On Kris Russell …
Scott Lewis of Sportsnet: Joe Haggerty reported over the weekend that the Bruins were interested in Kris Russell. There were rumors that Russell turned down a four year, $17 million offer from the Maple Leafs, but Russell’s agent shot that down. The Canucks fell out of the running early on.
The Devils and Hurricanes are below the salary floor. The Hurricanes may not have room on their young blueline. The Devils could use some experience on the blueline after trading away Adam Larsson.
The Avalanche and maybe the Flames could be other options.
On the Colorado Avalanche …
Terry Frei of the Denver Post: The Avs have added Patrick Wiercioch and Fedor Tyutin to their blueline, and center Joe Colborne so far this offseason. The Avs have to re-sign Nathan MacKinnon and they could get Tyson Barrie under contract for one or two years if they get to arbitration.
It likely didn’t matter what the Avs offered Mikkel Boedker, he was going to test the open market.
The Avs seem confident that Chris Bigras and Nikita Zadorov can step it up and Duncan Siemens could also be in the mix.
On the Edmonton Oilers …
Chris Nichols of Today’s Slapshot: Darren Dreger on TSN 1260 on Taylor Hall being traded. It’s interesting that more GMs didn’t jump at the chance to trade for Hall.
“Anaheim is more or less a budget team, and taking on a $6 million contract would have been a problem for them. I think Bob Murray had to find a way to make that work. You slide Taylor Hall into the top-six of the Anaheim Ducks as a support player – holy smokes, you’ve got a real solid top-six, don’t you? And you bump a player down into the top-nine and that means that your top-nine forwards are going to be terrific. That’s one example. You can go down the list of all of the teams that should have been more motivated by Taylor Hall’s availability.
“And know this – Chiarelli was careful in playing the game of, ‘I’m not shopping. I’m not shopping. I’m not shopping,’ But if you didn’t know that Taylor Hall was potentially in play, then you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last six weeks, couple of months, maybe even six months.”
Every other team knew that Hall was available and could be had.