On the Minneota Wild …
- Michael Russo of the Star Tribune: Wild fans were disappointed when they weren’t able to land Ryan Johansen in a trade. They Wild would have had to move salary if they were able to land Johansen – meaning Jonas Brodin may have had to been in the deal, which may have not been enough. Where do the Wild go from here? Don’t think about Steven Stamkos or Anze Kopitar. Eric Staal in on the downside. David Backes could be available this offseason, but he’s 31. Drouin wants a trade, but he’s not a center. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is available, but is he any better than Mikael Granlund? Sharks Logan Couture would make sense, but injuries are a concern.
On the Tampa Bay Lighting and Jonathan Drouin …
- Chris Nichols of Today’s Slapshot: Bob McKenzie on TSN 1260 on who he thinks will be heavily involved on the Jonathan Drouin trade front.
“I think Anaheim would have interest. There were 15 or 16 teams watching him play Friday night in Albany. Probably less than that on Saturday in Syracuse and even less than that in Rochester on Sunday.
“I know of at least a dozen teams that have varying degrees of interest. As I said, I think Nashville is still interested in seeing what they can do. Maybe the chips aren’t as plentiful for them since they traded Seth Jones, and they’ve got to be a little more careful on how they go about that.
“There’s no guarantee that Drouin is traded in the short term. Yzerman has to decide if the offer he gets now is better than what he might get at the deadline or the summer. We’ll see how all of that plays out over the course of this next week.”
- Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times: NHL analyst Craig Button thinks both Jonathan Drouin and the Tampa Bay Lightning should take responsibility to how things turned.
“Somewhere along the line, both parties have to take responsibility here,” said NHL Network analyst and former Flames GM Craig Button. “(Drouin) feels he’s not getting an opportunity to show what he can do. Why is that the case? It’s too easy to say he should just suck it up and go play. And on the other hand, you can’t put all the blame on the team for not putting him in position.
“I think the situation is more about both parties taking a deep breath, take a step back and take a long, hard look at what they’re both trying to accomplish.”
Over 10 teams scouted Drouin over the weekend. GM Steve Yzerman said that he’ll do what is best for the team. Can they salvage this relationship? “I don’t rule anything out,” he said.