New Pittsburgh Penguins’ defenseman Connor Clifton missed a few important calls back on Jun. 28 while the 2025 NHL Draft was happening. 

“It was kind of funny,” Clifton said. “I was putting my daughter down for a nap, and I guess the draft was going on. We didn’t even have it on the TV, but I didn’t see that [Buffalo Sabres GM Kevyn Adams]... he texted me, and I had a missed call, I guess, when I was in the room.”

After his daughter fell asleep, he noticed the missed calls from Adams, and he told his wife. 

“She’s like, ‘Oh… where are we going?’” Clifton recalled.

As he found out just a few minutes later while whispering in the restroom - as to not wake his sleeping daughter - he was traded to the Penguins during the second round of the draft in a trade that also brought in the second-round pick used to draft defenseman Peyton Kettles. The deal also sent defenseman Conor Timmins and defensive prospect Isaac Belliveau to the Sabres. 

And even though the news came as a bit of a surprise to Clifton, the 30-year-old defenseman was more than ready for a change of scenery. 

The 5-foot-11, 195-pound right defenseman felt as though he was straying away from what made his game so effective over the last two seasons in Buffalo, where he signed as a free agent in the summer of 2023 after spending his first five NHL seasons with the Boston Bruins. Drafted in the fifth round (133rd overall) by the Phoenix Coyotes in 2013, Clifton was heralded as a physical, hard-hitting blueliner despite his size, and his competitive edge helped elevate him through his college years at Quinnipiac University and his AHL seasons in Providence prior to the NHL. 

Penguins Trade Timmins, Prospect For Clifton, Second-Round Pick; Select Defenseman Peyton KettlesAfter the events of the first round of the 2025 NHL Entry Draft, the Pittsburgh Penguins were left without the second-round pick given to them by the Washington Capitals for forward Anthony Beauvillier at the trade deadline.

Clifton was scratched for nine games last season - and several in 2023-24, too - due to a self-proclaimed “standstill” in his game.

“I wasn’t too happy with it,” Clifton said. “I think I was all over the place: I wouldn’t even say just last year, really the past two years. My game has, kind of, been at a standstill. It was a lot of mental battles along the way. 

“I feel like I kind of lost myself. The change of scenery - I got that call that I’m going to be a Pittsburgh Penguin - I was really excited for the change. I want to get back to my old self and how I play and the impact that I have on the game. It was a couple of mental battles… but, you just try to simplify and be who you are, I guess.”

And one person who may be able to help Clifton rediscover his form is new Penguins’ head coach Dan Muse, who tried to recruit Clifton to Yale University back in 2013 during his time there. Even though things didn’t work out the first time with Clifton and Muse, the defenseman looks forward to the opportunity to finally get to work with him.

'I'll Be Ready': Penguins' Mantha Sets Goal To Hit Ground Running In Training CampIn the summer of 2024, the Pittsburgh Penguins had, apparently, reached out to then-free agent forward Anthony Mantha.

They spoke last week while Clifton was in Pittsburgh for a few days. He is aware that the Penguins have a lot of competition on the right side of their defensive corps - Erik Karlsson, Kris Letang, Matt Dumba, and, potentially, prospect Harrison Brunicke, are already in the picture, too - but he left the conversation feeling confident.

“I was speaking to Dan and just how we’re going to be competitive, and it’s all going to start with work,” Clifton said. “And he mentioned he wanted me to come in and try to find it right away and don’t come in all passive, but be aggressive and be who I am. And that’s always good to hear.”

Like everyone else who has come into the fold for the Penguins this summer, Clifton is aware that the Penguins are in a bit of a transitional period. But, he’s also aware of the veterans the team has in the room. 

He recalled his playing days with the Bruins, when he had the chance to play with guys like Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand. Even if Pittsburgh is in this time of change and transition, he knows that he can learn a lot from them.

“To play with some greats, with some of the starpower in that room, I think it’s going to be awesome to be around those guys,” Clifton said. “I came up for the Boston Bruins playing with some absolute legends, and I get to play with Sidney Crosby. So, you know, it’s pretty incredible. I’ve played against those guys for a while now, but I’m excited to meet them, get in the same room, and get on the same side as them for once.”

And one thing he won’t do is count them out, even if others have Pittsburgh penciled in as a non-playoff team next season.

“I’m excited for the opportunity, and yeah, I guess you want to talk about standings,” Clifton said. “But with, obviously, some of the guys you have in that room, you’ve got a veteran group, an older group who knows how to play the game, knows how to manage situations… so, I think I’m excited to get back to that, meet the guys, and get this year started.”

Will Owen Pickering Make The Opening Night Roster?The Pittsburgh Penguins will have a lot of decisions to make regarding some of their young players before the puck drops on the regular season Oct. 7 against the New York Rangers.

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Feature Image Credit: Timothy T. Ludwig-Imagn Images

The Philadelphia Flyers have officially reached the point where they can't afford to hold onto the rotting contract of Ryan Ellis any longer.

Ellis, 34, has two years remaining on his contract at a $6.25 million cap hit, but is permanently retired from playing in the NHL and has since returned to Nashville to rehab and preserve his quality of life.

Now, the Flyers could always place Ellis on LTIR instead of regular injured reserve and benefit from that cap relief, but they won't accrue any daily cap space for as long as Ellis is on LTIR.

The issue is that the Flyers want to avoid this, preferring to accrue cap space and keep their options open ahead of the trade deadline.

Current injuries to Tyson Foerster and Rasmus Ristolainen, and the call-up replacements for those players, leave the Flyers with about $570k in cap space, and the cap space the Flyers accrue depends on their daily cap hit.

Effectively, the lower the daily cap hit, the more money they gain, but their daily cap hit is quite high as it currently stands.

So, if the Flyers want the cap space, and they don't want to use the LTIR pool, the next logical step would be to move on from Ellis's contract altogether.

Flyers Among NHL Leaders in Dead Salary Cap SpaceThe Philadelphia Flyers will head into the 2025-26 season with the third-highest amount of dead salary cap space in the NHL.

It may cost a prospect or a draft pick, sure, but it opens the opportunity to recoup a draft pick by helping facilitate a retained salary trade at the NHL trade deadline, for example.

Simply put, there is no reason for the Flyers to put themselves in the precarious position of potentially not being able to afford to call players up as injury replacements and construct the roster as they wish, as well as limiting themselves at the trade deadline months in advance.

Looking around the NHL, fellow rebuilders like the Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks, and Chicago Blackhawks are barely above the NHL's salary cap floor.

Taking on Ellis's deal will help those teams ensure they don't have to make needless big-money commitments to veterans to add to the roster and stay above the floor at the same time.

As for a potential price, the Flyers could reference the Shea Weber trade from this past NHL trade deadline.

On March 7, the Blackhawks traded a 2026 fifth-round picks to the Utah Mammoth for Weber's contract, 24-year-old prospect Aku Raty, and the rights to 24-year-old prospect Victor Soderstrom, who was subsequently traded to Boston for Ryan Mast and a 2025 seventh-round pick.

The Flyers don't have fourth- or fifth-round picks in 2026, but they do have a 2027 third-round pick acquired in the Andrei Kuzmenko trade that could be used if no prospects are included, as Utah did with Chicago.

Prospects who could be dangled in this potential scenario might include the oft-injured Samu Tuomaala, Adam Ginning, and Aleksei Kolosov, particularly in the event he doesn't return to North America this season.

How Cam York's New Flyers Contract Changes Salary Cap OutlookAfter re-signing Cam York, the Philadelphia Flyers have depleted virtually all of their salary cap space ahead of the start of the 2025-26 season.

Kolosov and Tuomaala are both RFAs at the end of the season, and Kolosov's UFA season is 2029-30. The Belarusian goalie could be a smart bet for a team willing to take the risk of letting him go home and potentially return to the NHL at a later date.

But, this is all to say that the Flyers have options when it comes to moving on from Ellis and his big $6.25 million cap hit.

They'd be better served having that money available to spend in the 2026 and 2027 free agent classes rather than hold onto it any longer to preserve a measly draft asset or two.

Plus, as mentioned above, not being able to call up players in the event of injuries is not a place you want to be to start your season.

But, will the Flyers try to help themselves, or will they continue to play the long game and stick with the passive approach?

Six NHL RFAs have dates scheduled for a salary arbitration hearing in 2025.

After the NHL Players' Association previously announced hearings would be held between July 20 and Aug. 4, PuckPedia reported the schedule now runs from July 28 to Aug. 3 as follows:

July 28: Arvid Soderblom, G, Chicago Blackhawks
July 29: Maxim Tsyplakov, RW, New York Islanders
July 30: Dylan Samberg, D, Winnipeg Jets
Aug. 2: Conor Timmins, D, Buffalo Sabres
Aug. 3: Nick Robertson, LW, Toronto Maple Leafs
Aug. 3: Jayden Struble, D, Montreal Canadiens

On those days, the player (with the NHLPA and/or the player's representative) and their respective teams (with a league representative) will try to persuade an independent arbitrator to award a contract that favors their case. Both parties can use statistics, player comparables and other allowed evidence to make their case.

All the scheduled hearings are for player-elected arbitration cases. The two players in team-elected arbitration cases – the Sabres' Bowen Byram and Utah Mammoth's Jack McBain – have since signed contracts.

Five RFAs who filed for arbitration – the Anaheim Ducks' Lukas Dostal and Drew Helleson, Winnipeg Jets' Gabriel Vilardi and Morgan Barron, and Seattle Kraken's Kaapo Kakko – have also since settled on new deals. Kakko's hearing was scheduled for July 25.

That said, the remaining players and squads still have time to avoid this potentially contentious process. But if they do have the hearing, the team has options of what to do afterward.

Before The Hearing

Any RFA who's scheduled for arbitration cannot sign an offer sheet with another club at this point.

They can, however, settle the case and re-sign with their current team at any time before the beginning of the hearing, which is usually at 9 a.m. ET except when the NHL and NHLPA agree to change it.

After The Hearing

The arbitrator must issue and email the decision to the parties within 48 hours of the end of the hearing.

The contract must be either one or two years long. In a player-elected salary arbitration, the team elects the length, and in a club-elected arbitration, the player chooses the term. If the player is one year away from unrestricted free agency, however, then the award can only be for one season.

The arbitrator will establish the term, salary, minor-league salary if they decide to include one and the reasons for the decision.

In a player-elected arbitration, if the awarded average annual value is at least $4.85 million, the team can walk away from one year of the contract. If the club walks away from a one-year contract, the player becomes a UFA. On an awarded two-year deal, the team can opt for a one-year contract instead, and the player would be a UFA once it ends. The squad only has 48 hours to notify the parties of that decision.

Where Seven NHL RFAs Fit In With Their Team Before ArbitrationSeven NHL RFAs could have salary arbitration hearings this week.

Three days after the last arbitration case is either awarded or settled, a second buyout window opens for NHL teams that had a player file for arbitration. Only contracts with a cap hit greater than $4 million that were on the team's roster at the last NHL trade deadline can be bought out in this window.

Arbitration rules are according to the NHL and NHLPA collective bargaining agreement and, when hyperlinked, PuckPedia.

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Senior writer at THN Adam Proteau has given the Calgary Flames a ranking of number 28 in The Hockey News' NHL summer splash rankings.

That is only above the Los Angeles Kings, Winnipeg Jets, Chicago Blackhawks and Buffalo Sabres.

It was not a surprise as the Flames had a quiet free-agency with most notable signings being that of defenceman Nick Cicek and goalie Ivan Prosvetov. 

The team lost many players including back-up goalie Dan Vladar to the Flyers, leaving Prosvetov and Dan Cooley to battle it out for the spot behind Dustin Wolf.

There is a lot of talent in the Flames system and the future seems bright as ever, but for the next season senior players like Mikael Backlund, Nazem Kadri, Jonathan Huberdeau will take the reigns in Southern Alberta. Calgarians will (and have good reason to) be hoping pleasant surprises from younger talents like Matt Coronato and Zayne Parekh. 

EDMONTON – Special teams are special for a reason.

The Edmonton Oilers superstars know their way around a powerplay. Unfortunately, for the Stanley Cup runner-up, they struggled on the penalty kill in their most recent playoff run.

Bookmark The Hockey News Edmonton Oilers team site to never miss the latest news, game-day coverage, and more. 

Luckily for fans and the team, a plan is in motion to address the contender’s glaring weakness.

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How Bad Was The Oilers' Penalty Kill?

During the 2024-25 playoffs, the Oilers’ penalty kill was successful 67.1 percent of the time. The Cup Finalists' penalty kill was ranked 14th out of the 16 teams in the playoffs.

The only teams with a worse penalty kill were the Ottawa Senators and the Los Angeles Kings. The team with the best penalty kill was the repeating Stanley Cup Champions, the Florida Panthers.

Kris Knoblauch Outlines The Plan To Improve

Oilers head coach, Kris Knoblauch, made an appearance on the Oilers Now show with Bob Stauffer on Monday, July 21st. The two had a wide-ranging conversation, with one of the talking points being around the penalty kill and the strategy surrounding it going into the new season.

“We knew we were going to be making changes,” Knoblauch told Stauffer. “We were waiting to see how many changes we were going to make…we were waiting to find out what our team would look like next year.”

Personnel is a key factor to a successful penalty kill. Knoblauch continued by emphasizing what the focus is for the team and coaching staff, as it pertains to the penalty kill. 

“Who are the guys who are going to be (penalty) killing? What kind of killers are they going to be?” Knoblauch asked. “Is it going to be more skating? Is it going to be more shot-blocking? And having all those aspects (figured out) before we made all those decisions.”

Knoblauch then laid out a potential framework for improvement, serving as a jumping-off point to investigate what has worked for other teams and identify what can be applied to them.

“Yes, it will definitely look different,” Knoblauch said of the penalty kill. “More similar to what other teams are doing. I think we’ll be doing a lot of copying of what some of the other successful teams have been doing around the NHL.”

Where Can The Oilers Learn To Have A Better Penalty Kill?

There are a few teams that have consistently performed well on the penalty kill over the last three years. Looking at the NHL.com stats, one team stands above the rest: the Carolina Hurricanes.

While the New Jersey Devils and Dallas Stars have recorded a top-five performing penalty kill in two out of the last three seasons, only the Hurricanes have had a top-five shorthanded unit for three consecutive years.

The Hurricanes have had the best penalty kill over the past two years (83.6 & 86.4 percent, respectively), and the second-best kill three years ago (84.4 percent).

When speaking to Cory Lavalette of The Athletic, a few Hurricanes’ players cited a few reasons for their success on the penalty kill. For some players, it comes down to using their speed and offensive creativity to anticipate their opponent’s next move. For others, it’s playing aggressively and not being afraid to block shots.

One thing is for certain: if the Oilers are going to use any team in the league as an example to mold their penalty kill after, there isn’t a better option than the Hurricanes.

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Welcome back to The Hockey News - Vancouver Canucks site’s Coaches as Players series. Last time, we looked at newly-appointed Canucks head coach Adam Foote’s long-tenured NHL career with the Québec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche and Columbus Blue Jackets. Today, we’ll turn to one of Foote’s new assistant coaches, Kevin Dean. 

Dean, a defenceman, played in two seasons with Culver Military Academy Prep before being drafted into the NHL 86th overall by the New Jersey Devils in 1987. He then moved onto the University of New Hampshire in the NCAA, playing there for four seasons before joining the Devils organization. In his time with New Hampshire, Dean scored 14 goals and 36 assists in 131 games. This included a 10-goal, 12-assist season in 31 games back in 1990–91. 

For the next four seasons, Dean split his playing time with the Utica Devils and Albany River Rats of the AHL and the Cinncinati Cyclones of the ECHL and later IHL. His time with the River Rats was most notable of these, as he had a career-high in goals in an AHL season with nine in 1993–94, as well as 33 assists in 70 games. He was also named the team’s captain the season after and helped them win the 1995 Calder Cup. 

Dean made his NHL debut in the 1994–95 season, skating for the Devils on February 27, 1995 against the Montréal Canadiens. He played in 17 games for New Jersey in this season, grabbing his first NHL point in his sixth game — an assist against the Ottawa Senators. As well as winning the 1995 Calder Cup, he also dressed in three of the Devils’ playoff games, adding two assists and winning his first career Stanley Cup with the big club. He is part of a small group of players who have won both the Calder Cup and Stanley Cup in the same season. 

In the seasons after winning both the Stanley Cup and Calder Cup, Dean spent the bulk of his time with New Jersey. From the 1995–96 season to 1998–99, he played in 181 games with the Devils, scoring three goals and 28 assists in this span of time. He also represented Team USA at the 1997–98 IIHF World Championship, skating in three of the team’s games. 

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The 1999–2000 season saw Dean move on from the Devils organization, which he’d been with since being drafted nearly 13 years prior. In this particular year, Dean skated with three different NHL teams — the Atlanta Thrashers, Dallas Stars, and Chicago Blackhawks. He played in 23 games with the Thrashers, scoring one goal in a November 3 matchup against the Tampa Bay Lightning. On December 15, he was traded to the Stars in exchange for future considerations (later a ninth-round pick that was converted into Mark McRae). He spent 14 games with Dallas before his next move on February 8, in which himself, Derek Plante, and a 2001 second-round pick were flipped to Chicago for Sylvain Cote and Dave Manson. 

Chicago was the team that Dean rounded out his NHL career with, as he played the remainder of the 1999–2000 season with them, scoring two goals and eight assists in his final 27 games of the season. After this, he spent one more year with the Blackhawks, posting 11 assists in 69 games in 2000–01. In 2001–02, Dean made his return to the AHL, playing in 76 games for the Milwaukee Admirals and tallying five goals and 14 assists. Less than five years later, Dean began his coaching career as an assistant coach with the Lowell Devils. 

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It’s the Dallas Stars’ turn to be analyzed in The Hockey News’ NHL summer splash rankings.

We’ve been counting down each NHL team’s off-season, based on which franchises improved, stayed the same or got worse this off-season. We’re breaking things down in terms of additions and departures, including hirings and firings where applicable.

Be sure to see the teams that finished lower than the Stars at the bottom. But first, let’s look at Dallas’ moves and see why we ranked them 27th in our NHL summer splash rankings.

Additions

Radek Faksa (C), Glen Gulutzan (coach)

The Breakdown: The Stars made it to the Western Conference final and lost for the third straight season, falling to the Edmonton Oilers for the second straight year. Stars GM Jim Nill faced a salary cap crunch after acquiring and re-signing right winger Mikko Rantanen at the NHL trade deadline, so he re-signed as many players as he could – Matt Duchene, Jamie Benn, Mavrik Bourque, Nils Lundqvist and more – while adding a piece in free agency.

The biggest addition for Dallas is the return of Gulutzan behind the bench. This will be Gulutzan’s second stint as Stars coach. Given that he failed to get Dallas into the Stanley Cup playoffs in the two seasons he ran the team from 2011 to 2013, he’s under immediate pressure to at least get the Stars to the Cup final this coming season.

The only addition roster-wise is another Star on his second go-around with the team – veteran Faksa, who will step in as a bottom-six center. He’s a downgrade from the rental acquisition that was Mikael Granlund, but Faksa remains a decent performer who can help defensively.

Departures

Mikael Granlund (C), Mason Marchment (LW), Evgenii Dadonov (RW), Cody Ceci (D), Matt Dumba (D), Brendan Smith (D), Peter DeBoer (coach)

The Breakdown: The salary cap-challenged Stars had to let go of three valuable forwards – Granlund (who left for Anaheim via free agency), Marchment (who was traded to Seattle) and Dadonov (who departed for New Jersey). That’s a major dent in Dallas’ offense, which was the third-most-potent in the NHL last year at 3.35 goals-for per game. 

The Stars can still win blowout games as well as tight defensive matchups, but they won’t be quite as dangerous as they were on paper a couple of months ago.

Meanwhile, the Stars' defense corps changed after many pinpointed it as Dallas’ biggest weakness this past season. Nill unloaded the contract of Dumba on the Pittsburgh Penguins, while Ceci left for the L.A. Kings in free agency, and Smith remains a UFA. Neither player recorded more than 10 points for Dallas this past season, 

And of course, DeBoer self-immolated during and after the Western final loss, taking issue with star goalie Jake Oettinger’s play. Nill clearly sided with his top goalie, and DeBoer is now looking for work after three years behind Dallas’ bench.

The Bottom Line

The Stars have made significant moves, but they haven’t gotten better, and on offense, they’ve taken a slight step backward.

That said, the Stars are getting their first full year of superstar right winger Rantanen, and bringing back captain Benn on a $1-million salary with performance bonuses is a nice job by Nill. 

Marchment and Granlund definitely leave a hole in the lineup, but you can rest assured that, even with only $1 million in cap space, Nill will find a way to improve his lineup with a trade or two during the season.

Nill has built his team to win now. And while there’s a looming debate about whether he has room to re-sign star left winger Jason Robertson when he becomes an RFA next summer, the Stars will roll the dice one more time with the group that got them into the Final Four for three years running.

The Stars are low in our NHL summer splash rankings because there’s no question they’re not quite as good as they were at their peak last season. That does not automatically mean they had a bad off-season.

There are exceptions in the rankings for teams that did significantly less or more than expected, with some squads already on the list not doing enough – either quantity-wise or quality-wise on the trade or free-agent market – to support their core players. Dallas isn't an exception, which goes to show the tight margin between the teams as we move up this list.

The back-to-back-to-back GM of the year was active in damage limitation with the cap crunch they had, and Nill deserves credit for that.

Summer Splash Rankings

27. Dallas Stars

28. Calgary Flames

29. Los Angeles Kings

30. Winnipeg Jets

31. Chicago Blackhawks

32. Buffalo Sabres