On the Arizona Coyotes …
Craig Morgan: After acquiring Derek Stepan and Nick Cousins, and the potential of Dylan Strome making the team, don’t expect the Coyotes to re-sign center Alex Burmistrov.
Craig Morgan of Arizona Sports: The Coyotes traded for Niklas Hjalmarsson, Derek Stepan and Antti Raanta yesterday.
“I think we’ve got some areas we can improve, but you add a No. 1 center, a top-pairing D and a starting goalie, that’s quite a bit in 24 hours,” Chayka said.
GM John Chayka said that he was close to making another trade before they made selection at No. 23. He may not be done trading as there could be some more opportunities today.
“We had a bunch of different discussions,” he said. “We’ll circle back tomorrow and see what we can do.”
On the Edmonton Oilers …
Chris Nichols of FanRag Sports: Oilers Connor McDavid is eligible to sign a contract extension after July 1st. On Thursday Darren Dreger dropped this on TSN 1050.
“I mean, there are whispers that it’s going to be $14 million for Connor McDavid.”
So yesterday Dreger was WGR 550 to follow up on that. Dreger said that he had heard that from a “couple really good sources.”
“Now, do I believe that Connor McDavid is getting $14 million per year from the Edmonton Oilers? No. Do I believe that that’s where the starting point might be for discussion on it? Yeah, I do. But that doesn’t meant that that’s what he’s ultimately going to agree to because there’s clearly going to be some sort of trickle-down effect.
“You don’t think Leon Draisaitl is waiting to see what McDavid gets, or wants to at least behind the scenes understand what Connor McDavid is going to get? I’m sure he does, so that he can feed off of that in doing his contract negotiations with the Edmonton Oilers.”
Dreger notes that term will be interesting as well. Most fans want the full eight years, but maybe five years makes sense for McDavid money wise.
“Connor McDavid is going to get maximum dollars regardless if it’s five years or eight years, but why not sign on a five-year term, allow the salary cap to bump up, and cash in a second time.”