On the Tampa Bay Lightning …
- Erik Erlendsson: Looking like the price tag for Nikita Kucherov just went up after Aleksander Barkov agreed to his six-year deal with a $5.9 million cap hit.
Scouting the Dallas Stars – Calgary Flames …
- Kristen Odland: Scouting the Stars – Flames last night: Jets, Sharks, Canadiens, Predators, Kings, Canucks, Hurricanes, Lightning and Penguins.
On the Vancouver Canucks …
- News 1130 Sports: Wouldn’t be a surprise if agent JP Barry talks to the Canucks about a contract for prospect Alex Biega while he’s in town for the prospects game.
On Escrow …
- Renaud Lavoie: Escrow started the season at 16% and will be going up to 18% due to the Canadian dollar.
On the Anaheim Ducks and Edmonton Oilers …
- Chris Nichols of Today’s Slapshot: Pierre LeBrun on TSN 1260 on Ducks and the Oilers potential interest in Sami Vatanen.
“Yeah, the price would be dear, but it’s not out of the question. Whether it’s Vatanen or Lindholm – both pretty good young defensemen with their whole career ahead of them – they’re RFA. To me, it’s almost as simple as the first of those two to sign, it’s like that maybe the next guy is the one to get dealt, potentially.
“I know the Ducks aren’t shopping them. But I also know the Ducks, I think, have let teams know that, ‘Once we get healthy here, we’ve got an abundance of defensemen.’
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“So they’ve got too many defensemen once they’re healthy. So you’re right, that’s where Anaheim could make a deal from a position of strength. Hardly any team in the league is too deep on defense. You almost never see it. So they would be in a rare position where they could do that. And maybe that’s where they try to help themselves and add some offense between now and the deadline, is by dealing one of their D away.
“That is potentially possibly for sure. And if you’re Peter Chiarelli, for sure you’ve got to be looking into that because that’s got to be a priority for Edmonton, from between now and training camp next fall.”