East Notes: Penguins, Palmieri, Sabres

It has been a trying season for Pittsburgh so far as they’ve dealt with numerous injuries and inconsistency in goal.  Despite that, the Penguins head into Thursday’s games eight points up on a playoff spot in the East Division which has them thinking about adding to their roster.  Speaking with Josh Yohe of The Athletic (subscription link), team president Brian Burke indicated that he’d like to add a player by next month’s deadline but also recognizes the challenges in doing so:

“We’d like to make it better. Here’s the thing. We don’t have any picks left. We aren’t putting our top kids in play. So, we don’t necessarily have certain things to offer that other teams do. The things we can offer are a little different than other teams, maybe. But if we can add, we’re going to add. Put it that way.”

While the team has ample space right now with LTIR, that will go away when Jason Zucker returns so they’ll be limited to their remaining cap room.  Per CapFriendly, that stands at about $1.1MM but that’s only if they wait to make a move until deadline day.  As Zucker and perhaps others come back, that should improve a bit but it looks as if it will take some creativity for them to add an impact player by April 12th.

More from the East Division:

• Negotiations between the Devils and pending UFA winger Kyle Palmieri don’t appear to be going well. In the latest Insider Trading from TSN (video link), Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic indicated that the two sides are “struggling to find common ground on a contract”.  The veteran is in the midst of a fairly quiet season with just six goals and nine assists in 29 games this season but has had at least 24 tallies in each of the past five seasons.  While the free agent market wasn’t kind to wingers last fall, the 30-year-old projects to be one of the top ones available and still should be able to command a raise on his current $4.65MM AAV.
• The Sabres have shifted around their scouting department. Lance Lysowski of The Buffalo News notes that Jeremiah Crowe will now be in charge of professional scouting while Jerry Fortin will head up the amateur scouting department.  Previously, Crowe held the title of director of scouting, suggesting that Buffalo may be shifting back towards a more standard hockey operations department structure.