Avs not ruling out J.T. Compher coming back
Pierre LeBrun: (after trading for Ryan Johansen) The Colorado Avalanche haven’t closed the door on re-signing forward J.T. Compher. The deal would have to make sense for them after Compher’s career year.
Jonathan Toews will take his time deciding his future
Mario Tirabassi: Frank Seravalli reported that Pat Brisson, the agent for Jonathan Toews, said not to expect Toews to sign on July 1st. He’ll be taking his time deciding whether he wants to play next season or not.
The Penguins have some salary cap space but holes to fill
Seth Rorabaugh of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: The Pittsburgh Penguins have $20 million in projected salary cap space but some holes to fill. Penguins president of hockey operations and acting GM Kyle Dubas.
“The roster, it has a lot of experience. But there’s lots of cap space. Without depleting where we’re going in the future, how are we going to best utilize the opportunity we have in terms of cap space — with other teams kind of crunched — to best support this group and have it move ahead?
“And so, you know, it’s starting to kind of work its way towards a conclusion here as we get towards the draft. But until you actually execute on those moves, you always have that doubt that it’s not going to go perfectly according to plan.”
The Penguins have pending UFAs Tristan Jarry, Jason Zucker and Brian Dumoulin. Dubas said that they’ve had varying degrees of contract talks and they are trying to figure out their market. He expects to have a decision by Wednesday or Thursday.
“So that will allow us to plan going into Friday, Saturday (to open free agency) and allow them to kind of set their course. If it’s going to be here, that’s great. If it’s going to be moving on, we know we’re going have the cap space and be able to roll along. But I would say that the dance is ongoing right now with all them.”
Dubas added to not expect them to make any big splashes in free agents – no long-term, big expensive deals.
Other pending UFAs include Josh Archibald, Nick Bonino, Drake Caggiula, Danton Heinen, Dmitry Kulikov, and Dustin Tokarski.
Dubas acknowledges they’ll need depth to their bottom six and PK help.
