BLH provides you with the latest NHL news, rumors, and speculation featuring Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zdeno Chara, Slater Koekkoek, Mat Barzal, Andreas Athanasiou, and more!
Evan Bouchard has been recalled from his loan in Sweden, now he’s got to make the Oilers or his future could be cloudy. Read about that here.
Read what TSN’s Craig Button had to say about Carter Savoie, Dylan Holloway, and the 2020 World Juniors right here!
At the 2010 World Juniors, Jordan Eberle was a hero but it was all for naught in the Gold Medal Final… Watch the epic 6-5 battle with Team USA in its entirety right here.
Oilers Insider Bob Stauffer dropped a massive hint regarding a new signing. Read about it here!
BLH has five pre-training camp questions regarding the Edmonton Oilers upcoming season. Read all about them here.
NHL Rumors and Speculation
- Gene Principe (Sportsnet): Oilers GM Ken Holland: “Conversations have ended but hopefully we can find a solution to keep Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. The deal has to work for both sides.”
BLH’s Thoughts: Keep Nuge Forever? If he wants…
Listen, no matter how much you love Nuge, you have to consider that he might want to move on. He’s newly wedded and he has an opportunity to cash in and choose where he wants to play out the rest of his career potentially. Given how good of a player he is, he’ll be one of the rare ones that gets a raise if he hits the open market.
Also, what if the team plans on bringing Taylor Hall back? Does RNH see the writing on the wall?
So that brings us to what the Oilers could get for him… Personally, I feel like they could use a goaltender and after that, it’s a toss-up between a top-6 winger and a top-3 defenceman.
All that said, the team is better with him and I feel he’s better with this team. But like I said above, keep Nuge forever, if he wants.
- Pierre LeBrun (The Athletic): There’ve been murmurs around the NHL over the past week that Tampa Bay Lightning GM Julien Brisbois had “something cooked” with a team but was waiting for the season to be made official.
BLH’s Thoughts: Is Tampa Bay going to have to move Tyler Johnson AND Alex Killorn? That is a big chunk of the club let alone the salary cap and they don’t really have much coming up through their system at the moment. Maybe the Volkov kid is ready? But he’s not going to replace Johnson or Killorn.
Would they LTIR Kucherov AND trade those two vets? That would be some serious cap room, eh? They could then go out and sign Mike Hoffman, Mikael Granlund, and pretty much anybody else if they didn’t take any salary back in the trades… Seems like a very unlikely scenario though.
- Fluto Shinzawa (The Athletic): Boston Bruins looking to see if something opens up on the trade market to improve the left side of their defence before re-signing Zdeno Chara.
BLH’s Thoughts: The best trade rumor I’ve heard is Ondrej Kase for Noah Hanifin, but I have no idea why the Flames would do that… The Golden Knights and Carolina Hurricanes have a glut of defenders available…
- Ken Holland (Edmonton Oilers): Gaetan Haas is set to miss the start of training camp. He was in close contact to someone with COVID in Switzerland. Hopes to have Ethan Bear signed before the weekend.
BLH’s Thoughts: So that’s what, a week of quarantine in Switzerland? Then he comes to Edmonton and does another week if he tests negative? Man… That is a lot of alone time… I feel for those who’ve had to go through that and I’m a pretty solitary guy as it is.
- Aaron Portzline (The Athletic): Columbus Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen will try to involve himself with teams who need to get under the salary cap or others who simply want to cut payroll.
BLH’s Thoughts: Nice! Now we’re rolling with the speculation. If the Blue Jackets are open for business, they should be able to recoup some of those assets they blew going for the Cup a couple of seasons ago.
- Elliotte Friedman (Sportsnet): If Nikita Kucherov has hip surgery, it will take a while to recover from. I think the St. Louis Blues has an interest in UFA Mike Hoffman and the Edmonton Oilers are looking at Slater Koekkoek and Ben Hutton.
BLH’s Thoughts: Koekkoek had a really good series against Edmonton in the play-ins. I can see why they’d have an interest in him. Hutton is an interesting case. I feel like teams haven’t been willing to take a chance on him unless it’s been at a bargain-basement price. I’d love to know why that is because I was under the impression that he was a really decent puck-mover. I’d take Koekkoek if it was my choice.
- Rick Dhaliwal (TSN): Some people are suggesting Mat Barzal’s new deal will be around 3x$7M. I’ve heard Montreal is in on Andreas Athanasiou and the Vancouver Canucks are not in on Mike Hoffman.
BLH’s Thoughts: We did hear yesterday that the Habs are looking to do some more, right? How do you think Athanasiou would do under Claude Julien? It took some time for Jonathan Drouin to get sorted and I feel like Athanasiou is a similar personality…
Is it just me or does anybody else think that AA would rip up the KHL on that big ice?
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