- Craig Custance of ESPN: Looking at some key offseason decisions for the Lightning.
1. A contract extension for Steven Stamkos – Stamkos has a year left at $7.5 million and can sign an extension starting on July 1st. Comparisons are Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews’ eight year, $84 million. Should expect an eight year deal around $11 million a season.
2. Transition more starts Andrei Vasilevskiy’s way – Vasilevskiy started 16 games this past season and that number should grow. The faster Vasilevskiy shows he has No. 1 ability, the sooner the Lightning can trade Ben Bishop. Bishop makes $6 million and his contract expires after 2016-17.3. Make room for Jonathan Drouin – Drouin needs the opportunity to be in their top six. If he doesn’t grow into it, the second guessing of drafting him over Seth Jones or Sean Monahan will begin.
There is a case to potentially trade Matt Carle and his $5.5 million through 2017-18.
- Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Penguins remain one of several teams that is still negotiating with Mike Reilly.
“We’ve had communication with him from within the organization over the weekend and again ,” Rutherford said. “We just continue to work hard at it like these other teams are. But there has been good communication over the weekend.”
The Penguins don’t expect to buy any players out.
“No,” said Rutherford. “We don’t have any plans to buy guys out.”
- Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post Dispatch: The Blues still haven’t heard from Vladimir Sobotka’s agent on if reports that he’ll be playing in the KHL next season are true or not.
“I haven’t heard from (Svoboda) yet, so I think that the reports … are premature,” Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said. “Petr Svoboda and I have a good relationship and he told me that he would let me know when it was finalized and I haven’t heard from him, so I’m thinking it’s not.”
Sobokta signed a three-year deal with Omsk last offseason and has an out after each year. Back in mid-May, Sobotka’s agent told Armstrong that there was a two-week window to exercise the out option.