On the Philadelphia Flyers …
Tim Panaccio of CSN Philly: The Flyers management will be returning back to Philly with the draft over and still without a veteran goalie to go with Michal Neuvirth. The draft is usually the place where you can acquire a pending free agent goalie from someone, or acquire one with term from a team who is looking to move one.
GM Ron Hextall didn’t find one, which may be because other teams have already made moves and others not in a rush.
“I didn’t expect to ,” Hextall said. “I would have liked to have it done a month ago. But I am not going to do something just for the sake of having something in place.
“We are going to do our due diligence. Sometimes you have to wait and sometimes it’s part of the process to see what is out there. It’s a high priority. We have to get something in place.”
The Arizona Coyotes, Dallas Stars and Carolina Hurricanes each have three goaltenders.
Hextall isn’t sure if they will go the free agent route, or the trade route for that matter, but isn’t really worried about it.
“My comfort level is there are a number of goalies out there,” Hextall said. “So, there’s not six No. 1 spots out there and just one goalie. I have comfort in that.
“We are still doing our due diligence and in the end, it’s probably going to come down to a guy we take and term and money. I might like this guy, but is he asking unreal term? We’ll go somewhere else. I keep telling you, is still in the mix.”
Dave Isaac of the Courier-Post: The Flyers moved out Brayden Schenn for two first round picks and Jori Lehtera on Friday night. Though they are getting younger, GM Hextall doesn’t see it as a rebuild. They don’t want to hold their young players back and when they are ready for the next step they’ll allow them.
Nolan Patrick or Oskar Lindblom may step in for Schenn, or maybe someone else steps up. Travis Konecny or maybe Jordan Weal if they are able to re-sign him. Weal’s agent JP Barry and the Flyers were still negotiating on Saturday.
“Our stance on Jordan hasn’t changed. We’d like to sign him,” Hextall added. “Simple as that. Nothing really has changed for us. We do believe we have a couple guys down that can play so if Jordan chooses to go somewhere else, we’ll figure it out.”