What does Bryan Rust‘s extension mean for some other Penguins?
Matt Vensel of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Pittsburgh Penguins locked up winger Bryan Rust over the weekend to a six-year deal with a $5.125 million cap hit. What does that mean for pending UFAs Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang and others?
There is some risk in the deal as Rust will be 36-years-old when the deal expires. He missed weeks this season with two separate injury stints.
The Penguins obviously won’t be going through a rebuild. With Sidney Crosby still Sidney Crosby, it didn’t make sense for them to tear things down.
Their salary cap situation now leaves them with just under $24 million in cap room with only 15 players under contract. There is still space to fit in new contracts for Malkin and Letang but they are going to have to help out the Penguins a bit.
The Penguins might be able to work with Letang to get a deal done but it’s going to be a little trickier with Malkin. How far will they go with Malkin, who is a year removed from knee surgery?
The cap space to re-sign Rickard Rakell may now be gone. New deals for Evan Rodrigues and Kasperi Kapanen may also be affected.
David Pastrnak is eligible for an extension this offseason
Jimmy Murphy of Boston Hockey Now: Boston Bruins GM Don Sweeney when asked if they will start contract extension talks with David Pastrnak soon.
“It’s just a general conversation exit wise in terms of having the opportunity at the earliest possible time allowable for us to have a conversation with his with his camp. And he knows that, you know, there’s mutual respect from David, me and his camp. And we’ll dive right into it the earliest possible time that we’re allowed to and get that indication.”
Pastrnak is eligible to sign an extension this offseason. He’ll be coming off a six-year deal at a $6.6 million cap hit.
The Bruins don’t want to allow Pastrnak to hit the open market and they believe he wants to stay. Pastrnak has said he hasn’t thought about his contract situation yet.
“I actually haven’t given it a thought yet,” the 25-year-old winger said. “It’s a lot of other stuff to be worrying about the whole year. So I haven’t been thinking about that at all, actually.”
The Avalanche are on the road against the Lightning and are
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