from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet,

- Purely my speculation, but Carolina is a very logical trading partner for the Avalanche. The Hurricanes need goals and are loaded with young defenders, both at the NHL level and below. Matt Duchene/Gabriel Landeskog come with term. Historically, that’s what Carolina looks for, because it doesn’t get into bidding wars for free agents. That franchise is trending in the right direction on-ice, but are stuck in the league’s most competitive division. Makes sense to me, but I’m not the GM.

- Who’s looking? Chicago, Los Angeles and Ottawa, for a forward. Tampa Bay, for something to send a jolt through the roster. The Bruins are clearly ready to do something. GM Don Sweeney had a blunt interview with the Boston Globe’s Fluto Shinzawa last weekend. Asked about coach Claude Julien, Sweeney replied, “I’m not avoiding the question.... You have to look at every different thing.” But the sense is he’d rather make a trade before changing the coach. St. Louis will add, too.

- Apparently, there are six current NHLers on the top 100 list, to be fully revealed at All-Star Weekend. Five seem obvious: Sidney Crosby, Jaromir Jagr, Patrick Kane, Alexander Ovechkin, Jonathan Toews. So, who’s your sixth? Evgeni Malkin? Carey Price? Duncan Keith? (I do know one voter who picked him.) Jagr doesn’t have to play in the game, so I wondered if maybe it was Joe Thornton, given the same consideration because he’s 37. We’ll find out in a little over two weeks.

- More rumours out of Russia: that Pavel Datsyuk will be in attendance.

more