The Buffalo Sabres and other NHL clubs will be getting some of their draftees signed to contracts as their clubs in the NCAA and Europe reach the end of their seasons. On Friday, the club signed goalie Topias Leinonen to a three-year entry-level contract that begins in 2025-26.

The Sabres selected Leinonen in the second round (41st overall) at the 2022 NHL Draft in Montreal after choosing three centers in Matthew Savoie, Noah Ostlund and Jiri Kulich in the first round.

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Similar to fellow Finn Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, the 6’5″, 225 lb. netminder is the physical package that NHL clubs are looking for, but after putting up excellent numbers in Junior (2.28 GAA and .916 save percentage) and playing internationally for Finland at the Under-18’s in 2022, he struggled the next two seasons at the junior, second-level pro Mestis, and pro-level SM-Liiga with injuries and inconsistency.

The big 21-year-old played just eight games between his Liiga club (JyP) and KeuPa in the second-level Mestis league last season and opted to play in Sweden this year. That decision paid off for Leinonen, as he thrived with Mora IK as their primary starter in the second-level HockeyAllsvenskan, with a 13-10-0 record, 2.31 GAA, .910 save %, and four shutouts during the regular season, and played well in a six-game loss to Djurgarden in the first round of the playoffs.

Vilken räddning av Topias Leinonen 🤯 pic.twitter.com/kX2MuvndeK

— TV4 Hockey (@TV4_Hockey) March 18, 2025

Leinonen joins Luukkonen, Devon Levi, and 2023 draftee Scott Ratzlaff in the Sabres system, as well as unsigned prospect Ryerson Leenders in the club’s goaltending pipeline.

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York takes ‘full responsibility' for actions, ‘learned a lot' from Tortorella originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

VOORHEES, N.J. — Cam York and the Flyers are moving past a reported incident that kept the defenseman on the bench Thursday night for the entire game at the Wells Fargo Center.

The 24-year-old was in uniform as the Flyers beat the Canadiens, 6-4, but he didn’t log a second of ice time. Brad Shaw said it was because of a “disciplinary issue.” The interim head coach wouldn’t comment any further on the matter.

“I’m not going to get into the details of it,” York said Friday after practice. “I will say this, I take full responsibility for my actions. It has been addressed here in the locker room. It’s something that I’m going to put behind me and move on from. We’ve got eight games left here and that’s my focus right now, so we’ll leave it at that.”

The Athletic’s Kevin Kurz reported Friday that an incident occurred between York and John Tortorella in Toronto on Tuesday night when the Flyers were blown out by the Maple Leafs, 7-2. York was benched by Tortorella after Toronto’s first goal and finished the game with only 3:50 minutes.

Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reported Friday that the incident was a heated verbal exchange between the player and coach.

Tuesday night’s loss was Tortorella’s final game as the Flyers’ head coach. He was fired Thursday morning.

“I felt it was time,” general manager Danny Briere said. “It’s not one thing, it’s a series of things that have happened, probably a little bit more in the last three weeks, it escalated since probably around the trade deadline, right after that.”

Tortorella has always been a fiery coach who will challenge his players. Going back to his days in Tampa Bay, where he won a Stanley Cup, a verbal spat was not unordinary.

Tortorella heard about York’s great potential in 2022-23, their first season together, so he coached him hard. He had York go to the minors before the Flyers even reached their final cuts of training camp. Since then, York had been one of the Flyers’ most improved players.

“I’ll admit, when I sent him down, I tried to pick a fight with him when I sent him down, I was so upset with his camp,” Tortorella recalled earlier this month. “I think he went to Lehigh, he put the time in, I felt he had a chip on his shoulder coming back here, mainly at me. I was so proud of him as far as where he brought his game to; there is no reason why I can’t still look for that. And I’m going to continue to look for that.”

York felt bad that the Flyers had to play with five defensemen for most of Tuesday’s game and all of Thursday’s game.

“You never want to put your teammates in a situation like that,” he said.

When asked about Tortorella, York expressed an appreciation for the coach’s work and tough love.

“I have nothing bad to say,” he said. “He taught me a lot of really good things. … He’s a good coach, he gets a lot out of his players. I learned a lot from him and I’m going to use a lot of what he taught me down the road.”

York had to suit up Thursday to give the Flyers a full lineup. Their extra skaters were out with injuries and the team had already made its four permitted call-ups for after the March 7 trade deadline. A disciplinary reason does not allow for an emergency call-up.

Shaw expects York to play hard and be effective Saturday when the Flyers host the Sabres (1 p.m. ET/NBCSP).

“We have lots of young guys that are sort of on different tracks as far as how mature they are and where they’re going to get to,” the interim head coach said. “You learn through the good and the bad. Hopefully he’s a better person at the end of the day for what happened. It’s over now and we’ve dealt with it and we’re going to move forward.”

York will be a restricted free agent this offseason. The bumps this season haven’t changed his view on the Flyers.

“This is where I want to be, I’ve stated that,” York said. “I love what’s going on here, I love what we’re building. It hasn’t been our best of best years, but it’s here, this is where I want to be. I’m looking forward to the future.”

In their last three games - all losses - against the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, and Buffalo Sabres, the Pittsburgh Penguins have been outscored, 17-7.

Even though they're not yet mathematically eliminated, this has, effectively, ended their season and any hopes of a playoff run.

And now, the organization turns to the future.

On Friday, the Penguins recalled top forward prospects Rutger McGroarty and Ville Koivunen from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (WBS) - Pittsburgh's AHL affiliate - to the NHL club, using up their final two call-ups of the season.

McGroarty - who turns 21 on Sunday, when the Penguins take on the Ottawa Senators at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh - has 14 goals and 39 points in 60 AHL games this season, including eight goals and 18 points in his last 19 games. The developmental process was there for him all along this season, and the production finally started to catch up in the latter half of the season. 

Koivunen - the 21-year-old Finnish forward who came over last spring as part of the Jake Guentzel trade - has registered 21 goals and 55 points in 62 AHL games this season, leading all rookies in scoring and sitting at sixth in overall AHL scoring. He also leads WBS in scoring this season. This is all quite impressive for a player's first season in North American professional hockey.

If folks haven't been paying attention, WBS is on quite the run this season. With one of the youngest rosters they have had in quite some time, the team clinched a Calder Cup playoff berth with a thrilling 4-3 overtime win over the Hartford Wolf Pack on Wednesday.

WBS Penguins Clinch Playoff Berth With Thrilling 4-3 Overtime Win Over HartfordHeading into a massively important game against the Hartford Wolf Pack, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins had led the season series 5-0 and had outscored Hartford, 24-5.

What WBS is doing this season is special. They have scored more goals than anyone in the AHL other than the Colorado Eagles and the San Jose Barracuda. They are tied for sixth in the league in terms of points percentage at .645. And they are 5-2-3 so far this season against the Hershey Bears, the reigning Calder Cup champs who are currently atop the division.

After the trade deadline, Penguins POHO and GM Kyle Dubas stressed the importance of the organization's prospects building a winning culture and playing meaningful games together. And with the certainty of the Calder Cup playoffs a lock, that is still going to happen.

In other words, there is absolutely no hurt in calling up McGroarty and Koivunen to close out the regular season with the NHL club - and it was absolutely the right call.

Beyond the fact that the timeline adds up - Pittsburgh's regular season ends on Apr. 17 against the Washington Capitals and WBS's ends on Apr. 19 against the Cleveland Monsters, making it fair to assume both players will remain in the NHL through the end of the season - there is something to be said about the decision to reward two young prospects for their performance.

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WBS will have a good shot at a long playoff run regardless, and both players will be back in time for that run. So this decision doesn't harm that mentality of the young players "winning together" that Dubas and the organziation values. But what it does do is signal to the young players that they will, in fact, be rewarded when they've earned it.

This isn't a small thing for an organization attempting a rebuild on-the-fly, especially with so many prospects on the verge of being NHL-ready. With several pending free agents on the NHL roster - unrestricted and restricted - it's reasonable to assume that some of these prospects will be vying for full-time spots on the NHL roster next season.

When factoring in guys like McGroarty and Koivunen, the Penguins will have a good mix of higher-end veteran talent, youth potential, and rostered placeholders to give youth a good amount of runway to learn and develop at the NHL level. Allowing these two players to remain on the roster for the final eight games of the regular season for the NHL club will give management - and fans - a bit of a preview of what to expect in 2025-26.

Of course, it would have been nice to see prospects like Owen Pickering, Avery Hayes, Vasily Ponomarev, and perhaps even Harrison Brunicke - who was re-assigned to WBS Friday after the conclusion of his junior season with the Kamloops Blazers - get a late-season NHL opportunity as well.

But, unfortunately, the Penguins had just two of their four post-deadline recalls remaining, and they prioritized those final two slots for two players who not only earned the opportunity but also figure to be a large part of the organization's rebuild plan moving forward.

Confidence is crucial for young players. It's important for them to feel like their hard work is being noticed and, again, getting rewarded. That is exactly what has happened here, and McGroarty and Koivunen will be better for it when they attempt to become full-time NHLers next season.

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