The Islanders are likely finished with their free agent shopping this offseason, reports Newsday’s Arthur Staple. The team still has to re-sign Ryan Strome, Alan Quine, and Scott Mayfield which should pretty well eat up the remainder of the roughly $4.9MM they have in cap space, as per Cap Friendly.
Still from Staple, he notes that the Islanders currently have a bit of a goalie logjam with Jaroslav Halak, Thomas Greiss, and J-F Berube all on one-way contracts. That situation isn’t likely to be resolved until training camp and further throwing a wrench into that battle is the fact that Halak and Greiss are two of the three netminders for Team Europe at the upcoming World Cup and won’t be with the team most of the preseason. That should allow Berube to see a lot of exhibition action for the Isles.
More news and notes from around the league:
- In a radio interview this morning and transcribed by Chris Nichols of Today’s Slapshot, Minnesota GM Chuck Fletcher characterized discussions with RFA defenseman Mathew Dumba as fine and that they will “be able to come up with a deal here sometime in the next few weeks”. The 21 year old Dumba had 10 goals and 16 assists in 81 games with the Wild last season.
- Arizona prospect Christian Fischer could pose an interesting dilemma for the Coyotes this coming season, writes Craig Morgan of ArizonaSports.com. Fischer made a strong impression at development camp and if he doesn’t crack Arizona’s roster, the 19 year old has the option of being assigned back to junior or to the AHL as he wasn’t drafted out of the CHL and there are certainly pros and cons to each route.
- Pittsburgh has spent $1.65MM in guaranteed money for seven depth offseason additions, a trend that reflects the rising AHL salaries across the league, writes Jonathan Bombulie of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Of course, the trade-off for giving those players a higher minor league salary is the willingness for them to take an NHL salary for $575K, the league minimum which provides teams like the Penguins greater salary cap flexibility with the players towards the end of their rosters.