- Craig Custance of ESPN: Looking at bottom five teams, and which would have the fastest turnaround if they won the draft lottery and the right to draft Connor McDavid.1. Maple Leafs – Landing McDavid would remove any reason to trade Phil Kessel. GM Dave Nonis:
“There’s a couple of players in the draft that could alter the fortunes of a team,” said Nonis when we chatted about the possibility of the Leafs landing McDavid. “Obviously, McDavid is the guy people are focusing on in this draft, but there’s more than that. Whoever is fortunate enough to get one of those two or three guys will take a pretty big step forward in the development of their team.”
2. Hurricanes – The hardest thing for teams to find is a franchise center, with a franchise defenseman a close second. They have a franchise Dman in Justin Faulk.
“Everybody, if they win the lottery, it changes the dynamic of the franchise,” Francis said. “We would be no different in that regard.”
3. Oilers – Winning the lottery would give them a top three down the middle of McDavid, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Leon Draisaitl. They still need help on the blueline.
“Everybody, if they win the lottery, it changes the dynamic of the franchise,” Francis said. “We would be no different in that regard.”
4. Coyotes – The Coyotes already have their franchise defenseman in Oliver Ekman-Larsson. They are a young team and a couple years away.
“I look at our team right now, we have high hopes for Max Domi, Anthony Duclair and we have some of these other younger players coming — but they’re not even in the minors yet,” said Coyotes GM Don Maloney. “You’re maybe a year or two away from that.”
“It would be a game-changer if we were given the top pick,” Maloney said. “To say, next year, could we turn it around and be a contender? That might be a stretch.”
5. Sabres – They still have to figure out their goaltending situation.
“We’re not going to be contending right away,” Murray said. “But we have other pieces. I keep reading that ‘Buffalo thinks one player is going to put them over the top.’ It’s not one player. We made the trade with Winnipeg, we have Reinhart coming. We have those two young guys on the blue line … some of these young guys have not hit their peak yet. We also have our veterans. When we put better players around them, we’ll be more competitive.”
- James O’Brien of Pro Hockey Talk: Capitals Mike Green to the website Russian Machine Never Breaks:
“My heart is in Washington,” Green said. “It always will be until something else happens. My focus is here. My focus is winning a championship here and giving that to the fans. As an organization, that’s what we want as a team. I’m a part of that until the day I die or retire.”
The Capitals already have over $20 million committed to Matt Niskanen, Brooks Orpik, John Carlson, Karl Alzner and Dmitry Orlov.
- News 1130 Sports: Canucks Chris Tanev’s agent, Don Meehan, said there was “no update” with regards to contract talks.
