The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins added to their forward group and blue line on Tuesday, announcing AHL contracts for forwards Rafaël Harvey-Pinard and Hugh McGing and defenseman Ryan Mast for the 2026-27 season. Harvey-Pinard is the headliner of the trio: the 27-year-old is coming off a 66-game campaign in which he tied his AHL career high with 21 goals and finished tied for third on the club with 39 points, then added four points in 10 Calder Cup Playoff games. He brings 85 games of NHL experience between Pittsburgh and Montreal, along with 165 career AHL points.
McGing, also 27, arrives after six seasons in the St. Louis organization, where he became the Springfield Thunderbirds’ all-time leader in games played (323) and posted 31 points in 66 games last season; he has nine NHL games to his name and scored his first NHL goal this past year. Mast, a 23-year-old right-shot defenseman and 2021 sixth-round pick of the Bruins, joins after splitting last season between Providence and Rockford, adding depth on the right side of the blue line.
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Agent Dan Milstein announced that his client, defenseman Roman Schmidt, has signed a one-year contract extension with the Minnesota Wild. A 6-foot-5, 225-pound right shot from Midland, Michigan, the 23-year-old profiles as a physical, defense-first blueliner, a former U.S. National Team Development Program and OHL product who has racked up 173 penalty minutes across 98 career AHL games while chipping in just nine points, the kind of shutdown, third-pairing profile that tends to stick as organizational depth. Originally a 2021 third-round pick (96th overall) of Tampa Bay, Schmidt saw his entry-level deal expire this summer and was tendered a qualifying offer as a restricted free agent before agreeing to the new deal, which projects to keep him with AHL Iowa.
Elite Prospect’s Dylan Griffing reports that multiple KHL clubs are interested in signing unrestricted free agent Arthur Kaliyev, noting that Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod pursued him last summer before he signed with Ottawa. The move would make sense: the 25-year-old sniper led the AHL with 40 goals and 68 points in 70 games with Belleville this past season but got into just two NHL games for the Senators, who declined to tender him a qualifying offer. A former second-round pick of the Kings, Kaliyev has yet to carve out a lasting NHL role, and a return to the KHL could be the change of scenery he is looking for.