Every ECHL offseason represents a chance for a fresh start. 

At this level of hockey, there are no guaranteed contracts; players and coaches ascend to the American Hockey League, find opportunities overseas or retire; affiliations with NHL teams change frequently; and ECHL teams are added, subtracted or find new owners.

• Subscribe To FloHockey To Watch The ECHL All Season Long
• NHL Minor League Hockey Team Affiliate List For The 2024-2025 Season
• Remembering The Magical Johnny Gaudreau And Brother Matthew, Gone Too Soon
  

The difficulty in maintaining continuity is a big part of what made the Florida Everblades’ run to an unprecedented third straight Kelly Cup championship in June so impressive. 

Many faces in the Everblades’ lineup had changed along the way, and the quality of play in the ECHL had been on a steady rise, but Florida was undeterred and took down the Kansas City Mavericks for the title.

And the Everblades may have won this offseason with what they did over this summer, too.

As we head into the opening of training camps across the ECHL, here’s a look at how the Everblades flourished, along with five other winners of the offseason.

Note: This is not a look at the ECHL’s best rosters heading into the season – it’s impossible to fully judge teams until we see who is sent to the ECHL by their NHL and American Hockey League affiliates – but the following teams did fine work in setting themselves up for success.

Florida Everblades

It was natural to fear that the Everblades might finally hit a wall when their affiliation with the NHL’s Florida Panthers came to an unexpected close after last season. 

The Panthers hooked up with the ECHL’s Savannah Ghost Pirates, which began to make sense once Zawyer Sports, which owns the Ghost Pirates, announced in July it had bought the Panthers’ AHL affiliate, the Charlotte Checkers, setting up some cohesion between the Panthers’ minor-league teams.

The Everblades now are aligned with the NHL’s St. Louis Blues, who don’t have a particularly strong history of embracing the ECHL for developing players, but that may not matter for the fans in Estero, Florida, because of what the Everblades did independently.

Their biggest signing was forward Alex Kile, who was first-team All-ECHL last season and finished fifth in MVP voting, after he had 37 goals and 83 points – both career highs – in 67 games for the Maine Mariners. Kile, 30, played for the Everblades during the 2020-2021 season.

the history making moment 🏆 pic.twitter.com/4XNaUGXtIf

— Florida Everblades (@FL_Everblades) June 9, 2024

The Everblades also landed Colton Hargrove, 32, who lit it up for the Allen Americans in the 2022-2023 campaign with 39 goals and 85 points in 64 games.

Other big free-agent signings include center Carson Gicewicz, defenseman Kris Myllari, defenseman Connor Doherty and defenseman Santino Centorame, and they join a good nucleus of returning players that includes forward Logan Lambdin, forward Andrew Fyten and defenseman Riese Zmolek.

Goaltender Cam Johnson, the Playoff MVP in 2022 and 2023, is in camp with St. Louis’ AHL team, the Springfield Thunderbirds, and presumably will be back in Florida.

Gone elsewhere are huge names, such as Bobo Carpenter, Oliver Chau and Matthew Wedman, but the biggest name I would have assumed in June would be gone – coach Brad Ralph – is indeed back in Estero, Florida.

It’s mind-boggling that no AHL team has brought in the coach of three straight Cup winners, and Florida’s biggest success of this offseason may have been retaining Ralph.

Toledo Walleye

Toledo was an absolute behemoth during the regular season last year – winning the Central Division with a 48-14-9 record that was second only to the Mountain Division’s Mavericks – but the playoffs brought another letdown for the Walleye, who lost to Kansas City in the Western Conference Finals.

Despite all their successes, including regular-season championships in 2015, 2017 and 2022, and trips to the Kelly Cup Finals in 2019 and 2022, the Walleye, founded in 2009, have never won the Cup. That could change this season based on what they did in the offseason.

Amazingly, the Walleye were able to retain almost every significant forward from last season – including ECHL MVP Brandon Hawkins (40 goals, 93 points in 70 games), Trenton Bliss (27 goals, 72 points in 63 games), Sam Craggs (28 goals, 56 points in 70 games), Brandon Kruse, Mitchell Lewandowski and Conlan Keenan.

Fitting all that talent under the salary cap sends a clear message that these guys wanted to stay together and take another shot at the Cup, and that they were willing to play below market value in order to make it happen.

Of course, the Walleye lost some players, such as forward Orrin Centazzo who went overseas, but Toledo stopped a lot of people in their tracks when they signed Jalen Smereck, who was runner-up for the ECHL’s Defenseman of the Year award with the division-rival Cincinnati Cyclones last season. The award ultimately was won by Idaho’s Patrick Kudla.

Smereck had plenty of run-ins with Toledo’s players and fans, but now that he’s a Walleye, he’ll add some needed scoring and physicality from the back end.

The Walleye will surely get plenty of help from the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings and AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins – including their goalies – and coach Pat Mikesch has one season of ECHL hockey under his belt and should be able to navigate the league even better than he did last season.

Fort Wayne Komets

In Jesse Kallechy’s first season as the Komets’ coach, the team missed the playoffs for the first time since 2013 and only the second time since 2002. 

Fort Wayne has won six playoff championships in four leagues since 2002 – including the ECHL’s Kelly Cup in 2021 – so you knew they were going to go hard in the offseason, and they certainly did.

They signed forward Alex Aleardi, who had 31 goals and 79 points in 72 games for the Rapid City Rush last season; forward Justin Taylor, who spent 13 seasons with the rival Kalamazoo Wings; Kyle Mayhew, who finished fourth in Defenseman of the Year voting last season for the Utah Grizzlies; Anthony Petruzzelli, a wildly popular forward for the Komets from 2017 to 2023; and center Odeen Tufto, who impressed with the division-rival Iowa Heartlanders.

The late-summer re-signing of forward Jack Dugan – who had 20 goals, 80 points and 169 penalty minutes in 70 games last season, and was second-team All-ECHL – was icing on the cake for the Komets after they’d also re-signed forwards Ethan Keppen and Nolan Volcan, and defensemen Noah Ganske and Cameron Supryka, each AHL-capable players.

Sure, the Komets had big losses – namely forward Ture Linden – but their aggressiveness paid off in filling any gaps. If Kallechy doesn’t make the playoffs with this roster, it’s hard to imagine him getting a third season in Fort Wayne.

Tahoe Knight Monsters

OK, the this is an expansion team and shouldn’t be good at this yet, right? Wrong.

The Knight Monsters look legit.

The Sept. 18 announcement they’d signed 34-year-old forward Luke Adam, who has 90 games under his belt, was a capper to a very good roster build for one of the ECHL’s two newest teams (the other being the Bloomington Bison). 

Adam, a second-round draft pick of the Buffalo Sabres in 2008, had been playing overseas since 2016 and was in Slovakia and Czech Republic last season, totaling five goals and 25 points in 28 games.

What’s most exciting about the Knight Monsters is their defensive corps, which includes Brennan Kapcheck, Jake Johnson, Nate Kallen, Ryan Orgel and Jeff Solow – all strong, established ECHL players. 

The group will make noise at both ends of the ice – Kapcheck had 13 assists in 34 games for the now-defunct Newfoundland Growlers last season; Johnson had three goals and 19 points in 43 games for Fort Wayne; and Kallen had five goals and 23 points in 39 games for the Glascow Clan of the United Kingdom.   

Tahoe’s coach, Alex Loh, has three years of head-coaching experience in the ECHL, with the Adirondack Thunder, and knows you’ve got to have those two-way defensemen in the high-flying Mountain Division, but his forwards are nothing to sneeze at either.

Logan Nelson has 139 goals and 372 points in 510 ECHL games for eight teams, most recently Rapid City. 

Chris Dodero has been a high-scoring player in Europe since lighting it up for American International College in the 2021-2022 season. 

Blake Christensen impressed with the Worcester Railers from 2021 to 2023. 

Anthony Collins will bring some necessary physicality; he had 140 penalty minutes in 59 games last season for the Savannah Ghost Pirates, for whom Loh was an assistant coach.

And Adam Robbins could be one of the ECHL’s most exciting rookies this season. At 5-foot-8, 154 pounds, he had 11 goals and 29 points in 30 games last season for Princeton.

Maine Mariners

The Mariners squeaked into the playoffs last season, then fell in the first round to Adirondack in seven games. They’ve made a lot of changes, but this group has a chance to improve upon last season’s results.

The biggest move was signing Patrick Guay, who had 27 goals and 81 points in 74 games over the last two seasons for Savannah and could have played just about anywhere. The 5-foot-9, 179-pound Guay also has 33 games of AHL experience in his two seasons as a professional. He has to fill the void left by Kile, but he can do it.

Bringing back Carter Johnson, who played for them in 2022-2023 before a year overseas, also was a savvy move. He’s 6-foot-3, physical and can score in bunches. 

And the acquisition of Jake Willets and future considerations from Atlanta for Tyler Drevitch should work out in the long run; Willets played a physical brand of hockey with Toledo and Atlanta that should bode well in the North Division.

In terms of who the Mariners were able to bring back, that’s been huge. 

Goaltender Brad Arvanitis can take over games (and he’s got a more-than-capable backup with Dante Giannuzzi). 

Forward Brooklyn Kalmikov is one of the ECHL’s most overlooked stars; he had 21 goals and 49 points in 68 games last season. 

And Wyllum Deveaux is a sneaky good player who had 13 goals in 46 games last season.

I don’t know the Mariners will score as many goals as last season, when they ranked fifth with 3.47 goals per game, but the defense looks more solid and should improve upon the No. 21 finish with 3.61 goals against per game.

All this happened, by the way, while the Mariners finalized an ownership change from Comcast Spectacor to Dexter Paine.

Trois-Rivières Lions

Like the Mariners, the Lions squeaked into the North Division playoffs, lost in the first round (in six games to the Norfolk Admirals) and made a lot of changes. But the group the Lions have put together – which of course has a Quebecoise flavor – looks exciting.

Forward Morgan Adams-Moisan was having a career season for Fort Wayne as its captain before he left for Europe last February. If he can resume the offensive productivity, leadership and, more than anything, physicality, then it’ll be a good move getting him from Fort Wayne for the rights to Matthew Boucher, who headed overseas.

Xavier Cormier, who had 15 goals and 45 points in 65 games last season for Fort Wayne, is a multi-faceted player who can man the top line. And he gets to play now with his brother, Tommy, a rookie.

William Provost played for four teams in his first two seasons – Wheeling, Maine, Allen and Fort Wayne – and there’s a ton of offensive talent there. Maybe some time one place will allow him to blossom.

And forward Anthony Beauchamp was a very good player for the Greenville Swamp Rabbits last season with 14 goals and 31 points in 72 games.

Add them to familiar players, such as forward Anthony Beauregard, defenseman Brycen Martin and goaltender Zachary Emond, and the Lions may be on to something.

They, too, had an ownership change last spring from Deacon Sports & Entertainment to Jeff Dickerson’s Spire Hockey. 

NHL Prospect Coverage On FloHockey

The best, and most complete, coverage of the NHL minor league hockey and NHL Draft is found on FloHockey. Don't miss the latest new prospect guides, rankings and more from Chris Peters and the FloHockey staff.

Watch ECHL, USHL, AHL And More On FloHockey

FloHockey is the streaming home to some of the best hockey leagues in North America, including the ECHL and more. Check out the broadcast schedule to watch more hockey.

Join The Hockey Conversation On FloHockey Social

• Follow us on Twitter @FloHockey
• Follow us on Instagram @flohockey
• Follow us on TikTok @flohockeytv
• Watch us on YouTube