With the Blackhawks clearly embarking on a large-scale rebuild, there has been an expectation that long-time star winger Patrick Kane will be on the move. However, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli reports (audio link) that the veteran isn’t interested in being traded this offseason. Instead, if a deal is going to happen, it will come closer to the trade deadline. From a cap standpoint, that would be more palatable for contending teams when three-quarters of his $10.5MM will be paid off. Kane has full control over where he moves but it appears that move won’t be coming for a while yet.
Elsewhere around the hockey world:
- Panthers center Colin White told Ian Mendes of The Athletic (subscription link) that his preference this summer was to sign a one-year contract over pursuing a multi-year agreement on the open market. Some had speculated he’d follow long-time agent Kent Hughes to Montreal and while White mentioned he gave some consideration to doing so, he decided that it was more important to go to a winning team. While White is coming off a pair of injury-plagued seasons, the 25-year-old could be an upside signing for Florida on his one-year, $1.2MM deal.
- While extension talks between the Red Wings and Dylan Larkin clearly haven’t resulted in a new deal yet, MLive’s Ansar Khan believes an agreement, whenever it does get reached, should give the Michigan native maximum term and an AAV in the $8MM range. The 26-year-old isn’t the prototypical number one center from an offensive standpoint as he has never reached the point-per-game mark but he has logged more than 20 minutes a game on average over the past five seasons. If a deal does get done in that price range, it would represent a roughly $2MM increase on what Larkin is making now.
- Robert Mastrosimone’s decision to leave Boston University for Arizona State University raised some eyebrows but Khan notes in a separate column that the Red Wings were on board with the idea of him transferring. The 21-year-old was a second-round pick in 2019 (52nd overall) and was coming off a good season with the Terriers that saw him put up 25 points in 34 games but he should have an opportunity for a bigger role with the Sun Devils next season in the hopes that a good showing will give him an entry-level deal.