Rumors V: Jets, Canadiens, Maple Leafs and Penguins
  • Luke Fox of Sportsnet: The Jets should look at the free agent forward crop. They have three centers and four right wingers hitting the open market. Five forwards that GM Kevin Cheveldayoff should look at: Alexander Semin, Drew Stafford, Brad Boyes, P.A. Parenteau and Blake Comeau.
  • Scott Lewis: Five players the Maple Leafs could target: Cody Franson, Eric Fehr, Cody Hodgson, Erik Condra, and Matt Bartkowski.
  • Eric Engels of Sportsnet: The Canadiens have about $6.64 million in cap space heading into free agency and need to sign Alex Galchenyuk, Michael Bournival, Christian Thomas, and Jarred Tinordi, so it could be a quiet free agent period for the Canadiens. If the Canadiens could find some room, free agent targets could be: Michael Frolik, Justin Williams and Joel Ward.
  • Ryan McKenna of Sportsnet: Chris Johnston on Sportsnet 590 on the Penguins and Phil Kessel.

    “It just makes too much sense from the Penguins perspective,” Johnston said. “They’ve been mentioned in the T.J. Oshie, in the Patrick Sharp contract talks.

    “The issue with those is that Pittsburgh needs to unload money in addition to bringing those guys in.”

    “The teams they’re (Penguins) largely dealing with can’t really take on money,” Johnston said. “Where is the Leafs are uniquely positioned in that they have a ton of cap space, and they’re willing to use it in terms of maybe taking back some oversized contracts for guys that are a little long in the tooth or mildly overpaid, whatever it may be and I think that there is a recipe there to get this done and it’s pretty clear the Leafs are open to doing it.”