The Hurricanes, who ranked 11th in the league with 3.19 goals per game in 2019-20, are looking to add a goal-scorer, Friedman adds.
Gardiner, 30, has three years remaining on his contract with an average annual value of $4.05 million. He inked a four-year pact with Carolina last offseason.
The Hurricanes currently have six blue-liners, including Gardiner, under contract next season and will likely come to terms with restricted free-agent defenseman Haydn Fleury.
Gardiner recorded four goals and 24 points while averaging a career-low 16:40 of ice time through 68 games with the Hurricanes in 2019-20.
Carolina has roughly $5 million in projected cap space for next season, according to CapFriendly.
Brian Burke's shoulders are wrecked, the lifelong price he pays for suiting up at prop for Harvard Business School's men's rugby team in his twenties. Labrum and rotator-cuff troubles have forced him to undergo major surgeries, including in the spring of 2007. When he won the Stanley Cup that June as general manager of the Anaheim Ducks, he struggled to lift the 35-pound silver grail overhead.
That isn't to say Burke's physical limitations marred the moment. Besting the Ottawa Senators in a tidy five-game final was the crowning achievement of his NHL executive career, and he thinks those bellicose, supremely skilled Ducks - led by Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, Teemu Selanne, and young Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry - could have beaten pretty much any team that's clinched the Cup since.
Winning at Anaheim's Honda Center felt like scaling Everest, the Toronto-based Sportsnet television analyst said in a phone interview Tuesday. He got to bask in the glory of victory for five days - tops - before flying to Montreal to try to re-sign star goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere.
Burke lifts the Stanley Cup in 2007. Bruce Bennett / Getty Images
The compartmentalization Burke's old job demanded mirrors the burden Tampa Bay Lightning GM Julien BriseBois is bearing this month. Little more than a week passed between the Lightning's Sept. 28 coronation as champions and the NHL draft, and BriseBois had to plot all the while for free agency. Defensemen Kevin Shattenkirk and Zach Bogosian have already signed elsewhere. Restricted free agents Anthony Cirelli, Mikhail Sergachev, and Erik Cernak need new contracts. That Tyler Johnson just went unclaimed on waivers means BriseBois remains cap-crunched.
"I know exactly what Julien's going through. But I got on that plane (to meet with Giguere) with a pretty big smile on my face, too," Burke said. "He's got a lot of headaches, but he's got a ring. That changes everything in your life."
Burke's own eventful hockey journey is the subject of his new memoir, "Burke's Law: A Life in Hockey," out in hardcover this week under Penguin Random House. His resume justifies the title: Burke is a Harvard Law grad who chose school over an attempt to crack the NHL as a scrappy right-winger. He scored in the 98th percentile of LSAT takers in 1976, he recalls in the book, after his college coach - one Lou Lamoriello, himself a decade out from ascending to an NHL front office - ordered him to take the entrance exam.
Burke in the NHL
Team
Title
1987-92
Vancouver Canucks
Director of hockey operations
1992-93
Hartford Whalers
General manager
1993-98
NHL
EVP and director of hockey operations
1998-2004
Vancouver Canucks
General manager
2005-09
Anaheim Ducks
General manager
2009-13
Toronto Maple Leafs
General manager
2013-18
Calgary Flames
President of hockey operations
Lots of hockey people, Lamoriello among them, have seen their share of seismic moments in the game. Burke's outspokenness is what's long distinguished him in the public eye, and it's easy to see how his flair for the candid might entice readers. Yet Burke did plenty in his own right to shape NHL history across his stints heading hockey operations for five franchises, episodes he and co-author Stephen Brunt narrate in revealing and colorful detail.
Remembering his tenure as Pat Quinn's right-hand man with the Vancouver Canucks, Burke recounts how he could have brought Wayne Gretzky to Vancouver in 1988. How the Edmonton Oilers' $25-million asking price - plus two good players and three first-round picks - was prohibitively steep. How, in order to dispel rumors that he'd acquire No. 99, Burke leaked word to future TSN sportscaster Gord Miller - then a 23-year-old radio reporter in Alberta - that Gretzky would soon be bound for the Los Angeles Kings instead.
Burke put his law degree to use the next year when he argued in court that Pavel Bure's Russian playing contract should be voided, paving the way for the dazzling 18-year-old to eventually join the Canucks - after Bure told the judge he'd pay part of the settlement himself. In 1999, then employed as Vancouver's GM, Burke negotiated three trades to select Daniel and Henrik Sedin with the second and third overall picks, respectively. Those were the last blockbuster offers any rival entertained from him on draft day.
Burke (second from right) is shown with the Sedin twins at the 1999 draft. Bruce Bennett / Getty Images
As the NHL's lead disciplinarian in the 1990s, Burke helmed a fledgling department of player safety, the resources of which totaled four VCRs. (Kris Draper's family, irked by the four-game suspension Claude Lemieux received for an infamous playoff cheap shot, once mailed Burke a petition calling for his firing.) As Ducks GM in 2005, he endured history's most painful commercial break right before his club finished second in the Sidney Crosby draft lottery. Later, he orchestrated the Toronto Maple Leafs' Phil Kessel trade, built the U.S. men's team that claimed Olympic silver in Vancouver, and threatened to rent a barn in Lake Placid, New York, to fight Oilers executive Kevin Lowe over an offer sheet. (Commissioner Gary Bettman phoned within 10 minutes to threaten a suspension.)
The memoir originated from a 100-page outline Burke penned following his departure from the Calgary Flames in 2018. Though Brunt handled the final draft - "Stephen didn't like any of my writing," Burke said. "He said I wrote like a lawyer, not like an author" - the principles and convictions that surface throughout the text are characteristically his. Even in non-pandemic seasons, Burke maintains, the schedule should be shorter than 82 games. Bettman is a brilliant and fearless leader. A team ought to play fast, tough, and to entertain. The end of a GM's first season in charge is a great time to make a big move, a la the Sedin and Kessel trades.
In that spirit, here are some of Burke's unfiltered thoughts on pressing and evergreen hockey issues, which he shared with theScore.
On what the league at large can learn from the 2020 postseason: "The final four teams, and most of the final eight teams, were all big. They're big and they're deep. You can say that Tampa beat (the) Dallas (Stars) because they were deeper. They banged Dallas up. They took out Roope Hintz with a legal hit. They took out Blake Comeau with a legal hit. (Tyler) Seguin was hurt. A lot of that was inflicted by the Tampa Bay Lightning."
Burke in 2012. Dave Reginek / NHL / Getty Images
On the challenge of planning the 2020-21 season: "(The NHL gets) straight A's for what they did with the bubbles and pulling off the Stanley Cup championship. It was amazing. But this is still the same pandemic, the same set of problems, and they've got to pull another rabbit out of their hats. My prediction is we're not going to play 82 games. My prediction is we'll start in January with no fans, and then progress to socially distanced seating, and then wait and see what happens with a vaccine."
On the broadcasting prowess of Kevin Bieksa, a 2001 draft pick of Burke's who contributed to Sportsnet's game coverage throughout the playoffs: "There are very few players who can explain technical situations that clearly. He's self-deprecating. He's funny. He's a star. He could work full-time in the media whenever he wants. Fortunately for people like me, he doesn't want to do it full-time right now."
On the scrutiny that accompanies life with the Maple Leafs: "The issue in Toronto isn't that there's an overwhelmingly negative media here. In fact, most of the media are supportive. It's the size. You get 75 or 80 people in the room after a game, and if you lost - and we did a lot of losing when I was here - they're all picking up a different rock. Twenty rocks for Dion (Phaneuf), 20 rocks for me, 20 for the coach, 10 for Phil Kessel, 10 for Vesa Toskala. It's overwhelming negativity when you're losing just based on volume."
Eventually, Burke said, one executive or another will return the Maple Leafs to the promised land using the same blueprint as any winner: "Draft, develop, ignore the white noise, and put a team together that's competitive." Unlike in 1998, when his competitiveness compelled him to leave the league's headquarters to run a team again, he's content knowing it won't be him. He likes his coworkers, bosses, and analysis duties at Sportsnet. He sees his youngest daughters far more often than he did as an NHL executive. At 65, the lifestyle change suits him: "I sleep in my bed every night now, and that's worth its weight in gold to me."
That said, Burke's favorite experience to recount for the book was Anaheim's 2007 title. He still has the puck Pronger retrieved for him at the buzzer following Game 5. He's among those who believe Tampa Bay's bubbled championship deserves an asterisk - not because it's tainted, but because of the magnitude of the feat. In this or any year, and in a league stocked with quality GMs who have never won a Stanley Cup, he knows to properly value a trip to the mountaintop.
"If you go back and look, every game we played against Ottawa in the finals was a (close) game, except the last one. Even though we won in five games, they weren't a pushover. It's right down to the bitter end," Burke said, reminiscing about an encounter with his Senators counterpart in the waning minutes of the series.
"Even when John Muckler told me congratulations, I thought, 'He's jinxing me. He's trying to jinx me,'" Burke said. He laughed at the memory. "I mean, how paranoid are we?"
The Toronto Maple Leafs have added an experienced third-string goaltender to their ranks.
The Leafs announced Tuesday they have signed free agent Aaron Dell to a one-year contract valued at $800,000.
The 31-year-old Dell has played all 107 games of his NHL career with the San Jose Sharks, logging a 48-34-12 record with a .908 save percentage and 2.76 goals-against average.
Discussions between the two sides are in the infancy stages, Mirtle notes.
At least some of the Leafs' star players have reportedly tried to sell Thornton on the team's upside following the offseason additions of TJ Brodie, Zach Bogosian, Wayne Simmonds, and Jimmy Vesey.
Thornton, 41, is coming off his worst statistical output since he was 18 years old, as he tallied 31 points in 70 games with the San Jose Sharks. Though Thornton had hoped for a move from the Sharks to a contender at the trade deadline, nothing materialized.
The Leafs reportedly tried to persuade Thornton to come to Toronto in the 2017 offseason when the club signed Patrick Marleau, but Jumbo Joe re-signed in San Jose.
The addition of Thornton would give the Leafs some added depth down the middle of the ice and potentially allow Alexander Kerfoot to play on the wing in the top six instead of centering the third line.
Thornton, who sits 14th on the NHL's all-time points list, would undoubtedly provide some quality veteran leadership, too.
The Leafs are tight against the cap, but they could likely afford Thornton without moving anyone off their roster if he's willing to take $1 million or less.
The London, Ontario, native is still without a Stanley Cup in his decorated career. Toronto has not won a playoff series since 2004, however.
Gallagher, 28, has one year remaining at $3.75 million on his current deal and becomes an unrestricted free agent after the 2020-21 campaign.
The pesky winger is due for a pay raise after playing some of his best hockey in recent years. He reached the 30-goal mark in each of the previous two campaigns and was on pace to do so over 82 games again in 2019-20.
Gallagher co-led the Canadiens with 22 goals and added 21 assists while averaging 16:55 in ice time over 59 games this season. He added four points in nine playoff contests.
Canadiens general manager Marc Bergevin has made several key changes to the club's forward group this offseason. He dealt Max Domi to the Columbus Blue Jackets for forward Josh Anderson and signed winger Tyler Toffoli to a four-year, $17-million deal Monday.
Montreal currently has just five forwards under contract beyond the 2020-21 campaign.
Ottawa Senators blue-chip prospect Tim Stuetzle requires surgery after suffering an arm injury in Germany and will remain sidelined for six-to-eight weeks, the Mannheim Eagles announced Tuesday, as E.H.C's Szymon Szemberg translated.
Stuetzle, 18, was the top-ranked European skater following last season, and Ottawa selected him third overall in the 2020 NHL Draft.
The injury occurred when Stuetzle collided awkwardly with another player during practice.
"I wasn’t there but according to the coach Pavel Gross when I talked to him after he said it was a drill they had and two players bumped into each other," said Mannheim GM Jan-Axel Alavaara, according to the Ottawa Sun's Bruce Garrioch.
"It was Tim Stuetzle and another player and he was cutting his lane a little bit and it wasn’t a hard check or anything," he added. "They bumped into each other and it was an unlucky angle."
The 6-foot-1 forward recorded seven goals and 34 points over 41 contests with Mannheim last season.
Stuetzle also represented Germany at the 2020 world juniors, contributing five assists over five games.
In 2020, the NHL offseason is on steroids. Last Tuesday and Wednesday saw the league hold a marathon virtual draft, then on Friday it opened the annual free-agency window. Transactions have since flooded in, headlined by a handful of notable trades and both Taylor Hall and Alex Pietrangelo joining new clubs. Here are seven thoughts about what's transpired across the NHL:
Golden Knights roll out red carpet
Andy Devlin / Getty Images
The cost of doing business constantly changes. In life and sport.
The Tampa Bay Lightning - the most recent Stanley Cup champions - had Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow cost them two first-round picks at the trade deadline. The price tags were expensive, yet the payoff was worth it. Even now, Tampa is dealing with an unenviable salary cap crunch in the wake of going all in on a title run. Again, it's the cost of doing business.
Really, though, who cares if you have a ring, right?
That's basically the Vegas Golden Knights' mentality this offseason. On Monday, they landed an elite player in Alex Pietrangelo, inking the St. Louis Blues' outgoing captain to a seven-year, $61.6-million deal. In the process, general manager Kelly McCrimmon traded away two key contributors for pennies on the dollar. Pietrangelo, the all-situations defenseman, is in, but top-pairing blue-liner Nate Schmidt and No. 2 center Paul Stastny are out - for the measly return of a third-rounder, fourth-rounder, and Carl Dahlstrom.
Despite the risk, it's not to say Vegas shouldn't have gone down this multi-layered path. McCrimmon should be applauded for once again being bold and bringing another high-profile talent to Vegas. And given how close this team has come to winning a Cup in its first three years of existence, there's no use in being conservative. Go nuts. Roll out the red carpet. Put all your chips in the middle of the table. Make the big splash while you can.
Pietrangelo, who finished fourth in Norris Trophy voting this past season after recording 52 points in 70 games, addresses Vegas' only glaring weakness: the absence of a No. 1 defenseman. Now, after Shea Theodore's breakthrough in the 2020 playoffs, head coach Pete DeBoer might actually have a pair of back end studs at his disposal whenever the 2020-21 season begins.
It won't be easy - winning a Cup in the salary cap era never is - but the Golden Knights have secured favorite status in the West by grasping the idea of calculated risk and acting up on it. Pietrangelo is the type of guy you do everything in your power, within reason, to acquire if he's made available.
Viva Las Vegas.
Not much to complain about
Icon Sportswire / Getty Images
Where are all the regrettable contracts?
We knew the COVID-19 pandemic would affect free agency. There was no fighting that reality. But we didn't know to what degree until the deals started rolling in. And, based on the activity through four days, it's obvious teams aren't doling out $56 million over seven years for a Matt Duchene type, or $80 million over seven years for a Sergei Bobrovsky equivalent. Both money and term have been in short supply, and only a few deals are raising eyebrows.
Matt Murray's and Josh Anderson's deals are probably the biggest "huh?" contracts of the past week or so. Murray, who the Ottawa Senators acquired during the draft and then signed to an extension a few days later, will earn $25 million over the next four years, while Anderson is due $38.7 million over the next seven seasons. You can talk yourself into the scenarios - Murray's paycheck helps the Senators reach the cap floor and Anderson is a rare power winger who can skate and score - but both deals have bust potential.
The list more or less stops there, though, in terms of non-sensical, egregious behavior. Sure, there's nitpicking to be done on every GM's recent track record. (Why did the Edmonton Oilers re-sign Mike Smith? How did Jack Johnson receive another NHL deal? etc.) Even so, the usual silliness in regard to contract terms has been minimized in this flat-cap, no-revenue climate.
According to PuckPedia, only three of the 46 contracts signed for $1 million or more by unrestricted free agents so far have included signing bonuses (Taylor Hall and Braden Holtby both have bonuses in Year 1; Jacob Markstrom has bonuses in Year 5 and Year 6). Among those 46 agreements, 28 were multi-year deals, while just 12 of the 28 multi-year contracts were for three seasons or more.
Another interesting development via PuckPedia: NHL clubs will dole out the lowest amount of compensation during the 2020-21 season in 21 of those 28 multi-year contracts. Put another way, teams backloaded many deals so they can pay players later rather than sooner, when presumably the league's economics return to normal, or close to it.
Rookie GMs getting to work
NHL Images / Getty Images
There have been four GM hirings in 2020: Bill Armstrong in Arizona, Kevyn Adams in Buffalo, Bill Zito in Florida, and Tom Fitzgerald in New Jersey. Armstrong's Coyotes have been pretty tame overall, making only minor moves, with depth forward Johan Larsson probably counting as the club's biggest get. Meanwhile, the other rookie bosses seem to be operating freely.
First of all, Adams deserves high praise for the sales job that landed the sought-after Hall. Nobody saw the one-year, $8-million deal coming, yet Adams made it happen. Props to him for, at the very least, injecting some positivity into the tortured Sabres fan base. (Nine years without the playoffs!)
While neither the Panthers nor Devils can claim to have reeled in a marquee name like Hall, both Zito and Fitzgerald have undoubtedly improved their squads. It's quantity over quality for those franchises.
On the heels of trading for power forward Patric Hornqvist from the Pittsburgh Penguins in late September, Zito acquired two players he knows intimately from his time with the Blue Jackets by signing defensive center Alex Wennberg and trading for shutdown defenseman Markus Nutivaara. Zito also nabbed bottom-six forwards Vinnie Hinostroza and Carter Verhaeghe, as well as rough-and-tumble blue-liner Radko Gudas for three years on a reasonable $2.5-million cap hit.
In short, Zito added depth to the one-line, one-pairing team he inherited.
New Jersey has also done alright for itself thanks to Fitzgerald's opportunism. Goalie Corey Crawford, a career-long Blackhawk, is a Devil for the next two years because Fitzgerald swooped in after Chicago didn't table an extension to the two-time Stanley Cup winner. Fitzgerald also acquired Andreas Johnsson - buried on the Maple Leafs' depth chart - for fellow forward Joey Anderson because the GM pounced after Toronto realized it couldn't afford Johnsson. The Devils also got defenseman Ryan Murray for basically nothing - a fifth-round pick in 2021 - because Fitzgerald swooped in when Columbussorely needed to clear cap space in order to chase UFAs and extend restricted free agent Pierre-Luc Dubois.
Not too shabby for a few GM newbies.
Goalie carousel winners
Mark Blinch / Getty Images
Here's a non-chronological recap of the game of musical chairs goalies have played over the last while: Henrik Lundqvist left the Rangers for the Capitals; Holtby left the Capitals for the Canucks; Markstrom left the Canucks for the Flames; Cam Talbot left the Flames for the Wild; Thomas Greiss left the Islanders for the Red Wings; and Crawford left the Blackhawks for the Devils. Plus, the Wild shipped Devan Dubnyk to the Sharks while the Penguins dealt Matt Murray to the Senators.
It's an exhausting list to absorb and, frankly, it's difficult to grade since there are plenty of fair contracts and nice player-team fits in the mix. Popping off the page in the right way, though, are two similar situations: Holtby's arrival in Vancouver, and Crawford's departure for New Jersey.
Both goalies are past their prime; Holtby's 31 years old and Crawford's 35. But there's still tremendous value to be squeezed out of the tail end of their impressive careers. The Canucks are looking to make the transition from Markstrom to Thatcher Demko as painless as possible, and the Devils hope to do something similar with Mackenzie Blackwood. These well-liked veterans increase the probability of a smooth handoff, and they're no slouches themselves between the pipes.
On another note, the Markstrom ordeal in Vancouver could have been a complete disaster for Canucks GM Jim Benning. He could have lost Markstrom and struck out on Plan B. However, Benning apparently played his cards correctly and now has a solid 1A-1B combo with Holtby on board.
Suddenly sunny in Detroit
Jeff Vinnick / Getty Images
While being unveiled as the Detroit Red Wings' GM last April, Steve Yzerman repeatedly said, "There's a lot of work to be done." The 2019-20 season hammered that point home; the Wings lost 54 of 71 games and finished with a stunning minus-122 goal differential.
Conversely, the past couple of weeks have been awfully encouraging for the franchise. First, the Yzerman-built Lightning won the Stanley Cup, which is a confidence booster. A few days later, Detroit received glowing reviews after taking Swedes Lucas Raymond and William Wallinder fourth and 32nd overall, respectively, in a 12-pick showing at the NHL draft.
Yzerman then made some shrewd moves over the weekend, signing middle-six forwards Vladislav Namestnikov (two years, $2 million per season) and Bobby Ryan (one year, $1 million) to beef up the Wings' attack. The blue line has been reinforced, too, with UFAs Troy Stecher (two years, $1.7 million per season) and Jon Merrill (one year, $925,000) brought into the fold alongside veteran Marc Staal, who Detroit acquired via trade last month.
Toss in new starting goalie Greiss (two years, $3.6 million per season) and re-signed forward Sam Gagner (one year, $850,000), and you have a ton of short-term, low-cost, low-profile pickups. That's exactly what the Wings need in abundance right now as the franchise evolves from a miserable tanking team to a semi-competitive rebuilding club.
Former GM Ken Holland left Yzerman a mess to clean up - bloated contracts, a lackluster prospect pipeline, no hope - but the ex-captain is starting to leave his mark.
Offer sheet watch continues
Andy Devlin / Getty Images
Oh, to be a fly on the wall inside the Lightning's war room.
Aside from swapping picks on draft day, GM Julien BriseBois has made just four NHL-level moves since winning the Cup on Sept. 28. He extended Mitchell Stephens, Patrick Maroon, and Luke Schenn, and placed Tyler Johnson on waivers in an attempt to shift money off the books.
Otherwise, the Lightning - whose RFAs Anthony Cirelli, Mikhail Sergachev, and Erik Cernak could be spicy offer-sheet targets - have been inactive on the transaction front. Perhaps it's a game of chicken on BriseBois' part, where he's hoping some desperate GM calls him with a trade package that can free up more cap space for Tampa Bay. Or, perhaps, BriseBois is waiting for madness to ensue elsewhere.
The Lightning are definitely the most vulnerable team, but it seemed like the New York Islanders also could've been susceptible to an offer sheet before they traded underrated blue-liner Devon Toews to the Colorado Avalanche. Stud center Mathew Barzal, top-four defenseman Ryan Pulock, and Toews were all eligible to sign one as RFAs. Now, with Toews gone, New York has $8.2 million in space for Barzal and Pulock, keeping most of the attention on Tampa Bay.
On second thought, considering offer sheets are so rare - Sebastian Aho signing with the Montreal Canadiens last July was the first in six-plus years - and most NHL owners are cash poor anyway, which brave soul would dare toss an offer sheet at a player employed by a team run by legendary hockey executive Lou Lamoriello? Based on the respect the Isles GM commands across the league, the answer is, "Not many, if any."
