- Bruce McCurdy of Edmonton Journal: Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli was on 630 CHED yesterday. The Oilers have an extra first round pick and two second round picks (No. 16, 33 and 57) and he would consider moving them.
“I certainly would look at moving any of those picks for… something that would help us right now, but also that could grow with our organization, so relatively speaking a younger player. It’s good to have a lot of picks and develop players, but we also want to hit the ground running with some more game-ready players. Discussions are picking up, they’ll continue to be ongoing until the draft, they might subside a little bit, and then pick up again around the free agency date.”
Chiarelli on the trend for teams to sign their UFAs before they are able to reach the open market.
“There’s always some good players in free agency, maybe the depth isn’t as great this year. You have to be prepared to over-spend and ‘over-term’, so to speak, these guys. It’s a market that we’ll look at, it’s a pool of players, and we want to improve our team. There may be players that will be available from other teams because of cap constraints so we’ll look at that market. There’ll be players to look at, in distress trades, in normal trades, and in the free agency market. We’ll look at all of them.”
On scouting for the draft.
“There’s a certain level of emphasis on size, a certain level of emphasis on grit — we don’t dismiss skill, but they just know these are areas they need to check off when they’re interviewing these kids… A higher level of due diligence, all of us rolling up our sleeves.”
- Brett Cyrgalis of the NY Post: The Rangers announced on Tuesday that goalie prospect Mackenzie Skapski will out four- to five-months after having surgery to repair a labral tear in his right hip. If they were thinking about trading Cam Talbot this offseason, they would now need to also find a backup goalie from outside the organization, through trade or free agency. Talbot is a year away from unrestricted free agency.
- Andrew Gross of The Record: Throughout the season, Martin St. Louis had insisted that he wanted to play next season. Early this week he said he needs time to consider his future, which might include retirement.
“We’re two days fresh from being knocked out,” St. Louis said at the Madison Square Garden Training Center. “I’m going to be 40 in two weeks. I’m going to get a chance to reflect and think about it and go from there.”