NHL Rumors: Devils, Staal, Nichushkin, Weise and Trouba
Rumors of the Boston Bruins offer sheeting Jacob Trouba
On the New Jersey Devils …

Jim Matheson: The Devils are looking to add some scoring – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins?. Defenseman Damon Severson is in play. The Oilers have likely been investigating him.

On Eric Staal

John Shannon: Three or four teams have shown interest in Eric Staal. He’s still hoping to get top six minutes at center, and isn’t expecting a long-term deal.

On Valeri Nichushkin

Aivis Kalnins: There is a lot of Russian media speculation that Stars Valeri Nichushkin is returning to Traktor of the KHL.

On Dale Weise

Darren Dreger: At least 10 teams have shown interest in Dale Weise.

On the Boston Bruins and Jacob Trouba

Jimmy Murphy: Hearing lots of talk that the Bruins are preparing an offer sheet for Jets defenseman Jacob Trouba.

Joe Haggerty of CSNNE: A ‘hockey source’ is saying the Bruins  “are preparing an offer sheet” for Trouba after they weren’t able to trade for a defenseman at the draft. The offer sheet might total seven years worth a minimum of $47 million.

The Bruins don’t have a their 2nd or 3rd round picks next year – Zac Rinaldo and Lee Stempniak trades. The offer sheet would have to have an AAV of at least $9.3 million with compensation being four 1st round draft picks. Haggerty on how the AAV is determined.

“The good news for the Bruins: for offer sheet purposes, AAV is determined by dividing the total compensation offered by the lesser of the length of the contract, or by five. For contracts longer than five years in term, this will result in a higher AAV than simply dividing the contract total by the number of years.”

A seven year, $49 million contract would have a $7 million cap hit but a $9.8 million AAV for compensation purposes. The Bruins would have to make an offer sheet in the $7 to $8 million per season range and hope that he turns into a No. 1 defenseman.