Today’s news and speculation from the NHL includes notes on if the Oilers are planning on qualifying RFA d-man Matthew Benning, what the Ottawa Senators plan on doing with some of their extra draft picks, the future of Morgan Rielly and the Toronto Maple Leafs possibly being tied to Alex Pietrangelo, Braden Holtby, Ilya Kovalchuk, and much more!
Distinct possibility that we see Jesse Puljujarvi return to @EdmontonOilers on a short term deal.
New GM/HC since Puljujarvi was last in Edm.
Puljujarvi’s agency has merged with Connor McDavid’s agency.
Oilers would have 6 RW’s.
Could result in a RW belng moved for a LW.— Bob Stauffer (@Bob_Stauffer) September 24, 2020
The News and Rumors
- Jordan Hall (NBC): Tyler Pitlick is the most likely pending UFA to re-sign with the Flyers this off-season. A deal in the $2M to $2.2M AAV range would be good for both sides.
BLH’s Thoughts: Coming off of a great playoff performance, this is deserved. You do have to wonder though, at what point will Morgan Frost or Isaac Ratcliffe be joining the Flyers full-time? Pitlick could be blocking their roads to the NHL.
- Jeremy Rutherford (The Athletic): Don’t expect the Blues to buy out Alex Steen. It would only save them $2.4M on the cap and the GM there views him as instrumental to the club’s culture.
- Elliotte Friedman (Sportsnet): On the Lightning’s cap issues: “Some of the players in Tampa aren’t willing to waive their no-trade clauses, which makes things more difficult.”
BLH’s Thoughts: This is the kind of scenario that sees a player like Anthony Cirelli or Mikhail Sergachev moved out for futures. Any team with multiple draft picks in the first two rounds of this year’s draft would be good to see what it would take to get one of those players out of Tampa. Realistically though, I bet they find homes for Alex Killorn (M-NTC) and possibly Cedric Paquette as well as Blake Coleman.
Tampa has to be thinking of some other players too. Carter Verhaege, Alexander Volkov, Mathieu Joseph, and Eric Cernak are all RFAs too and looking to break into Tampa’s lineup. Will they all be qualified? If not, there’s some talent there for the Oilers to pick from…
- More Friedman: The Montreal Canadiens looked at Antti Raanta and Devan Dubnyk before acquiring Jake Allen from the St. Louis Blues.
- Michael Russo (The Athletic): Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin says they will not be buying out Victor Rask. Says he’s been treated unfairly and scored big goals when he’s played.
BLH’s Thoughts: Rask needs to score more goals, not just big ones, to justify that contract he’s on.
- David Pagnotta (The Fourth Period): Neither the Penguins nor the Panthers are done tinkering with their rosters. More moves are coming down the pipe, it’s just a matter of time.
BLH’s Thoughts: Pittsburgh kinda screwed themselves a bit adding a 6th left-handed dman to their roster… They may need to lose a couple of these trades coming up to re-balance things. A perfect opportunity for some GMs.
- Jesse Granger (The Athletic): MA Fleury: “I want to stay in Vegas. I don’t know what the future holds, but I’ve loved every moment… I want to end my career here.”
BLH’s Thoughts: Fleury is such a team guy. Right to the end he puts the club ahead of himself. Even when he’s been royally screwed over by the coach. Personally, I’d like to see him end his career in Edmonton, but that’s just me 😉
- Frank Seravalli (TSN): The Senators need to spend $18M+ to get to the salary cap floor. They plan to use their 2nd round picks to acquire players from teams in cap trouble.
BLH’s Thoughts: Oh you know Ken Holland has been on the phone to Dorion every week since before the trade deadline trying to get one or two of those 2nd rounders. I still think Edmonton should offer the 14th overall to Ottawa for the 28th, 33rd, and 60th picks. Would Kris Russell waive his no-trade to go to the Sens?
- Tarik El-Bashir (The Athletic): The Capitals are actively pursuing an extension for pending UFA Brenden Dillon. Radko Gudas and Ilya Kovalchuk will hit the free agent market.
BLH’s Thoughts: The Capitals are going to be an interesting team to watch over the off-season. Their defense is going through a bit of a transition at the moment. Take away John Carlson and what are you left with? Dmitri Orlov and a handful of 3rd-pair defensemen. Dillon would be a good player to keep around, but could they do better? With Connor McMichael graduating to the pros, maybe it’s time to move on from a guy like Lars Eller in an attempt to bring in said better blueliners…
- Renaud Lavoie (TVA Sports): Alex Pietrangelo is believed to want to “go home” to Toronto this off-season in free agency.
BLH’s Thoughts: All the Ontario boys want to go back to Toronto, right? Aside from that are the Maple Leafs planning on giving five players $50M/yr and the other 17 or 18 a share of the remaining $30M? That doesn’t work out either because $10M of that $30M belongs to Muzzin and Rielly. So it’s more like $20M to pay for 15 players.
- Josh Yohe (The Athletic): Penguins goalie Matt Murray is expected to fetch a 2nd round pick and a prospect.
BLH’s Thoughts: Sounds about right. If Edmonton had a 2nd rounder (wink wink) they’d be in on this I reckon.
- Kevin McGran (Toronto Star): The Maple Leafs could potentially move defender Morgan Rielly to clear cap space to pursue d-man Alex Pietrangelo.
BLH’s Thoughts: Oh my… Silly season is really upon us. I mean, they could move Rielly to make room for Petro but man… As good as Pietrangelo is, is moving Rielly to bring him in a great long-term strategy? Morgan Rielly is really f*cking good… Maybe that’s a sign-and-trade scenario though… Who knows?!
- Rick Dhaliwal (TSN): The Canucks could potentially go after goalie Braden Holtby if Jacob Markstrom departs in free agency.
BLH’s Thoughts: I dunno… I’m not going to say it couldn’t happen but wouldn’t the Canucks be better off by signing a guy like Thomas Greiss or Anton Khudobin to team up with Thatcher Demko and using the saved funds to upgrade their defense?
- Dan Kingerski (Pittsburgh Hockey NOW): Penguins blueliner Marcus Pettersson could be a surprise trade candidate due to the abundance of left-shot d-men in Pittsburgh.
BLH’s Thoughts: I’d be pretty surprised if it was Pettersson that the Pens decided to move on from. He was one of their better defenders this year. Of their left-handed defenders, Brian Dumoulin is a more likely candidate to be traded in my opinion.
- TSN 1200: The Ottawa Senators are interested in bringing in Capitals forward Ilya Kovalchuk as a veteran presence this off-season.
BLH’s Thoughts: I like this idea behind this but I don’t believe for one second that the penny pinching Senators would be able to lure a player like Kovalchuk to its club. This is a player that’s looking to win a Stanley Cup not be a mentor for a rebuilding team.
- Craig Custance (The Athletic): The Carolina Hurricanes are getting numerous calls on d-man Brady Skjei and may move him this off-season.
BLH’s Thoughts: Of all the teams that probably have the assets to acquire a Patrik Laine or a Max Domi, it’s the Hurricanes. Skjei is a very solid 2nd pair defender that would be a great addition to any team looking for an upgrade on defense.
The Oilers Speculation
We’ve got a couple of real nice topics for you to discuss at the proverbial water coolers today.
Let’s start with Jesse Puljujarvi.
I speculated last week that Pulju would be coming back to the Oilers on a one year deal worth between $1.05M and $1.45M and that was more or less confirmed by Bob Stauffer on his radio show today.
Furthermore, there are rumblings that with JP coming back into the fold and Joakim Nygard breaking his hand again over in Sweden, that the Oilers will be looking to move one of their (potentially) six right-wings for a left-wing.
We’ve talked about a previously-discussed Alex Chiasson to Boston for Anders Bjork rumor but I want to throw out the idea of Edmonton moving Zack Kassian instead.
Kassian makes more money ($3.2M over the course of the deal but $2.5M for the next two seasons) and functionally, is the better player. To add to that, Chiasson is important to the Oilers’ PP and is well-respected in the Oilers locker room.
Would it make sense to trade Kassian to a team like the LA Kings with their $16M of cap room?
We know that Kassian likes to go to California during the off-season and Todd McLellan really trusted him on the PK when he coached in Edmonton.
Circling back to Puljujarvi, if Ken Holland trades Kassian, Jesse is going to play in the top-six at some point with Connor McDavid. Presumably he’d switch on and off with Alex Chiasson and Josh Archibald if Kailer Yamamoto is playing with Leon Draisaitl and Patrick Russell is the extra man.
Good times!
On to Matthew Benning, and this could change at any time, but it sounds like the Oilers aren’t going to give him a qualifying offer.
There’s really not much more to say. The plan is to bring Evan Bouchard along slowly and not to rush him in. So, I don’t think that they’d let Benning walk because they’re giving the spot to Bouchard. Don’t get me wrong, third-pair on the right-side has his name on it, just not quite yet.
I’m thinking they may want to bring in another veteran, like they tried with Mike Green, to partner Caleb Jones but eventually the idea is the have Jones and Bouchard as a pair.
Lastly, keep an ear out for Ryan Getzlaf news. It won’t be this year because he makes over $8M a year, but it could be next summer that we hear he’s a target for the Oilers.
