- Mark Emmons of the San Jose Mercury News: Ryane Clowe did not practice yesterday due to his ‘upper-body injury’ but coach Todd McLellan is hopeful that he can play tonight. He’ll skate this morning, and if he can play, he’ll be in the lineup.
- Pierre LeBrun via twitter: Milan Hejduk re-signed with the Avalanche for 1 year and $2.6 million. He can reach $3 million with performance bonuses.
- Josh Cooper of the Tennessean: Predators fans will sleep better now,
“It’s going to get done,” Weber said Wednesday as players packed up to depart for the offseason. “Obviously, this is a place I love to play, and you saw how close we were this year to getting to the conference finals, and possibly further. This is a place I want to be, and it’s going to be a matter of time before something gets done.”
“They definitely want to wrap it up before July 1, and we would also, if all things were equal,” Poile said during a season-ending press conference. “Will we be able to sign Shea Weber? The answer is yes.”
The pending RFA is coming off a 3 year, $13.5 million deal. Weber would like the Preds to add some offense, but the free agent market isn’t strong. Bringing Alex Radulov could be option, GM David Poile still talks with Radulov’s agent, but it’s up to the him to he wants to come back.
Said Poile: “What Paul said to him today was very simply, ‘You made lots of money. Is money an issue? You’re the leading scorer in the league, your team won a championship. You think you’re one of the best players in the world. Are you going to come over to the best league and show that? Or are you going to stay in a secondary league.’ ”
- Frank Seravalli of the Philadelphia Daily News: Flyers GM Paul holmgren says that Chris Pronger will have back surgery today on his herniated disc. His surgery has a 95% success rate, and is similar to what Michael Leighton underwent last October. Mike Richards had his wrist surgery and has 4 weeks of rehab. Blair Betts’ rehab for his left pinky finger is 4 weeks as well. Leighton had successful surgery repairing a torn labrum. Andrej Meszaros had surgery to repair torn cartilage and a torn ligament in his wrist.
- Sam Carchidi of the Philadelphia Inquirer: Flyers chairman Ed Snider made it clear yesterday that the Flyers goaltending carousel will stop.
“So either one of the goalies we have has to step up in training camp, or we have to make improvements to make sure it happens. But we are never going to go through the goalie issues we’ve gone through in the last couple of years.”
The Flyers are close to the cap so adding a free agent goalie could be difficult but Snider added,
“If we trade or go for a goalie , we’ll make it work,” he said. “We can make anything work, even with the cap.” Snider did say that Sergei Bobrovsky is the “goalie of the future.”
- Jeff Klein of hte NY Times: August 1st marks the day that Nassau County residents will vote to approve or reject a $400 million bond issue to build a new arena. $350 million would go towards the arena and $50 million towards a minor league baseball stadium.
- Katie Carrera of the Washington Post: Free agent Jason Arnott has said he’d like to remain in Capitals, but will they want to re-sign him? 3 of the last 4 seasons the Capitals have brought in veteran leadership at the trade deadline, but it’s possible the team thinks their younger players should step up.