Rumors IV: Crowded Crease in Ottawa and Talking to RFAs
  • Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun: Sources saying the Sabres, Oilers and Sharks called the Senators about Robin Lehner before the Senators locked up Andrew Hammond for three years. Some teams may be more interested in Craig Anderson, who doesn’t have a no-movement clause. There will be more interest in Lehner due to his age and upside potential. The Oilers are young and may want a young goalie to grow with the team. The Oilers have the forwards to offer the Senators. The Sharks may be one team that would be more interested in Anderson.

    The Senators have held contract talks with Mike Hoffman, Mark Stone, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Mika Zibanejad and Alex Chiasson.

    “These contracts, as you guys know our attention was to get Andrew signed because he was UFA, all of the other guys are RFA’s … The organization and us have a pretty good relationship with all these agents so hopefully by Sept. 15 we’ve got them all under contract,” Dorion said.

    Hoffman and Chiasson can file for arbitration, so they would like to get those deals done before then. They have also talked with Erik Condra.

    “Bryan gave me permission to talk to Erik’s agent and we’re still looking at hopefully making him an offer and being part of the team but we have to do some other things here before we do that just because of the number of bodies,” Dorion said.

  • Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun: Assistant GM Pierre Dorion on their goalie situation after re-signing Andrew Hammond.

    “As Bryan talked about in his year-end conference, if and when we got Andrew Hammond signed, we would look at possibly trading one of our other goalies,” assistant GM Pierre Dorion said Thursday.

    “There’s no timeline on it. We could go into training camp with three. At the present time, just signing Andrew today, we haven’t really explored the trade market. As this off-season progresses, though the draft and through free agency or whatever time frame there is we’ll be ready for it.”

  • Ian Mendes: Dorion said they haven’t been actively looking for a trade partner: “At the present time, we haven’t really explored the trade market.”