{"id":775002,"date":"2026-07-02T07:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T07:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/775002\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T07:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T07:36:08","slug":"one-year-contracts-for-alex-belzile-and-kaapo-kahkonen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/775002\/","title":{"rendered":"One-year contracts for Alex Belzile and Kaapo Kahkonen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BROSSARD\u00a0\u2013 Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes announced on Wednesday that the team has agreed to terms on one-year contracts with forward Alex\u00a0Belzile (two-way) and goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen (one-way).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Belzile, 34, played 66 games with the Laval Rocket in the AHL last season and registered 62 points (29G, 33A). The Rivi\u00e8re-du-Loup, QC native set career\u00a0highs in goals and points,\u00a0in addition to skating in\u00a0his 500th\u00a0career\u00a0AHL\u00a0game on March 4,\u00a02026,\u00a0\u00a0against\u00a0Syracuse.<\/p>\n<p>Belzile\u00a0took part in 44 NHL games\u00a0over three seasons with the Canadiens, recording 15 points (6G, 9A) and serving\u00a017 penalty minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Kahkonen played 38 games with the Rocket in the AHL in 2025-26, posting a 21-9-7 record, along with a\u00a02.73 GAA and a .895\u00a0SV%. The 29-year-old netminder also took part in five\u00a0AHL\u00a0playoff contests, posting a 2-3 record, a 3.03 GAA and a .871\u00a0SV%.<\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0Helsinki, FIN native,\u00a0Kahkonen\u00a0played 140\u00a0career\u00a0NHL\u00a0games with the Minnesota Wild, San Jose Sharks, New Jersey Devils and Colorado Avalanche,\u00a0earning a 49-68-15 record, a 3.34 GAA as well as a .898\u00a0SV%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BROSSARD\u00a0\u2013 Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes announced on Wednesday that the team has agreed to terms on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-775002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775002","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=775002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}