- James Mirtle of the Globe and Mail: The Blackhawks, Canadiens, Flyers and Maple Leafs have used both of their compliance buyouts. Ten teams have used one of their buyouts. Slam dunk buyouts include Ville Leino and Brad Richards. Martin Havlat, Jordin Tootoo and Ryan Malone are likely to be bought out. Other buyout candidates could be David Booth (VAN), Erik Cole (DAL) and Anton Volchenkov (NJ). The $3.7 billion projected revenues would put the salary cap at about $69.5 million. That number doesn’t include money the NHL will get from the Canadian television deal, though it’s possible the NHL and NHLPA could negotiate to get it included.
“If a significant one-time increase or decrease to league-wide revenues is anticipated in the next league year,” the NHL’s collective bargaining agreement reads, “the parties will endeavor to estimate the expected increase or decrease and incorporate that estimate into” the cap calculation.
The cap numbers need to be set by the end of June.
- Josh Cooper of Tennessean: It’s unlikely that the Predators would move up in the draft, but they could trade for another first round pick by using their two second round picks.
“I’ve been approached more by the fact we have two second-round picks and moving for a first-round pick for two seconds, or trading outright a second-round pick,” Poile said. “None of that’s going to happen until the draft and when we’re on the draft floor.”
The Predators have a feeling one of the three players they are targeting at No. 11 will be there, so there would be no need to trade up.
GM David Poile on their pending restricted free agents: Ryan Ellis, Mattias Ekholm, Michael Del Zotto and Nick Spaling:
“I don’t think there’s any real time frame with any of them,” Poile said. “I think you can make a case that it’s always better to get things done sooner than later, but we’ve been pretty busy preparing for the draft.”
On trade talk at last weeks GM meetings.
“There was a lot of planting of seeds, if you will, to clarify where you are with certain players,” he said. “As always, the next round of business will be at the draft.”