The Vancouver Canucks added veteran depth by acquiring Brendan Gallagher in a trade with Montreal on Monday, with NHL teams busy revamping their rosters two days before the free-agency period opens.
As part of the deal, Montreal acquired future considerations and agreed to retain 50% of the $6.5 million the 34-year-old is scheduled to make in the final season of his contract.
Gallagher is a respected leader and valuable role player in spending 14 seasons in Montreal. He topped 20 goals five times, including a career-best 33 in 2018-19.
His playing time, however, began diminishing, with Gallagher appearing in just three playoff games in Montreal's run to the Eastern Conference final before losing to eventual Stanley Cup champion Carolina.
“We love the way he completes and leads by example,” Canucks general manager Ryan Johnson said of Gallagher, who is from Edmonton and played junior hockey in Vancouver. “Bringing in veterans like Brendan will help us set the standard for our younger guys to follow.”
Canadiens GM Kent Hughes, meantime, thanked Gallagher for his contributions in Montreal.
“Brendan will always hold a special place in the hearts of Canadiens fans. He represented the team with such tremendous determination, passion and inspiring courage," Hughes said. “He is the very definition of a warrior, always putting the team’s success ahead of his own individual accolades.”
It was the second trade of the day for the rebuilding Canucks after finishing last in the standings. Vancouver acquired a 2029 third-round pick in a deal that sent winger Nils Hoglander to Nashville.
The Predators continued revamping under new general manager Chris MacFarland. Hoglander has six years of NHL experience and missed a majority of last season after having ankle surgery, and finished with two goals and three assists in 38 games.
“He is a 25-year-old experienced winger who is known for his relentless, high-energy style of play, bringing a consistent motor to the lineup night after night,” MacFarland said. “We believe the player can come in and have a key role.”
The Buffalo Sabres re-signed checking-line forward Beck Malenstyn to a six-year, $17.5 million contract, retaining the player two days before he was eligible to hit the free agent market.
The average salary of $2.9 million more than doubles the $1.35 million Malenstyn made in each of his first two seasons in Buffalo. And it represents the value the 28-year-old brought to the team in a secondary role.
Last season, Malenstyn set a Sabres' single-season record with 282 hits and finished second on the team with 75 blocked shots. He scored a career-high seven goals as part of a 14-point season.
The sixth-year NHL player spent his first four seasons in Washington and was acquired by Buffalo in a trade that sent a second-round pick to the Capitals at the 2024 draft.
The San Jose Sharks signed newly acquired defenseman Michael Kesselring to a three-year, $13.5 million contract.
The 26-year-old was a pending restricted free agent, and was acquired by San Jose in a trade with Buffalo two weeks ago.
As part of the deal, the teams swapped first-round draft picks with the Sabres moving up seven spots in the order to No. 20 on Friday night.
The 6-foot-5 defenseman completed his fourth NHL season, and first in Buffalo. After topping 20 points with Arizona and Utah in each of his previous two seasons, Kesselring was limited by a nagging lower body injury and finished with two assists in 34 games last season.
— Utah acquired forward Joshua Roy in a trade that sent defenseman Maksymilian Szuber to Montreal, in an exchange of minor leaguers.
— Colorado re-signed forward Taylor Makar to a two-year deal. He made his NHL debut by appearing in 12 games last season, and the 25-year-old is the younger brother of Avalanche star defenseman Cale Makar.
AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno contributed.
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL
FILE - Montréal Canadiens' Brendan Gallagher in action during an NHL hockey game against the Philadelphia Flyers, April 14, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Derik Hamilton, File)
FILE - Buffalo Sabres left wing Beck Malenstyn is congratulated by teammates after scoring a goal during the first period of an NHL Hockey game against the Washington Capitals, April 4, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell, file)
An attorney in Washington state promised “miracles” to tens of thousands of immigrants seeking legal status in the United States.
Instead, Alexandra Lozano created fake stories of domestic abuse and human trafficking to apply for humanitarian visas without her clients' knowledge, according to several lawsuits and a legal ethics investigation. They say she preyed on immigrants’ desperation to drain their bank accounts while leaving them at risk of deportation.
She is accused of hiring workers who didn’t have proper legal credentials and building an assembly-line system to rush through applications, even copying clients’ signatures onto documents they never saw.
“I put the trust of my family with her,” 30-year-old Gabriel Martinez Garcia said. After they paid $30,000, he said Lozano duped his family and got his mother placed in removal proceedings despite her marriage to a naturalized U.S. citizen. “We believed in her and then she just let us down.”
Lozano's firm, Luz del Camino Legal, closed this month amid a barrage of allegations. She permanently surrendered her law license rather than face discipline from the bar association, and denies wrongdoing.
While federal data shows immigration service scams are rising sharply, Lozano’s alleged scheme stands out for its scale. The bar says her signature is on more than 53,000 pending cases.
It's unclear how many cases were fraudulent or to what extent her clients were complicit. The ones suing her say they had no idea.
The consequences of her downfall are hitting the immigration system “like a tidal wave,” said Erika Gonzalez, an attorney with the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking.
The Trump administration last year started overhauling the humanitarian programs Lozano allegedly exploited, claiming a surge in applications since 2020 was a sign of widespread fraud. The administration tightened the programs' restrictions and slowed processing rates, which advocacy groups say will hurt legitimate victims.
Lozano specialized in getting visas through the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 and the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which covers all genders.
These programs seek to protect victims from having their immigration status weaponized by abusers. Evidence standards are more flexible, making the system more accessible to victims. But it's also easier for an unscrupulous firm to exploit, immigration attorneys say.
Lozano's firm probed clients for issues at home or work, then spun them as abuse cases that didn't meet the threshold for these humanitarian programs, according to attorneys representing dozens of her old clients.
Although clients quickly secured work permits, they often faced trouble years later when seeking permanent residency and their claims faced greater scrutiny.
Angelo Calfo, an attorney representing Lozano, said clients were expected to review their applications before signing and blamed them for any false statements.
“Alexandra’s practice has always been to fight for her clients, zealously pursue every lawful option available to them, and support their efforts to build lives in this country,” his statement said.
The bar accused Lozano of fraud in May and her firm shut down June 10. She’s being investigated by the fraud unit of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to emails obtained by The Associated Press. The Department of Homeland Security, which runs the immigration agency, declined to comment.
At least 920 immigration service scams were reported in 2025, which is more than the first three years of the Biden administration combined, according to Federal Trade Commission data analyzed by the AP. Experts say that's probably an undercount, given immigrants’ reluctance to come forward.
Lozano is accused of enlisting hundreds of employees in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina to provide legal advice to clients and handle visa applications. That would mean clients never got consultations from a U.S.-licensed attorney.
“Alexandra was telling us to please invent more information about the abuse because it is not real abuse,” said Rafael Alvarez, who worked for Lozano from 2022 to 2024 in Colombia. “There were a lot of cases that were not true.”
Lozano's former chief operating officer, Amy Rios, testified in 2024 that the firm earned $1.7 million teaching other law firms its legal strategies for humanitarian visas and “changed the way many attorneys now approach immigration law.”
Recent lawsuits accuse at least two other firms in Texas and Ohio of replicating Lozano’s tactics, which they deny.
Erika Sanchez and her husband entered the U.S. unlawfully. Multiple lawyers told them there was no way to adjust their status from within the country.
But Lozano promised a successful outcome after just one consultation in 2020, according to a lawsuit the couple filed in May alongside seven other former clients.
The couple trusted the firm when it asked for their signatures on blank paper, Sanchez said, and lived on a tight budget to pay Lozano more than $32,000.
“We truly did believe that she was doing the right thing,” Sanchez said.
She added that they never saw the application submitted by the firm for her husband, which they later learned contained false claims that his teenage daughter abused him. He is now in removal proceedings.
Some former clients say they didn't discover the alleged fraud for years. Nora Murillo Moreno said the firm told her about the fake abuse claims on the day before her green card interview. She panicked.
“Should I say what really happened, or what is written?” Murillo Moreno said. “I knew things didn’t match.”
Attorneys suing Lozano say her rise parallels an exponential increase in visa applications for trafficking and domestic abuse cases.
Domestic abuse claims more than tripled between the 2020 and 2025 fiscal years, from nearly 15,000 applications to upward of 53,000 per year, according to immigration agency data. There were also nearly twelve times as many applications from parents alleging their child abused them.
During that same period, human trafficking claims jumped from around 1,000 applications to more than 37,000.
In December, the immigration agency said it would overhaul its domestic violence visa program due to “rampant fraud" based on the increase in filings, without offering other evidence. The changes include narrowing definitions of abuse and giving greater weight to evidence supplied by alleged abusers.
Cecelia Levin, an attorney with the nonprofit Alliance for Immigrant Survivors, said making these visas harder for actual abuse victims isn't the answer. Instead, the Trump administration should focus on enforcing the law against attorneys running scams, she said.
Immigration attorneys say Lozano’s social media was filled with red flags, like claiming the Virgin Mary blessed all her cases.
In 2023, the Washington bar said it had concerns about Lozano’s law practice but dismissed an ethics complaint against her, according to a document obtained by the AP. The complaint alleged deceptive advertising and other misconduct, but the bar said she was protected by disclaimers.
Sara Niegowski, a spokesperson for the bar, said it blocked Lozano from practicing law “as quickly as possible.”
Former clients are now scrambling to get their case files from the defunct firm. Hundreds showed up for recent consultations with volunteer attorneys in Washington and Oregon.
Many applied to join a lawsuit seeking financial compensation for legal malpractice. Another class action lawsuit aims to recoup their attorney fees. On Friday, a statement from the federal immigration agency told ex-clients how to withdraw their cases or update their addresses so processing could continue.
Vicente Omar Barraza, an attorney behind the malpractice lawsuit, said hundreds of former clients told him they still don't know what Lozano's firm wrote in their applications. He’s worried many people lost viable pathways to legal status.
Garcia Martinez, who says his mother is in removal proceedings because Lozano mishandled her case, lives every day in fear that she will be deported.
“I’m just praying really, really, really hard for her,” Garcia Martinez said. “None of this should have happened.”
Associated Press writer Jesse Bedayn in Austin, Texas, and data journalist Aaron Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
Gabriel Martinez Garcia rests his hand on a tree as his mother's name tattoo is visible on his wrist, in Tenino, Wash., on Sunday, June 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Akash Pamarthy)
The former office of Alexandra Lozano Immigration Law, now operating as La Luz del Camino Legal, on Sunday, June 14, 2026, in Tukwila, Wash. (AP Photo/Akash Pamarthy)
Gabriel Martinez Garcia, 30, holds a Hail Mary necklace given to him by his mother, which he wears every day, in Tenino, Wash., on Sunday, June 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Akash Pamarthy)
Gabriel Martinez Garcia, 30, poses with an email advertisement from attorney Lozano displayed on his phone in Tenino, Wash., on Sunday, June 14, 2026. . (AP Photo/Akash Pamarthy)
Gabriel Martinez Garcia, 30, holds a Bible close to his chest as tattoos of his parents are visible on his wrists, in Tenino, Wash., on Sunday, June 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Akash Pamarthy)
