{"id":682939,"date":"2026-05-20T23:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T23:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/682939\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T23:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T23:16:11","slug":"free-agency-notes-jenner-laughton-chrona-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/682939\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Agency Notes: Jenner, Laughton, Chrona \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Columbus Blue Jackets may need a new captain for next season, as Aaron Portzline of The Athletic reported yesterday<\/a> that Boone Jenner<\/a> may be getting \u201csqueezed out of the mix in Columbus\u201d in advance of the expiry of his contract on July 1. Jenner, who was reported to have recently swapped longtime agent Joe Resnick for Pat Morris of Newport Sports Management, has only played for the Blue Jackets in his 808-game NHL career. He\u2019s the franchise\u2019s all-time games played leader. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet said on today\u2019s 32 Thoughts podcast<\/a> that Columbus is hoping to find a way to keep Jenner, but Jenner \u201cfeels whatever he\u2019s being offered is not anything he\u2019s willing to accept.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not immediately clear what the Blue Jackets\u2019 offer to Jenner might look like. Head coach Rick Bowness spent much of his time in Columbus utilizing Jenner in the bottom-six. He averaged 16:04 time on ice per game this season, down from 18:00 per game last year. Jenner also lost his grip on a spot on the Columbus power play, after averaging 1:48 time on ice per game there last season. Another factor that could contribute to Jenner\u2019s exit from Columbus is his health. He\u2019s missed significant time due to injuries over the past three years and despite solid production (13 goals, 38 points) in 2025-26, Columbus simply may not be able to offer Jenner the kind of contract he\u2019s looking for given his availability and the amount of money they just committed to another veteran pivot, Charlie Coyle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other notes about pending free agents:<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Kings are holding talks this week with pending UFA center Scott Laughton<\/a> on a potential contract extension, reports Dennis Bernstein of The Fourth Period<\/a>. Laughton, who is also repped by Morris, will see the five-year, $3MM AAV contract he signed in 2021 expire on July 1. The 31-year-old was acquired by the Kings as a deadline deal that returned a third-round pick to his former team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Just one year before that, Laughton\u2019s league-wide stock was high enough for him to return a first-round pick and prospect Nikita Grebenkin<\/a> on the trade market. Bernstein noted that Laughton was \u201csolid in [head coach] D.J. Smith\u2019s system\u201d after arriving in Los Angeles, so the decision on who the Kings might hire as their permanent bench boss could impact how far the team is willing to go to extend the center. Laughton scored eight points in 21 games with the Kings but has a career-high of 18 goals and 43 points from 2022-23. AFP Analytics projects<\/a> him to receive a three-year, $4.1MM AAV deal on the open market.
\nThe SHL\u2019s Bryn\u00e4s IF have officially announced the signing of goaltender Magnus Chrona<\/a> to a two-year contract. We first covered reports<\/a> indicating Chrona would be headed overseas for 2026-27 in January, and today\u2019s announcement has made it official. Chrona, 25, has been a member of the Nashville Predators organization for the last two seasons, originally arriving to the team<\/a> as part of the Yaroslav Askarov<\/a> trade in August 2024. In each of his two seasons with the Predators, Chrona served as the No. 2 goalie for the team\u2019s AHL affiliate, the Milwaukee Admirals. He posted a .903 save percentage in 2024-25, his debut campaign in Wisconsin, and had an .894 save percentage in 25 games this past year. Although this deal will allow Chrona to return to his home country of Sweden, he has not played there since 2018-19, during his junior hockey days. Chrona backstopped the Denver Pioneers to an NCAA National Championship before beginning his pro career with the San Jose Sharks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Columbus Blue Jackets may need a new captain for next season, as Aaron Portzline of The Athletic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[128191,49,48,755,14108,763,250504,760,448,36428,82],"class_list":["post-682939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-boone-jenner","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-free-agency","tag-los-angeles-kings","tag-magnus-chrona","tag-nashville-predators","tag-nhl","tag-scott-laughton","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}