NHL Rumor Mill – August 19, 2026
Check out the latest on Penguins captain Sidney Crosby and Ducks winger Cutter Gauthier in today’s NHL Rumor Mill.
THE ATHLETIC: Josh Yohe reports Sidney Crosby is entering the final season of his two-year contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins. The 39-year-old center will be eligible to become an unrestricted free agent next July.
Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby (NHL Images).
Yohe acknowledged that the longer Crosby goes unsigned, the more speculation will grow about his future in Pittsburgh, just like what happened before he signed his current deal.
However, Yohe believes Crosby will sign another extension with the Penguins. He indicated that Crosby’s agent, Pat Brisson, said there is an understanding that his camp will discuss a new contract before the summer is over.
Yohe speculated that Crosby’s next contract will likely be a one- or two-year deal. He’s never been one to push for as much money as he could get. Whatever the term and price, the Penguins will likely accept it.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Crosby has long maintained that he doesn’t want to play anywhere else. Nevertheless, some pundits seemed to delight in musing over potential trade destinations for the future Hall of Famer, even insisting that the Penguins owed it to Crosby and the rest of the league to trade him to a playoff contender.
Crosby isn’t going anywhere. He’ll finish his career with the Penguins. Hopefully, the two sides will get a deal done quickly and spare us another season of silly Crosby trade speculation.
THE HOCKEY NEWS: Ryan Lambert cited a recent report by NHL Network Radio contributor Paul Shaheen, who recently claimed that Cutter Gauthier rejected a four-year contract proposal from the Anaheim Ducks that would’ve paid him an average annual value of $13 million.
Lambert noted that the validity of Shaheen’s reporting remains unclear, but noted that the longer Gauthier remains unsigned, the more questions will be raised. He noted how Leo Carlsson’s new contract left the Ducks with just over $9 million in cap space, meaning they’ll likely have to shed salary to re-sign the talented young winger.
According to Lambert, general manager Pat Verbeek is to blame for creating this situation. His reputation for playing hardball with young players coming off entry-level contracts left the club vulnerable to Carlsson becoming an offer-sheet candidate, resulting in them matching an offer from the Philadelphia Flyers despite it being worth far more than they had originally anticipated signing him for going into this offseason.
Lambert noted that the only leverage Gauthier has is to withhold his services. However, the Ducks have to realize they cannot continue playing hardball like this, especially if doing so costs Gauthier some games or adversely affects his performance this season.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: There hasn’t been much real news about Gauthier’s negotiations with the Ducks. That’s generated plenty of rumors, including one claiming he wouldn’t accept a penny less than the $18 million AAV that Carlsson got on his new contract.
It remains to be seen how much Gauthier gets on his next contract, but it certainly won’t be less than $9 million. If Shaheen’s report is correct, my guess is he won’t accept anything less than $14 million annually.
As with Crosby, the longer Gauthier remains unsigned, the more conjecture will arise about what his new deal could look like, and which players will be trade candidates to ensure the Ducks become cap-compliant for the coming season.
It will take 15 to sign CG, times 5 or 6 years, is my best guess. With that being said, Verbeek(while being an idiot) isnt the one that gave the 18m to Carlsson, so a fair deal with CG should probably be in the 12-13 range times 5
But Verbeek is the one who matched the offer, and he bears responsibility for not getting Carlsson re-signed before July 1.
Verbeek is “the idiot” who plays hardball. He could have easily resigned Carlsson last summer for less. While I have an ingrained hatred for the habs ( I have a birth defect, I’m a laughs fan), I respect the hell out of what their gm is doing. Smart business there.
Player contracts are certainly exploding at a shocking rate. The cost to fans will almost assuredly price some out. I think the owners saw this coming and that is why they have been looking at expansion. They need that infusion of cash .
Gary: Contracts are “exploding” because they’re tied to hockey-related revenue. The combination of ticket sales, corporate sponsorships, new media and broadcasting deals, and other revenue streams such as gambling are the main reasons, with most of those deals done several years ago.
Gary, hockey related revenue is split 50/50 between owners and players. Thus any rise in across the board player salaries has in essence already been budgeted for.
Besides, this coming season sees a return to 84 games, with as Lyle pointed out revenue from a number of game related streams.
Who really would have thought that contracts would have exploded to recent levels? I am sure Verbeek isn’t the only GM that’s played hardball, he just waited too long and got blind sided by Philly.
But I am certain that other GMs will learn from his actions.
Exactly why the NHL wants to expand. More revenue. They weren’t getting the revenue because of the covid pandemic. Now they want to cash in even more with expansion and the related fees during a hot market. The cost of business is also exploding with not only player contracts. Who is going to pay for it? The fans of course.
Of course, the fans are paying for it. The league is charging what the overall market will bear, and the teams are charging what their individual markets will bear. If fans didn’t want to pay those prices, they wouldn’t, and the market would adjust accordingly. The only downside is that it is pricing lower-income fans out of the game, which could become a concern if there’s a significant economic downturn. That’s why the salary cap was flattened for four years coming out of the lockout.
Every sport is forcing the lower income families out of the games. Buffalo now has some of most expensive NFL games for a family of 4. Bills’ fans have to pay dearly just to have a pro football team. Nobody is getting off cheap.
Barring a flurry of last-minute deals, what you see is pretty much what you get when it comes to roster adjustments by team since last season. So, which among the 16 worst last season in goals allowed and in goals scored have done the most to improve in those categories … and which, in your view, are potentially worse off?
MOST GOALS ALLOWED (also showing final league standing)
Vancouver 316 (32); Toronto 299 (28); San Jose 292 (24); Anaheim 288 (18); Florida 276 (25); Chicago 275 (31); Edmonton 269 (14); Nashville 269 (23); Pittsburgh 268 (10); Seattle 263 (27); Winnipeg 260 (26); Calgary 259 (29); Detroit 258 (16); St. Louis 258 (22); Montreal 256 (6); New Jersey 254 (21)
IMO Toronto, Florida, Montreal and, because they can’t possibly be even worse, Vancouver, will show the most improvement, with Pittsburgh, Calgary & New Jersey maybe regressing.
LEAST GOALS SCORED (also showing final league standing)
Calgary 212 (29); Chicago 213 (31); Vancouver 216 (32); Los Angeles 225 (20); Seattle 226 (27); New Jersey 230 (21); St. Louis 231 (22); Winnipeg 231 (26); New York Islanders 233 (19); New York Rangers 238 (30); Detroit 241 (16); Nashville 247 (23); Philadelphia 250 (11); San Jose 251 (24); Florida 251 (25); Toronto 253 (28)
Here I can see the biggest improvements being made by Florida, Toronto, the NYR, Philadelphia, San Jose, with Detroit, St. Louis, Winnipeg going the other way.
Lyle, your opinion would be welcome here as well.
To date George, the Habs haven’t done anything to improve, as surprised as I am by their GAA.
But then, Montembeault had a bad season last year and in 25 games had a GAA of .872 and he won’t be around for 25 games if this coming season is more of the same. That alone will improve this stat.
LJ, I was looking at the expected natural progression of Struble and Guhle – not to mention Hutson becoming even more effective offensively and defensively – the possible infusion of highly touted Reinbacher, along with equally natural progression of each of Dobes and Fowler.
An if those young, fast forwards improve by even 20% in adhering to St. Louis’ system of team-wide connectivity, skating mobility, and disrupting opponents through back pressure, I can see them reducing those goals against from 256 to around 225-230.
To dream, George.
IMO the single biggest thing that would cause an improvement isn’t on their D (though one more solid regular will help) it’s someone significant to play with Demidov. This would give the Habs a second line that can take the pressure off of the first line, which as we saw was checked into a standstill during the playoffs.
Evans is over deployed in the top 6. Does Kapanen take a step forward?
Elias Pettersson and a 1st and 2nd to Ana for vatrano and CG?
Pettersson is done.! CG is worth way more than that as this kid is about to be a superstar.!
Exactly! Anyone who has not seen Gauthier play is missing a show!
George, Florida added Brady but also traded away a bunch of 30 point guys. Their biggest improvements will come from getting injured players back and not going into massive tank job to keep their top 10 protected 1st rounder from last draft.
Heh. I agree. When I listed them among those teams that would improve upon both goals scored and goals against, I figured it wouldn’t take a whole lot to do better than 251 goals scored and 276 against.
But I don’t see them returning to the top echelon in the Eastern Conference … in the general playoff dogfight that is expected? Yes.
Hey Specs, does anyone in the industry take Hockeybuzz seriously.?
This guy is delusional. Just asking.
You are spot on…I have been trying to get rid of the site for a year seeing there is no cancel or delete the subscription…anyone with the nohow tell me how to get rid of
hockeybuzz
List anything coming from them as “junk” in your browser. Short of that, the only other way to remove unwanted e-mails (once they have your addie they’ll keep using it) is to change your e-mail address. And that can be a Royal Pain involving notification of all those with whom you wish to continue.
You need to go cancel it in your paypal account.
You nailed it. Only good for comedic relief.
HB is very poor reporting, quit following them
last season
Anaheim should take a lesson from Detroit and kick Verbeek upstairs. The old school way of doing things is becoming extinct!
While I agree they need to move on from Verbeek … the question is, replace him with whom?
Potential top-notch GMs aren’t exactly flooding the market. Look at Detroit. With training camps fast approaching they’re still dicking around (to use one of Pat Quinn’s favourite expressions) in that regard.
George O,look around at some of these assistant GMs. They are out there. McFarland in Nashville and Mehta in NJ. Owners need to take a chance on some young blood. Someone new not the old ex player recycled people.NHL executives are the last people in pro sports to take a chance. Boston lost 3 good young executives because they were boxed out of jobs by the old boy network in Boston.
George – and others:
https://www.nhl.com/news/pat-verbeek-signs-multiyear-contract-to-remain-anaheim-gm
The Samuelis like him and he’s clearly not going anywhere.
George. Just wondering how to jive some of your posts together. You say verbeek needs to move but you’ve often said you want the sens gm to take hard line approaches or let the guy walk/trade him. Recently with batherson. You seem like you’d want a verbeek manning the sens. I’m not trolling but seriously trying to get what you perceive to be the difference
Sorry for the delay in responding, chrisms. Was visiting the wife as I usually do each day around dinner time.
While I do advocate a tough negotiating style when it comes to bottom 6 Fs and bottom-third D in efforts to manage tight cap situations, there is a fine line between being a hard-ass and downright stupid. In other words, when you’re lucky enough to have several good core players … maybe even a generational player (or two) … you need to recognize that they are going to command top dollar and term.
In those cases there’s nothing wrong with some hard negotiating designed to reach a middle ground acceptable to both sides, but dragging things out with potential cornerstone talents like Zegras and McTavish to the point where they miss crucial training camp practices and games, and allowing Carlsson’s RFA negotiations to reach a vulnerable point, fall into the downright stupid category.
Now he’s faced with a situation involving Gauthier and insufficient cap which is going to force him to move some of those supporting players.
Clearly ownership likes his approach having previously rewarded his rigid efforts with a multi-year extension.
I should add that, whoever takes over in Detroit immediately inherits … and must deal with as soon as possible … the Larkin quagmire, while anyone who would take over from Verbeek would have to navigate a budding cap nightmare.
No pressure.
I don’t think the problem is Carlsson is getting $18.5M. The problem is there two best players need contracts at the same time and they have no value contracts.
In minny, you had boldy, Erickson, and Farber signed longterm and with the cap increase those contracts are bargains. I don’t know if kaprizov gets $17.5M if boldy and farber needed new contracts at the same time or the year after.
It’s cyclical, hopefully your best players contracts are staggered so you can time the increases to the rising cap where some of your best players are on value contracts and others cashing out when the cap rises.
When you have star players needing new contracts at the same time I do believe they need to take less to accommodate both. In this case Carlsson took all he could get (don’t blame him) and leaves really no $$ for Gauthier to max out his earnings. If Gauthier wants to stay in Anaheim and have a competitive team unfortunately he needs to take less. $12M annually on 2 to 3 year contract. Then he can max out and ask for more at that time. He probably can get $21M and Carlsson’s contract will be considered a bargain.
You have seen it time after time in Colorado and Edmonton. Star plays not taking the max so the team can retain both players.
It will be interesting in Colorado. If Makar maxes out what does that mean for MacKinnon. Does Makar really want to be on a team with no MacKinnon? Or do both want to be on the same team with no depth and real chance to win the Stanley cup?
Most Stanley Cup winners have star power and depth. Star players took less so they could have the depth and chance to win.