Saturday is shaping up to be an important day in the Steven Stamkos saga, writes TSN’s Frank Seravelli. The interview period with pending unrestricted free agents kicks off on Saturday, meaning that the Lightning have less than 48 hours left of exclusive negotiating rights with their captain. As a result, GM Steve Yzerman may have to deliver his best offer to Stamkos by Friday before other teams have an opportunity to make their pitch.
Other news and notes around the league:
- The market for St. Louis D Kevin Shattenkirk is starting to head up. Seravelli writes that the Blues would be willing to allow teams to talk extension with him but that they need a trade partner first. Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch adds that while there are a lot of teams interested, no extension talks have been held. Shattenkirk has one year left on his contract at $4.25MM and will be an unrestricted free agent after.
- The Bruins are likely to take one more stab at re-signing pending UFA Loui Eriksson, reports WEEI’s DJ Bean. Boston has been unwilling at this point to go beyond a four year contract to get a deal done. Bean adds that the team has held talks with W Lee Stempniak and D John-Michael Liles but will not bring back D Zach Trotman or G Jonas Gustavsson.
- Vancouver GM Jim Benning met with the media Thursday. He noted (and the team tweeted) that the Canucks will not re-sign pending UFA W Radim Vrbata and defensemen Matt Bartkowski and Yannick Weber.
- The Arizona Coyotes have selected a new arena site and are working through the legal documentation, reports AZ Central’s Craig Morgan. Their lease with the City of Glendale expires following the 2016-17 and the management contract for the Gila River Arena was taken away from the team and awarded to AEG back in April.
- Several teams have been in discussions with Detroit regarding Pavel Datsyuk‘s contract, according to ESPN’s Craig Custance. There is an opportunity to expand the market to more teams if the Wings are willing to retain part of his $7.5MM cap hit but Custance notes that they don’t have much of an appetite to do so.