On the St. Louis Blues …
- Lou Korac: Blues GM Doug Armstrong said that pending UFA David Backes won’t be traded.
- Lou Korac: Being a contender, the Blues are willing to head into the offseason with Backes and see how it plays out.
- Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post Dispatch: The Blues salary cap issues will limit what GM Doug Armstrong can do before the deadline.
“I think it’s more economics than anything,” Armstrong said. “As a manager, you’re always saying this player would be a good fit for us. You can put him in there, jam him in and make it work. But right now, it’s more than a math equation than anything to make the salaries work in our system.”
Even if the Blue put Steve Ott on the LTIR, it may not free up enough money to get one of the top guys as the “space isn’t to the level where we’re getting into some of the players of the high-level contracts that you’re hearing being bandied around.”
Armstrong will check out the backup goalie market.
“But it has to be a player that can go to the minors when (Elliott) gets back or else we’re over the cap,” Armstrong said.
On the Edmonton Oilers …
- David Staples of the Edmonton Journal: Nine players the Oilers should trade or get rid of: Justin Schultz, Mark Fayne, Anders Nilsson, Mark Letestu or Anton Lander, Nikita Nikitin, Andrew Ference, Luke Gazdic, Brad Hunt and Lauri Korpikoski or Matt Hendricks.
- Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal: The Oilers might be willing to move the likes of Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. They could use a puck moving defenseman and a young, second pairing defenseman.Matheson thinks that Oilers should make a play for Kevin Shattenkirk before the draft in a package for Hall.
Matheson wonders about moving Eberle to the Islanders for Travis Hamonic.
Matheson wonders about moving Nugent-Hopkins for Jonas Brodin.