Some quick notes on where things stand on the morning of July 1
Happy Free agency day, here are some things I know on certain players.
Just like we did during the draft weekend, you kind of have to keep it brief at this time of year.
Unrestricted free agents can start signing with new teams at noon ET today, so in roughly three hours there will new news and things to discuss.
As a quick preview/thought-provoking item before that, I highly encourage you to watch this episode of Algorithmically Incorrect Hockey that we did last week with NHL agent Allain Roy.
Allain happens to represent Nico Hischier, by the way, so it could be a busy day for him.
On that note, for today, there was some big news last night from Elliotte Friedman that the Dallas Stars and Columbus Blue Jackets had worked out the framework for a trade featuring Thomas Harley and Zach Werenski, but it was ultimately nixed by the Blue Jackets defenseman.
As Friedman reports, it sounds like Werenski is more interested in an Eastern Conference team and wants to pick his location.
It’s eerily similar to the trade the Stars tried to make with the Seattle Kraken, but was nixed by the player, who from my understanding, has no interested in playing for the Kraken and was turning down the designation not the $15 million per season salary.
For Dallas, there’s some awkwardness in this, Harley’s name is now being floated as a trade target and he happens to have the same representation as Robertson — Andy Scott.
Nill and Scott are battling right now, possibly all the way to arbitration later this summer, on Robertson’s deal and while I don’t expect the potential Harley trade to impact the Robertson deal, it is something both sides will certainly have in the back of their mind when dealing with each other.
It also feels like, right now, that the Stars and Robertson are going to end up paired together for next season. I don’t know if that’s going to be a long-term deal, in fact that feels a bit more fraught, but it seems like with other pieces falling apart, like the potential Werenski deal, they might try and run this back and kick future negotiations into next season, and perhaps trade Robertson before the trade deadline if needed.
Nothing new on Dylan Larkin, for what it’s worth, I think Steve Yzerman is going to wait on this and he has no issue making Larkin come to camp if he doesn’t get a deal in place that he likes.
Mavrik Bourque has been getting calls from my understanding, he’s a restricted free agent now with a qualifying offer, but teams are pushing hard to find out what might be able to pry the young forward out of Dallas either via trade or an offer sheet.
Alex DeBrincat has also been getting trade interest from other teams, but there’s a big difference between teams calling the Red Wings and the Red Wings actively “shopping” him, which is not the case.
That’s what I’ve got right now on what I know. We should have more later today.
Enjoy!