The Golden Knights traded top prospect Erik Brannstrom last winter

"2. DETROIT RED WINGS
Where is Krug spending his family isolation time? In his home state of Michigan, of course. He played under-18 hockey with Compuware and college hockey at Michigan State. He grew up a massive Red Wings fan and even played for their current coach, Jeff Blashill, in the USHL. Now Detroit’s GM happens to be a franchise icon in Steve Yzerman. The fit could not be more perfect. The Red Wings also happen to have veterans Trevor Daley and Jonathan Ericsson going UFA this summer and already dealt pending UFA Mike Green away at the deadline in February. They have loads of cap space, and Krug would be a good veteran leader to help the power play and take pressure off the next generation of prospects, including Moritz Seider and Dennis Cholowski. Working to Krug’s advantage: the draft lottery and draft will have come and gone by the time he goes to market, meaning he’ll know if the Wings have won the Alexis Lafreniere sweepstakes.
3. VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS
The Golden Knights traded top prospect Erik Brannstrom last winter and shipped Colin Miller in a salary dump last summer. They ended up chasing D-corps upgrades from that point onward. They scored an experienced veteran with a year left of term in Alec Martinez during trade-deadline week, but he’s more of a depth stopgap at this point of his career. The Golden Knights lack a single blueliner among their top five prospects according to our Future Watch 2020 panel of NHL scouts. Krug could fill a crucial long-term need, especially because his all-around game, including his work on the defensive side of the puck, has long been underrated. The challenge for the Knights: a static cap of $81.5 million would leave them with less than $9 million available. They’d have to move a body out to make room for Krug. Oddly enough, Martinez’s $4-million AAV could be what stands in the way.
4. MONTREAL CANADIENS
The Habs already established themselves as aggressive spenders – or attempted spenders – when they tried to offer sheet Sebastian Aho last summer. Might they consider taking a run at Krug to deepen a D-corps hurting for depth behind veterans Shea Weber and Jeff Petry? Mega-prospect Alexander Romanov’s KHL contract expires this spring, and he’s a strong best to begin next season in Montreal’s starting lineup, but he’ll be playing on an entry-level AAV. Also, Petry is Krug’s old teammate from Michigan State and could theoretically help woo him.
Whether Montreal chases a big-fish UFA depends on how GM Marc Bergevin feels about the franchise’s near future. It has 14 picks in the 2020 draft, a burgeoning farm system as is, and three key cogs – Petry, Tomas Tatar and Brendan Gallagher – enter the final seasons of their deals and would be major rental-trade pieces to dangle should the Habs decide to commit deeper to a rebuild. Chasing Krug would only make sense if Bergevin believes his team can contend in the near future. It’s more likely than not that he does.
5. FLORIDA PANTHERS
Wait – wasn’t it reported that Panthers ownership may ask to the club to trim $10 million in payroll? So how could they be sleepers to pursue Krug? Think of it as a projected reallocation of resources. It’s no secret GM Dale Tallon badly wants help on defense. He has Aaron Ekblad and Keith Yandle as anchors, but supposed stalwart Mike Matheson was an awkward enough fit with new coach Joel Quenneville that ‘Q’ even made Matheson part of the defenseman-as-forward experiment.
The Panthers, even with the rumored payroll cuts, won’t be hurting for cash considering two of their top forwards, Mike Hoffman and Evgenii Dadonov, are 2020 UFAs. Sure, the Panthers would love to keep both, but they could easily cost $15 million combined. Florida also has two if not three extremely promising forward prospects who could push for lineup spots next fall, most notably Grigori Denisenko, who is expected to arrive from the KHL and sign an entry-level pact next month, and Owen Tippett, who acquitted himself well in his first full pro season with AHL Springfield this year.
The Panthers, then, could decide to distribute their spending differently. They could bet on Denisenko, Tippett and perhaps Henrik Borgstrom making an impact next season to support Aleksander Barkov and Jonathan Huberdeau, and they could redeploy their resources to pursue Krug. He’s not a strapping shutdown blueliner by any means, but that doesn’t matter as much in today’s NHL. Mobility and all-around talent are paramount."
"It’s entirely fair to say this season has not gone as planned for Sergei Bobrovsky and the Florida Panthers. Bobrovsky has posted the worst goals-against average and the second-worst save percentage of his career at the most inopportune time. Led by Bobrovsky and coach Joel Quenneville, the Panthers were supposed to be not only a playoff team, but a post-season contender in 2019-20. At the moment the NHL shut down March 12, they were neither.
Bobrovsky will not win his third Vezina Trophy this season. That much is clear. In fact, he may have, albeit temporarily, dropped out of the top tier of NHL goaltenders this season. That doesn’t mean he won’t rebound and be back in that group whenever things get going next season and it’s far too early to say that Bobrovsky in on the downside of his career. Another season like this one, though, and the Panthers will rue the day they signed a 31-year-old goalie to a seven-year contract worth $70 million.
For now, though, Bobrovsky is doing what he can do for the people in the city in which he plays. The day after the season took a pause because of the coronavirus pandemic, Bobrovsky stepped up and pledged $100,000 to cover the salaries of the 200-plus part-time workers at the BB&T Center. The Panthers had six regular-season games left when the season was suspended and the arena was home to a number of other events. Largely because of Bobrovsky, the people who work those events will have their salaries covered through the length of the pandemic. After Bobrovsky made his donation, teammates jumped on board and Florida Panthers owner Vinnie Viola pledged to cover the rest and to make the employees whole until they can get back to work. There are very rich, very large-market teams that are doing a lot less than the Panthers.
For Bobrovsky, it was a matter of showing some compassion for the people who make his workplace function every day. “The workers at the arena are a big part of our events and a big part of our support,” Bobrovsky said on a conference call Tuesday afternoon. “And there was the risk for them to lose their jobs and possibly not be able to feed their families. Right now it’s a tough time for everybody in the whole world and for hockey as well. I think I just tried to do the right thing for those people, to support them and help them from my side.”
If that weren’t enough, Bobrovsky is working with the Panthers’ Foundation to equip first responders and medical workers with N95 masks. Artemi Panarin and Semyon Varlamov are doing the same thing in the New York area. “It’s good to support those people with these high-quality masks,” Bobrovsky said.
Luckily, Bobrovsky has a home gym, so keeping in good physical shape is not a problem for him. But it’s difficult not facing shots for an extended period of time, so Bobrovsky has tried to keep his reflexes sharp by catching tennis balls from an automatic serving machine. “You need somebody to shoot at you,” Bobrovsky said. “You need to see the puck, read the players and stuff like that. At this moment, I don’t have that possibility. I can only build my body to be strong, to be fast, to be quick.”
In a season where the possibility of resuming seems more remote with every passing day, Bobrovsky acknowledged that it has not been an easy one. The Panthers signed Bobrovsky because they thought he was the answer in goal, but the warts that were there before he and Quenneville showed up remain. The Panthers entered the break three points out of a playoff spot, 11th in the Eastern Conference in points, 10th in points percentage.
“It wasn’t an easy season for me,” Bobrovsky said. “New team, new coach, new surroundings. Everything is new. As far as the team standpoint, we’re fighting for the playoffs. We’re right in the mix. It’s all in our hands. The most important thing is the team success. We have the possibility to get into the playoffs and that’s the really important thing for me.”"