On the Carolina Hurircanes, Colorado Avalanche, Boston Bruins, Dallas Stars and Vancouver Canucks …
Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal: Agree with Elliotte Friedman that the Carolina Hurricanes and Colorado Avalanche would be good trading partners. The Hurricanes have defensive prospects in Jake Bean, Noah Hanifin and Hayden Fleury and the Avs could dangle Gabriel Landeskog or Matt Duchene. Matheson would ask for either Nicolas Roy or Julien Gauthier in any trade for Landeskog or Duchene.
Matheson wonders if the Boston Bruins could get Zdeno Chara to waive his no-trade clause. He probably doesn’t want to go anywhere though. He’d be a good add for a team for next season at $4 million. What about the Dallas Stars offering Jamie Oleksiak and the rights to Valeri Nichushkin?
Teams are calling the Vancouver Canucks about Alex Burrows.
On the St. Louis Blues and Tampa Bay Lightning …
Chris Nichols of FanRag Sports: Bob McKenzie was on TSN 690 talking about the St. Louis Blues. McKenzie thinks the Blues are concerned about the play of goaltender Jake Allen, who has struggled for awhile. The Blues may be thinking they need to bring in some help, but they have to be careful of money and the assets to acquire someone.
Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop came up in their discussion as he recently returned.
“Yeah, certainly Vasilevskiy wasn’t playing at the top of his game, but the problems went beyond Vasilevskiy,” said McKenzie. “I mean, the defense needs some help. The catch-22 situation for Steve Yzerman is that Bishop – there’s St. Louis looking for a goaltender. Bishop, by the way, is from St. Louis. So let’s assume, or guess, that maybe St. Louis might have some interest in Bishop. And let’s assume or guess that Yzerman in his master plan is thinking, ‘Yeah, you know what? If I could get a good defenseman for a goaltender we’re going to lose to lose to free agency in the summer anyway, that would be a smart thing to do.’
“Except that Bishop might be the catalyst right now to get a team that was on pace for 80 points back into the picture. So do you make a move like that if it’s available, or do you hold off and say, ‘Let’s let Bishop go on a bit of a run here and try to re-ignite this team and put us back in a position where we actually can be back in the playoff picture.’
Because of their cap situation, McKenzie can’t see how the Lightning would be able re-sign Bishop, and trade Andrei Vasilevskiy.