Honka hopes to make an NHL return
Chris Johnston: Defenseman Julius Honka tells Sami Hoffren that he hopes he can return to the Dallas Stars.
Teams looking for free agent bargains
TSN: Darren Dreger on the continued effects of the flat salary cap and unrestricted free agents.
“I can give an example of a player who was making between $3 million and $4 million last year – a very good player – who has had teams offer a lot of one-year deals at $1 million or less.
So, teams are value shopping if you want to put it that way which is being polite. They’re looking for a steal of a deal and that is not sitting well with the player agents or the players appreciably and understandably. To the point where there’s some grumbling and looking back in hindsight in what could have been included in the collective bargaining agreement.
Why didn’t they pursue franchise exemption for a player so every team could have that one guy? Or looking at some of the other things like simply raising the cap floor. Not the ceiling, the cap floor.”
Tyler Johnson expands his trade list
TSN: Frank Seravalli said that the Tampa Bay Lightning forward Tyler Johnson has expanded his list from five teams to eight that he’d accept a trade to. The Lightning are going to have to accept that the return won’t be much.
“Perhaps even including a draft pick to move on from Tyler Johnson or one of a number of other players that they would consider doing so including Alex Killorn, Yanni Gourde, a number of players. But the real hang-up in Tampa Bay is that all of those players – with the exception of Killorn who has a modified no-trade – is that they hold all the cards like Johnson does with full no-trade moves.”