Jets may be okay with their blue line. Little cap room until Little LTIR’d
Ken Wiebe of Sportsnet: The Winnipeg Jets added their second-line center when they acquired Paul Stastny. They added Derek Forbort to their blue line and re-sign several defensemen.
GM Kevin Cheveldayoff will continue to look for value deals and what the trade market has to offer, but they could be okay with how their blue line sits for now.
Cheveldayoff could look to package restricted free agents in defenseman Sami Niku and forward Jack Roslovic for a defensemen – Florida Panthers MacKenzie Weegar or maybe a Carolina Hurricanes defenseman.
The Jets have just under $30,000 in salary cap space but they’ll gain Bryan Little‘s cap hit when he goes on the LTIR.
There is also a possibility that they go through trading Patrik Laine.
Blackhawks GM okay with fans not being happy with him
Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times: Chicago Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman knows there are lots of fans who are not happy with him, that they want the team to win.
“I don’t let it get to me, and I don’t pay a lot of attention to it,” he said. “You’d be silly to say you don’t know it exists, but I’ve got to isolate myself a little bit, because you’ve got to do what you believe in your heart is right.”
Over the past few years, Bowman has taken heat for the number of trades and free agent signings that haven’t worked out for them.
“You can’t do what’s popular, because although it may be popular in the moment, if it doesn’t work, then it won’t be popular down the way,” he said.
“If you believe it’s right and it’s popular, then that’s great — that’s the perfect -scenario. But if you believe it’s right and no one else does, and you turn out to be right, then you can live with yourself much -better.”