Center earned $3.85 million in his plus-23 season
Dallas Stars: Center Jason Arnott is staying put in Texas after accepting the Stars' one-year qualifying offer Monday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Arnott received $3.85 million in 2003-04.
Arnott, 30, appeared in 73 games with the Stars in 2003-04, registering 21 goals and 36 assists with a plus-23 rating. The 6-4, 220-pounder led the team in plus-minus and assists while ranking second in points and game-winning goals (5).
"Jason brings size and stability to our forward group and will be relied on this year to play a significant role on our team," Stars general manager Doug Armstrong said. "We are happy to have him back, and we're expecting solid production from him in 2005-06."
Posting his sixth consecutive 20-goal season, Arnott fell just two assists shy of matching his career high of 38 set in 1996-97 with the Edmonton Oilers.
A member of the New Jersey Devils' Stanley Cup-winning team in 2000, Arnott was acquired by Dallas along with Randy McKay for Joe Nieuwendyk and Jamie Langenbrunner in March 2002.
In two-plus years with the Stars, Arnott has collected 47 goals and 61 assists in 155 games. A first-round pick of Edmonton in 1993, Arnott has recorded 244 goals and 324 assists in 743 career games with the Oilers, Devils and Stars.
Stars sign three more: Forward Antti Miettinen, who played much of last year in the minor-league AHL, has signed a two-year deal with the Stars.
Dallas also signed free agent wings Garrett Burnett and Mike Siklenka to one-year contracts.
Terms were not released.
Miettinen, 25, had one goal in 16 games for the Stars during the 2003-04 season. He was the Stars' seventh-round selection in the 2000 NHL Entry Draft.
Miettinen played 35 games with the AHL's Hamilton Bulldogs last season, recording eight goals and 20 assists for 28 points. He missed 45 games between late 2004 and early 2005 with a shoulder injury.
Burnett, 29, made his NHL debut during the 2003-2004 season with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, appearing in 39 games. Burnett played in seven games last season for the UHL's Danbury Thrashers.
Siklenka, 25, last season played in 39 games for Klagenfurt AC of Austria. He previously had stints with the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers.
Carolina Hurricanes: Right wing Pavel Brendl and defenseman
Bruno St. Jacques signed one-year contracts with the
Hurricanes.
Brendl will be paid nearly $900,000 if he makes the team, while St. Jacques will earn $450,000 if he wins a spot with the club.
Brendl spent most of last season with Jokipojat Joensuu in Finland, where he had nine goals, 10 assists and 48 penalty minutes in 21 games. In 2003-04, Brendl scored five goals and earned three assists in 18 games before missing the final 21 games of the season with a broken collarbone.
St. Jacques had two goals and 12 assists in 68 games last season with Carolina's American Hockey League team in Lowell, Mass. He played in 35 games with Carolina in 2003-04 after making the team out of training camp. Brendl and St. Jacques are the players the Canes got from the Philadelphia Flyers when they traded right wing Sami Kapanen (and defenseman Ryan Bast) two years ago.
New York Islanders: The Islanders re-signed veteran
forwards Arron Asham and Oleg Kvasha to one-year contracts.
Kvasha was team's co-leader in points during the 2003-04 season, finishing with 15 goals and 36 assists in 81 games. He represented Russia in the 2004 World Cup of Hockey and had one assist in two games.
Last season, Kvasha played with CSKA Moscow and Severstal Cherepovets in Russia, posting nine goals and 11 assists in 48 games. In 429 career NHL games with the Florida Panthers and Islanders, Kvasha has 68 goals and 117 assists.
He will earn $1.178 million this season.
Asham played last season with EHC Visp in the Swiss National League and had two goals and four assists in five games.
Asham, who inked a $627,000 deal with the Islanders, has 38 goals and 40 assists in 278 NHL games.
Los Angeles Kings: Defensemen Joe Corvo and Brad Fast
have agreed to terms of one-year contracts and forward Jeff Tambellini agreed to terms of a multiyear entry-level contract with
the Kings. Terms were not announced.
Corvo, a 28-year-old restricted free agent, had career-high totals of eight goals and 17 assists in 72 games for the Kings last season. Corvo, taken by the Kings in the fourth round of the 1997 NHL Entry Draft, has 13 goals and 24 assists in 122 career games.
Fast, a 25-year-old unrestricted free agent, played with the Lowell Lock Monsters of the AHL and Florida Everblades of the ECHL last season. He was chosen by the Carolina Hurricanes in the third round of the 1999 NHL Entry Draft
The 21-year-old Tambellini was originally selected by the Kings as the 27th overall pick in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft. He served as alternate captain and led the University of Michigan with 24 goals and 33 assists in 42 games during the 2004-05 season. He is the son of Steve Tambellini, vice president of the Vancouver Canucks and a 10-year NHL veteran.
Columbus Blue Jackets: Defenseman Rostislav Klesla, the Jackets' first draft pick, will stay with the team for at least one more year. Klesla, goaltender Pascal Leclaire and right wing Tim Jackman have accepted one-year qualifying offers from the club.
Terms of the deals were not disclosed, but Klesla earned $1.07 million in 2003-04. The fourth overall pick in 2000, the 23-year-old Czech player has appeared in 202 games over the past four seasons with Columbus, recording 14 goals and 47 points.
Leclaire, the eighth overall pick in 2001, appeared in two games with the Blue Jackets in 2003-04, going 0-2-0 with a 3.53 goals-against average. A second-round selection in 2001, Jackman played with 19 games with Columbus in 2003-04, notching three points and 16 penalty minutes.
In another move, the Blue Jackets re-signed right wing Brandon Sugden, 27. He originally signed with Columbus as a free agent in April 2004 and spent the 2004-05 campaign with Syracuse, registering a goal and 252 penalty minutes in 45 games.
Boston Bruins : Bowling Green defenseman Jonathan Sigalet agreed
to a three-year contract with the Bruins on Monday, 10 days after
his older brother signed with Boston.
The Bruins also announced one-year agreements with six other players -- centers Brad Boyes, Ben Guite and Nate Robinson; left wing Eric Healey; right wing Jason MacDonald; and defenseman Kevin Dallman.
Sigalet, 19, passed up his last two years of college eligibility after finishing with six goals and 25 assists in 72 games during the past two seasons. Boston took him with the 100th pick of this year's draft
Goalie Jordan Sigalet, 24, was Jonathan's teammate in college and was drafted by Boston in the seventh round 2001. He played most of the games in his senior year after being diagnosed in March 2004 with multiple sclerosis.
Boyes and Dallman were restricted free agents. Guite, Robinson, Healey and MacDonald were unrestricted free agents.
Minnesota Wild: The Wild have signed defenseman Daniel Tjarnqvist to a 2005-06 contract. Tjarnqvist, 28, is a three-year NHL veteran and has played in 218 games in three seasons with the Atlanta Thrashers.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but Tjarnqvist made $800,000 in the 2003-04 season, when the 6-foot-2, 200-pound Sweden native established career highs with five goals and 20 points, ranking second among Thrashers defensemen in both categories.
Tjarnqvist spent last season with Djurgardens IF Stockholm of Sweden's Elitserien League and ranked tied for third on the team with 24 points (12 goals, 12 assists). He led team defensemen in goals, points and assists and ranked second on the team with seven points (five assists) in 12 playoff games. He previously helped Sweden to a silver medal in the 2003 World Championships and was a member of his national squad in the 2004 World Cup.
Phoenix Coyotes: The Coyotes signed a
pair of centers to one-year contracts.
The team declined to disclose the terms of the deals with Krystofer Kolanos and Jeff Taffe who accepted their qualifying offers.
Kolanos played 41 games with the Coyotes in 2003-2004, recording four goals and six assists.
The 24-year-old was drafted in the first round in 2000, but he missed 80 games in the 2002-2003 season after a concussion.
Taffe played 27 games with the Utah Grizzlies last season, recording nine goals and 10 assists before suffering an orbital bone fracture that sidelined him for the remainder of the season.
Taffe, 24, was drafted by the St. Louis Blues in the first round in 2000.
Atlanta Thrashers: Three years after being selected, center Jim Slater's NHL dream will come true after being signed by the Thrashers.
The 30th pick in the 2002 draft, Slater came to terms with the Thrashers after an outstanding career with Michigan State.
The 22-year-old was 11th among Division I players with 48 points (16 goals, 32 assists) in 41 games with the Spartans last season. He was a Top 10 finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, given to the top player in college hockey.
"Jim enjoyed a successful career at Michigan State and we look forward to his continued development at the professional level," Atlanta general manager Don Waddell said. "He has a great deal of potential which will be enhanced as he competes for a spot on our roster."
Mighty Ducks of Anaheim: The Mighty Ducks have signed
restricted free agent defenseman Mark Popovic to a one-year
contract. Terms were not announced.
The 22-year-old Popovic had one goal and 17 assists in 74 games with the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks of the AHL last season.
Popovic has played in one NHL game -- for the Ducks during the 2003-04 season. Anaheim made him the 35th overall selection in the 2001 NHL Entry Draft.
St. Louis Blues: Defenseman Eric Brewer, acquired by the Blues earlier this month in a trade for Chris Pronger,
accepted the teams' qualifying offer.
The move came on the deadline day for qualifying offers. The Blues also re-signed forwards Jamal Mayers and Peter Sejna and defenseman Brett Scheffelmaier.
Brewer has played six seasons in the NHL, the last four with Edmonton. He led the Oilers with nearly 25 minutes per game in 2003-04 and topped Edmonton defensemen in scoring with 29 points while earning a spot in the 2003 All-Star Game.
Mayers played in a career-high 80 games for the Blues in 2003-04 and had six goals and five assists.
"Jamal's combination of speed and size, along with his past experience as a member of the Blues, makes him an excellent fit for our system," general manager Larry Pleau said. "He also adds important versatility through his role on the penalty-killing unit, and his ability to play two positions at both right wing and center."
Vancouver Canucks: The Canucks
re-signed restricted free agent defenseman Sami Salo to a two-year
contract.
The 30-year-old Salo will earn $1.5 million this season.
Salo, acquired from Ottawa before the 2002-03 season, recorded 16 goals and 40 assists over the last two NHL seasons in Vancouver.
The hard-shooting, 6-foot-3, 215-pound Finnish defenseman spent last season playing for Frolunda in the Swedish Elite League, where he won a championship.
Washington Capitals: The Capitals re-signed center Jeff Halpern,
defenseman Brendan Witt and eight other restricted free agents.
Also re-signed were centers Brian Sutherby and Graham Mink, right wingers Stephen Peat and Brian Willsie, defensemen Steve Eminger, Shaone Morrisonn and Nolan Yonkman, and goaltender Maxime Ouellet.
Halpern and Witt are two of the few core veterans remaining from the Capitals' pre-lockout team, although Witt has said he would like to be traded. Owner Ted Leonsis plans to rebuild the team with youth and keep his payroll near the low end of the NHL's new salary cap range in the upcoming season.
Teams must have payrolls between $21.5 million and $39 million.
Halpern has 76 goals and 94 assists in five seasons with the Capitals. Witt has also spent his entire NHL career with Washington, playing nine seasons with 19 goals and 53 assists in 568 games.
Nashville Predators: The Predators agreed to terms with veteran center David Legwand on a one-year contract .
Legwand tied for second on the team with a career-high 18 goals in the 2003-04 season, finishing with 47 points and five game-winning goals. He was the No. 2 overall pick in the 1998 draft.
The Predators also agreed to terms with left winger Darcy Hordichuk, who was acquired in July from Florida for a fourth-round draft pick. He had three goals and four points in 2003-04, his fourth NHL season.
Additionally, the Predators also signed forwards Simon Gamache and Darren Haydar and defenseman Greg Zanon, who all played with Milwaukee in the AHL last season.
Information from The Associated Press and SportsTicker was used in this report.
