Will the Dallas Stars trade Tyler Seguin?
NBC Sports: The Dallas Stars haven’t been able to accomplish a whole lot despite enjoying five seasons of Tyler Seguin’s services at a ludicrous bargain rate of $5.75 million per season. The Stars have only won one playoff series since swindling the Boston Bruins in the Seguin deal, while they’ve missed out on the postseason altogether three of those five years.
Seguin might want to follow in the footsteps of John Tavares, another star center who was grotesquely underpaid (the Islanders squandered Tavares’ Seguin-like six years at $5.5M), hit free agency, and called his shot for a nice deal. Like Tavares, it might not be about every cent for Seguin. Instead, it could be about getting the closest answer to the best of both worlds: receiving a contract in the ballpark of what he deserves, with the team he wants to play for.
If the Stars feel that Seguin will not sign with the team, the Stars will look at trading him at the 2019 NHL Trade Deadline and not lose him for nothing like the New York Islanders did with Tavares. Interested teams would be the San Jose Sharks, Vegas Golden Knights, New York Islanders.
Will the Ottawa Senators trade Matt Duchene?
NHL.com: Matt Duchene has one year left on his contract and can become an unrestricted free agent July 1, 2019. The Ottawa Senators know what it took to get him in that three-team trade with the Colorado Avalanche and Nashville Predators on Nov. 5, and they know that the cost still could increase. The Senators still must give the Avalanche their first-round pick in the 2019 NHL Draft as part of the trade that also sent center Kyle Turris to the Predators and goalie Andrew Hammond, forward Shane Bowers and a third-round pick in the 2019 draft to the Avalanche. They could have given Colorado their first-round pick this year, but they kept it and selected forward Brady Tkachuk at No. 4. Next year, the first-round pick going to Colorado isn’t lottery protected, meaning potentially it could be the No. 1 pick. That’s a huge reason why Dan Rosen feels Duchene is not going anywhere soon. There is simply no way the Senators will be able to get back the value they gave up to get Duchene if they trade him now.
The big question is, will Matt Duchene want to re-sign with the Senators? If the team feels there is no chance he will re-sign with the team, they will have to trade him at the 2019 NHL trade deadline to avoid losing him for nothing.
