- Ansar Khan of MLive: (mailbag) Tyler Myers and Mike Green were among the players the Red Wings looked at acquiring this offseason. The Wings inquired about Ryan Kesler but they didn’t have the assets to acquire him or didn’t want to give up what it would take to trade for him. Anthony Mantha and Petr Mrazek are likely untouchable. It doesn’t make sense to trade someone like right-handed shooting defenseman Ryan Sproul. Gustav Nyquist is basically untouchable. If they were going to package Tomas Tatar, Tomas Jurco or Brendan Smith with a prospect or two for a ‘star’ player, it would depend on what player you would be getting back.Khan thinks the Wings would be better off having someone like Jurco in their top-six over taking a flyer on Dustin Penner. They could use some more size in their lineup, but it’s unlikely they will look at any more free agents.
Danny DeKeyser will probably re-sign before the start of training camp.
- Mike Chambers of the Denver Post: RFA Tyson Barrie remains unsigned by the Avalanche and Justin Schultz’s one-year, $3.675 million deal might change things a bit. Speculation was that Barrie could get a one- or two-year deal around $2.4 and $3.5 million per year. Barrie’s and Schultz’s numbers are similar.
Barrie: 106 GP 15-36-51 (30 PIM, plus-4)
Schultz: 122 GP 19-41-60 (24 PIM, minus-39)
- Derek van Diest of the Edmonton Sun: (a continuation from some quotes we used in yesterday’s post) Oilers GM Craig MacTavish on Friday about their second line center spot.
“There is no deal there right now, because like us, everybody else is very optimistic,” MacTavish said. “We’re all undefeated in July and August, but things change once the fur flies in October. We’re hopeful with the group that we have we’re going to be competitive.”
“At this point we have one need, there’ll probably be others that will reveal themselves over the course of time,” he said. “Right now we have one and we’ll see if the players coming in are good enough to fill that void.”