- Pierre LeBrun of ESPN: Here are 4 main points that LeBrun took from day 1 of the Governor’s meetings. He expands on those points in his blog.
1. Bettman told the board the league’s involvement in Phoenix won’t end up costing owners any money.
2. Bettman gave governors a sneak peek at what next season’s salary cap should look like. As we’ve reported before, the cap likely won’t budge too much, although that depends on the volatility of the Canadian dollar.
3. As we speculated earlier tonight, a source told ESPN.com that Bettman told the board that the league believes it’s fair for the Phoenix Coyotes to get a full share of revenue sharing even though the team doesn’t actually meet the criteria for it under the normal guidelines.
4. Despite all the media coverage in Canada on the subject, Bettman insisted to gathered media Tuesday night that putting a seventh team in Canada (Toronto, Winnipeg or Quebec City) is not really on the radar at this point.
- Pat Hickey of the Montreal Gazette: Jaroslav Halak was offered to the Flyers, but the Flyers added Michael Leighton off re-entry waivers yesterday, and signed John Grahame over the weekend. The Canadiens are looking for a top 6 forward in return for their 24 year old backup. Halak has a cap hit of $775,000 this year, and will be a free agent at season end. The Canadiens don’t have a ton of cap room at the moment, so the top 6 forward they’d want, would have to be reasonably priced one. Which could be why they liked Claude Giroux.
- Pat Hickey of the Montreal Gazette: Canadiens Dman, Andrei Markov, should be ready to go before Christmas, well ahead of his expected February return.
- Iain MacIntyre of the Vancouver Sun: Could this year be Willie Mitchell’s last season in Vancouver? He’ll be a UFA July 1st. “It will all play out how it plays out,” Mitchell said. “There’s a lot of uncontrollable situations for you as a player. You play long enough, you understand that. It’s part of the journey.”
- Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe: Despite missing the last 8 games, and being close to returning, Milan Lucic was just placed on IR.
- Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal: Nikolai Khabibulin’s back hasn’t improved nearly as well as they had hoped. He will be having a spinal procedure done today. No time table on when he might return.