{"id":798160,"date":"2026-07-13T01:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T01:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/798160\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T01:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T01:40:08","slug":"minor-transactions-7-12-26-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/798160\/","title":{"rendered":"Minor Transactions: 7\/12\/26 \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n By Brian La Rose<\/a> |
\n at July 12, 2026 6:51 pm <\/p>\n

While there has been a predictable heavy decline in the number of NHL contracts handed out in recent days, that doesn\u2019t mean there haven\u2019t been signing elsewhere.\u00a0 Here is a roundup of recent moves involving NHL affiliates or former players.<\/p>\n

The Toronto Marlies, affiliate of the Maple Leafs, recently announced<\/a> that they\u2019ve signed goaltender Kenneth Appleby<\/a>, forwards Sawyer Boulton<\/a>, Sam Stevens<\/a>, Matt Copponi<\/a>, and Ross Mitton<\/a>, along with defensemen Matt Anderson<\/a> and Ben Meehan<\/a>. Boulton received a two-year deal while the other six landed one-year pacts.\u00a0 Appleby is the only one who has seen NHL action, a total of four games where he has a 2.08 GAA and a .921 SV% but has primarily played in the ECHL in recent years.
\nWhile not yet announced by the Marlies, Gold Star Hockey\u2019s Dan Milstein revealed (Twitter link<\/a>) that they\u2019ve signed Maple Leafs draft pick Timofei Obvintsev<\/a> to a one-year AHL deal. The goaltender was a fifth-round pick back in 2024 and has played rather sparingly since then, playing in just six VHL games last season and 11 MHL contests in 2024-25.\u00a0 Obvintsev seems likely to spend a good chunk of the upcoming year in the ECHL to get some game action in over being a third-stringer behind Artur Akhtyamov<\/a> and newcomer Samuel Hlavaj<\/a>.
\nThe AHL\u2019s Laval Rocket, affiliate of the Canadiens, announced the signings of defensemen Jacob Dion<\/a> and Kale McCallum<\/a> along with forward Alexander Legkov<\/a> to one-year, two-way deals. Dion primarily played in the ECHL last season while McCallum recently wrapped his NCAA career at Providence College.\u00a0 Legkov, meanwhile, had 93 points in the FPHL.
\nFormer Buffalo winger Nicholas Baptiste<\/a> is continuing his career in France as Rouen announced (Twitter link<\/a>) that they\u2019ve signed him to a one-year deal. The 30-year-old has 47 career NHL contests under his belt but has bounced around in recent years.\u00a0 This will be Baptiste\u2019s sixth different league since the 2023-24 campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Brian La Rose | at July 12, 2026 6:51 pm While there has been a predictable heavy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[6066,49,48,743,448,281289,82,746,4584],"class_list":["post-798160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ahl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal-canadiens","tag-nhl","tag-nicholas-baptiste","tag-sports","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-transactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798160","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=798160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}