The Stanley Cup Finals are right around the corner and the offseason will follow quickly. With finances devastated over the last few months and teams looking at either the flat league-mandated salary cap or an even lower internal one, there should be plenty of player movement over the next few months. With that in mind, it’s time to run another edition of the PHR mailbag.
If you missed our last one, it was split into two parts which you can read here and here. The first was focused solely on the New York Rangers given they had just won the first-overall pick and answered questions regarding the future of Henrik Lundqvist and potential second-line center targets. The second part was more wide-reaching, with topics including Ottawa’s potential cap space, Alex Pietrangelo’s future and the Detroit Red Wings offseason plans.
You can submit a question by using #PHRMailbag on Twitter or by leaving a comment down below. We’ll try to get to everything when the mailbag runs this weekend.
What is a realistic return for Shayne Gostisbehere and who might be interested in turning his career back around? Is JVR a buyout candidate or do the Flyers hang onto him for one more year and hope he gets back to his scoring ways / gets dangled as an expansion draft piece?
The Canucks have a ton of FA and RFAs and a bit of a limit on cap space. Who stays and who goes:
Markstrom
Toffoli
Tanev
Vertanen
Motte
Do you think the Colorado Avalanche will make a run at Alex Pietrangelo? They really struggled defensively against Dallas after Johnson went down in game one. They have the cap space and he would provide them with an experienced, top pair defenseman that could lead them to a Cup.
That’s an interesting one, but they have too many young guys they want to get into the NHL. No way they give pietrangelo the term he wants with johnson having a NMC.
Plus Makar is RFA after this season
Do the Rangers trade high on Tony D’Angelo? He will cost some big bucks, and is blocking younger players. They have so much young talent on defense, they could turn him into a number 2 center.
What’s the future look like for Nikita zadorov?
is rask done in beantown? publicly, team/players have come out in support, but you get the feeling there is some agnst/animosity on some people’s part feeling that he might have bailed. I mean he’s still a top 5 goalie (I think), but his cap hit is a bit high. do you think he gets moved or do they just run out the halak/rask tandem again and let their contracts run out? thanks in advance.
How do you see jacques martin doing as assistant coach for the defence on the rangers? Lindy Ruff got alot of stick but most of their talented dmen are young offensive players plus staal and smiths best days are long gone do they need to sign a veteran stay at home dman to help suppressing the amount of shots they give up which surely played a part in lundqvists dramatic loss of form over last 18 months.
Would a trade of Montreal’s #1 draft pick to Detroit for Anthony Mantha work for both teams? Give Montreal another scorer and Detroit another draft pick for the rebuild.
What is up with Florida’s defense, on paper it seems like they should be at least average. Is this a problem where each individual part does not fit well together or are there more factors at play?
I’d like to live in a world where laundry can fold itself. How can we make that happen?
Super smart towels! However, just make sure they don’t get dependent on marijuana or you will end up with a Towlie situation.
the NHL have done excellent job in completing this season but if no fans are are allowed back could next season be cancelled? some smaller teams need money from gate receipts to survive more than larger fan base teams like Montreal, New York etc and if it was what would happen with contracts presume they would be pushed but players will still need paying.
Is there any possibility that players are paid less due to no fans? Kind of a ‘well, we can’t pay you because we have less money and if you say no, then we cancel the season and nobody gets paid”
What do you see the Winnipeg Jets do?
It’s highly doubtful that Hall winds up in Arizona, with the internal cap + the Yotes current cap issues. Do you think Hall takes a lower one year salary to join a contender in hopes of a deep playoff run and winning a cup? Or does he sign a longer contract with a team on the rise in hopes that they can make the playoffs consistently and win the cup during the duration of his contract?