Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on Arizona Coyotes defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
** NHL Rumors.com transcription
“The simplest thing I can tell you with OEL, David, is that the Arizona Coyotes asked him if he’d be willing to expand his list of teams beyond two, and the answer was no. Ekman-Larsson is only willing to stay at Boston or Vancouver, so that’s how Arizona has to proceed if it wants to get this done.
Bill Armstrong, who is the new GM of the Coyotes, another team reminded me that he was the assistant in St. Louis when they made the Ryan O’Reilly deal with Buffalo. And if you look at the template of that trade, there was some salary exchanged there, Berglund and Sobotka were a part of that deal, but it was Tage Thompson, a first and a second. And that’s what he’d like to do I think if he can.
I believe that the Coyotes like the prospects in Boston better than they like the prospects in Vancouver, but I think at this point in time, Vancouver might be the team that is more eager to get the deal done than Boston in the terms of the want.
Boston can always go back and say “Hey, we’ve got Torey Krug we can re-sign.” Vancouver is in a position where I think they are looking at it like, we can have Hughes and Ekman-Larsson on the left side of our defense for a long time, so we kind of like that. But, there is salary cap considerations there too.
So I think it’s a complicated deal. I think it’s just those two teams. I think there is a will for both those teams to try. I think Arizona is trying to score a similar deal that Ryan O’Reilly did with St. Louis and Buffalo. So that’s kind of where we are right now, and you know, I do think the Canucks like Ekman-Larsson. I just think they wonder if they can make it work under the cap and with the trade.”
Ekman Larsson has seven years left on his contract at an $8.25 million salary cap hit.