Shrinking options for the Blues and Tarasenko
Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: St. Louis Blues GM Doug Armstrong is trying his attention to his restricted free agents. Once they are taken care of, it doesn’t seem likely that they will have the room for UFA forward Tyler Bozak, unless they are able to move Vladimir Tarasenko and his contract.
Options to move Tarasenko are shrinking and moving him has been easier said than done. Tarasenko has been willing to move his no-trade clause to basically anywhere.
The New York Islanders and Carolina Hurricanes could fit in his $7.5 million salary cap hit. It doesn’t seem like GM Armstrong wants to retain any salary.
The Blues lost Jaden Schwartz and Mike Hoffman but replaced them with Pavel Buchnevich and Brandon Saad.
Three teams battling for Tarasenko?
Kyle Cannillo: David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period said that the New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers and New York Islanders are “in a battle” for Blues forward Vladimir Tarasenko. Pagnotta also said that there “has been progress” on a potential trade.
Neal McHale: If the #NJDevils are indeed “in a bit of a battle” over Tarasenko here, it might not be bad that the Devils Advisor to Hockey Ops is Martin Brodeur, who has been part of some previous pitches and has a relationship with the Blues front office
Internal center options for the Bruins, or use DeBrusk in a trade package?
Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic: So David Krejci decided to return to the Czech Republic to play in front of his family and friends and have his kids live where he did when he was young.
Charlie Coyle could start the season as the Boston Bruins No. 2 center and the bottom two lines could be a center by committee and include Jack Studnicka, Nick Foligno, Erik Haula, Tomas Nosek, Trent Frederic and Curtis Lazar.
The Bruins have about a $1 million in cap space. They may not be able to fit in Jack Eichel‘s $10 million contract if they were 100 percent okay with his medical records.
They could use Jake DeBrusk as a trade asset but he alone wouldn’t land you a second-line center.
