On the Toronto Maple Leafs …
- Luke Fox of Sportnet: Elliott Friedman on Sportnet 590 on teams calling the Maple Leafs about winger James van Riemsdyk.
“Van Riemsdyk, I think other teams would love to get their hands on him.,” Friedman said. “I’ve had a couple of teams tell me that they’ve asked and been told he’s not available. So the price is very high for him.”
van Riemsdyk carries a $4.25 million cap hit through 2017-18, so there is no rush for the Leafs to trade him. The Leafs had shopped Tyler Bozak last year, but he’s improved his stock this year.
“The hardest thing to find in this league is centres,” Friedman said. “If you trade him, you’re going to be looking for him.”
On the Philadelphia Flyers …
- Sam Carchidi of the Philadelphia Inquirer: Flyers GM Ron Hextall now has about $4.1 million in salary cap space leading up to the trade deadline, and he’s not ruling out using some of it on a forward.
“If we can improve our team in any way without mortgaging the future, we’ll look at it,” Hextall said Thursday. “I mean, if young players can make us better, of course we’ll look at it.”
He could be looking at Jonathan Drouin, but is not allowed to talk about other team’s players. Hextall isn’t interested in trading any of their top defensive prospects, but added:
“My job is to look at everything that’s out there, look at the whole landscape, and to the best of my ability, make our team better. So you can never say never with everything, but we’re not going to deal our young players for middle-aged or older players.”
On the Vancouver Canucks …
- Jason Botchford of the Vancouver Province: The Canucks will have some decisions to make regarding their pending UFA winger Radim Vrbata. Do the Canucks trade their second leading goal scorer? Vrbata and Chris Higgins have a limited no-trade clause and can pick eight teams that they would accept a trade to. Seven teams were interested in Vrbata when he was a free agent a couple years ago – including the Canadiens and Bruins.