Good morning.
Heard a number of things from my top source overnight.
First, as reported elsewhere yesterday, the Hawks have agreed to a deal (numbers TBD) with Carolina G Cam Ward. As I tweeted yesterday, Ward likely didn’t sign before UFA started for a pay cut, and thus, as a backup, he would push the Hawks’ salary commitment to goalies next year to over $9 million.
So that said, my hunch is Ward might not be coming to Chicago just as a backup. Draw from that what you will.
I heard this AM that the Hawks continue to talk to the representation of James van Riemsdyk, James Neal and Tyler Bozak.
Interestingly, in addition to left wings JVR and Neal, the Hawks have apparently had some conversations with Montreal recently about Max Pacioretty.
One THEORY we have bandied about at The-Rink is that a top 6 left wing acquisition could be a backfill for trading another left wing to get another team to take on the contract of Marian Hossa (like, say, Brandon Saad, Hossa’s contract and a future draft pick to Carolina for oh, Justin Faulk). Just a theory, but stranger things have happened.
Finally, Connor Murphy and Artem Anisimov are being shopped fairly hard. While the Hawks have also reached out to the agents for defensemen Brandon Manning, Thomas Hickey and Calvin De Haan, in addition to those of Greg Pateryn and John Moore as first reported here earlier.
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