from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

- ...there appears little chance the Rangers will extend Yandle, who likely will command at least $5.5 million on the open market — a price way too expensive for a club with cap issues that has its top two left defensemen in Ryan McDonagh and Marc Staal locked up long term, and that’s even if No. 93 plays well.

So the time to move Yandle — whose acquisition wound up costing McDonagh, whose 2013-14 represented the best offensive season by a Blueshirt defenseman since Brian Leetch roamed the blue line, power play time and offensive zone starts — is now.

Perhaps Yandle becomes part of a package with Cam Talbot the Rangers can use to bring back a strong, grinding physical forward who can get to the net in the playoffs, when most obstruction infractions are ignored.

- So the league’s competition committee authorized a coach’s challenge for calls/non-calls pertaining to goaltender interference and offside goals, but did nothing regarding video review on pucks-over-the-glass delay-of-game calls, which simply is unfathomable. Maybe the people on the committee forgot?

- So we slide Antoine Vermette from the Terrible Deadline Deal list to the Stan Bowman Got It Right Again column. See how easy that was?

- Meanwhile, there couldn’t have been a better deadline deal than the one pulled by Flyers GM Ron Hextall, who turned Kimmo Timonen into a pair of second rounders given the combination of the
Blackhawks’ advancement to the Cup finals and the defenseman having played in at least half of the club’s games in the conference finals.

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