TSN’s Hockey Insiders discuss the latest on goaltender Carter Hart, Flames defenceman Rasmus Andersson, extension talks for Kris Knoblauch and Ryan Huska, Andrei Vasilevskiy’s absence from Lightning camp, Alex Pietrangelo’s health and Team Canada’s plans this fall.

Carter Hart zeroing in on his next NHL team

Duthie: Preseason Insider Trading which I guess means anything you guys say doesn’t count. There’s Chris Johnston, Pierre LeBrun and Darren Dreger.

CJ, we’ll start with you. Carter Hart narrowing down his choices where his NHL career will resume?

Johnston: He is, yes. It’s getting down to decision time for Carter Hart, obviously a free agent ever since the NHL earlier this month cleared him and his teammates from the Hockey Canada trial for reinstatement into the league. And where Hart has been since then is working through the available options. He’s down to about three to four potential teams at this point in time, two of those teams I can tell you are the Vegas Golden Knights and Carolina Hurricanes. And the expectation here is in the coming day or two or maybe three, he will start to rule out some of those remaining teams, obviously pick where he is going.

The key part of the timing here is he can essentially agree to terms next week, next Wednesday, Oct. 1 and the contract can be registered Oct. 15 so he’s getting very close to determining where he goes next.

Trade still most likely for Andersson but door not closed on extension

Duthie: If we made a list of players most likely to be traded, Rasmus Andersson would’ve been near the top this summer after rejecting a deal with Calgary. But he starts the year with the Flames.

Pierre, is there any chance that somehow this changes and he extends in Calgary?

LeBrun: I mean there is a chance, I would say it’s probably still not the best of the two scenarios, James. And you’re right, he nearly got dealt as we reported at the time to the Vegas Golden Knights, that trade did not materialize and here he is.

Everyone is an adult in the room. He’s ready to play his best for the Flames. The Flames are happy to have him back. In the meantime, neither side wants to totally close the door and maybe having extension talks again at some point this year. But for now, the team has told Andersson is, ‘Hey, let’s start the year. Let’s see how things go here and then maybe we’ll revisit this at some point.’

I do think Andersson might potentially listen if there was an eight-year offer on the table, but right now I just don’t think the team is ready to go there. We’ll see where this all goes. I think more than likely a trade is still the likeliest option before the March 6 trade deadline.

Knoblauch and Huska in preliminary talks on contract extensions

Dreger: I’m going to include both Alberta teams in this because player contracts aren’t the only contracts. The Calgary Flames and the Edmonton Oilers are going to ultimately have to worry about Ryan Huska, the head coach of the Calgary Flames, Kris Knoblauch of the Edmonton Oilers are both entering the final years of their contracts.

Now, they’re in the very early discussions on both fronts, but no formal contract offers have been made by either club. It is something that we have to keep an eye on. I mean Ryan Huska, we can understand that, they’re still trying to plan things out in Calgary. But Kris Knoblauch and the Edmonton Oilers have enjoyed a ton of success in the last couple of seasons.

Vasilevskiy’s camp absence raises concern in Tampa

Duthie: Some early camp intrigue/perhaps concern in Tampa where Andrei Vasilevskiy has yet to skate for the Lightning. What do we know, CJ?

Johnston: We don’t know a whole lot and that’s part of why I think this story has a little bit of legs in Tampa and that’s because Andrei Vasilevskiy, as you mentioned, missed a scrimmage, missed four straight days now at practice. There’s not a whole lot of clarity as to what’s going on. Jon Cooper did tell reporters in Tampa that he is dealing with a player management issue, that he’s receiving some treatment, nothing beyond that.

I reached out to Julien BriseBois, the Lightning’s GM, on this day and he pointed me back to Cooper’s comments. All of which is to say, given his injury history, his workload and how important this player is to the Lightning, the longer he is off the ice, the more this story is going to grow in terms of its attention.

Pietrangelo’s focus remains on improving his chances of a healthy lifestyle

Duthie: Alex Pietrangelo meets with the media yesterday and the belief among most was that his career was most likely over. He seemed to leave the door a little bit open for a comeback.

Dregs, did people overreact to this?

Dreger: They did, I think too much optimism was derived from his comments. Now Alex Pietrangelo is feeling a lot better, but that’s saying a whole bunch when you look at the games that he played last year and those close to him tell me it was incredibly difficult for him to get on the ice. That’s how much he invested.

Now, he’s just trying to get a place, lifestyle wise, where he is a healthy and happy husband and father. He is not playing this year and as we know, he’s got two years remaining on his contract.

Team Canada hopes to cut down list to 35 players by Nov. 10

Duthie: A major sidebar to the entire first few months of the season will be Olympic rosters, of course for us notably Canada’s Olympic team. How do you Canada going about whittling down the numbers, Pierre?

LeBrun: Yeah James, I chatted with Doug Armstrong, the Olympic GM for Team Canada in a piece I wrote for The Athletic on this day, and one of the things that he said is that they next plan to meet as a management group Nov. 10 in Toronto, the day before the GM meetings in Toronto and they hope to come out of that meeting having whittled down their list or long list down to 35 or so players and that’s pretty significant because what that tells you is all those players on the bubble that hope to be Olympians, there’s a lot of onus on having a great start to the season here in the first four or five weeks because Nov. 10 isn’t far off from the start of the year.

The other thing he [Doug Armstrong] wanted to stress, just because the same three goalies from the 4 Nations were the only ones invited to the camp in Calgary last month, that CJ was at, that doesn’t mean that’s basically their three goalies. It’s a wide-open race according to Doug Armstrong. There’s 10 goalies in there. They just couldn’t have 10 guys at the camp in Calgary.

Duthie: I’m going to guess that Canada roster topics will occupy about 50 per cent of Insider Trading until Dec. 31.