- Aaron Portzline: Former Blue Jackets GM Scott Howson was thrilled when the Oilers drafted Nail Yakupov over Ryan Murray in 2012. The Blue Jackets wouldn’t have drafted Yakupov at No 2. Portzline thinks (if remembers correctly) that Howson would have taken Alex Galchenyuk at No. 2 if the Oilers had taken Murray at No. 1. Howson liked Murray so much, he had turned down all of the Islanders draft picks for the No. 2 slot.
- Randy Sportak: Flames forward Mikael Backlund was benched for a good part of the 2nd period and was demoted to the 4th line.
- Mike Chambers of the Denver Post: Nathan MacKinnon is likely to replace Matt Duchene on the teams first line, centering Gabriel Landeskog and Ryan O’Reilly. Paul Stastny will center Jamie McGinn and P.A. Parenteau. John Mitchell centering Cody McLeod and Max Talbot.
- Jason Gregor: Devan Dubnyk will start in net for the Oilers tonight.
- John Vogl: Sabres coach Ted Nolan:
“There’s some maneuvering room we can do here. We checked the farm team, see who’s going well down there. There’s a couple players playing exceptionally well down there that deserve an opportunity. We’ve been tweaking. We’re going to meet right after this and see what we can do.”
Former GM Darcy Regier’s plan was to use young players and get a high draft pick.
“We’re going to try to get this thing on proper footing going forward and putting people in position of success versus force-feeding them,” Nolan said. “You see some good organizations and how they go about it. You don’t force-feed somebody and say we’re rebuild. Rebuild is important, but how you rebuild is really important.
“Like I said, Patty and I have been talking about it since we got involved. I think you can have some young kids, a few of them, but not as many as we have.”
