On Friday, just after the 4th of July, Pittsburgh Penguins general manager and president of hockey operations Kyle Dubas announced that the club has re-signed forward Corey Andonovski to a one-year contract extension.
Andonovski’s contract will be two-way for the 2024-25 season and carry a League-minimum $775,000 average annual value at the NHL level.
The 25-year-old spent the 2023-24 season with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League. In 63 AHL games last season, he recorded 30 points, including a career-high 23 assists and just below his career-high in goals (seven). He ranked first among forwards and second on the Penguins in assists, as well as fifth in overall points.
Andonovski has played in 130 AHL games over the past three seasons, all with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. In that time, he has tallied 49 points (15 goals, 34 assists) and finished with a minus-20 rating. His best season came in 2023-24, when he recorded career-high numbers (30 points). In 2023-24, Andonovski made his Calder Cup Playoff debut, playing in two games for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. He did not record a point, as the Penguins were swept (best-of-three) by the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in the Atlantic Division first round.
The 6-foot-1, 194-pound forward has yet to play an NHL game. He originally went undrafted out of college and signed with Pittsburgh as a free agent on March 10, 2022.
Prior to turning pro, Andonovski played three seasons of college hockey at Princeton University in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC). In 80 games for the Tigers from 2018 to 2022, the Ontario native tallied 50 points (21 goals, 39 assists) and a minus-28 rating. He recorded a career-high 22 points (10 goals, 12 assists) in 31 games in his final season.
The Penguins have missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs in each of the past two seasons after 16 straight postseason berths, including two Stanley Cups.
