- Chris Johnston of Sportsnet: Andrei Kostitsyn is ready to return to the NHL, and he’s fine with signing a one-year, cap-friendly deal.
“I’m ready,” Kostitsyn told Sportsnet from Minsk, Belarus on Thursday night. “I want to say when I come there again I’ll be excited like it’s the first time. I’m doing my best — training hard and working hard.
“I’ll try to score lots of goals like I know I can.”
Kostitsyn left the NHL after the 2011-12 season. He was suspended by the Predators with teammate Alexander Radulov in the playoffs for missing curfew.
- Jared Clinton of The Hockey News: Alexander Radulov is once again thinking about returning to the NHL. He may not be ready to leave the KHL just yet, but he now has control over where he plays.
“You see, I’m not so young,” Radulov told the paper, according to a rough translation. “(I’m) not 20 years old, and it is possible that I will have the last chance to compete for the Stanley Cup. If it is a great option in a team that will fight for the title, then why not? But now, perhaps, too early to tell. Believe me, I choose what’s best for me and my family.”
Radulov’s contract with CSKA Moscow is finished. He could return, but he now has options.
“I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to be free, with no obligations to some club, to determine their own fate himself,” Radulov said. “So probably I wait it, but now I can not guarantee anything.”
- Terry Frei of the Denver Post: The Avs are getting closer to naming their coaching staff.
“We’re going to announce it pretty soon,” Roy said. “We’re very close to coming to terms with different guys.”
Patrick Roy wouldn’t say who they are looking at, but he did say that Adam Foote won’t be joining his staff full-time.
“Adam is very close to his two sons and he wants to be involved with them,” Roy said. “This is very important to him. He’s a family person and he wants to be close to them, which I truly understand because I did the exact same thing.”