- Amalie Benjamin of the Globe: The Bruins have nine NHL/NHL-caliber defenseman, not including Zach Trotman and Joe Morrow who are close.
“We can’t go into the year with nine NHL defensemen,” Chiarelli said earlier in the offseason. “So at some point I have to do something there, but I’m in no hurry. It may be that we see how the preseason goes, with who’s mixing, who’s matching with whom.”
Moving 2015 UFA Johnny Boychuk would bring back the biggest return, as well as giving them the most cap relief.
- Ken Campbell of the Hockey News: Milan Lucic has recently had the pins removed from his offseason surgery and he’ll be starting his physio soon. Lucic won’t apologize for what he said to Andrei Markov and Alexei Emelin but realizes he should have handled the handshake line a little differently.
“I’m not going to apologize for how I acted or what was said,” Lucic said. “But at the end of the day, thinking about it now, maybe I definitely could have handled the situation better than I did. But more than saying what I said to the players, I was upset with losing. I was upset with losing to them. We had such a great team that had won the Presidents’ Trophy and that being the end and losing the way that we did, I think it all just accumulated to me losing my cool in the handshake.”
- Larry Brooks of the NY Post: The Rangers should turn their attention to locking up Marc Staal after they go through their three potential arbitration cases. He has one year left on his deal. A contract extension could be for six-years in the $5.5 million a year range. Unless he suffered another concussion this season, he could easily fetch that amount on the open market.The next player to push the salary ceilings like Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane just did with their $10.5 million contracts is Steven Stamkos in 2016. He could go $12 million plus a season if he chooses too. John Tavares will be looking for a new deal in 2018.
