The Senators have spoken with almost half the league about defensemen
Bruce Garrioch: As mentioned on Monday on TSN, Ottawa Senators GM Pierre Dorion has talked to between 10 and 15 teams about defensemen. He hasn’t been able to find anything he sees as a fit.
The Senators are getting lots of interest
Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Suns: Sources are saying that there are over 20 groups that have reached out with interest in buying the Ottawa Senators.
“The real estate component makes it an attractive option,” a league source said. “If this was just a team in Kanata I don’t think there’d be this much interest.”
It may not be until mid-January when we get into who could be a front-runner. Groups are doing their due diligence.
With this amount of interest, the sale price could be in the $800 million to $1 billion range. With any sale comes with the condition that the team is not leaving Ottawa.
The Cap has the Maple Leafs hands tied with adding to their blue line
David Pagnotta: Irfaan Gaffar and Pagnotta on some ‘Market Rumblings.”
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Gaffar: “Over to Toronto we go. Morgan Rielly on LTIR. What’s up with the Leafs?”
Pagnotta: “Ya, he’s going to be out for about six weeks. Probably not coming back until January. Now that poses a problem. Not only do they have another hole on that blue line, he’s not done for the season. Which is a good thing but at the same time LTIR means they can accrue a little bit of space but when he comes back, they need to have his amount of cap space in order for him to return to the lineup and get back in there.
So it’s not like they can go out there and add a Chychrun or a Klingberg at his $7 million cap hit. It’s going to be difficult for the Leafs to bring in a high-end, high-priced player at this stage to help out that blue line.
They’ve been looking for a while. I’ve mentioned Luke Schenn earlier as another potential target. Kevin Shattenkirk is another one. Carson Soucy in Seattle if the Kraken decide to go that route. And they have other pieces as well. Vladislav Gavrikov in Columbus.
Toronto is looking at their options but they have to monitor their cap situation and see if they can make anything work. If something does happen, it’s either going to result in some players being sent down to the , or some roster players leaving out on the back end, and leaving this team.
