Koekkoek hopes to remain with the Blackhawks
Ben Pope: Chicago Blackhawks pending restricted free agent defenseman Slater Koekkoek: “I hope to be back, I don’t know. I haven’t discussed much with my agent to see what’s going on. But obviously I’m hoping to re-sign in Chicago. I thought and I had a good thing going, so hopefully I can get a deal done.”
Would the Flames be interested in Murray? Who might the Penguins be interested in?
Dan Kingerski of Pittsburgh Hockey Now: It seems likely that the Pittsburgh Penguins will trade goaltender Matt Murray his offseason. The best time to trade him, or Tristan Jarry would be at the NHL draft in October.
Predicting Murray’s trade value isn’t easy given his pending restricted free agency and the flattening of the salary cap for the next couple of seasons. He is arbitration eligible.
Some teams wouldn’t be interested in arbitration. He could be looking for $6 million a year, but PHN believes his value is in the $5 million due to not having great years the past two seasons.
Would the Calgary Flames be interested and what could the return be? The Flames may be looking for a goaltender. There will be changes coming to Calgary, with forwards Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan on the hot seat.
Players that might interest the Penguins include Sam Bennett, Dillon Dube, Oliver Kylington and Emilio Pettersen.
Flames will make a coach decision soon
Sportsnet: Geoff Ward is the Calgary Flames interim head coach and they’ll need to decide soon if he’ll lose the interim tag.
“I’ve heard that they’re really not going to let this linger and we’re probably going to know in the next week or two what direction they’re going to go in, if it’s going to be Ward or if it’s going to be somebody else,” Friedman said.