{"id":779085,"date":"2026-07-04T19:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T19:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/779085\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T19:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T19:01:08","slug":"minor-signings-07-04-26-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/779085\/","title":{"rendered":"Minor Signings: 07\/04\/26 \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n By Ethan Hetu<\/a> |
\n at July 4, 2026 10:15 am <\/p>\n

Although the overwhelming majority of the heavy lifting is done for much of the league, teams continue to scour the free agent market to address their depth and improve their AHL affiliates. In addition, there are also players deciding to cross the Atlantic and begin professional careers overseas. Today, several recognizable names have signed, and we will continue to update the list throughout the day. Here are today\u2019s minor signings:<\/p>\n

The Syracuse Crunch, AHL affiliates of the Tampa Bay Lightning, have signed forward Elliot Desnoyers<\/a> to a one-year AHL contract<\/a>. The 24-year-old winger was a fifth-round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers at the 2020 NHL draft, and was once one of the team\u2019s more promising prospects. After captaining the QMJHL\u2019s Halifax Mooseheads and landing on Canada\u2019s World Junior Championships team, Desnoyers turned pro in 2022-23 and had a strong rookie season in the Flyers organization. He scored 23 goals and 44 points in 65 AHL games, earning a call-up to play in four NHL games and ranking as the No. 7 prospect in the Flyers\u2019 system per Scott Wheeler of The Athletic<\/a>. That has proven to be the high point of Desnoyers\u2019 pro career thus far, and he has still not recaptured that form in the three seasons following 2022-23. After departing the Flyers organization, Desnoyers signed with the Minnesota Wild, but the move cost him his full-time spot in the AHL. He spent most of last season in the ECHL, scoring 31 points in 45 games. He\u2019ll look to re-establish himself in the AHL, and give his career some positive momentum with the Crunch.
\nThe Crunch have also<\/a> signed Zachary Uens<\/a>, a 2020 fourth-round pick of the Florida Panthers. A 6\u20192\u2033, 201-pound left-shot defenseman, Uens split last season between the AHL\u2019s Coachella Valley Firebirds and ECHL\u2019s Kansas City Mavericks. He has played in 48 career AHL games compared to nearly 200 in the ECHL. He will provide the Crunch with some organizational depth on their blueline and is most likely to spend the bulk of his time in the ECHL with the Orlando Solar Bears. Uens is a two-time Kelly Cup champion from his days with the Florida Everblades.
\n2017 Detroit Red Wings third-round pick Zachary Gallant<\/a> has signed an AHL contract<\/a> with the Utica Comets, the AHL affiliates of the New Jersey Devils. A 6\u20192\u2033, 195-pound forward with the versatility to play left wing or center, Gallant has spent most of his professional career at the AHL level. After serving as the captain of the OHL\u2019s Peterborough Petes for two seasons, Gallant turned pro in 2020-21 and spent the next two seasons with the San Jose Barracuda, scoring just 18 points in 78 games. He then went to play USports hockey for two years with McGill University, before returning to the pro ranks with the Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton Penguins in 2025. Last season, he scored five points in 39 games for the AHL Penguins, while also scoring six points in five ECHL games for the Wheeling Nailers. He is a fourth-line center candidate for Utica.
\nThe Roadrunners re-signed veteran defenseman Robbie Russo<\/a> to a one-year AHL contract extension<\/a>, extending the 33-year-old defenseman\u2019s second tour with the team by an additional campaign. A veteran of 700 AHL games, Russo has not played in the NHL since 2016-17 but remains a valuable, effective AHL blueliner. The two-time AHL All-Star had a down season in 2024-25, scoring just 17 points, the lowest point-per-game production of his entire professional career. But Russo has scored at least 30 points in a season seven times, and that number goes even higher if one considers scoring rate instead of raw totals. Russo is a Calder Cup champion from his days in the Detroit Red Wings organization and will bring some veteran stability to the Roadrunners defense.
\nFormer Ohio State Buckeyes captain Scooter Brickey<\/a> has decided to leave the North American pro ranks to sign a one-year KHL contract<\/a> with Nizhny Novgorod Torpedo. The 27-year-old played five seasons of college hockey from 2019 to 2024, before turning pro and joining the AHL Penguins. Brickey played in a total of 55 games across two full campaigns in Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton, but failed to claim a regular lineup spot. This past season, he even faced three reassignments to ECHL Wheeling. With his grip on an AHL roster spot slipping, Brickey has decided to exit the Penguins organization and try his luck in Russia.
\nLinus Weissbach<\/a>, a playmaking winger who was once Cole Caufield<\/a>\u2018s linemate at the University of Wisconsin, has signed a KHL contract with SKA St. Petersburg. The 28-year-old has spent the last two seasons playing for his hometown SHL club Fr\u00f6lunda HC, and even won the Champions Hockey League with the team last season. The 5\u20199\u2033 winger was able to translate his stellar NCAA production to the AHL level, scoring 117 points in 191 career games with the Rochester Americans. But he chose to return to Sweden rather than remain in North America. Now, he is on the move once again, headed to the KHL in what is a relatively rare move for a Swedish player.
\nFormer San Jose Sharks prospect Brandon Coe<\/a>, who scored 121 points in his final OHL regular season and playoffs just four years ago, has signed a deal<\/a> with Slovak club HK 32 Liptovsky Mikulas. Coe was once ranked as the No. 5 prospect in the Sharks\u2019 system per Elite Prospects<\/a>, but was unable to translate his stellar production in junior hockey to the pro game. After three consecutive low-scoring seasons with the AHL\u2019s Barracuda, Coe left the North American pro game to begin his European career. He signed with EHC Red Bull Salzburg in the ICEHL, the top professional league covering Central Europe. While Coe was solid in Salzburg, scoring 26 points in 38 games and four points in four champions hockey league games, the team endured its worst league playoff finish in a half-decade. After four consecutive ICEHL championships, Salzburg failed to win a single game in the playoffs. They were swept in the league quarterfinals by Italian side HC Pustertal. Now, Coe will depart Salzburg and test his luck in Slovakia.<\/p>\n

This page will be updated as more signings are announced throughout the day. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ethan Hetu | at July 4, 2026 10:15 am Although the overwhelming majority of the heavy lifting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[231142,3063,64,63,28896,369025,9848,981,575,85,206],"class_list":["post-779085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-2026-free-agency","tag-ahl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-echl","tag-elliot-desnoyers","tag-free-agency","tag-khl","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-transactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}