Pacific Notes: Gryba, Martin, Hjalmarsson, Goldobin

Although the Oilers placed defenseman Eric Gryba on waivers on Friday, Postmedia’s Jim Matheson reports that the team did receive some trade interest in the veteran blueliner.  However, the teams that had interest are tight to the 50-contract limit and wanted to send a player under contract back to Edmonton.  Unfortunately for the Oilers, they’re pretty tight to the limit as well (48) and would undoubtedly prefer to either clear the contract off the books entirely via a waiver claim from elsewhere or keep him as injury insurance over accepting a minor league player of nominal value in return.  Because his waivers non-roster designation came after Friday’s waiver dispatch, he officially goes on the wire today with an announcement on whether or not he cleared coming on Sunday.

More from the Pacific:

• Sharks blueliner Paul Martin has been a healthy scratch since being cleared to return to the lineup and head coach Peter DeBoer told Paul Gackle of the Mercury News that this will continue for the time being. San Jose is carrying eight defensemen for the time being and the expectation is that they will try to utilize all eight of them but barring injury, Martin appears to be on the outside looking in at their top-six.  With another year remaining on his contract at $4.85MM, he’s someone that they could look to try to include in a trade in the coming weeks although his lack of playing time and age (36) will make that a harder move to make.
• Coyotes defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson is slated to rejoin the team for practice on Saturday, notes Craig Morgan of Arizona Sports. The veteran has been out of the lineup since sustaining an upper-body injury November 28th.  One of Arizona’s key veteran acquisitions this offseason, Hjalmarsson has only played in 17 games so far in 2017-18.
• Although the Canucks have lost a pair of Russian players back to the KHL over the last little while in Alexander Burmistrov and Nikita Tryamkin, don’t expect winger Nikolay Goldobin to follow suit. He told reporters, including Postmedia’s Patrick Johnston, that he has no plans to go back home, saying “I don’t want to go now, I’m in the NHL right now”.  Goldobin was acquired as part of the Jannik Hansen trade back near the last trade deadline and has split his time between the AHL (19 points in 18 games) and the NHL (one goal and two assists in nine contests) so far this season.