- Adrian Dater: Pierre McGuire added the Stars as a team that would like to sign Paul Stastny.
- Scott Power of ESPN: Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman may not be done his pursuit of adding a center.
“There’s a lot of options we have as we look over the next couple weeks. There’s free agency coming up. There’s trades. There’s a lot of things that can change between now and October. I think I’ve been pretty consistent in saying we believe in our team, and we believe in the options we have from within. If there’s other ways to improve the team through a trade or free agency, we’ll look at it, too.
“We’ve got a great group. The core group of our team has accomplished an awful lot over the last five years, this year included. You’re never happy when you don’t get the whole way. You have to recognize you’re close. There’s a lot of ways to improve your team leading into next year. We’re going to keep working at it, and we’ll be ready to go in October.”
The Blackhawks have re-signed Jeremy Morni, Ben Smith and Antti Raanta. They are undecided on pending UFAs Sheldon Brookbank and Peter Regin.
- Chip Alexander of Raleigh News & Observer: Hurricanes GM Ron Francis said that Manny Malhotra, Justin Peters and Brent Bellemore will test the open market. They are in talks with RFA Jiri Tlusty and will “definitely qualify him.” Heading into free agency Francis said:
“We’re looking potentially more in the fourth-line need, maybe, or a depth defenseman at this point.”
Their current plan is to have both Anton Khudobin and Cam Ward, but there is talk of them trying to trade Ward and potentially re-sign Peters.
- Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The Blues need another scorer. They weren’t able to make a trade Jason Spezza this weekend and could take a run at Paul Stastny on July 1st. Patrik Berglund re-signing only makes sense if he’s part of a trade. The Blues could be thinking about moving David Backes back to the wing.
