On the Detroit Red Wings …
Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press: The Red Wings targeted Matt Martin in free agency and offered him a front-loaded four year deal with a cap hit of $2.5 million per season. Martin signed with the Maple Leafs for the same money and term. The Red Wings then locked up Steve Ott to one year, $800,000 deal.
Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press: The Red Wings were also after Alexander Radulov, but he ended up signing a one year, $5.75 million deal with the Canadiens. The Red Wings then signed Thomas Vanek to a one year, $2.6 million deal.
Ansar Khan of MLive: The Red Wings are still looking for a top-pairing, puck moving defenseman, with the three prime candidates being Cam Fowler, Kevin Shattenkirk and Jacob Trouba.
The Ducks were interested in the Red Wings 16th overall pick in the draft and prospect Anthony Mantha or Andreas Athanasiou. The Red Wings eventually traded 16th pick to the Coyotes in the Pavel Datsyuk trade.
If the Ducks and Wings were to work out a deal now, it would likely include either Gustav Nyquist or Tomas Tatar. The Wings likely don’t want to include their 2017 pick in case they miss the playoffs.
The Wings have also shown interest in Shattenkirk and would want an extension in place if they made that deal.
Trouba’s name has also been out there, but he’s the kind of player teams normally don’t trade.
On the Toronto Maple Leafs …
Chris Nichols of Today’s Slapshot: Darren Dreger of TSN 1050 on if he thinks the Maple Leafs offered defenseman Kris Russell a four year, $17 million contract.
“Look. When you get to this stage, and by this stage I mean really the opening of unrestricted free agency, and there’s a back and forth – which we know there was, or perhaps still is – with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Kris Russell. Although they signed Roman Polak, so maybe they don’t feel like they have the need anymore. You’re going to swap term. You’re going to swap numbers. I don’t know exactly what the term and the number is financially, but that sounds about right.
“The Toronto Maple Leafs were among the first teams in on Kris Russell. I think we’ve talked about it on the show before. The reason is, they are looking for a defenseman who maybe didn’t play his best, be it in Calgary before getting moved to Dallas, but still has a ton left. And so much upside. Like Trevor Daley from Chicago to the Pittsburgh Penguins – that type of example.
“I think to some degree, the Toronto Maple Leafs looked at Kris Russell as being that.”