{"id":99412,"date":"2025-08-26T23:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T23:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/99412\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T23:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T23:06:07","slug":"minor-transactions-hurlbert-boltmann-uens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/99412\/","title":{"rendered":"Minor Transactions: Hurlbert, Boltmann, Uens"},"content":{"rendered":"

American forward\u00a0J.P. Hurlbert<\/a>, widely tabbed as a first-round pick in the 2026 draft class, will spend his draft year north of the border with the WHL\u2019s Kamloops Blazers, the team announced<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sharp course reversal from the growing trend of CHL-committed players coming to the United States to play college hockey, as they\u2019re now eligible to do before their usual run in junior hockey would have concluded. Hurlbert is still a University of Michigan commit \u2013 that hasn\u2019t changed \u2013 but he wasn\u2019t expected to join the team until his age-18 season in 2026-27. He\u2019s still expected to attend while making the Blazers a brief detour on his development path, buying himself out of the U.S. National Team Development Program in order to do so.<\/p>\n

Hurlbert, a Texas native, joined the USNTDP\u2019s under-17 squad last year after playing his youth hockey with the Dallas Stars Elite program. He finished third on that club in scoring with a 19-18\u201337 line in 56 games, adding three assists in five games for the Americans at the under-17 World Hockey Challenge.<\/p>\n

The 17-year-old joins a Kamloops roster headlined by Penguins 2024 second-rounder\u00a0Harrison Brunicke<\/a>\u00a0on defense \u2013 assuming he doesn\u2019t make Pittsburgh\u2019s opening night roster. At forward, he\u2019ll have Blackhawks pick\u00a0Nathan Behm<\/a>, a third-rounder this year, to help him out.<\/p>\n

More minor moves from around hockey:<\/p>\n

Former Flames defense prospect\u00a0Jake Boltmann<\/a>\u00a0is landing in the Stars organization on a contract with ECHL Idaho, per a club announcement<\/a>. The 23-year-old righty was a third-rounder by Calgary in 2020 but wasn\u2019t signed following his fifth season of college hockey, so assuming he\u2019s submitted the proper paperwork, he\u2019s now an unrestricted free agent in the NHL\u2019s eyes. The 6\u20191\u2033, 201-lb rearguard had 20 points and 108 PIMs in 126 games with Notre Dame over four seasons before transferring to Northeastern for a fifth year. He had a 2-10\u201312 scoring line with 39 PIMs and a -2 rating in 35 showings for the Huskies last year.
\nEx-Panthers farmhand\u00a0Zachary Uens<\/a>\u00a0has signed<\/a> an AHL deal with the Kraken\u2019s affiliate in Coachella Valley. The 24-year-old was an unrestricted free agent after being non-tendered back in June before the expiry of his entry-level contract. A 2020 fourth-round pick, he saw fringe action for Florida\u2019s AHL club in Charlotte but played mostly in the ECHL, most recently for the Savannah Ghost Pirates. The 6\u20192\u2033 lefty spent all of last season there, logging 17 points and 68 PIMs in 62 games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"American forward\u00a0J.P. Hurlbert, widely tabbed as a first-round pick in the 2026 draft class, will spend his draft…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[6066,49,48,7585,57708,57709,448,82,4584,25260,57710],"class_list":["post-99412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ahl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-echl","tag-j-p-hurlbert","tag-jake-boltmann","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-transactions","tag-whl","tag-zachary-uens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99412","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=99412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}