- Damien Cox of Sportsnet: Can look the Jets-Sabres trade and basically say that the Jets got Evander Kane for Drew Stafford (rental), Joel Armia, Brendan Lemieux and a first round pick – two good prospects and a bottom-third first rounder. Cox thinks that Phil Kessel should bring back more in a trade, except that he has a $8 million cap hit for the next seven years and is owed $28 million in the next three years. Not many teams can handle that, so the Maple Leafs may be forced to retain some salary. The Leafs may be better served to wait until after the season to get as many teams involved as possible. If a team approached the Leafs before the deadline offering two good prospects and a first, the Leafs would be listening.
- Luke DeCock of the Raleigh News & Observer: The Hurricanes and Andrej Sekera haven’t been able to find a common ground on an extension and he’ll be one of the more sought-after rentals at the trade deadline. Eight teams were scouting the Hurricanes yesterday, with five of them being from a top 10 team. Jiri Tlusty won’t bring back as much as Sekera, but he would be a nice add for someone.
- Ted Kulfan: Red Wings GM Ken Holland with meet with Mike Babcock and goalie coach Jim Bedard today to decide what to do with Petr Mrazek.
- Nichols on Hockey: Canucks GM Jim Benning on TSN 1040 on how close they were on an Evander Kane deal.
“We were talking to Winnipeg, I was talking to Chevy. But when I was talking to him, it was more of a stand-alone. It was just Evander Kane. When it got to the point where there was multiple players involved, we weren’t in any sort of deal like that.”
On their three goalie situation.
“Yeah, that’s something that we can go into the draft. We can resolve that at the draft. The problem in-season is usually everybody is happy with the goalies they have. Going into the draft they start thinking about who their goalies are going to be next year. So there might be more of a market for goalies at the draft than there is in-season.”
On Chris Tanev contract talks.
“Yeah, we started the negotiation with him. He’s in a little different boat because he’s a restricted free agent. Like you said, he’s played real well for us this year and we want to get – he’s part of our core group moving forward. So we want to get him done. We started negotiation with his representative and I would say it’s gone good so far. We’ll keep down that path and hopefully we’ll get something done here sooner rather than later.”
