On the Buffalo Sabres and Edmonton Oilers …
Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News: Rumors that the asking price for Taylor Hall for the Sabres was Rasmus Ristolainen, which wasn’t going to happen.
On the Chicago Blackhawks …
Scott Powers of The Athletic: Blackhawks prospect Gustav Forsling will likely return to Sweden next year if he doesn’t make the team according to his agent Gerry Johannson. The Blackhawks acquired Forsling from the Canucks. He’s not expected to make the Blackhawks out of training camp, but his agent thinks he’ll challenge for a job.
“I think like every team they don’t plan on it,” Johansson said. “That would be silly to plan on. They’re not going to say Forsling is going to make the team. If he comes in and bumps a guy, they’ll deal with it. That’s a good problem for Stan to have.”
Mark Lazerus of the Chicago Sun-Times: The Blackhawks are expecting 25-year old free agent signing Michal Kempny to step right on to their blueline and GM Stan Bowman is happy with their blueline potential.
“We wanted to upgrade our defense, and certainly Brian is a big part of that,” Bowman said. “We’re very high on Michal Kempny, as well. Everything’s new to him over here now. He has one year in the KHL and he did great his first year there, and we’re going he has a great transition to the NHL, as well. … You put all that together, and our defense is looking very, very strong. It’s a strong point of our team right now.”
The Blackhawks are currently lacking depth upfront after they’ve moved on from Andrew Ladd, Andrew Shaw, Teuvo Teravainen, Dale Weise and Tomas Fleischmann
On the Columbus Blue Jackets …
Aaron Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch: Despite creating $4.5 million in additional cap space after two buyouts, GM Jarmo Kekalainen recently said they wouldn’t be that active in free agency.
“There’s always a chance,” Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen said. “But that would require us to move something again, to create more space.
“The cap space we have now is not a lot. It’s enough to keep us under the cap and have a little bit of flexibility. It’s not enough to keep this team (intact) and go after a big-time free agent on the free agent market.”