Lightning Round: last chance for Expansion Draft trades

Saturday at 3pm ET, the NHL will go into a transaction freeze and by 5pm teams must submit their protection lists for the Seattle Kraken Expansion Draft. This means today is the last day to trade players, sign contracts, and conduct buyouts until next Thursday (July 22nd) after Seattle’s team is announced on Wednesday night.

Let’s have a look at all the news involving the Tampa Bay Lightning and all the other 30 teams trying to figure out their protection lists.

What are the Bolts doing

The Tampa Bay Lightning have not asked Steven Stamkos to waive his no-move clause ahead of the draft. I never thought for a second they were ever going to do that. He’s too important a part of the team and losing him over someone else who’s likely to get exposed would be silly. [NHL dot com]

“But it’s probably going to be impossible for 30 deals to be cut here. I’d like to cut a deal with Seattle, but we may not be able to. At the end of the day, the way it’s set up process-wise is that we’ll submit a list, and it’s very possible that Seattle will just claim a player, and we’re going to move on with the rest of our reserve list.’’ — Julien BriseBois

Trades, Buyouts, Waives

The Colorado Avalanche traded their fourth defenseman, Ryan Graves, to New Jersey for a second round pick and a contract.

Ben Bishop asked the Dallas Stars to expose him in the Expansion Draft as it appears he wants to go be Seattle’s first starting goalie ala Marc-Andre Fleury. Bishop didn’t play this season due to an injury, but had a .920 sv% last year.

The Florida Panthers have bought out Keith Yandle. The team originally wanted to scratch the defenseman, but outrage from Hockey Men for ruining Yandle’s iron man streak stopped that. It sounds like the Panthers are tired of Yandle and just wanted to get rid of him (“fresh start”).

The Panthers also signed Anthony Duclair to a three-year contract worth $9 million. [NHL dot com]

“Anthony brought great speed and skill to our club this season,” said Zito. “We look forward to seeing him continue to be a creative playmaker for us on the ice and a valuable member of our community. We are thrilled to have him as a part of the Panthers family for years to come.”

Former Chicago player Brent Sopel, a victim of Brad Aldridge, is revealing the many failures by the Chicago front office and hockey culture in general, and probably why many of them shouldn’t be employed in the NHL any more. If you don’t know the full story of covering up Aldridge’s sexual assaults, giving him good recommendations so he could continue those heinous acts on other men, including teenagers, the article is linked in the tweet.

Rumors

The Montreal Canadiens are planning to lose their first line center. Phillip Danault doesn’t bring offense, but he’s one of the better defensive centers in the world. He’s said in the past that he wants to stay the 1C and not be overtaken by Nick Suzuki — hence him looking elsewhere — but I don’t think that’s the best place for him. If he was the second or third line center on a contending team, they would go really far. He just doesn’t have the offense to be on a top line and produce the way most teams do it.

The Colorado Avalanche are letting their captain, Gabriel Landeskog, slip from their fingers. [Mile High Hockey]

“I can’t help but be honest with you that I’m a little bit disappointed that it’s gotten this far, and it’s had to come to this point,” Landeskog told The Athletic. “We’ll see what happens. I’m still hopeful that we can agree on something and come to terms, but if it was up to me, I would have liked it to be done eight months ago, 10 months ago.”

The Carolina Hurricanes are trying to pinch pennies in every direction and it’s causing their summer to be very loud and busy. I would give Dougie Hamilton $8 million, but that’s just me.

Looks like Taylor Hall is going back to the team where things finally started to go right, the Boston Bruins.

The Maple Leafs have given teams permission to talk to Zach Hyman as many want to sign the winger for eight years at a considerable cap hit. Good luck with that.

The Washington Capitals have already released their preseason schedule. Expect next year’s calendar to come out soon.