from Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic,

As another GM explained to me over the weekend in Vancouver, and he’s not the first, is the concern in giving up four first-round picks required for a huge offer sheet is that his team (which made the playoffs this past season by the way) has an injury-plagued campaign and one of those first-rounders turns into a lottery selection (you obviously can’t lottery-protect those picks). It’s been a refrain conveyed to me from a few teams.

But, you never know, right? This is a special summer like we’ve never seen before.

“It is ever,’’ one agent said on Tuesday.

Unless you’re a hockey fan living under a rock, you know that Sebastian Aho, Brayden Point, Patrik Laine, Mikko Rantanen, Mitch Marner, Matthew Tkachuk, Kyle Connor, Timo Meier, Brock Boeser, Zach Werenski, Ivan Provorov and Charlie McAvoy are all coming out of their entry-level contracts this summer.

much more (paid)....