Rumors On the Edmonton Oilers …
- Pierre LeBrun of ESPN: GM Peter Chiarelli has basically been looking for a top-end defenseman since the day he took the job in April. Travis Hamonic would be a perfect fit the Oilers, but Islanders GM Garth Snow hasn’t liked what Chiarelli has been offering.
- Chiarelli at some point at before the trade deadline needs to considering trading Jordan Eberle or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Guessing that Eberle is moved over Nugent-Hopkins .
Rumors On the Carolina Hurricanes …
- Pierre LeBrun of ESPN: Eric Staal’s agent, Rick Curran, is hoping to meet with Hurricanes GM in the next few weeks.
“I have not had conversations with Rick to this point,” Francis said. “I imagine we’ll sit down here at some point moving forward and go through the process. I’ve got a lot of guys whose contracts are up at the end of the year. So we’ll go through the process and try and work on something. But it’s not something that I’ll deal with through the media. They will be conversations I’ll have with Rick and Eric and we’ll go from there.”
Unless Staal will re-sign for a discounted price, the Hurricanes have to trade him for some assets. Staal does control that situation with the no-movement clause.
- Dan Rosen of NHL.com: Eric Staal has said that he won’t utilize is veto power of the no-movement clause if he feels that the Hurricanes don’t want him any longer. He hopes that he doesn’t have to consider it.
“I’ve been here my whole career and I’ve expressed interest to stay,” Staal said. “But if they want to go in a different direction then, hey man, that’s life, and you move forward and you go from there. But you have to come to an agreement and we haven’t even discussed anything like that yet.
“We haven’t really talked about anything, to be honest.”
Staal hopes upcoming talks go well.
“We’ve got a young group here that’s got some players that are wanting to take steps forward and continue to get better,” Staal said. “I think I can be a good part of that as we move forward. Whether they want that, I don’t know. We’ll see.”