{"id":446466,"date":"2026-02-05T05:21:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T05:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/446466\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T05:21:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T05:21:28","slug":"bennett-finally-gets-call-from-team-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/446466\/","title":{"rendered":"Bennett finally gets call from Team Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

TSN\u2019s Hockey Insiders on Team Canada replacing the injured Anthony Cirelli<\/a>, teams waiting for prices to drop in St. Louis, the latest on Artemi Panarin<\/a>, how the market looks ahead of Wednesday\u2019s roster freeze, and how open-minded the Predators\u2019 GM search will be.<\/p>\n

Glenn Schiiler: Well, guys, for a few weeks now, we\u2019ve been wondering about Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> forward Brayden Point<\/a> and whether or not he will be available for the Winter Olympics. But it was another Lightning forward over the weekend leaving the Stadium Series game early. Anthony Cirelli<\/a>, the kid from Woodbridge, Ontario, has now been ruled out. So, Chris, we also now know who got the first call as a replacement for Team Canada.<\/p>\n

Chris Johnston: Yeah, that would be Sam Bennett<\/a>, who in this case is the beneficiary, unfortunately, for Cirelli\u2019s injury, but it was a player we discussed right from the beginning, considered among the hardest choices, if not the hardest, for management to leave off the initial roster at the end of December. <\/p>\n

And there was a fair bit of palace intrigue, I called, about, you know, was there, you know, a little bit of Panthers-Lightning kind of element to those choices made with the roster? Clearly there was some split at the time, but one thing I can tell you is that head coach Jon Cooper, the Lightning head coach, was in favor of Bennett back then. He gets him on his roster anyway, and we\u2019ll just see where things end up with Point. He\u2019s not going to play for the Lightning before Milan, but that\u2019s not a precondition of him getting over there. There\u2019s still optimism he\u2019s going to be healthy enough to play in Milan.<\/p>\n

Schiiler: Darren, the Olympic roster freeze is just hours away at this point. And we\u2019ve been hearing a lot of buzz out of New York in terms of what the Rangers might be doing here with the teardown. And we\u2019ll get to the Rangers in a second. But there\u2019s another team out there that you would describe as true sellers as well.<\/p>\n

Darren Dreger: Yeah, that is the St. Louis Blues<\/a>. And we know general manager Doug Armstrong has been eager to refresh the Blues as management shifts in the St. Louis organization. But teams are wary of the high asking prices currently. And also, there\u2019s some cap management with the other general managers expressing some interest in the list of St. Louis players believed to be available. We\u2019re talking about high-end guys like [Colton] Parayko and [Justin] Faulk and {Jordan] Kyrou and [Brayden] Schenn and [Robert] Thomas and Jordan Binnington<\/a>. All pieces in play, some obviously more complicated than others. So, there\u2019s value in that group of players. Obviously, there\u2019s value in those guys, but the asking price for each has to come down and there\u2019s some cap management, as I said, in play as well.<\/p>\n

Schiiler: Now, I mentioned the Rangers, Chris. From what\u2019s been reported, their preference was to move [Artemi] Panarin before the Olympic roster freeze. What\u2019s the latest on that front?<\/p>\n

Johnston: Well, that remains the Rangers\u2019 intention to try to find a new home for Artemi Panarin<\/a> before 3 p.m. on Wednesday. But whether or not that happens, still not entirely clear. And there\u2019s a big reason for that. As much as the Rangers want to do that piece of business, so much of the control of this situation is in the hands of Panarin and his agent. They continue to talk to teams. There\u2019s been a range of interest. <\/p>\n

You know, a key part of getting this deal done is actually agreeing to a contract extension. I think there\u2019s a range of where teams are willing to go. I\u2019ve heard at least one team has put $40 million on the table for Panarin, but it\u2019s not until he signals to the Rangers that he\u2019s found the right situation for himself that can go forward. So, we\u2019ll see if they get that done by Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Pierre LeBrun: Yeah, in the meantime, CJ, in non-Panarin news on the trade market ahead of the freeze, I checked in with 15 NHL teams on Tuesday, and I will tell you that the majority of them thought they would be quiet ahead of the trade freeze. Obviously, that changes in one phone call. Only a couple teams saying that they were trying to get something going, but the vast majority felt that they needed the Olympic break to see where they were in the standings to further some of those trade conversations. <\/p>\n

A lot of it, as Dregs has noted, is salary cap related as well. They\u2019re just not in a position right now to make that bigger move. They have to wait closer to March 6th. But as one GM said to me, yeah, we can\u2019t make a trade during the Olympic trade freeze, but we can certainly, there\u2019s no freeze on our conversation. So, he expected that some of those talks will continue throughout the Olympics. I will say a team to keep an eye on is Carolina. The Hurricanes really would like to make a move before the trade freeze. They\u2019re up for it and they have the cap flexibility to do it, but they have to find a team where there\u2019s a fit. And the Maple Leafs have been pretty busy over the last couple of days in terms of chatter, but doesn\u2019t mean necessarily that we\u2019ll have anything come the trade freeze.<\/p>\n

Dreger: Yeah, and as you\u2019ve noted here, Pierre, it\u2019s not going to be much of an Olympic break for hockey operations across the National Hockey League. There\u2019s some general managers who will have those conversations and will push through the entire break, working hard. There are others who intend on taking maybe a bit of a breather, maybe the first week off before re-engaging or trying to re-establish something on the trade front. But all teams are going to be prepared because when the Olympics are over, they\u2019ve got that 12-day window in between making trades or contract negotiations. It\u2019s going to be a chaotic 12 days.<\/p>\n

Schiiler: Pierre, it\u2019s quite surprising news out of Nashville this week to learn that Barry Trotz is retiring after three seasons with the Preds. How do you expect this search for the next GM to play out?<\/p>\n

LeBrun: Yeah, well, as they mentioned at the news conference, they\u2019ve hired CAA to really head this search. Joe Becher of CAA, the arm of it that does the executive search. He will be very much mostly in charge of this with consulting with ownership. Barry Trotz is involved as well. And listen, you will hear some of the household names. Rob Blake<\/a> wants to be a GM again. I\u2019m sure he will get a call. Marc Bergevin<\/a>, et cetera. <\/p>\n

But this is the key thing to me. I think the Predators want to be really open-minded as far as some of the candidates they reach out to. They want to get sort of a younger, more progressive type person to lead hockey ops. And this could be multiple hires, not just one, by the way, I was told on this day. So, whether that\u2019s a former player agent that they talk to or young AGM, I would say think outside the box, not just the regular names.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TSN\u2019s Hockey Insiders on Team Canada replacing the injured Anthony Cirelli, teams waiting for prices to drop in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[4759,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-446466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116016348282926640","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}