Hello all and welcome back! We got some 11^th hour signings to go over here so let's dive on in. From here on out as well, we're going to be going off 2024-25 stats with the NHL season underway.

Jeremy Swayman – G – Boston – 25 years old

Contract: $66M – $8.25M AAV – Eight years remaining – NMC 2026 – 2032

Alright. It finally happened. Through all the rumors, weird press conference comments, and funny photoshopped pictures, Jeremy Swayman is back in a Boston Bruins sweater. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to have a wowed reaction here, once the contract was announced I looked at the term and AAV, and thought it's perfectly adequate. This is a win-win for Boston and Swayman alike.

The term here, eight years, I thought was perfect and will take Swayman into his age 34 season. Swayman was excellent last season and at 25 there's real reason to think that his best years are in front of him; if I'm a Boston fan I'm ecstatic about that. One of the hardest situations to be in as a fan is having a top-tier goaltender on your roster with looming free agency impending (Rangers fans, hello), so for the foreseeable future this is a win for Boston. I'm not crazy about this process dragging out as long as it did so won't be too surprised if Swayman looks just the tiniest bit shaky when he eventually gets his first start in net.

I can imagine B's fans might be quick to want to get him back in the cage given Boston's opening night game against Florida, but if I'm honest here, I thought Joonas Korpisalo actually looked alright, just didn't have much help out there. He was quick to get low in his stance but that's most goaltenders in the very early going getting back to NHL game speed. As far as Swayman's AAV, he is now tied for the fourth highest with Ilya Sorokin and a player that will be named here shortly.

Linus Ullmark – G – Ottawa – 31 years old

Contract (extension): $33M – $8.25M AAV – Four year's remaining – NMC

Wow, that AAV looks so familiar…wonder where I've seen that, oh yeah! Linus Ullmark's old teammate who we just got done chatting about! It's the Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme here.

The Senators have extended Ullmark, and it is important to note that this extension will come into effect next season. If I was just looking at the numbers and terms the Senators have on their cap and didn't know their previous records, I'd think this was a club that was in the mix for a deep playoff run. That's not to say that I don't like the Ullmark extension – I do – but it's just funny to me when I look at their player pool along with the money that they have invested in them.

On one hand the extension does make some sense, Ottawa traded for Ullmark back in June, and don't think they were looking at him to be a one-year almost "rental" type of goaltender with nobody waiting in the wings behind him. For the term, I think it's perfect, I wouldn't have gone another year past where they signed him and, as is par the course for the NHL now, he has an NMC as well. Every year, we get closer and closer to a trade deadline where we're moving bottom six players without a NMC or M-NTC attached to them.

Joey Daccord – G – Seattle – 28 years old

Contract (extension): $15M – $5M AAV – Three years remaining – M-NTC (12 team)

Okay, with this one I scratch my head with a little bit. The Kraken really watched one start for Philip Grubauer and thought that they need to extend Joey Daccord right away, unless behind closed doors this was in the making? Between the two, Daccord is the better goaltender as he was very good in the middle of last season, but I don't think Seattle is going to have a situation where one goaltender gets the bulk of starts over the other here.

Maybe Seattle sees this as Daccord is only going to improve over the next couple seasons but even if that's the case then why not extend him further down the line instead of coming back to the table coming off his age-31 season? Or potentially they think his price tag will be too high following this season where he makes $1.2M against the cap. Regardless, Seattle and Daccord just set the water mark here for goaltenders to be signed in the offseason as goaltenders will point to that term and AAV as an asking price.

Carter Verhaeghe – LW – Florida – 29 years old

Contract (Extension): $56M – $7M AAV – Eight years remaining – NMC

GP          G             A             PTS         PPP        TOI         PPTOI    SOG       HIT         BKS

1           0             0              0              0         17:19     7:47       4              2             0

Okay so this is just a wild story here. Last night I watched the Panthers handle the Boston Bruins but following the game while I was watching my Blackhawks go down 2-0 in the first period, I noticed on my TL that Carter Verhaeghe had signed a contract extension with the Florida Panthers. For a second or two I thought I was reading something that happened over the offseason…and maybe it technically did? Verhaeghe and the Panthers came to terms on an eight year deal that begins next season, and that was signed while Verhaeghe had half of his gear on ready to go out for warmups. Incredible.

So, there you have it, Florida wasted no time in signing their core group together with their two newest offseason signees being Same Reinhart and Cater Verhaeghe, with both contract's likely taking them through the rest of their careers in Florida. Aleksandar Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, and Carter Verhaeghe are now all under contract until 2030, and I'll even include Anton Lundell in that list as well just given the term on his deal. Looking forward, the Panthers will still have to decide what to do with Aaron Ekblad on their blueline, but as far as forwards, the only notable name that will be up for them is Sam Bennett, but if Florida wants to keep him I think they could find a way to do so, as they'll likely have close to $15M in space come July.

The AAV here is decent, and the term may be a little bit longer by a year or so like, but this falls under one of my mantras. When you're in a championship window, you can't cheap out. Well done, Panthers.

*Salary Cap data from PuckPedia.com  

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