East Notes: Brannstrom, Smith, Penguins

One player that the Senators have been believed to have been shopping is defenseman Erik Brannstrom.  Ottawa has placed a fairly high asking price on his services, however, as Postmedia’s Bruce Garrioch reports that the team is seeking a second-round pick for the 24-year-old. Playing time has been difficult to come by for Brannstrom this season as he’s averaging under 16 minutes a night through 55 games where he has just three goals and ten assists.  Owed a $2MM qualifying offer in June, Brannstrom could be a potential non-tender candidate for the Sens which means it wouldn’t be surprising if the asking price comes down today, ensuring they get something for a player they could very well lose for nothing in three months.

Other early notes from across the East:

• While Ty Smith was part of Thursday’s Jake Guentzel trade, he won’t actually be going anywhere. Inside AHL Hockey’s Tony Androckitis reports (Twitter link) that Smith will remain with AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton for the rest of the season.  The Hurricanes don’t have an AHL affiliate so rather than try to put Smith in another organization on loan, they’ll keep him where he is for the stretch run unless Carolina has to recall him due to injuries.  Smith is a restricted free agent this summer and has 32 points in 51 minor league contests this season.
• CapFriendly points out (Twitter link) that the Penguins are currently not cap-compliant following the overnight swap of Jake Guentzel, a move that cleared $6MM from their LTIR pool. If Bryan Rust is going to miss a couple more weeks, he can be flipped to LTIR but otherwise, Pittsburgh will need to send some players down or make a trade or two to open up the needed cap room.  They have until 4 PM CT to get back to compliance.