On the Edmonton Oilers, Montreal Canadiens, St. Louis Blues, Detroit Red Wings and the Tampa Bay Lightning …
Pierre LeBrun of ESPN: LeBrun looks ahead to the offseason and a few teams who could be looking to make some moves.
Edmonton Oilers – GM Peter Chiarelli will be listening to offers on some of his core players. He’s looking for a top defensemen and could dangle the likes of Jordan Eberle, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins or possibly Taylor Hall.
Montreal Canadiens – GM Marc Bergevin will be watching his team closely to see what moves he needs to make. Teams were telling LeBrun that Alex Galchenyuk’s names did come up in some trade talks at the deadline. Sense is that other teams brought up Galchenyuk and not the Canadiens.
St. Louis Blues – Injuries and their cap situation limited the Blues at the trade deadline. It would have had to be a money-in, money-out deal. GM Doug Armstrong would have traded a 2nd round pick if it would have upgraded their top-nine. How they make out in the playoffs could determine how active they are in the offseason. David Backes is pending UFA. Speculation on Kevin Shattenkirk will pick up.
Detroit Red Wings – Petr Mrazek is a pending RFA and will be looking for a nice raise. If they re-sign Mrazek to a bridge deal, they could live with keeping Jimmy Howard and his $5.29 million cap hit (three more years). If they re-sign Mrazek to a long-term deal at bigger money, they’ll have to move out Howard. The Flames will be one of the teams looking for a No. 1 goalie.
Tampa Bay Lightning – Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Drouin watches will continue. Their pending RFA list includes Nikita Kucherov, Alex Killorn, J.T. Brown, Vladislav Namestnikov, Cedric Paquette, Jonathan Marchessault and Nikita Nesterov. Victor Hedman and Ben Bishop are a year away from being UFAs
