NHL Rumors: Lightning, Canucks, Avalanche, KHL, More

In today’s NHL rumor rundown, it looks like the Tampa Bay Lightning are going through with their goaltending plans, the Vancouver Canucks were interested in a player that wound up going to Calgary, there are updates out of Colorado when it comes to Mikko Rantanen and can fans expect to see more KHL players try to make their way over to the NHL in the next few seasons?

Lightning to Waive Two Netminders

Waivers open for the 2019-20 season today, and according to Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports Louis Domingue will be on them. This reports comes after
GM Julien BriseBois explained explained to team reporter Caley Chelios that the Lightning kept both Mike Condon and Domingue in a “controlled environment” throughout training camp, with the intention of placing them on waivers.

Moving both goaltenders will save the Lightning $1.075 million off of each contracts cap hit and potentially give BriseBois extra room to sign Brayden Point. According to Point’s agent Gerry Johansson, the two sides are talking and a bridge deal might be where this negotiations lead. Johansson said:

We don’t really have a grand plan. If we could get Brayden into Tampa Bay this afternoon we would do that. So we don’t have some grand scheme to manage this long-term. We’re just taking the next step. We’re talking with Tampa, that’s the good news. Hopefully we can get something done, and if not we’ll figure it out then. 

As for Domingue, there are teams interested in him and there is a good chance he will get claimed off of waivers.

Lucic and the Canucks Almost Happened

Despite the fact that Milan Lucic ended up in Calgary and James Neal went to the Edmonton Oilers, Luke Fox of Sportsnet writes that Lucic’s agent Gerry Johansson said on Sportsnet 650 Lucic could have landed with the Vancouver Canucks.

There were a number of rumors that Loui Eriksson for Lucic was a deal that might be out there and while Johansson didn’t confirm that, he did say there had been talks with the team and Lucic was into the idea.

Rantanen Contract Term Update

Ryan Clarke of The Athletic writes in an exclusive update that his understanding is that the Colorado Avalanche are looking to sign Mikko Rantanen to deal from six to eight years with an (AAV) in the range of $8.4 and $8.75 million.

This may still be lowballing what kind of deal Rantanen will actually receive. To 80-plus point seasons and comparables to Mitch Marner suggest he’ll be much closer to $10 million per season, if not over that.

Darren Dreger said of Rantanen, I think there’s more of a gap there and that one becomes more of a contentious issue. He added that there might be a team out there who was targeting Mitch Marner, might now see an opportunity in Colorado.