The New York Islanders have made quite a few moves this offseason, re-signing Anders Lee, Jordan Eberle and Brock Nelson as well as adding goaltender Semyon Varlamov to their franchise, but the team may not be done yet.
Brett Cyrgalis of the New York Post mentions that the team may seriously consider trading defenseman Nick Leddy later this offseason. The 28-year-old Leddy has three years on his contract at $5.5M per season and with several teams in need of help for a top-four blueliner, the team might be willing to unload him if they can add more offensive talent, especially with prospects Noah Dobson and Bode Wilde not far from arriving in New York.
- In a roundtable discussion on what the chances are that the Tampa Bay Lightning might acquire Buffalo defenseman Rasmus Ristolainen, The Athletic’s Joe Smith (subscription required) writes that while the Lightning has had interest in him in the past, the only way the team would be interested in acquiring him now would be if it were an upgrade and with no obvious trade candidates on their defense, a deal between Buffalo and Tampa Bay seems unlikely. Throw in the fact the team still has to sign restricted free agent Brayden Point to and the chances of acquiring Risolainen seems unlikely.
- There were many moving parts two week ago when the Ottawa Senators acquired Nikita Zaitsev from the Toronto Maple Leafs for Cody Ceci. The Senators acquired forward Connor Brown, but also picked up forward Michael Carcone as part of the deal, a 23-year-old restricted free agent who has battled his way through three AHL seasons and might be ready for a bottom-line role with the Senators now that the team acquired him. The Athletic’s Chris Stevenson reports that he hears that the Senators and Carcone are close to a new deal and could be a name to watch at training camp this fall. The Vancouver Canucks were received quite a bit of interest from Carcone at the trade deadline by both Toronto and Ottawa. He ended up going to Toronto in the Josh Leivo trade, but has since been traded again.
- The Tampa Bay Lightning look to be bringing one of their 2019 draftees over to North America sooner than they had expected as a Russian website, spartak.ru (translation required), reports that Mikhail Shalagin, the team’s 2019 seventh-round pick, is expected to play in the Tampa Bay’s system, presumably with the Syracuse Crunch in the AHL, although nothing has come from the Lightning yet and it’s unknown whether the team will offer him an entry-level deal right away or offer him an AHL deal. The 6-foot-4, 185-pound forward scored 48 goals in the MHL and was the MVP of the league last year.
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