from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet,

- San Jose broke a lot of its own rules in re-signing Brent Burns to an eight-year, $64M contract. Term longer than five years, signing bonuses all over the place and front-loading the money. Burns had a ton of leverage, and it’s very possible he left money on the table by not testing the market. But, don’t %&*$ with happy and the Sharks got to a point where next summer’s number-one free agent was thrilled to commit. The way I look at it is this: San Jose is built to be a legitimate, consistent Stanley Cup contender over the next four-five years. If you lose him, you can’t replace him. There is simply no one available that could have Burns’s impact on the ice and among the group. It would seriously damage the Sharks’ chances, so you take the plunge.

- With Burns signed, the top free-agent defencemen are probably Washington’s Karl Alzner and Kevin Shattenkirk of St. Louis. Blues GM Doug Armstrong proved with David Backes that if he thinks his team is good enough, he’ll go for it. And we know Washington is all-in. The market for defenders is high, because it’s so hard to find them. Good ones will get what they want. Nick Kypreos reported last weekend Alzner is asking between $5.5M-$6M from the Capitals. I do think they value Alzner — a lot — but don’t see how they could get there without a major corresponding move. Could see Western Canada’s teams throwing themselves at him.

- As for Shattenkirk, in all of last summer’s rumours, I didn’t realize until last week that some teams were actually allowed to talk to him. As usual, the particular clubs and agent Jordan Neumann weren’t talking, but Arizona and Edmonton had their shot....

more inlcuding a lot of Florida Panthers talk...