BLH provides you with the latest NHL news, rumors, and speculation featuring Jack Eichel (BUF), Devan Dubnyk (SJ), Bruce Boudreau, and more!
TSN1260’s Jason Gregor is pissed! Check out this rant on the Oilers here!
BLH has some ideas for the Oilers lineup card. Check those out here!
NEW: Keith Jones and Patrick Sharp think the Calgary Flames have a better chance at the playoffs this year than the Oilers. Read about that here.
Is Leon Draisaitl’s excellent two-way presence just a mirage? One Edmonton pundit says they may very well be, BLH says not so fast. Read about it here.
NHL Rumors and Speculation
COLORADO HOCKEY NOW: In a recent mailbag segment, Adrian Dater was asked about the Avalanche’s backup goaltending. With Pavel Francouz week-to-week with a lower-body injury, they’re making do with Hunter Miska and Adam Werner backing up starter Philipp Grubauer. Dater wonders if San Jose Sharks goalie Devan Dubnyk might be available if GM Joe Sakic decides to shop for help between the pipes if Francouz remains on LTIR.
Dater also believes the Avalanche could use a little more muscle, pointing out that they were pushed around during last year’s series against the Dallas Stars. (Via Spector’s Hockey)
BLH’s Thoughts: This is the second time in a month that I’ve heard Devan Dubnyk’s name thrown out there as a possible trade acquisition. Reid Wilkins (630CHED) had suggested Dubnyk as someone the Edmonton Oilers could look at but that was before the return of Mike Smith, so I’m not sure if Wilkins still believes the former Oilers netminder would be a realistic option in Edmonton.
Sportsnet: EBUG David Ayres may be singing karaoke in a car with James Corden as the British talk show host, according to Ayres, contacted him after his win against the Toronto Maple Leafs last season to talk about making a movie with Disney!
- “He let me know he had a production company. No pressure: ‘If you ever want a movie, let me know.’ […] We listened to 12 pitches from all the different people. I still went back to James Corden to talk to him three times. He wanted me to be in the movie: ‘You’d be a producer and be part of it from start to finish, with the writing and everything.’ That’s kinda cool, him wanting me to tell the story and put a little spin on it. I guess his neighbour was a guy who works high up in Disney, and they went for a walk one night. That’s how the whole Disney thing came about. So, we’ll see what happens. A little slow now with COVID, but once we get the ball rolling, it’ll be fine. Once we start writing it, I think they’ll go two years from there.”
BLH’s Thoughts: UGH! Sounds perfectly Disney, doesn’t it? I mean, great for Ayres. I’m really happy for him. That experience has more or less turn his life upside down, but as for another hockey movie… I would just like someone to come out and do one right and for an adult audience. I think Jay Baruchel had a unique opportunity with GOON, but kinda f*cked it up by making the fights way over the top. I’m not asking for another Slap Shot, but you know, Youngblood is a cult favorite for a reason. Damn the Philadelphia Flyers for taking that Rob Zombie Broadstreet Bullies production away from us…
The Athletic: Former NHL coach Bruce Boudreau is itching to get back into the coach’s seat and he told Ryan S. Clark that he’d be extremely interested in the Seattle Kraken’s vacancy.
- “The thing about that job is it would be great to start with a team that is starting fresh and to be the builder of something. I think that is a real exciting thing… It is not like an expansion team in 1967. You knew then you were not going to be very good or have the dregs of every team. The way they have gone about it now, Seattle is going to start off with a pretty good team. Who knows if the call will ever come? I don’t want to get the call and say I am not ready and I don’t know what I would do and I don’t want to feel that way. This is the only thing I have ever known my whole life… If someone offers you a job, it is an amazing thing.”
BLH’s Thoughts:The push is on to get Boudreau back in the NHL. He was on Oilers Now (630CHED) yesterday and I’d be shocked if he didn’t make more appearances on more sports talk shows.
I dig Boudreau, he’s got a great personality and he’s worked himself from the bottom of pro hockey right to the top. He has earned championships at the ECHL and AHL levels, and has been in the NHL for more than ten years. He has consistently coached teams to great results in the standings for most, if not all, of his career. He’d be a fantastic option for the Kraken.
NBC Sports: Adam Gretz believes that the Buffalo Sabres might need a rebuild to correct the mistakes made it the club’s previous rebuild and that might include trading franchise superstar Jack Eichel.
- “If we are being realistic here there are only two reasons that a team would ever trade a player like Eichel. An elite forward still in their prime years and still under contract long-term. You do not get players like that very often, and when you do you want to build around them as much as possible. But if you do trade them it is either because the player demands a trade and refuses to play for you (which does not seem to have happened here — yet), or because you as an organization are completely giving up and ready to start over.”
- “It is just such a unique situation because the Sabres ended up getting the most important piece of any successful rebuild — a true cornerstone player that is among the league’s best players. They have just so badly bungled the rebuild around him that it has rendered his value almost entirely useless.”
BLH’s Thoughts: That part of the quote where Gretz says Eichel’s value has basically tanked thanks to the terrible work from previous GMs makes some sense and it could be why pundits like Elliotte Friedman are saying that players such as Quinton Byfield (LA), Trevor Zegras (ANA), Alex Lafreniere (NYR), and Kaapo Kakko (NYR) could be off the table.
For me, Eichel just needs to get out of Buffalo. We were on the brink of seeing how good he was last season and then COVID hit and then this season the team has just been awful. It’d be fun to see him to back to Boston, but I don’t think they’d be willing to part with Brad Marchand or David Pastrnak to bring him in. What about Montreal? If you were the Sabres would you take a package that includes Phil Danault, Cole Caufield, Kaiden Guhle, a first rounder, and a contract to offset the money a little?
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