After acquiring winger Oliver Bjorkstrand from Columbus on Friday, the heavy lifting for Seattle’s offseason appears to be done. However, GM Ron Francis told reporters, including Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times, that he’s still open to adding another depth defenseman and another depth forward. The team has roughly $3.6MM in cap space per CapFriendly with Morgan Geekie still needing a new contract that will cut into that cap space. Ryan Donato was an intriguing non-tender earlier this month likely due to his arbitration eligibility despite recording 16 goals and 15 assists (good for sixth in team scoring) and Francis indicated that the door is still open to his return as well at the right price.
More from the Pacific Division:
- With the Oilers being among the teams that are still looking to clear out some money this summer, Bruce McCurdy of the Edmonton Journal posits that the cleanest option for Edmonton might be to move winger Warren Foegele. Acquired in a trade from Carolina last summer, the 26-year-old signed a three-year, $7.5MM deal that has two seasons remaining. Foegele had 26 points in 82 games last season but posted 127 hits (a new career-high) which could be of interest to teams looking for some grit in the bottom six. Edmonton still has to re-sign forwards Jesse Puljujarvi, Ryan McLeod, and Kailer Yamamoto and are basically down to the LTIR space from Oscar Klefbom and Mike Smith ($6.367MM combined). It will be difficult to sign those three with that money so finding a spot for Foegele would certainly help their cause.
- Winger Ty Ronning expressed an interest in signing with Vancouver this summer to play with AHL Abbotsford, notes Steve Ewen of the Vancouver Province. However, the team indicated that their preference was to focus on the development of their prospects which would have limited Ronning’s playing time and resulted in him signing with Minnesota’s farm team instead. The 24-year-old spent five years with WHL Vancouver so joining the Canucks would have been a homecoming of sorts.
That Foegele for Bear trade was a disaster for Edmonton and Carolina.
Ronning is only 24 and doesn’t have bad AHL numbers. Maybe he’s not a prospect per se, but does VAN really have 8 better wingers they expect to be with their AHL team next season?
Not at all, they are largely devoid of talent at the AHL level.