NHL Rumors: Maple Leafs in no rush to make moves, Predators to be sellers at the deadline, and Jonathan Quick with Penguins?
Anthony Scultore
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The Toronto Maple Leafs along with the Boston Bruins are emerging as the best teams in hockey just one month into the season. That still hasn’t kept the Leafs out of the NHL Rumors Mill.
NHL Rumors: Maple Leafs in no rush to make moves
Darren Dreger was recently on TSN 1050 and asked about the Maple Leafs. As injuries to key forwards mount with Wayne Simmonds and Joe Thornton out, there’s no panic in Toronto.
“Those players are difficult to replace and there is zero panic on that bench or around the organization, or zero pressure to add a piece,” Dreger said. “Now some are wondering about adding another forward, six-seven-eight forward. Well if that piece is available, that might be the piece that Dubas goes after.”
Dreger also noted that if a defenseman that fits becomes available that could be another route for the Leafs to take. Bottom line, Toronto believes they can win the Stanley Cup this year and will make appropriate moves to do so.
NHL Rumors: It’s time to rebuild the Nashville Predators
As Pekka Rinne’s brilliant career comes to a close, the 38 year-old net minder is showing some of that old form with a 2.56 GAA and a .911 SV% in 8 appearances. Still, the future belongs to 25 year-old Juuse Saros despite his early season struggles.
This all has many people wondering if it isn’t time for the Predators to start thinking about rebuilding for the future – for real this time. Adam Vingan of The Athletic began to opine that it would be wise.
“The Predators should be sellers unless they somehow engineer a run to the top of the division in the next several weeks,” he wrote. At the deadline the Preds should unload Erik Haula, Mikael Granlund, and Brad Richardson as rentals. All signed in the offseason to one year deals.
Then the key moves would be looking for takers on Matt Duchene and Ryan Johansen. More directly, Vingan feels Nashville needs to entice the Seattle Kraken to take one in the expansion draft.
Unloading rentals at the deadline for draft picks should be no issue for Nashville. The real key to a rebuild is to free up cap space and unload a veteran like Johansen somehow.
NHL Rumors: Jonathan Quick with the Penguins
Ron Hextall is the new GM of the Penguins but his ties to the L.A. Kings has Eric Duhatschek of The Athletic thinking a deal could be had there.
Quick is 35 and has two years after this one remaining on a contract that pays him $5.8 million. If the Kings were to retain half of that contract, and the Penguins were to offer up Casey DeSmith ($1.25 million cap hit) and other considerations to acquire Quick, that would be an avenue they might want to explore.
The Athletic
This is all coming off the heels of the revelation the Penguins had discussions with Vegas about reacquiring Marc-Andre Fleury. Bottom line is the Penguins are looking for goaltending and Jonathan Quick would be a great pick up if Pittsburgh is in win now mode.