Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman had some help when it came to recruiting winger Jordin Tootoo to sign with Chicago, writes Tracey Myers of CSN Chicago. Defensemen Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook both reached out to the 33 year old who signed a one year, $750K deal earlier this month. All three players live and skate together in Kelowna in the offseason.
Tootoo will likely be counted on to replace some of the grit vacated by the trade of Andrew Shaw to Montreal and Bryan Bickell’s deal to Carolina last month.
More news and notes from around the hockey world:
- Tampa Bay GM Steve Yzerman acknowledged to Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times that the team will likely have to make a trade later this summer in order to accommodate their remaining restricted free agents. The Lightning have just over $8.5MM in cap space per Cap Friendly but still have RW Nikita Kucherov, C Vladislav Namestnikov, and D Nikita Nesterov to re-sign. It’s likely that the team will look to sign Kucherov to a long-term deal as they have with Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and, earlier today, Alex Killorn. Of their three remaining RFA’s, only Namestnikov is arbitration-bound with a hearing set for July 29th if a deal isn’t reached by then.
- Barring a last minute deal, it appears as if the Capitals and center Marcus Johansson are heading for arbitration on July 20th, writes Isabelle Khurshudyan of the Washington Post. If it does go to a hearing, he would be the first player in a decade to go to arbitration twice. Johansson’s agent J.P. Barry acknowledged that they have tried several times to get a long-term deal done but as of yet have not been able to agree to terms. Barry also noted they plan to talk again after pre-hearing briefs are exchanged. Johansson was awarded $3.75MM via arbitration last offseason and set career highs in goals (20), assists (27), and points (47) in 2015-16.
- Former NHL enforcer Brad Staubitz has been named an Assistant Coach of the OHL’s Sarnia Sting, the junior team announced. The 31 year old retired prior to last season. In 230 career NHL games between San Jose, Minnesota, Montreal, and Anaheim, Staubitz recorded 10 goals and 11 assists to go along with 521 penalty minutes.