Anthony Sanfilippo of the Delaware County Daily Times: Simon Gagne has agreed to waive his no trade clause. The Flyers don’t have a deal in place for Gagne though. The Flyers would like to move Gagne to free up some cap space to re-sign Darroll Powe and Dan Carcillo, and take a run at a higher priced goalie. Marty Turco really wants to go to Philly. The LA Kings could be interested in Gagne. Rumors are that it could involve several players, but is most likely to involve a player and draft picks. James van Riemsdyk name has also been mentioned.
Helene Elliott of the LA Times: LA Kings GM Dean Lombardi continues to work on “a number of different scenarios”. Ilya Kovalchuk is of course the big one, but he’s rumored to be getting a 10 year, $100 million offer from the Islanders, which may be too big for the Kings to match. The Isles are $9 million under salary for and are looking to build a new arena. There are also reports that the Kings may be interested in Gagne, though that would depend on if they land Kovalchuk.
Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun: Any Tomas Kaberle deal not likely to happen until next week due to the long weekend. Burke doesn’t expect much action on free agents this weekend as well. He won’t make a pitch for Kovalchuk ‘unless the bottom right out of the market’. Burke had agents for 2 ex-Leafs calling him.
Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun: The Anaheim Ducks are “done for a while” according to GM Bob Murray in regards to their talks with RFA Bobby Ryan. Ryan said he didn’t expect to make more money than Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, then he turned down a 5-year, $25 million deal.
Tarik El-Bashir of the Washington Post: The Washington Capitals may look to fill their 2nd-4th line centers with a player from within the organization. The leading candidates so far would be converted winger Tomas Fleischmann, and inexperienced Mathieu Perrault and Marcus Johansson.