According to Pierre Lebrun, it appears the Florida Panthers are signing Anthony Duclair.
In 66 games with Ottawa last season, Duclair had 23 goals and 17 assists. He became a unrestricted free agent when the Senators declined to make him a $1.65 million qualifying offer.
UPDATE: The contract is 1 year, $1.7 million. He will have two restricted free agent seasons after this contract expires.
Joe Haggerty of Boston Hockey Now wonders if it might be time for the Bruins to move on from captain Zdeno Chara. He mentions the some of the Bruins off-season activity (re-signed Jacob Zboril and Kevan Miller, pursuing Oliver Ekman-Larsson) as evidence the Bruins might be looking towards a future without Chara.
Chara, 43, has been with the Bruins since signing with them as a free agent prior to the 2006-07 season.
Haggerty cites a report from Jimmy Murphy that the New York Rangers would have interest in Chara as a free agent.
Michael Russo reports that the Wild are close to signing Andrew Hammond.
Hammond, 32, has 56 NHL games under his belt, going 27-15-6 with a 2.31 GAA and a 0.923 SV%.
According to Elliotte Friedman, it appears that the Arizona Coyotes are to hire Cory Stillman as assistant coach.
Arizona announced in August that assistant coach John MacLean would not have his contract renewed.
According to TSN 1040’s Bob ‘the Moj’ Marjanovich, UFA defenseman Travis Hamonic has received interest from both the Vancouver Canucks and the Calgary Flames.
Hamonic, 30, played 50 games with the Flames last season and put up 3 goals and 9 assists.
In a recent piece in the Athletic, Sara Civian fielded a question about possible in-season trade targets for the Hurricanes to bolster their goaltending position.
She mentions Marc-Andre Fleury, who has loudly fallen behind Robin Lehner on the depth chart for Las Vegas, though the Knights might not want to move him until Lehner returns from his shoulder injury. Taking back James Reimer in a trade might alleviate that concern to some degree. Jesse Granger noted earlier this month that Fleury’s name has come up as the Knights try to clear salary cap space.
Civian also mentioned that she’s been “screaming” about Arizona’s Darcy Kuemper since September, whom she believes is underrated. Arizona reportedly is looking for a first round pick and an additional piece for Kuemper, who has two seasons remaining on his contract at a reasonable cap hit of $4.5 million.
According to the Fourth Period, the Bruins had expressed interest in Flames defenseman Noah Hanifin during the off-season.
Hanifin, 23, has four seasons left on his contract at a cap-hit of $4.95 million.
The Bruins lost key left defenseman Torey Krug to St. Louis in free agency. Hanifin would address the hole he left in the lineup.
The article mentions that Calgary is believed to have interest in Ondrej Kase, whom Boston acquired from Anaheim prior to the 2020 trade deadline. Boston would presumably have to add to Kase to get Hanifin.
On TSN’s Insider Trading, Frank Seravalli says the Vegas Golden Knights have “doubled down” on their attempts to try to trade Max Pacioretty.
Vegas is currently sitting above the league’s $81.5 million salary cap, but they could potential have some savings by putting goaltender Robin Lehner on long-term injury reserve to start the season.
Pacioretty has 3 years left on his contract at a cap-hit of $7 million. He can list 10 teams to which he will not accept a trade.
Seravalli suggests that moving Pacioretty could free up Vegas to sign a UFA like Mike Hoffman or Eric Haula.