On the Blues …
- Tom Timmermann of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: The Blues brought in Dainius Zubrus and Martin Havlat on 10-day tryouts this week. The Blues are without Paul Stastny, Jaden Schwartz and Patrik Berglund and are needing some long-term relief, but not too long-term.
“We don’t need them to save us, we just need them to help us,” Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. “There’s nobody coming into the lineup in the next couple of weeks, so this is going to be our lineup for the next five, six weeks at least and hopefully these guys can come in and look like they can help us.”
GM Doug Armstrong thinks they can fill the hole internally, but it will be difficult. He noted that it would also be hard to fill it though a trade.
“If we’re going to make a trade, we’ll do something not for a short-term fix and create a hole for later on,” Armstrong said. “Every time you make a trade you look for something that stands the test of time. Right now, it’s sort of robbing Peter to pay Paul. You move from an area of depth, then you get two injuries and that’s an area of weakness. We’re going to explore everything as we move forward.”
On the Red Wings …
- Ian Mendes: Red Wings GM Ken Holland said on TSN 1200 radio that they will make a decision on whether to make Dylan Larkin available for the World Junior Championships in mid-December: “Right now, it looks like he’s here for the year.”
On the Panthers …
- George Richards: Days before Panthers GM Dale Tallon traded Jimmy Hayes to the Bruins, he had a deal in place with the Rangers for goalie Cam Talbot. Rangers GM Glen Sather traded Talbot to Oilers instead. Tallon was hot about it.
- George Richards: Hayes said there were always rumors that he would eventually end up playing with his brother.
Sportsnet’s Headlines …
- MLSE’s new CEO, Ducks, Phil Kessel, NCAA, Ryan Johansen and Fedor Tyutin.