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by Dave's a mess
Quiet on the Tarasenko front. I don't expect to hear much until things are imminent. All the insiders have gone on vacation for the summer and the teams that are supposedly left in the running are generally pretty quiet about stuff to begin with. The three teams are:
Islanders- Lots of smoke to this one. Friedman said that he'd heard the Islanders have re-signed a bunch of guys but hasn't announced the deals yet because he doesn't want other teams to know how much cap space he has left for trade talks. He'd mentioned Tarasenko to the Isles as a possibility, so holding off on those announcements is a way to maintain leverage in talks with Armstrong about retaining some % of Tarasenko's salary. If you start seeing Palmierei, Pelech and possibly Beauvillier (who may or may not be part of the trade) agree to terms, it might mean a Tarasenko deal is imminent, has happened already, or the Isles are out.
Canes- Super analytically driven and loaded with cap space. Tarasenko has had great fancy stats whenever he's healthy, so if they trust his shoulder they make a lot of sense. No idea what the return would be here.
Devils- This one has been rumored but makes the least amount of sense to me. Sure they added Hamilton and their kids are improving, but does their winning timeline matchup with Tarasenko's contract? The other two teams are much closer to winning and you could see how a healthy Tarasenko could help put them over the top. I'm not so sure about the Devils.
So I don't know. Most talk has been about the Islanders, but who knows. All 3 have a fair amount of picks and lots of cap space. Question is how many teams view Tarasenko as an asset you actually pay for. Trades have been all over the place this year. The Hawks alone have given up tons of future assets for Seth Jones, who has been bad to terrible the last couple of years, but also got the reigning Vezina trophy winner basically for free. I just want this thing to end because waiting on big moves is boring.
...but whatever, the Blues won the Cup!!!!!