Zuccarello talks won’t happen until after the season
Matthew DeFranks of the Dallas Morning News: Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill said they won’t have contract extensions talks with Mats Zuccarello until after the season.
“We’ll wait until the season’s over,” Nill said. “Right now, I’m in no rush with any contracts. I want to see how the team finishes, see what the player is. That stuff really kind of happens after the playoffs.”
If the Stars re-sign Zuccarello the conditional 2020 third round pick would become a 2020 first-round pick.
The Flyers could be aggressive this offseason
Chris Nichols of Nichols on Hockey: Darren Dreger on TSN 1200 on if the Philadelphia Flyers may have a little more urgency to improve next season and moving away from the next year will be our year. Dreger thinks that the Flyers will be aggressive this offseason.
“When we talk about offer sheets on certain players – and it doesn’t matter if it’s Brayden Point or it’s Mitch Marner or you want to go lower-end to Kasperi Kapanen or Andreas Johnsson, go down the list. I don’t include Mikko Rantanen in that conversation because I think that Colorado would match no matter what. But Philadelphia and Detroit are among those teams rumored to be in that hunt, looking for that type of possibility.
“Now, maybe they also take a hard run at Artemi Panarin, provided that he 100 percent goes to unrestricted free agency.”
The Flyers already have some nice pieces in place and it could turn around quickly for them.
On the suggestion that the Flyers could target both pending free agents Erik Karlsson and Artemi Panarin.
“Yeah, he could,” agreed Dreger. “He’s pretty smooth. He comes by that naturally with his dad being Cliff Fletcher, who manufactured and made his way through a number of bigger deals during his time as an NHL manager.
“When it comes to Fletcher and the possibilities in Philadelphia, I think that anything is possible.