- Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times: Steven Stamkos has a year left on his deal, and is confident a contract extension will get done.
“A lot of people forget I still have another year left on my deal, it’s not like I’m leaving,” Stamkos said. “I’m not going anywhere. That stuff is going to take care of itself. It’s a bigger story now that we went so deep and that everyone is expecting news right away. We literally just finished the toughest hockey we’ve played in our careers. Wer’e going to relax a little bit. I’m going to go home this week, talk to who I need to talk to and go from there.
“I’m not losing any sleep over it.”
- Ken Wiebe of the Winnipeg Sun: Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff has spoken with all of the agents for their remaining eight UFAs and is hopeful that they can bring some of them back next year.
“It’s tough to say. We’ll continue the dialogue and see if we can come up with a deal they feel is right for them and they feel is right for us, both in the short term and the long term,” said Cheveldayoff. “We’re working hard at it. July 1 is an interesting time for players. It’s inevitable that we will not be able to bring all of them back. Would we like to bring some of them back? Certainly we’ve been open about that but it’s a period of time the players have earned the right to go to and we’ll see how it plays out.
“The temptation to sign before the interview period is difficult. Players and agents, with the interview period there, generally want to kick the tires or have the tires kicked, so to speak to see what other teams may be saying.”
Cheveldayoff on talks with the agents for Dustin Byfuglien and Andrew Ladd.
“Like everything, there’s lots of moving parts that come into play,” said Cheveldayoff. “But we’ve had good conversations with the agents for both players.”
Cheveldayoff on Alex Burmistrov.
“He does want to come back to the NHL and that’s pretty clear. We’ll see how the talks progress, I don’t think anything is out of the realm of possibility,” said Cheveldayoff, noting that current head coach Paul Maurice had a discussion with Burmistrov at the 2014 men’s world championship. “We still own his rights and when he went to the KHL, we viewed it as the continued development of a young player. He’s still a young player and we’ll see what opportunities present themselves as we have good dialogue. The situation and the circumstances from two years ago are dramatically different from what they are today. (Burmistrov) is two years older and two years more mature and from our standpoint, we are two years more mature as a franchise.”