Dan’s Daily: Avalanche Thinking Trade, Penguins Coverage

The Colorado Avalanche may well put an old friend on the NHL trade block. Bo Byram is playing so well for Team Canada that Colorado believes they will have to make room for him…now. Also, we have an update on our Pittsburgh Penguins coverage, Travis Hamonic is ready to sign a PTO, and the WJC superpowers breezed into the semis.

First, the Penguins. Where does Evgeni Malkin rank among the all-time Russian NHL players? (Pittsburgh Hockey Now)

How many points will Sidney Crosby, Malkin, Mike Matheson, Kasperi Kapanen, and the crew score? The official PHN player projections–do you want the over or the under? (Pittsburgh Hockey Now)

Here is an update on our Pittsburgh Penguins coverage for the upcoming season: PHN is one of five print outlets and 14 total media outlets that will be permitted into the building for training camp and home games. We will not travel, but we will be part of the Penguins zoom calls. Most importantly, this means I’ll be able to get my eyes on the Penguins’ newbies and prospects to see who is ready, who is blending well, and who isn’t.

Shelly Anderson is with us for another season of coverage, too. This season will not be easy for anyone, and we acknowledge the Penguins’ efforts, as well as your support that spurred us to record-breaking numbers.

We had 1.9 million unique visitors in 2020 and 5.2 million page views. Those are great numbers for hockey ONLY.

Anyhoo…you probably came for the NHL trade talk, right?

The Colorado Avalanche are considering a trade, and Ian Cole is the likely candidate to make space for their wunderkind (Colorado Hockey Now)

The Boston Bruins were (are?) interested in Columbus Blue Jackets center Pierre-Luc Dubois. (Boston Hockey Now)

Travis Hamonic is likely to be the next established NHL veteran worth big money to sign a PTO to get into camp. Hamonic on a PTO with Vancouver seems likely (Sportsnet)

A PTO also means a player can keep negotiating with other teams, too. *Cue the soap opera eyebrow raise.

It wasn’t as easy as they hoped, but Team Canada beat the Czechs and are in the semis vs. Russia (TSN)

Team USA beat Slovakia, and they are in the semis vs. Finland (TSN)

David Alter has done a solid job covering the event for TSN. A stick tap to my old Sportsnet colleague.