Joe Veleno doesn’t seem worried that he’s not re-signed yet
Bob Duff of Detroit Hockey Now: 23-year-old Joe Veleno is the lone Detroit Red Wings player that remains unsigned (RFA). Veleno doesn’t seem that worried about it.
“We continue to negotiate and that is our situation,” Veleno told Jean-Christophe Bertrand of RDS.ca. “We hope to have an agreement soon.
“There’s no rush as I’m the only player left to sign in Detroit. We will take it day by day and we will see.”
He’s coming off career highs in games (81), goals (9), assists (11) and points (20).
The market for UFA Tomas Tatar heating up
NHL Network: David Pagnotta on the free agent market heating up for forward Tomas Tatar.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Jamie Hersch: “Tomas Tatar also remains unsigned at this point. Where do you think he might play?”
Pagnotta: “Well he’s looking at multi-year deals ideally for him and he has some options in terms of PTOs. Pittsburgh is one of them. We had some reports earlier this week kind of linking the two. But it looks like more in a professional tryout to see if he might be a fit for the Pittsburgh Penguins to add to their forward core.
There are a few other teams looking to add, to kind of add to their middle-six. Second and third line. Bring some secondary scoring in there. He could certainly provide that but it’s going to be considerably less than the $4.5 million cap hit he had over his last contract. He’s going to take certainly a dip in the dollars. And I think he understands that but at the same time looking for that multi-year cushion rather than just the one year.
So we’re going to see what type of options become available to him but there are teams looking to kind of add to their secondary scoring but they have to worry about the salary cap.
This may be a situation that goes into camp, and if he can’t find a destination, he may go on that PTO option. Whether it’s a team like the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Toronto Maple Leafs, or another club looking to add a little firepower to their mid-six.
