The Kraken started contract extension talks with pending RFA defensemen Will Borgen and Vince Dunn but agreed to push those until after the season, notes Kate Shefte of The Seattle Times. Borgen is in his first season as a regular and has 16 points in 62 games while logging over 16 minutes a night. Arbitration eligible, the 26-year-old should be able to more than double his $945K qualifying offer this summer.
As for Dunn, he leads all Kraken rearguards in scoring this season with 11 goals and 36 assists in 62 games; his 47 points put him tenth in the league for points by a blueliner. He’s also arbitration-eligible this summer with one year of team control remaining. Dunn is well-positioned to land quite a bit more than the $4MM he has made in each of the last two seasons while a long-term agreement will likely be coming his way as well.
Elsewhere in the West:
- Considering the Blues were selling, it may have come as some surprise that they picked up wingers Kasperi Kapanen and Jakub Vrana before the trade deadline. However, GM Doug Armstrong told reporters including Jeremy Rutherford of The Athletic (subscription link) that his preference would be to not get involved in the free agent market this summer and would rather have players on shorter-term deals that they can decide on later. Both Kapanen and Vrana have one year left on their contracts after this one so St. Louis has elected to go with them over handing out multi-year agreements to other players on the open market in July.
- The Wild will have to wait a little longer to get Jonas Brodin back. While the original hope was that the blueliner would accompany the team on the road with the possibility of returning on the trip, Dane Mizutani of the Pioneer Press notes that he now isn’t expected to even skate until after their road trip which wraps up today. The 29-year-old has been out for a week and a half with a lower-body injury and is once again logging big minutes for Minnesota, averaging nearly 23 minutes a night in 49 games this season.
Amazing for all the Blues that were protected, it was Dunn they let go.