Dylan Coghlan signs a one-year, $775,000 contract with the Jets.
The Winnipeg Jets announced that they have signed defenseman Dylan Coghlan to a one-year contract with an average annual value (AAV) of $775,000.
Coghlan was acquired via trade four days from the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for future considerations.
Coghlan spent the 2023-24 season with the Carolina Hurricanes’ American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate the Springfield Thunderbirds where he tallied 16 goals and 25 assists for 41 points in 61 games. Among Thunderbirds skaters’ Coghlan ranked second in points and first among all defensemen in goals, assists and points.
The 26-year-old is coming off a one-year extension he signed with the Hurricanes last summer. During the 2022-23 campaign, Coghlan racked up three assists while averaging 12:43 of ice time in 17 games with the Hurricanes.
The Hurricanes originally acquired Coghlan from the Vegas Golden Knights in July of 2022 as part of a deal that also sent forward Max Pacioretty to Carolina in exchange for future considerations. Pacioretty only appeared in five games for the Hurricanes while dealing with Achilles injuries.
Coghlan went undrafted into the NHL as a member of the Western Hockey League’s (WHL) Tri-City Americans but elected to sign an entry-level deal with the Golden Knights in 2017. He made his NHL debut with Vegas in the 2020–21 regular season.
Through 106 games over parts of three NHL seasons with the Golden Knights and Hurricanes, Coghlan has collected six goals and 22 points while averaging 13:46 per night.
Coghlan will battle for ice time next season with fellow Jets blueliners Josh Morrissey, Neal Pionk, Logan Stanley, Dylan Samberg, Colin Miller, Dylan DeMelo and Haydn Fleury.
The deal is worth $775,000 in the NHL and $175,000 in the minors, with $200,000 guaranteed.
The 24-year-old Thompson split last season with the Islanders’ AHL affiliate, the Bridgeport Islanders, and the New Jersey Devils’ AHL affiliate, the Utica Comets. Through 66 AHL games, Thompson scored three goals and 16 assists for 19 points. The Calgary native joined the Islanders’ organization after being traded to the club last November in exchange for Arnaud Durandeau.
In 149 career AHL games over four seasons, Thompson has 18 goals and 46 assists for 64 points and 132 penalty minutes. He’s also appeared in 11 career NHL games, recording one assist during that span.
Take in the fourth round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft by the Devils, Thompson spent three seasons playing college hockey with the Providence Friars of the NCAA. He hit career highs in 2019-20, scoring 19 goals and 25 assists for 44 points in 34 regular season games.
Before enrolling at Providence, Thompson played a full season with the USHL’s Dubuque Fighting Saints, scoring 12 goals and 20 assists for 32 points in 60 games.
The Islanders finished the 2023-24 regular season with a 39-27-16 record and 94 points, third in the Atlantic Division. They faced the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and were eliminated in five games.
Forward Matthew Barzal led the team in scoring with 80 points (23 goals and 57 assists), followed by defenseman Noah Dobson, who finished with a career-high 70 points (10 goals and 60 assists).
St. Louis Blues sign Ryan Suter to one-year, $775,000 contract
A veteran blueliner has found another home within the Central Division.
On Wednesday, the St. Louis Blues announced they have signed defenseman Ryan Suter to a one-year contract. The deal will carry a $775,000 cap hit through the 2024-25 season.
The contract also allows Suter to earn $2.225 million in potential performance bonuses, giving the Madison, Wisconsin native a chance at making $3 million next season. Those terms are not yet public information.
Suter was a free agent as the Dallas Stars bought out the last year of his four-year contract with an AAV of $3.65 million. He had been with the Stars since the final four years of a 13-year contract was bought out by the Minnesota Wild in 2021. That means Suter will be getting paid by the Wild, Stars and Blues during the 2024-25 season.
In 2023-24, the former Wisconsin Badger registered two goals and 15 assists with a +14 rating, posting four points in 19 playoff appearances.
Suter has been in the league for 19 years, starting his career with the Nashville Predators, the team that took him seventh overall in the 2003 NHL Draft. After seven years with the Preds, he, along with Zach Parise, infamously signed 13-year, $98 million contracts with the Wild in July 2012.
He went on to have some great years with the Wild. Suter scored 32 points in 48 games during the lockout-shortened 2013 season, was a runner-up for the Norris Trophy and was named to the NHL’s First All-Star Team. He scored a career-high 51 points during the 2015-16 and 2017-18 seasons, helping the Wild make it to the playoffs in six consecutive seasons.
In two seasons with the Stars, Suter took a step back and played a supporting role for rising stars like Miro Heiskanen. Dallas made the playoffs in all three years Suter was there, making it to the Western Conference Final in 2023 and 2024, losing to the Vegas Golden Knights and Edmonton Oilers, respectively.
In 1,444 NHL games, Suter has notched 105 goals and 576 assists with a career plus/minus of +120. In 133 Stanley Cup Playoff games, the 39-year-old has posted seven goals and 37 assists.
Penguins sign Tanner Howe to a three-year, entry-level contract
Pittsburgh Penguins President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Kyle Dubas announced today that the club has signed Tanner Howe to a three-year, entry-level contract.
Howe was selected in the second round, No. 46 overall in the 2024 NHL Draft in Las Vegas.
Howe spent the 2023-24 season with the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League (WHL) where he compiled 28 goals and 49 assists for 77 points, leading all Pats’ skaters.
Howe started to make a name for himself while playing with current Chicago Blackhawks star Connor Bedard, narrowly missing the 90-point mark during the 2022-23 season. Even when Bedard moved on to the NHL, Howe proved he can be an efficient scoring threat. He is a hard-working player that battles hard along the boards, and has a little bit of a pest-like mindset while fighting for the puck.
“Howe was a high-end scorer again this year,” Daily Faceoff prospect analyst Steven Ellis said. “He loves to compete, but his skating and smaller frame don’t help. Despite that, Howe battles for pucks and has the energy that can make him more valuable if he isn’t cast into a scoring role.”
The Prince Albert, Saskatchewan native has scored 92 goals and 141 assists for 233 points in 207 games with the Pats.
Howe has also represented his country on the international stage. He played on Team Canada at the 2022 and 2023 IIHF Men’s Under-18 World Championship, helping the Canadians win bronze last year. Howe was a key part of the team that took home the gold at the 2022 Hlinka Gretzky Cup.
Howe was the Penguins’ second selection by the Penguins at the 2024 NHL Draft, the first being Kamloops Blazers defenseman Harrison Brunicke at No. 44 overall.
The team from Orange County has made some notable changes within its goaltending department.
On Wednesday, the Anaheim Ducks announced they have promoted Sudarshan Maharaj from goaltending coach to director of goaltending. Former NHL netminder Peter Budaj has been hired as the Ducks’ new goaltending coach.
The team also revealed Tim Army is being added to the bench as an assistant coach.
The 2024-25 season will be Maharaj’s 12th with the franchise. Over the past seven years, he has been the team’s goaltending coach, working as a consultant for minor league affiliates when he first came to the Ducks in 2013. Maharaj was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in December 2023, but is now cancer-free after having a very small chance of survival.
The native of Trinidad and Tobago previously worked for the New York Islanders as their goaltending coach (2003-06) and consultant (2009-12). Maharaj also was the goaltending consultant for the Korean National Team at the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Maharaj will now be overseeing all aspects of the organization’s goaltending, with Budaj and San Diego Gulls goaltending coach Jeff Glass reporting to him.
Budaj played 17 years in the NHL, making stops with the Colorado Avalanche, Montreal Canadiens, Los Angeles Kings and Tampa Bay Lightning. In 368 NHL appearances, the Slovakian backstop posted a 158-132-40 record with a 2.70 goals-against average, a .904 save percentage and 18 shutouts.
After hanging up his pads, he went into coaching. He worked with the Avalanche’s American Hockey League affiliate, the Colorado Eagles, over the last two-plus seasons as its goaltending coach.
Army has been coaching for close to four decades. Army was on Ron Wilson’s staff in the first four years of the Ducks’ franchise, moving with Wilson to the Washington Capitals in 1997. He was also an assistant with the Avalanche from 2011-17. In total, Army has been an assistant coach in the NHL for 15 years. He has also served as the head coach of the Iowa Wild and Portland Pirates of the AHL.
Sharks sign 2024 first-round pick Sam Dickinson to entry-level deal
The San Jose Sharks announced Wednesday that the club signed defenseman Sam Dickinson to a three-year, entry-level deal.
The 18-year-old defender was taken No. 11 overall by the Sharks in the 2024 NHL Entry Draft. Through two seasons with the Ontario Hockey League’s London Knights, the 6-foot-3 defender had scored 27 goals and 66 assists for 93 points in 130 regular-season games. Last season, he took the league by storm, scoring 18 goals and 52 assists for 70 points.
“Sam is a big, mobile defenseman who brings a strong two-way game and excellent hockey IQ,” Sharks General Manager Mike Grier said in a press release. “We’re excited to watch him continue his development as part of our organization.”
Dickinson helped the Knights win the 2024 OHL Championship and was a key contributor to the club making it to the Canadian Hockey League’s Memorial Cup Final.
The Toronto native represented Canada at the 2023 Hlinka-Gretzky Cup, finishing with three assists in five games and helping the team win a Gold Medal.
The Sharks finished the 2023-24 regular season with a record of 19-54-9 and 47 points, last in the entire National Hockey League. Their minus-150 goal differential was the worst in the league by 39 goals, and both their home record (11-25-5) and road record (8-29-4) were last in the NHL.
Forward Mikael Granlund led the club in scoring with 60 points (12 goals and 48 assists), 15 ahead of second-place William Eklund, who finished with 45 points through 16 goals and 29 assists. Defenseman Mario Ferraro provided the most offense from the blue line, finishing with 21 points (three goals and 18 assists), but finished with a dismal minus-38 rating, the second-worst on the club. Only Eklund’s minus-45 was worse.
We’ve arrived on Day 10 of the NHL’s unrestricted free agency period, and it’s safe to say most of the activity is behind us.
Practically every free agent of note has signed with one of the league’s 32 teams. Even most of the less recognizable players on the market have found NHL landing spots. For the ones who haven’t, European pro teams have already started to come calling.
By this time each year, the pool of remaining free agents can typically be split into three groups. There are the wily veterans nearing retirement (Mark Giordano, Joe Pavelski, etc.), the AHL tweeners (Radim Zohorna, Austin Czarnik, etc.), and, finally, the classic reclamation projects.
The players who fall into those last two groups are the ones who typically either sign in Europe within the first two weeks of free agency or hold out for a PTO in August or September. But while there are plenty of AHL-level players still on the market, the number of reclamation projects out there has dwindled considerably since July 1.
Here’s a look at two of the most intriguing young players still out there who could have more to give to whichever team picks them up this summer.
Alex Nylander
The younger Nylander brother had 14 NHL goals in 106 career regular season and playoff games with the Buffalo Sabres, Chicago Blackhawks, and Pittsburgh Penguins before being acquired by the Columbus Blue Jackets this past February. The 26-year-old Swede had been relegated to the AHL for the majority of his pro career to that point and had seldom been put in a scoring role during his intermittent NHL stints.
That all changed in Columbus, where Nylander averaged a career-high 16:45 of ice time over 23 games and exploded with 11 goals, just one fewer than Johnny Gaudreau managed over 81 games last season. Nylander shot the puck at seemingly every opportunity, testing opposing goaltenders 62 times (that’s nearly three shots per game) and posting three multi-goal games, including a hat trick against the Vegas Golden Knights on March 4.
There’s no question Nylander hasn’t lived up to the promise he showed in junior that led to the Sabres selecting him with the No. 8 overall pick in the 2016 NHL Draft, but he’s got skill to burn and he might be on the verge of finally putting it all together. Having just turned 26 in March, Nylander is around the same age Jonathan Marchessault, Carter Verhaeghe, and Joel Ward were when they got their first real NHL chances.
Those guys are outliers, and none was nearly as highly touted as Nylander was coming out of the Ontario Hockey League, but there’s still plenty of reason for optimism. For a team like Vegas, which needs as many cost-effective scorers as it can get (especially after losing Marchessault to the Nashville Predators), someone like Nylander could be a worthwhile value bet. The Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida Panthers, and Carolina Hurricanes also make plenty of sense as they continue to navigate their cap crunches.
But there’s also something to be said for Nylander going to a team with plenty of cap space (and, with that, opportunity). The Calgary Flames, Anaheim Ducks, and Montreal Canadiens could all use a bit more scoring punch in their lineup. The market for Nylander might not be all that robust — if it was, he probably would’ve signed by now — but there should be plenty of teams interested in giving him a shot.
Oliver Kylington
Now that Adam Boqvist, Erik Brannstrom, Jake Bean, Pierre-Olivier Joseph, and Josh Mahura are all off the market, Kylington is the best young puck-moving defenseman out there — and when he’s at his best, he’s better than all those guys. But after failing to come to an agreement with the Flames before July 1, the 27-year-old Kylington is still in search of a new deal for the 2024-25 season and beyond.
Kylington played in just 33 games with the Flames during his previous two-year contract with the club. After posting a career year on a pairing with Chris Tanev in 2021-22, Kylington missed the entire following season while dealing with then-undisclosed mental health problems. He attempted to make a comeback at the start of the 2023-24 campaign but ended up needing to take a brief step back before finally returning to the lineup in January.
After being eased back into game action through his first few weeks, Kylington resumed in his top-four role with the Flames down the stretch and showed flashes of the brilliance that made him a fan favorite three seasons ago. He ended up with three goals and eight points while averaging 17:14 of ice time in 33 games with the Flames during the 2023-24 season.
It’s difficult to say where Kylington will end up. The Flames seem to have filled his spot with Calgary native Jake Bean, who is a year younger and also slightly cheaper than Kylington was on his last deal. There’s always a chance that Kylington could try to steal his job back with the Flames, but he might’ve already missed the boat.
Much of the reporting around Calgary has indicated that Kylington and his camp were looking for a multi-year deal in free agency, but that has failed to materialize — for as much strength as Kylington showed in forging his path back to the NHL in the first place, it’s understandably difficult for teams to justify committing more than one year to a player who has missed so much time. It’s also exceedingly rare for UFAs to be offered multi-year contracts this long after the market opens.
Kylington is a supremely talented and smooth-skating defenseman with lots to prove. Whichever team eventually lands him will be adding a valuable piece to their organization. If he can play anywhere close to a full 82 games this upcoming season, Kylington could be in line for a much bigger payday one year from now.
