NHL Rumors: Rangers and Bruins grant Penguins permission to speak with candidates, Vince Dunn update, and more
Anthony Scultore
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The Penguins were just granted permission to speak to two of their top candidates for the vacant GM position. According to Frank Seravalli, Chris Drury (NYR) and John Ferguson Jr. (BOS) can interview for the job.
NHL Rumors: Penguins GM search
There’s absolutely no shortage of candidates who want the Penguins job. Whether it’s people they are looking at, or those contacting the Pens, there are some big names in the mix. Without a doubt, Drury and Ferguson was at the top of the list.
“20 different candidates had expressed and reached out interest to the Penguins for that job. Some on their own directly, others have other people doing it on their behalf,” Pierre Lebrun reported last week. “Some of the names on the radar for the Penguins include Jason Botterill, Chris Drury, Ron Hextall, Mark Hunter, Tom Fitzgerald – who was just a GM in New Jersey – Peter Chiarelli, Scott Mellanby, Mike Gillis, Laurence Gillman, John Ferguson Jr., Mike Futa.”
Two names recently ruled out were Scott Mellanby of the Canadiens and Tom Fitzgerald of the Devils.
NHL Rumors: Vince Dunn still out there
When it comes to teams in the rumor mill on 24 year-old defenseman Vince Dunn, only one was believed close to a deal for him and that was the Penguins. Of course, that was before Jim Rutherford resigned.
Other team connected to Dunn were the Flyers, Jets, and Canucks. We noted the Rangers have interest recently as well. According to Larry Brooks, “to our best information, the Blueshirts are not in the hunt for St. Louis’ apparently expendable 24-year-old lefty Vince Dunn.”
While the Rangers are actively working to trade DeAngelo and free up some of the $4.8 million cap hit, their pursuit of Dunn could be on hold. I still doubt it as there’s too many signs pointing that towards interest in the young blue-liner.
NHL Rumors: Latest on Sam Bennett
When it comes to the latest out of Calgary and Sam Bennett’s supposed desire for a trade, Elliotte Friedman had an interesting quote from Geoff Ward, the head coach.
“At the beginning of the season, and what a lot of people don’t know, I basically gave Sam the choice of where he wanted to play. He wanted to start at centre and so we started him at centre, and he came in after a couple of games and said, ‘Hey, I think I may want to take the other option,’ which was playing on the wing. We gave him a choice to play in two different positions at the start of the year. So before anybody jumps all over that as to reasons why he may be unhappy, let’s just quell that right now.”
31 Thoughts
The prevalent thought is that Calgary is in no rush to trade him.