The Lightning may look for a defenseman, but not Vatanen
Joe Smith: Though there are several teams interested in unrestricted free agent defenseman Sami Vatanen, have been told that the Tampa Bay Lightning are not one of those teams.
Believe that the Lightning could still look at add a depth defenseman for their taxi squad/AHL.
No updates on Barzal talks
NHL.com: New York Islanders GM Lou Lamoriello said there are no updates involving restricted free agent forward Mathew Barzal.
“No, I have nothing new to say,” Lamoriello said. “Mathew is in town, quarantining and we will certainly work at this, with the hope to have him on the first day of training camp.
“We still have a few days to training camp, so I don’t want to get into any hypotheticals. It is our intention and his intention to be there and hopefully that will happen.”
Dorion on if he’s done trading
Wayne Scanlan of Sportsnet: Ottawa Senators GM Pierre Dorion in an interview as training camp opened up. Dorian had previously mentioned that they made the trades for Derek Stepan, Cedric Paquette and Braydon Coburn while he could as the U.S. – Canada restrictions and quarantining will make it difficult to make in-season trades. When asked if he’s done trading.
“You never know. The most important thing is our fans have to be aware, we are trying to build the best team possible. We are trying to create as much internal competition as possible. Some of these trades have been talked about for a while. We didn’t know if they were going to happen before camp or not. And some of them came together fairly quickly.
It’s going to be difficult to make trades with the 24 U.S.-based teams just because every player that crosses the border has to do a 14-day quarantine. And we respect those rules and understand them. At the same time, the teams you are playing against are all in the same division. And you are all battling for the same thing. So, we tried to think ahead — it might be better to acquire players now. Are we done? You never know what can happen. You never know what can be thrown your way, even 24 hours before the season starts.”