Teams were interested in Gaunce
Rick Dhaliwal: Had heard that teams were calling the Vancouver Canucks about pending restricted free agent Brendan Gaunce ahead of the trade deadline.
Red Wings Ilitch on Yzerman
Anthony Fenech: Ilitch on Steve Yzerman: “There’s not a lot I can say about that, other than I know his contract is expiring this summer. We’ll leave it at that.”
Not a rebuild for the Wild
Michael Russo of The Athletic: Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold created a video and emailed it to Wild season ticket holders last week saying that they won’t be going through a rebuild.
“Just so we all understand, this is not a rebuild.”
Leading up the deadline the Wild traded Nino Niederreiter, Charlie Coyle and Mikal Granland.
“We are building on the fly, and that’s kind of our mantra right now,” Leipold said in the video.
Heading into the offseason, if the salary ceiling is $83 million, the Wild will have around $19.5 million in salary cap space with 17 players under contract.
Jets may have been out earlier on Simmonds than people thought
Chris Nichols of Nichols on Hockey: Elliotte Friedman on his podcast said that he doesn’t think the Winnipeg Jets were close to landing Wayne Simmonds 20 minutes before the trade deadline as he/others had originally heard.
“I do think in the days leading up to the deadline, Winnipeg was looking hard at Simmonds. I think there was interest. I believe Simmonds was preparing to waive his no-trade clause to go to the Jets, but a couple of things happened. No. 1, they made the choice to go with Hayes, which took their first-round pick out of play. And No. 2, Morrissey got hurt. And once that happened, they switched to their defensemen and obviously they made the move with Hayes, and he was out.”
Friedman notes that the Calgary Flames were looking at him but they weren’t close to landing him and the rumors that he blocked a trade to Calgary may not have happened.