But don’t forget the Columbus Blue Jackets in all this. They’re 10-11 deep in NHL blueliners and outside of Seth Jones and Zach Werenski, who aren’t going anywhere, it’s anyone’s guess on the remaining lot. There’s Ryan Murray, David Savard, Markus Nutivaara, Scott Harrington, Dean Kukan, Adam Clendening, Vladislav Gavrikov, Gabriel Carlsson and the sense is Andrew Peeke isn’t that far off from making the jump. One of those D could certainly move within the next few weeks. Of that lot, I would think the veterans Murray and Savard would interest most depending on a team’s need on the left (Murray) or right (Savard) side.
One source suggested Thursday that the Florida Panthers covet a shutdown, left-side D. It doesn’t sound like something that has any urgency to it but it is an organizational wish list item for this season. The Panthers have the smooth-skating Keith Yandle and Mike Matheson on the left side but would like to also add a more stay-at-home, shutdown type on the left.
The Winnipeg Jets are a team to watch, already dramatically depleted on the blueline by the offseason losses of Jacob Trouba, Tyler Myers and Ben Chiarot and now the news, first reported by my TSN colleague Bob McKenzie, that Dustin Byfuglien
is taking time to reflect on his playing future (wish that guy all the best, one of my favorite players to watch and deal with over the years).
As I
tweeted in the aftermath of that, it would make sense that the Jets would be monitoring the Faulk and Ristolainen situations as a fallback in case Byfuglien retires, but there’s also Columbus’ blueline depth that the Jets could reach into if they saw fit.
Speaking of the Jackets …
Colleague Aaron Portzline reminded us earlier this week that
Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen has lots of cap space and is believed to be closely monitoring the RFA situation.
Some wonder if Kekalainen would be tempted to offer sheet his countryman Mikko Rantanen but I highly doubt he would. Hey, I’ve been wrong many times, but I think the Jackets GM would look at the massive cap space in Colorado and see that as a losing proposition, the Avs would match in a heartbeat.
Colorado made a long-term offer to Rantanen’s camp earlier this month but since then, not a whole lot of movement. The Avs aren’t going to pay Mitch Marner money even if agent Mike Liut can make a decent argument that his client Rantanen deserves to be in that conversation.
But offer sheeting Colorado makes zero sense. There’s a reason the Avs kept their cap space open this offseason. This was it.
If you’re going to prey on a cap-challenged team, it’s Tampa Bay, Calgary or Winnipeg.
The Jets still haven’t re-signed wingers Patrick Laine or Kyle Connor and certainly, they’re in a more precarious cap situation than Colorado. I think Connor is the first to sign and then we’ll see what happens with Laine, who has always seemed destined for a bridge deal but so far finding the right AAV for that shorter deal has been elusive.
While in Tampa, in his first true test as Lightning GM, Julien BriseBois seems to be holding pretty firm with unsigned RFA center Brayden Point. A source told me on Thursday morning that the two sides remain far apart. Ditto on the Matthew Tkachuk front, which was status quo as of Wednesday.
