- Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal: The Oilers have until June 25th to decide whether to send qualifying offers to their 9 RFAs. Cam Barker is likely gone. They are trying to trade Linus Omark at the draft rather than qualify him. The Oilers will certainly send offers to Sam Gagner, Jeff Petry and Devan Dubnyk. Theo Peckham will likely get qualified, same with AHLer Chris VandeVelde. Hunter Tremblay and Alex Plante are iffy. The Rangers are doubtful to part with Chris Kreider in a Rick Nash deal, but they could dangle Artem Anisimov, Brandon Dubinsky, Derek Stepan, Michael Del Zotto and a 1st round pick. The Blackhawks are asking lots of questions about Malcolm Subban, they draft at #18. Matheson is hearing that the Kings don’t want to trade Jonathan Bernier until they have Jonathan Quick signed to a contract extension. The parameters for Bernier may have been set by the Anders Lindback deal, 2 2nd round picks. The Blue Jackets may not be as sold on Bernier than they were with Lindback. Former Oilers coach Tom Renney spoke with the Capitals about their vacant head coaching position. If the Oilers draft Ryan Murray instead of Nail Yakupov, the Blue Jackets may go with Filip Forsberg over another Russian. Do the small Canadiens then draft another small player in Yakupov (5′ 11″)?
- Don Brennan of the Ottawa Sun: Senators defenseman Erik Karlsson on contract talks:
“Even though we’re early in the discussions, I think we both have a very good dialogue about how things are going to get done. (GM) Bryan (Murray) is a reasonable person. I respect him a lot. I think he knows what to do and the guys I have on my side are very professional as well. They know what to do. Hopefully, it’s not going to be an issue where we don’t see eye-to-eye and don’t agree on things.
“I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize my future on the team.”
“I think we’re still in the early stages of things, but everything has been going really well,” Karlsson said. “I feel we have no rush. I think we know where we are with each other. I want to stay and they want to keep me. We have no real issues with each other. We also know that there’s a lot of other things that need to be done as well.
“I don’t think we’re going to have any problems when it comes to signing a new contract.”
- Josh Kosman of the NY Post: Gary Bettman is preparing to take control of the New Jersey Devils. A source close to the situation said that Bettman’s office has told potential suitors to be prepared if he moves in, takes over, and pushes Vanderbeek aside. Vanderbeek could be close to a deal to sell a majority stake of the team to a mystery investor, and he would stay on and keep control of the team. The investors money would go towards repaying the lenders some of the $77 million they are owed which is past due. With the Devils making it to the Finals, the lenders extended the deadline from July to August. Before Game 1 of the Finals, Bettman said of Vanderbeek:
“is working to both refinance the debt on the club and equity-raise, and he appears to be fairly confident that he can pull this off in the next few weeks.”
Bettman added, “Since I’ve been in touch with the banks on a regular basis, we seem to be on track.”
If Vanderbeek thinks he’ll lose control of the team, he could put them in bankruptcy and buy himself a couple months. A source added that with their long playoff run, they may break-even rather than lose $20 million.
- Dmitry Chesnokov via twitter: Radulov’s Russian agent told Izvestiya newspaper the Radulov has made a decision on where he’ll play next year and implied it would be the KHL.
- Dustin Leed via twitter: From separate sources, they said that the Rangers will end up trading for Rick Nash.
- Stefan G:son via twitter: Samuel Pahlsson was just recently announced as a Modo (SEL) player.