoff race with.

For Seattle, one team’s junk becomes another team’s treasure. Marchment has proven a capable 20-goal scorer over the last few years and can generate more than 100 hits in a season. The Kraken struggled in both areas during the 2024-25 season, finishing with five players recording 100 or more hits, and only four players scoring 20 or more goals.

The one interesting part of this trade by the Kraken is ascertaining where Marchment fits into the lineup. A natural winger, Marchment should expect to play in Seattle’s middle-six. Unfortunately, the team is already fairly crowded with wingers, given that Jaden Schwartz, Kaapo Kakko, Jared McCann, Jordan Eberle, André Burakovsky, and Eeli Tolvanen are all expected back next season.

At any rate, the team is excited to have him, as General Manager Jason Botterill said, “I think Mason has a unique combination of size, skill and strength. He works well down in the corners and around the net and that’s an element we want to continue to add to our group here.”

Stars Sign Matt Duchene To Four-Year Extension

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The Stars have signed center Matt Duchene to a four-year extension, per a team announcement. It’s worth $4.5MM per season for a total value of $18MM. His deal carries a no-movement clause through 2026-27 before decreasing to a five-team approved trade list for the 2027-28 and 2028-29 seasons, per PuckPedia. The yearly breakdown is as follows:

2025-26: $3MM base salary, $3MM signing bonus
2026-27: $1.8MM base salary, $3MM signing bonus
2027-28: $3.6MM base salary
2028-29: $3.6MM base salary

Duchene could have tested the market as one of the top unrestricted free agent centers available, but he’ll instead opt to stay in a Dallas market where he’s excelled as a key top-six contributor over the past two years. In doing so, he takes a significant discount on his market value, at least on a per-year basis. A four-year offer at a much higher price may not have been out there for the 34-year-old, but AFP Analytics projected a three-year deal for Duchene to fall in the $7MM range per season if he hit the open market.

The 2009 No. 3 overall pick is coming off a spectacular 2024-25 campaign. While the Stars scored the third-most goals in the league, their offense was largely generated by committee. Duchene was the only Dallas player who played at least 25 games that hit the point-per-game mark, leading them in scoring with a 30-52–82 line while playing in all 82 games. Averaging over 17 minutes per game, it was the second time Duchene had hit 80 points in his 16-year NHL career and the fourth time he had hit 30 goals.

Duchene initially arrived in Texas on a one-year, $3MM contract for 2023-24 following a surprise buyout by the Predators with three years left on his contract. He posted 25 goals and 65 points in 80 games last year before taking a repeat of that deal to stay with the Stars last summer. It was a significant discount then, and he takes another significant discount now, locking in some highly-desired security through the rest of his mid-30s as well.

The Stars need any help they can get to ice a cap-compliant roster for 2025-26. Duchene’s steep discount certainly helps, but they still find themselves in a position to clear multiple salaries in order to even ice a full roster, let alone re-sign any other pending UFAs. Dallas now has just $455K in cap space with a roster of only 17 players, per PuckPedia. They need to open at least $1.9MM cap space at an absolute minimum via trades to be able to sign three league-minimum players for a bare-bones 20-man roster. In reality, they’ll move at least two of Mason Marchment ($4.5MM), Mathew Dumba ($3.75MM), and Ilya Lyubushkin ($3.25MM) to open up far more than that to give them some in-season flexibility while not taking a catastrophic hit to their forward depth. Jamie Benn, Evgenii Dadonov, and Mikael Granlund remain as pending UFAs up front.

For Duchene, he’ll still be getting compensated more than his contract with Dallas indicates. The expiry of his new deal following the 2028-29 season lines up with when his buyout paychecks from the Predators will end. He’s still set to receive $6.56MM from Nashville in 2025-26 and then $1.56MM annually through 2028-29.

Image courtesy of Jerome Miron-Imagn Images.

Fabian Zetterlund Signs Three-Year Extension With Senators

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8:41 a.m.: The Senators confirmed Zetterlund has signed a three-year extension as reported.

6:48 a.m.: Senators pending RFA winger Fabian Zetterlund has agreed to a three-year extension with the club, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports. The deal is worth $12.825MM with a cap hit of $4.275MM. He’ll be a UFA upon expiry in 2028. The contract does not include trade protection, per PuckPedia. They were also the first to report that the two sides were nearing an agreement on Wednesday night. Zetterlund’s extension will be paid out entirely in base salary and will earn him $3.8MM in 2025-26, $4.3MM in 2026-27, and $4.725MM in 2027-28.

Zetterlund, 26 in August, was acquired by the Sens from the Sharks quite literally at the trade deadline for a package that included a second-round pick and center prospect Zack Ostapchuk. It was surprising to see San Jose part ways with him. He had looked promising in a top-six role since being acquired from the Devils in the Timo Meier swap a few years ago, posting a 20-goal, 44-point campaign in 2023-24. He was on track to do so again with a 17-19–36 scoring line in 64 games at the time of the trade, but they either valued the offered return from Ottawa higher than Zetterlund’s on-ice value or believed they wouldn’t be able to come to an agreement as he reached free agency.

The tail end of 2024-25 saw Zetterlund struggle to find consistency in Ottawa. He bounced around the lineup upon arrival, logging significant time in top-six usage with Tim Stützle but also seeing some deployment as low as the fourth line with Adam Gaudette and Matthew Highmore. His offensive production underwhelmed, only managing two goals and five points in 20 games in a Sens jersey, averaging 14:18 per game after seeing nearly 17 minutes per game in San Jose.

The bright side? All five of Zetterlund’s points came in his final 12 games as he was bumped up the lineup, and he had four points in six games to end the regular season. He didn’t manage to log a point in their first-round loss to the Maple Leafs, though. He ended the year with a 19-22–41 scoring line in 84 games, landing a few extra appearances thanks to the trade. It was south of the 20-goal mark he was on pace for with his start to the season in the Bay Area, but he still managed to crack 40 points for the second year in a row.

If Zetterlund gets more consistent top-six deployment out of the gate in 2025-26, he should be able to return to his San Jose levels of production and be a valuable top-nine winger for the Sens at that price point. The Swedish forward also had good possession impacts this past season, posting positive relative Corsi shares at even strength with both the Sharks and Senators. He also posted a decent 52.4 xGF% in his even-strength minutes with Ottawa, understandably seeing a spike there from his San Jose numbers on a much more competent two-way club. He’ll aim to turn those figures into more noticeable offensive numbers en route to being a key secondary scorer for the Sens.

The contract comes in a bit north of his three-year, $3.92MM AAV projection from AFP Analytics, but still seems like a reasonable bet based on the offense he’s provided on the whole over the past two years. It does reaffirm their cap crunch, though, and likely turns up the urgency on a money-clearing move a bit with top UFA Claude Giroux still without an extension. The Sens have $10.75MM in space with six roster spots still to fill after Zetterlund’s new contract, according to PuckPedia. With Giroux projected to land north of $5MM on his next deal, that means they’d only have around $5.5MM to allocate to five roster spots to round out the club, limiting them to depth adds only in free agency.

Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.

Ducks Re-Sign Nikita Nesterenko To Two-Year Deal

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The Ducks announced yesterday that they’ve extended left winger Nikita Nesterenko on a two-year contract. He was set to become a restricted free agent but will stay with the Ducks, receiving a one-way commitment worth $775K in 2025-26 and $800K in 2026-27 in the process, according to PuckPedia. He’ll carry a cap hit of $787.5K as a result.

Nesterenko, 24 in September, was drafted by the Wild back in 2019. The sixth-rounder had his signing rights sent to Anaheim in the 2023 John Klingberg deadline trade. He signed his entry-level contract days later after completing his junior season at Boston College.

A two-way forward with good skating ability and historically able to shoulder minutes at center, Nesterenko has taken strides over his two full minor-league campaigns. He notched a 16-21–37 scoring line in 70 games for AHL San Diego in his first full professional season in 2023-24, good for 0.53 points per game. He upped his production to 0.68 points per game here in 2024-25, notching a 13-21–34 line in 50 games. He’s got a cumulative plus-seven rating as well while leveraging his 6’2″, 183-lb frame to play a decently physical game.

That well-rounded performance has led the Ducks to give Nesterenko multiple NHL call-ups over the past couple of years. After skating in nine games with Anaheim to finish off the 2022-23 season post-ELC, he suited up three times for them last year before making a career-high 20 NHL appearances here in 2024-25. He didn’t look out of place at all as a serviceable fourth-line winger, averaging 10:19 per game while scoring four goals and two assists with a minus-four rating. He averaged a shot on goal per game, finished at a likely unsustainable but still intriguing 20% clip, and posted reasonably decent possession numbers in defensively skewed deployment.

His new deal comes in considerably lower than the $917,831 qualifying offer he was eligible for, but that would have only been for one year with a two-way structure. He swaps out the higher one-year earning ceiling for added financial protection if he’s assigned to the minors.

Nesterenko will undoubtedly be in the conversation for an opening-night job, especially since he becomes waiver-eligible for the first time next season. He’ll be a restricted free agent upon expiry in 2027 and will be owed a qualifying offer of $840K.

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