With quite a few pending unrestricted free agents, the Senators are certainly a team to keep tabs on over the coming weeks on the trade front. However, GM Pierre Dorion told TSN that the trade market has been relatively quiet so far:
Everybody is really kind of feeling each other out and seeing if they’re going to be in the playoffs or if they’re going to be buyers or sellers. There have been a lot of conversations, a lot about nothing.
Of their ten UFAs, Dorion acknowledged that they do have some interest in keeping some of them but he has no intention on publicly commenting on who those may be or the status of talks after what transpired last season with the Mark Stone and Matt Duchene situations. The GM also indicated that they would like to keep some veterans in the mix so it’s far from a guarantee that those that don’t receive new deals will be dealt by the Senators by the February 24th trade deadline.
More from the Eastern Conference:
- Rangers winger Micheal Haley is out indefinitely and is set to undergo surgery for a bilateral core muscle injury, the team announced (Twitter link). The veteran physical forward has played in 22 games with New York this season, recording a goal along with 50 penalty minutes while averaging a career-low 5:32 per night. Haley is slated to become an unrestricted free agent this summer.
- Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh is expected to miss at least two weeks due to his lower-body injury, relays Diana C. Nearhos of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link). The injury was sustained back on Thursday night against Pittsburgh. Head coach Jon Cooper indicated that this won’t be a season-ending issue but that they’ll re-evaluate him after the two-week mark which suggests that the veteran could be out for a little while after that stretch.
- Islanders winger Matt Martin told Newsday’s Andrew Gross that he isn’t concerned about his pending free agent status and is solely focusing on the stretch run for now. He admitted that when he was first set to test free agency four years ago, he fully expected to remain with New York but instead signed a four-year, $10MM deal with Toronto with then-GM Lou Lamoriello. Lamoriello is now the GM of the Islanders and the only trade he has made since joining them was to acquire Martin. Clearly, Martin has a backer in Lamoriello which should bode well for the potential of an extension this time around.
Timishov for Martin and 50% retained. Leafs 4 line of spezza, Martin and Clifford would be a modern nhl power line
@bigdaddyt – Boy, you ain’t kiddin’! Would take over has the most impressive/dominant 4th line in the league (assuming chemistry would work) from the Isles’ Clutterbuck-Cizikas-Martin combo.
Martin would be a liability come playoff time. admit timishov isn’t much but don’t want Martin.
@MoneyBallJustWorks – As a fourth-liner in a shutdown role, where would he be a liability on that proposed line? He’s still a hit machine, and isn’t counted on for scoring, since that’s not his game. Unless he’s seen as *really* slow, the other two on that proposed line aren’t speed demons either. Even his PIMs are down. Is he constantly out of position, causing opposition jail-breaks, or bad cross-ice passes? Just curious…