Oilers eyeing Eric Staal?
TSN: Darren Dreger on TSN Insiders said that Buffalo Sabres GM is evaluating their entire hockey operation department and roster. He’s willing to consider anything, Some don’t think they’d fire head coach Ralph Krueger in-season but it may be too early to tell.
Pierre LeBrun adds that the Sabres pending unrestricted free agents are the most likely players to be traded. Forward Eric Staal could be one of those players, and he may be open to a trade to a contender which is different than in past years.
“In the past several years, Staal, through his camp, has told the Minnesota Wild he’d rather not move. Well, of course he’s not in Minnesota anymore, he was dealt sort of against his will to the Sabres in the off-season. I’m told that he would be open to a deal to a contender. He has a partial no-trade with 10 teams on it. But for the right team, he would certainly go. He’s living alone in Buffalo, his family is not with him, so what’s the difference one hotel to another? He might as well go try and win somewhere else.”
LeBrun adds to watch the Edmonton Oilers who are looking to upgrade their third-line center position and have internally talked about Staal. It would need to be money-in, money-out for the Oilers.
2021 NHL draft not moving
TSN: Darren Dreger said there were just too many hurdles to overcome to move the 2021 NHL draft back to either January or June of 2022. The NHL hasn’t made it official and the GMs aren’t happy about it.
“Moving free agency dates to adjust for players whose draft was pushed away from July was one of the many hurdles.
Also, it hasn’t been determined whether or not it’s going to be a virtual draft as opposed to in-person. It seems more likely it will be virtual, but they do not know yet where the draft will be.”
