{"id":768772,"date":"2026-07-17T18:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T18:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/768772\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T18:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T18:40:13","slug":"morning-notes-tikkanen-calvert-suvanto-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/768772\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Notes: Tikkanen, Calvert, Suvanto \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Islanders re-signed goaltender Henrik Tikkanen<\/a> to a one-year, two-way contract worth $850,000 at the NHL level on Wednesday, per Puckpedia<\/a>. The 25-year-old, a seventh-round pick in the 2020 draft, returns as organizational depth in a crease fronted by Ilya Sorokin<\/a> and Semyon Varlamov<\/a>, and has yet to appear in an NHL game.<\/p>\n

What makes Tikkanen stand out is his size. The native of Lohja, Finland, is among the tallest goaltenders in professional hockey at roughly 6-foot-8, and would become the tallest netminder in NHL history, surpassing 6-foot-7 Ben Bishop<\/a>, should he ever crack the lineup. He has spent recent seasons splitting time between the AHL\u2019s Bridgeport Islanders and the ECHL\u2019s Worcester Railers, posting a 2.65 goals-against average and .897 save percentage across 29 AHL games in 2025-26. His new deal carries a $130,000 salary at the minor-league level.<\/p>\n

Additional notes:<\/p>\n

The Nashville Predators have hired former NHL forward Matt Calvert<\/a> as their forward development coach, the team announced<\/a>. Calvert, 36, spent 11 seasons with Columbus and Colorado, recording 203 points in 566 games before retiring in 2021, and reunites with Predators GM Chris MacFarland, who served as an assistant general manager with both of those clubs during Calvert\u2019s playing days. In his new role, he\u2019ll help evaluate and develop Nashville\u2019s forward prospects. Calvert will work along side Scott Nichol, Predators Assistant General Manager, Admirals General Manager and Director of Player Development.
\nThe Washington Capitals loaned 2026 first-round pick Oliver Suvanto<\/a> to Tappara of Finland\u2019s Liiga for the 2026-27 season, the team annoucned<\/a> Friday morning. The 17-year-old center, the 18th overall selection, who signed his three-year entry-level contract earlier this week, will spend a second full season in Finland\u2019s top professional league rather than turning pro in North America. Ranked the top international center in his draft class by NHL Central Scouting, Suvanto posted 11 points in 48 Liiga games as an underager last season, the most by any player age 17 or younger in the league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Islanders re-signed goaltender Henrik Tikkanen to a one-year, two-way contract worth $850,000 at the NHL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[50929,328294,328295,4826,394,385,301195,99,1791],"class_list":["post-768772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-2026-nhl-draft","tag-henrik-tikkanen","tag-matt-calvert","tag-nashville-predators","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-nhl","tag-oliver-suvanto","tag-sports","tag-washington-capitals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}