- Craig Custance of ESPN: Capitals GM Brian MacLellan earlier this week on the trade market.
“Just a little bit,” he said. “I think the 10-game mark is where teams start checking in. You have a better feel for where teams are at. I think it’s just starting to pick up right now.”
“It’s hard to find a partner at this point in time,” said another GM. “Unless there’s a big hockey trade, money for money or just a minor deal, I don’t see there being anything.”
The asking price for Chris Stewart is a prospect and a pick. Source saying the Sabres are willing to move Drew Stafford.
If the Coyotes struggle, pending UFA Antoine Vermette could get them a nice return.
- Joe Haggerty of CSNNE: The Bruins are 5-1 without the injured Zdeno Chara. Haggerty wonders if management has started to think that life without Chara may not be so bad someday,
“one has to wonder if the cold-blooded (in a good way) B’s front office might start wondering what kind of value Chara would have in the trade market.”
Haggerty notes that moving the near $7 million cap hit could make some contract decisions easier (Dougie Hamilton, Carl Soderberg, Torey Krug, Reilly Smith, etc). It could bring in a scoring right winger, a No. 3 defenseman or a bunch of future assets. Could land them Jordan Eberle. It is more than likely that they wouldn’t trade Chara.
- Jeremy Rutherford: The Blues are doing more work with David Backes playing on the right wing during practice.
- Nichols on Hockey: Bob McKenzie on TSN 1260 on the Oilers.
“And I know obviously the coach comes under the gun in situations like that, especially if you continue to lose, but I’ve got to believe – and I could be wrong on this – but I’ve got to believe that there’ll be a significant trade for the Oilers before there would be a coaching change.”
Elliotte Friedman on Sportsnet 960.
“Trade stuff I’m not hearing so much this week. I’ll probably do a lot more of my calls tomorrow.”
Elliotte Friedman on 630 CHED on Jeff Petry and Lars Eller.
“You know my feelings, Bob… Among the players I think who are most likely to get dealt this year is Jeff Petry. I think that’s just a matter of when, not if. Like, I can’t guarantee it’s going to happen in the next two or three weeks, but I think it’s going to happen. So I would put him on my list just because of that. But I’m not saying it’s going to happen in the next two or three weeks. It’s just on my list. I think it’s going to happen at some point.”
“One of the reasons I wrote it was because they were talking about making Galchenyuk a centre and who knows if that makes Eller expendable. Well, the day I wrote it I got a call from somebody who said that they had looked into Eller and they had been told they were probably going to be keeping him because they weren’t ready to make Galchenyuk a full-time centre. I checked it again and it looks like he’s going to play the wing this year.”
Pierre LeBrun on TSN 1290 on the Jets, Dustin Byfuglien, Paul Stastny and Jason Spezza.
“To your point about Kevin Cheveldayoff’s patience, I mean, I think it’s bang-on. I remember when the Jets started 1-4, talking to a GM from another team who said he was licking his lips because he was waiting for maybe another week or two if the Jets kept losing to try and zone in and try and get Byfuglien out of Winnipeg. I mean, there were guys – vultures – circling and, of course, it didn’t get there. The Jets turned around their season after that.”
“But it’s not like Cheveldayoff didn’t try to do bigger things. I mean, listen, we all reported this. I did. I was in Philly at the draft, like you were. I mean, they had an audience with Paul Stastny’s agent. They made an aggressive pitch for Paul Stastny. The Jets weren’t in the ballpark in terms of the shortlist for Paul. Paul wanted to go to either St. Louis, where he grew up, or stay in Colorado. So that was a no-go for Winnipeg.
“They wondered about Jason Spezza. Well, guess what? Spezza wanted to get out of Canada. So that takes care of Winnipeg.