While speaking to reporters, including St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Matthew DeFranks, St. Louis Blues general manager Doug Armstrong shared that prospect defenseman Theo Lindstein will play in North America next season. 

Doug Armstrong said that Swedish defenseman prospect Theo Lindstein would be making the jump to North America this fall.

— Matthew DeFranks (@MDeFranks) June 23, 2025

Lindstein, 20, has been developing his game in Sweden, but he is now ready to begin his North American professional career. The 6-foot defenseman may need to spend some time in the American Hockey League (AHL) with the Springfield Thunderbirds before making the jump to the NHL level. However, there is no question that his future is bright. 

Lindstein spent the entirety of this season in the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) with Brynas IF. In 44 games with the SHL squad, he recorded four goals, nine points, and a plus-9 rating. He also posted two goals and five points in 17 playoff games this season.

Lindstein was selected by the Blues with the 29th overall pick of the 2023 NHL Entry Draft. He is one of the Blues' most promising prospects, and it will be fascinating to see how he performs during his first season in North America in 2025-26 from here. 

Blues Take Fascinating Defenseman In New Mock DraftBarring any changes, the St. Louis Blues will be selecting 19th overall in the 2025 NHL Entry Draft. The Blues will certainly be hoping to hit with this pick, especially when noting that they won't select again after it until the fifth round.

Photo Credit:  © Christopher Hanewinckel-Imagn Images

The Rangers will not be making a pick in the first round of Friday’s 2025 NHL Draft.

When the Rangers acquired forward J.T. Miller from Vancouver this past January, they sent a conditional first-round pick to the Canucks as part of the deal.

While the pick was top 13 protected, the Rangers ended up with the 12^th pick, and the Rangers had the option to either send the pick to Pittsburgh (via Vancouver) this year, or send next year’s first-round pick.

Per multiple reports, the Rangers have officially informed the NHL that they are sending this year’s No. 12 pick to Pittsburgh, which allows them to retain next year’s first-round pick as a potential trade chip.

Miller, who returned to the Rangers for a second stint, played in 32 games with the Blueshirts and was better than a point-per-game player, tallying 13 goals with 22 assists in 32 games.

It’s good to be a Tkachuk these days.

Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk, along with his brother Matthew, were just named as two of the six players for the Team USA preliminary roster for the Olympics. Brady and the Senators finally snapped an eight-year playoff drought, and then he joined his brother, Matthew, as he celebrated his second straight Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers last week.

Now it's summer, and time to kick back and just be young guys in their 20s (who happen to multi-millionaires).

Their father, Keith Tkachuk, also did pretty well for himself in hockey, playing 18 years in the league. He’s still enjoying the game these days, not quite so involved anymore, happily cheering on his boys and savouring their NHL successes. He was down at ice level for another Cup celebration in Sunrise last week, hugging it up with the family and posing for photos.

But we were reminded of Keith's excellence as a player last year when he was named to the St. Louis Blues Hall of Fame, alongside the late Pavol Demitra, a former Senator, and goalie Mike Liut, as part of the 2024 class.

With all that family hockey success, it’s becoming harder to ignore the one glaring omission from the family’s legacy: Keith Tkachuk still isn’t in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Will he get the call on Tuesday?

Lanny McDonald, the chair of the Hockey Hall of Fame board, and Ron Francis, the chair of the Selection Committee, will reveal the Class of 2025 at 3 pm on Tuesday afternoon (June 24).

Keith finished his NHL career with 538 goals, the second most of any eligible player not currently in the Hall (Patrick Marleau has the most at 566). That number places him among the top 35 goal scorers in league history, ahead of multiple Hall of Famers. He was a five-time NHL All-Star, captained the Winnipeg Jets/Phoenix Coyotesen seasons, and became only the fourth American-born player to hit the 500-goal mark.

500 goals is one of those incredible individual milestones that should, with very few exceptions, make you an automatic member of the Hall of Fame. After Jeremy Roenick went in last year, Tkachuk, Marleau, Pat Verbeek, and Peter Bondra are the only members of the 500 club on the outside looking in.

Last season, the Blues inducted him into their Hall of Fame, a nod to the nine seasons he spent in St. Louis, mentoring young players and providing the same kind of leadership his sons now bring to their own clubs. Just like dad, Brady is hard-nosed, emotional, skilled, and (insert expletive here) impossible to play against.

While Brady and Matthew continue to thrive, probably bound for the Hall themselves in 15 years or so, the elder Tkachuk remains on the outside when it comes to hockey’s ultimate individual honour.

It’s about time that changed.

Steve Warne
The Hockey News Ottawa
Banner image credit: Scott Rovak-Imagn Images

More Sens Headlines at The Hockey News:

Bonus Round: Claude Giroux’s Contract Talks In Ottawa Coming Down To The Wire
Would Kings Defenceman Jordan Spence Be A Fit With The Senators?
Should The Senators Have Surrendered This Year's First-Round Draft Pick Instead?
Senators Bring Back First-Rounder For Second Tour Of Duty
Rewriting The Draft: A Decade Of First-Round 'What-Ifs' for the Senators
Potential First-Round Draft Targets For The Ottawa Senators: Defenceman Blake Fiddler

The Abbotsford Canucks — AHL affiliates of the Vancouver Canucks — captured their first Calder Cup in franchise history Monday night, defeating the Charlotte Checkers in six games.

The Canucks had a trio of former Hurricanes, either on the roster or on the staff, who now will have their names in the history books.

Let's take a look at those three:

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Phil Di Giuseppe

Drafted in the second round of the 2012 NHL entry draft by the Canes (the forward was actually the team's first pick that year as they had traded away their first to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Jordan Staal), Di Giuseppe would appear in 147 games with the Hurricanes and would play for the organization from 2014-2018.

Di Giuseppe made his NHL debut with the Canes on Dec. 5, 2015 and would score his first career goal on Dec. 8 in Dallas.

In 2019, he was claimed off of waivers by the Nashville Predators. He then played two seasons within the New York Rangers' organization and has spent the last three years in the Vancouver Canucks' organization.

Di Giuseppe had six goals and 11 points in 24 games this AHL postseason.

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Manny Malhotra

A first-year head coach with the Abbotsford Canucks, Malhotra joined the Hurricanes organization in 2013.

The veteran centerman was coming off of a major eye injury that had required multiple surgeries and left him with permanent vision impairment and it looked like his career was practically over, but he was still committed to playing and Jim Rutherford and Carolina gave him a chance.

The Canes worked out a deal with the two-way, faceoff specialist to have him start on a PTO with the Charlotte Checkers in the AHL while he was tested by team doctors and having his physical ability was assessed, before ultimately deciding to sign him to a one-year deal.

Malhotra would play in 69 games that season, scoring seven goals and picking up 13 points, while also rocking a 59.5% faceoff win rate.

The veteran was also named an alternate captain after Tim Gleason was traded mid-season.

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Justin Pogge

Abbotsford goaltending coach Justin Pogge had a brief stint with the Hurricanes organization over a decade ago.

He was traded to Carolina along with a 2010 fourth-round pick by the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for defenseman Aaron Ward.

He would play four games for the Albany River Rats in 2010 and then played in the Charlotte Checkers inaugural season after the relocation in 2010-11, posting a 22-18-4 record that year with a 0.907 save percentage.

The journeyman goaltender may not have had a long professional career in North America, playing in just 254 AHL games and seven NHL games, but he did travel the world, playing in Italy, Sweden, Germany, Slovakia and Russia too.

He took up coaching in 2022-23, serving as a consultant for Team Canada and eventually coaching the U18 and World Cup teams as well.

This was his first season coaching on an actual team's staff.

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