NHL Rumors: Las Vegas, Havlat and Canucks
Martin Havlat
On the Las Vegas team name …

Steve Carp of the Las Vegas Review-Journal: Las Vegas franchise owner Bill Foley said they are down from 18 team names to four.

“We’re making progress,” Foley said from his Whitefish, Montana, home. “We’re in a pretty good position now, and we’re meeting next week with the NHL and adidas to look at logos and designs. We’ll have a little more clarity in the next 30 days.”

“Knights” is still an option, but not the “Las Vegas Knights” as the London Knights of the OHL down the naming rights in Canada.

“The London Knights own the name in Canada, and to acquire the name from London is not economically feasible,” Foley said. “In the U.S., ‘Knights’ are fine. But we can’t use it in Canada.”

On Martin Havlat …

Allan Walsh: Martin Havlat has been training with HC Kometa Brno and is hoping to play in the NHL next season.

On the Vancouver Canucks …

Chris Nichols of Today’s Slapshot: Canucks GM Jim Benning on TSN 1040 on where they are at in the process of adding another winger through trade or free agency that could fit into their top-six.

“We’re looking at all of our options there. I’ve talked to a bunch of teams around the league. We realy haven’t got anywhere with those talks. We’re circling back maybe on some guys that are free agents still, talking to their agents and seeing where they’re at. But we would like to try to add an experienced 15-20 goal scorer, if we could, going into the season.”

Benning on if they could bring someone in on a PTO.

“Yeah, we’ve talked about that. That’s something that I think we’re going to look at too. We’ve got a couple of names that we’re going to try to figure out if they would come in on PTOs. But like I said, we’re still talking to other teams about potential trades, and/or looking in the free agent market to try to get somebody out of there.”