The Ottawa Senators began to make over their offence, while the Toronto Maple Leafs continued to revamp their defence as a slew of NHL_free agents found new teams on Monday.

The Senators scooped up veteran winger Alex Kovalev — most recently ex of division rival Montreal — on a two-year, $10 million US deal. Kovalev had 26 goals and 39 assists with the Canadiens last season and could be a replacement for sniper Dany Heatley, should the Senators be able to trade the disgruntled winger.

The Leafs made their second big free-agent signing of the summer Monday and both have been blue-liners. Francois Beauchemin inked a three-year $11.4 million pact joining Mike Komisarek as the big-ticket defencemen signed by general manager Brian Burke.

Beauchemin played the last four seasons in Anaheim, but was limited to 20 games last season (four goals and one assist) due to a knee injury.

The signing leaves the Leafs with an abundance of NHL defencemen. Beauchemin, Komisarek, Luke Schenn, Mike Van Ryn, Tomas Kaberle, Jeff Finger, Ian White, Garnet Exelby and Jonas Forgren are all under contract for next season.

The Chicago Blackhawks were one of the busiest teams on Monday, getting five of their restricted free agents under contract. Forwards Colin Fraser and Ben Eager signed one-year deals as did defenceman Aaron Johnson. Forward Troy Brouwer and goaltender Corey Crawford signed on for two years. Financial details were not disclosed.

The Hawks still have two restricted free agents left unsigned — forward Kris Versteeg and defenceman Cam Barker. Both were among the players who didn’t receive their qualifying offers from the team in time last month and the National Hockey League Players’ Association is investigating the situation.

The Vancouver Canucks found a backup goalie Monday to replace the departed Jason LaBarbera. The team signed former Calder Memorial Trophy winner Andrew Raycroft, but the terms were not disclosed. Raycroft, most recently with the Colorado Avalanche, has struggled mightily since being named the league’s top rookie in 2003-04.

The Canucks also inked restricted free-agent defenceman Shane O’Brien to a one-year $1.6 million deal. O’Brien had no goals, 10 assists and a team-high 196 penalty minutes in 76 games with the Canucks last season.

In other moves on Monday:

• The New York Rangers got newly acquired restricted free-agent forward Christopher Higgins to sign on for a one-year $2.25 million deal. Higgins was part of the deal that sent Scott Gomez from New York to Montreal.

• The Detroit Red Wings stopped the free-agent bleeding, signing restricted free-agent forward Ville Leino to a two-year deal worth $1.6 million US.

• The St. Louis Blues re-signed winger B.J. Crombeen to a two-year deal worth $1.64 million US.

• Winger Warren Peters left Calgary to sign with Dallas.

• The Leafs signed Nazem Kadri, taken seventh overall in last month’s NHL entry draft, to a three-year entry-level contract.

• The Leafs re-signed forwards Ben Ondrus and Ryan Hamilton to one-year contracts; inked free-agent forwards Jay Rosehill (two years), Tim Brent (one year) and signed forward Richard Greenop (three-year, entry-level).

• The Atlanta Thrashers signed defenceman Joel Kwiatkowski, forward Jason Krog and goaltenders Drew MacIntyre and Peter Mannino.

• The Colorado Avalanche got six players under contract: forwards David Jones, Chris Durno, Darren Haydar, Matt Hendricks and Brian Willsie plus goaltender Tyler Weiman.