Morning Rumors: Oilers, Canucks, Sharks, Rangers, Avs, Kings, Sabres, Habs, Flames, Scouting Kings-Wild

But now you’re starting to see it, and like I said, the issue is him maintaining it and raising it again, because if you look at some of the things he can do, I think there’s another level there if he wants to put his mind to it. So, I guess, to answer your question, ‘Does it lessen the sense of urgency on the left wing?’ I don’t know…you’re always looking to improve every part of your team if possible. We’re not at the stage, yet, too – you’re starting to see now buyers and sellers, getting a little of that now. So, to answer your question – part of your answer was ‘What’s also in the marketplace? Is it better than what you’ve got? And I have no indication of that right now. We’ll see how that evolves over the next month or so.

Lombardi on the trade deadline:

The other thing that’s changed is a lot of teams that would have players on the last year of their contract or are quote-unquote sellers, they’ve figured it out. I’m not just going to unload these guys because I need assets. Because I still need people to play. So I’m going to keep them and sign ‘em. So it used to be in the old days, yeah, I’d get rid of ‘em because you want to get something for ‘em. Now, they’re looking at stepping back and saying, ‘hey, I need guys to play next year,’ because the other thing, too, is we all see that it’s getting like the NFL where the whole building process, you’re not that far away because everybody’s so close. You’ve got some really good teams, you’ve got some really bad teams…so these teams that might be selling now are thinking, ‘well, we’re a player or two away. But I don’t want to give up this rental. I want to keep him, because I don’t want to be three players away.’ So now it gets back to, ‘OK, what’s really out there?’ Look at the last six years and circle the deals that worked out well, that really had an impact. You’d be surprised.

“When you’re drafting in the top seven picks, you can’t pass up those opportunities. You can’t pass them up unless it makes sense and nothing we were offered last year made sense,” he said of proceeding and drafting 6-foot-3, 192-pound Darnell Nurse 7th overall last year.

“Certainly we’ll be in a position of listening, but when you are drafting that high, it’s tough to pass on skill and youth like that. We’re certainly scouting like we’re going to be picking.”