On the Toronto MapleLeafs and their pending UFAs at the deadline …
Dave McCarthy: Leafs GM Lou Lamoriello on the Leafs holding onto pending UFAs James van Riemsdyk, Tyler Bozak and Leo Komarov at the deadline: “Chemistry is important but way our team has been playing, we have confidence in our team. We’re still in a process of where we want to be a& where we want to go. We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, we want to stay on right path.”
Dave McCarthy: Lomoriello continued: “I don’t know if you had to take too long to weigh it. What you look at where your team is, if you had the reverse you’d go out and get players like that and pay a price for it. It wasn’t that difficult to make those decisions. There wasn’t much time spent on it.”
On some Max Pacioretty and Ryan McDonagh trade deadline fallout …
Chris Nichols of FanRag Sports: Pierre LeBrun was on TSN 690 earlier this week talking about the Florida Panthers. The Panthers only made a small tweak but it’s not for a lack of trying by GM Dale Tallon.
“I never got a feeling it was about to happen,” indicated LeBrun of a Pacioretty deal in general. “As I found out this morning – and I put it in my big notebook on post-trade deadline on The Athletic – Florida did make a push, I’m told, and I think they tried until about 2:30 p.m. yesterday. But I don’t get the sense it was ever close.
later in the segment spoke about the offers that the Canadiens were getting for Pacioretty, and he believes they were deadline offers and “not a hockey deal.”
The conversation moved to Ryan McDonagh and said that the Maple Leafs didn’t make a formal offer for McDonagh.
“I think Toronto all along felt that there was a certain level of price they’d be comfortable living with without wrecking their future, I guess is the best way to put it. They made an offer and clearly the Rangers had a couple of better offers. Obviously the one from Tampa, but I think they had a better offer from Florida and potentially from Washington too. So I’d rank the Leafs maybe fourth or fifth on that list.”
adds that after the Bruins traded for Rick Nash, he doesn’t think they got back in on McDonagh. The Panthers made a real hard push for McDonagh.