- David Pagnotta: The Sabres and Ryan O’Reilly are still working on finalizing a seven-year contract extension. Not done yet.
- Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post Dispatch: Blues T.J. Oshie, Patrik Berglund and David Backes have been in the rumor mill for awhile now, but defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk is a new name that has emerged. The Blues may be gauging interest in the blueliner, and sources saying the Oilers, Blue Jackets and Flyers could be interested teams.Shattenkirk’s agent said the reports aren’t true.
Shattenkirk has two years left on his deal at a $4.25 million cap hit. The Blues have Alex Pietrangelo looked up until 2019-20 at $6.5 million and Jay Bouwmeester until 2018-19 at $5.4 million. The Blues don’t have a desire to trade Pietrangelo and the 31-year old Bouwmeester’s value dropped after last season.
A source said that keeping Shattenkirk and his $4.25 million cap hit for one more season makes more sense. He doesn’t have a no-trade or no-movement clause. No deal appears imminent.
- Tim Panaccio of CSN Philly: Flyers GM Ron Hextall has about $4.1 million to fill out his roster.
“We didn’t have the flexibility to go after a big guy,” Hextall said. “Quite frankly, I hope most years are like this year when you’re looking for one piece or two pieces.
“I don’t like going into free agency needing three or four bodies and you kind of end up blowing your brains out there. We feel like we got a real good fit for our team and we like our team here.”
Hextall’s been unable to move the contracts of Vincent Lecavalier ($4.5 million), Luke Schenn ($3.6 million) and Andrew MacDonald ($5 million) so far. He basically can’t do anything significant unless they are able to move some salary.
“We can’t go out and spend a whole bunch of money or we’re back in the situation we’re in now,” Hextall said. “We don’t want to be over the cap. We’re not gonna sign someone to put us over. We’re going to be patient here.”
Hextall would like to clear some salary and space from his blueline.
“Ideally, we’d like to clear a little bit of space there, but we’ll see,” he said. “We’re under the cap, albeit slightly, when we plug Del Zotto in, you want some space to call players up, too.
“We’re close, we’d like to clear a little bit more, but you’ve got to have a partner there. We’ll see as we move along here.”